Horseshoes, clovers, rabbits feet.

Next week, I'm having surgery, the start of months-long treatment for a wee spot of bother. (Let's think like that, shall we? It's just a blip.) As I was leaving a pre-op appointment yesterday, I decided to stop and buy a couple of lottery tickets. Very unlike me, as my friends know. But why not? When something is caught early, you feel lucky. As the clerk handed me my change, he said, "Good luck with everything." As if he knew. When my eyes met his, he saw the first watery veil of my tears. It's always a good idea to wish people luck. I accept. Thank you. And the same to you and yours.

Yum.

Yesterday, this is what I devoured for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Tempted to call it a "perfect light summer read" -- but that's doing it a disservice. It's a "fall in love with these characters and not let them go" kind of read.

Vocabulary.

I keep a list of words I love, and want to use in my writing. In the last few years, I've used frisson and anodyne. Lacunae is still up for grabs. Yesterday I used an old favorite, akimbo. And I remembered the thrill of discovering it for the first time, in a Nancy Drew mystery, about a day after learning another exciting word: Coupe. And I wonder, how old are you when a new word becomes a chore, and not a thrill? Is it 11? 12? I see my daughters groan when I say, "Look it up." But there is an age at which you do not groan. There is an age at which you hold it tight like a shiny coin, wondering when you'll get the chance to spend it.

How to play solitaire.

I love being the first person up. I hate being the last person up. One is alone and the other lonely. Waiting for the moon to make a sound. Listening for a teenager's midnight tiptoe. Holding my breath as the ambulance flashes its candy lights across the street. My entire life, I've found myself awake while other people sleep. And that must be why the daydreams come. The writer's gift, notions as compensation.

6 Reasons I love Asbury Park. Number 7: No taffy.

I've wanted to visit Asbury Park for a long time. It has a beautiful beach, a real downtown, rich history, hip stores and restaurants, a GREAT bookstore, WoRds, and of course the music scene. We saw the band Stolen Rhodes who were fantastic. I felt like I was very far away, in California or Austin, Texas. Not the shore. Not the shore at all.

What do writers major in?

In honor of graduation month, I'm re-running one of my fave posts: IF YOU WANT TO BE A WRITER, WHAT SHOULD YOU MAJOR IN? Major in statistics. You’ll learn the odds of getting traditionally published are roughly three zillion to one. Major in economics. You’ll understand why the publishing companies may never put you on a book tour or run an ad for your book in The New Yorker. Major in law. You can fight Google and everyone else who wants to offer your book as a free download. Major in journalism. Your future will appear so tenuous your parents will beg you to be a novelist instead. Major in history. You’ll unearth enough material that you won’t need to invest in research and travel, which you’ll never make back on your advance. Major in drama. Being rejected during auditions will make being rejected on paper seem like child’s play. Major in forensics. When you inevitably end up writing for a hack TV crime show, you won’t have to work too hard. Major in English. That’s what all the English majors would tell you to do. Major in computer science. You can invent something with a better name than “vook.” And you can charge all your other writer friends to do their e-Book formatting. Major in Spanish. It will help your parents understand your Hemingway-esque desire to run with the bulls. Major in psychology. Trust me --it’s easier to work through daddy issues on the couch than on the page. Major in Phys Ed. Most first-time authors are attractive and fit. (Oh, don’t tell me you don’t look at those author photos!) Major in music. Since you may be singing the blues for awhile, you may as well be in tune. FACT: Writers major in all kinds of things, and have a variety of jobs and life skills that fuel their writing. So go ahead and take that gig as a mall Santa. It will pay off a second time, when you can write about it.

How about you.

How about you? Have you experienced this? Please share. I HATE how all blog posts, no matter how long they are, always end with these sentences. It annoys me almost as much as the emails from POTUS that have "hey" in the subject line. It's a thing. It's what you do. I HATE IT. It's like a phone call with a narcissistic friend, who blathers on about themselves for an hour and then, when you'd chew off your own arm to get off the phone, remembers to ask: So how are you? This is my cat. How about you? Do you have a cat?