I hate to make sweeping generalizations, but I think all writers are a little bit crazy in their own unique way. Tales about eccentric and reclusive writers throughout history abound. In my online writing group, the Alliance of Worldbuilders, every time someone pops their head into the forum thread to join in for the first time, we try to warn them that we’re all mad here. Sometimes, they happily throw their own unique madness into the mix right along with ours and hilarity ensues.
My own particular brand of crazy began developing at a very young age. See, there was this boy in my class. We met in preschool and it was love at first sight. Well, it was love at first sight for me, anyway. He wanted nothing to do with me. But that was only because he didn’t know me! So I followed him around the classroom like a puppy, from the blocks to the sand table to the picture books and back.
When we started kindergarten, it was more of the same. He made my little five-year-old heart flutter so! But still, every time he saw me, he would take off running. How on Earth was he supposed to get to know me if he wouldn’t stand still long enough to talk to me? If he wouldn’t get to know me, we couldn’t fall madly in love!
But then first grade arrived. Patience is not one of my virtues and by this time, I’d had it. So one day at recess, I convinced one of my friends to forego our usual games of jump rope and four square and help me get closer to him. She agreed and we set off to enact our plan.
We found Mr. Cutiepie over by the kickball field with some of his second-grade friends. “Now!” I shouted, and my friend and I rushed him. The force of the collision was enough to knock him over and send the three of us sprawling. Naturally, his friends immediately tried to separate us, but I managed to kiss him quickly before we were pried apart.
Another friend of mine and I made a tape the next year that I think I still have, detailing what our lives would be like when we grew up. My vision of my future involved marrying Mr. Cutiepie and riding motorcycles on a beach. Neither one of those things have happened, but I’m okay with that. The memories of my boy-crazy youth have provided me with more laughs than I can count, and every time I see Mr. Cutiepie around town, I recall those memories and smile.
(c) 2012. All rights reserved.
Suddenly they all died. The end. 
A little bit crazy? I know I’m more than that. I define myself as quirky, because non-writers aren’t sure how to understand me. We writers and poets live in a world between reality and places and people we create to be real.
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Haha! I was trying to be polite. I know I’m more than a little crazy and I’m pretty sure that quirky doesn’t cover it for me. I definitely live in my own little world. 🙂
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Your life would have been crazy, but short, if you’d ridden a bike on a beach.
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It’s been crazy without having ridden a bike on a beach. But the days when I dreamed of riding motorcycles were simpler times. Now, having ridden them, I’ve decided they’re best left to others more crazy than I. 😉
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Like me. Driving through London is far more lethal than any beach.
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I think the same can be said for driving in any metropolis. I know I was awfully glad I wasn’t the one behind the wheel when I drove through Atlanta on my way to Disneyworld. Even in the back seat, I was convinced we were gonna die. My idea of a traffic jam is ten cars waiting to pass a tractor on the highway and I’m okay with that.
Well, unless I’m one of those ten cars. Then I’m somewhat less than okay with it because it usually means I’m going to be late for work. It never fails that I get stuck behind the darn things in a no passing zone and by the time I can finally pass, there’s oncoming traffic. I’m just lucky, I guess. 🙂
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Sounds idyllic. We don’t get many tractors in London. What we do have are far too many buses, all of them nearly empty and all driving at one mile per hour. If you look at google maps and call up an image of London, all you’ll see are long sinuous trains of red snakes going nowhere.
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Sounds like spring and fall in Iowa, only the tractors are typically John Deere green. I haven’t run into as many tractors as normal this year, though, but I know they’re out there because the fields are being harvested.
I do love living in a rural setting…most of the time. I could do without the hog confinements I drive past regularly, though. They stink to high heaven. Hog farmers can say it smells like money all they want, but that’s not what I’d call it.
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I used to work in a prison that reared pigs, and I’m probably the only person who actually likes the smell. It’s probably why I’m always slightly shocked when my wife begins to gag and threatens me with painful death if I don’t clean out my study. Can’t think what she means.
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Hogs and corn seem to be Iowa’s two major crops these days, with soybeans not far behind. Personally, I’d rather smell the corn drying than the hog crap. It smells much nicer.
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that’s probably why my wife always tells me that I’m full of it. I obviously spent too many years watching the cons shovel it up.
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Well, I suppose it’s better they were shoveling it up than flinging it hither and yon…
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So so true…we’re all nuts and happily so! 😀 xx
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Indeed we are! So glad your launch went so well – that’s wonderful that they sold out of your books! 🙂
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Thank you honey! *deep sigh* ‘m gonna have to go on holiday one of these days and say hello to my lovely friends across the pond!:D xx
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And I’m gonna have to save my pennies and dimes and visit you all over there! Actually, Seymour and I have discussed visiting England and Ireland for an anniversary trip sometime. 🙂
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That would be GREAT!!! 😀 xx
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Wouldn’t it? I could visit all the lovely shops…and I think first on my list would be Octavia’s! 🙂
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That’s a funny story. Poor Mr. Cutiepie must not have known what hit him. And I love how that one interaction, at least in this story, was enough to satisfy your little self.
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You know, I don’t think he did know what hit him at first. And it was plenty of satisfaction for me…for a while. He held my heart all through school, although in fourth grade I made a run for another boy – literally. I wound up tackling him, too, but there was mud involved that time, and a dare, and a quick check for cooties. Mr. Cutiepie lives down the street from me now with his wife and two boys and knowing now what I didn’t know then, I’m glad things worked out the way they did. It’s like that song, “Unanswered Prayers.” There’s a lot of truth in those lyrics.
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