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Tuesday, August 23: High-Heeled Gumshoe

BLOG, BLOG, BLOG

by Melodie Johnson Howe


To see this video in full size, click here.

Blog, blog, blog, blog, blog, blog, blog, blog, blog, blog, blog, blog, blog, blog, blog.

Do you think I’m having a problem coming up with an idea for this column?

Blog, blog, blog, blog, blog, blog, blog, blog, blog, blog, blog, blog, blog, blog, blog.

Blog is not even a real word, for God’s sake. And we’re not really blogging. We’re writing columns. But if I repeated the word column it wouldn’t have the same empty-headed effect.

I could write about Ray Bradbury turning ninety-one. I think he has touched us all, not only with his imaginative writing but with his generous witty personality. He’s a writer who is very much like his work. Some writers are surprisingly unlike their novels and short stories, and not always in a good way. Don’t go there, Melodie. You can’t name names. Think of something else.

A wing walker fell to his death at a Michigan air show. I love the term wing walker. It captures the beauty and the derring-do of the act. But the fall was all reality. He tumbled through the sky his arms and legs he so depended on suddenly useless as if he were a scarecrow. But when he hit the ground he was very human. God, how did I get from Bradbury to wing walkers? Because Bradbury dared to perform on the edge of a wing. All good writers do, even if they know they can slip and fall.

Blog, blog, blog, blog, blog, blog, blog, blog, blog, blog, blog, blog, blog blog, blog.

I’m sick and tired of all politicians. ALL OF THEM! Who are these people and why are they chasing us? Pardon my slightly skewed homage to the Sundance Kid.

Blog, blog, blog, bog, blog, blog, blog, blog, blog, blog, blog, blog, blog, blog, blog, blog.

Oh, this is a first! Bones who had not played drums professionally for probably forty-five years is now part of the Mesa Jazz Ensemble. They played at the local art show. The group had only one rehearsal. I marvel at jazz musicians and how they know with little practice the songs, the riffs, and when to come in and when not to. “The first” I mentioned was not about Bones, but about me, of course. A woman who was there had heard my name mentioned. She turned around and asked if I was the mystery writer? Then she went onto explain that she had read my fist novel and had loved it. I don’t have a video of this moment. But I do have video of my husband playing. He’s the one in the hat behind the drums. I took this on my new iPad.

Blog, blog, blog, blog, blog, blog, blog, blog, blog, blog, blog, blog, blog, blog, blog,

I just realized why I’m having such a problem with this column. I’m on a deadline with my novel. I stopped in the middle of a sex scene to write this. I ask you, how much can one woman do?

Posted in High-Heeled Gumshoe on August 23rd, 2011
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5 comments

  1. August 23rd, 2011 at 9:39 am, Rob Lopresti Says:

    If i may add a bit of trivia…

    The US POst Office used to put out a magazine for their employees called Postal Life. The December issue would be a calendar with artwork by the employees, all somehow related to the post office. So you would have a lot of landscapes with mailboxes, etc. Pretty good paintings, in my o.

    But once it was a painting of the posse from Butch Cassidy. “Who ARE those guys?” They were postal marshals, as a matter of fact, after the bandits who had stolen the mail

  2. August 23rd, 2011 at 11:42 am, Yoshinori Todo Says:

    I stopped in the middle of a sex scene to write this.

    You could have talked about this! *grins*

    By the way, I am sick and tired of all politicians, too. They’re all the same, everywhere in the world.

  3. August 23rd, 2011 at 3:49 pm, Jeff Baker Says:

    Apparantly one woman can do quite a lot! If you were throwing this together as you went along, it was very much like jazz. And I played the word “blog” in Scrabble and had to explain to someone what it meant and write it down!

  4. August 23rd, 2011 at 3:53 pm, Jeff Baker Says:

    And I’m sick of the politicians too. Remember when the movie “Independence Day” came out? Audiences stood up and cheered when the aliens blasted the White House and moved in to zap the Capitol Building. We have something of that audiences mood today…

  5. August 25th, 2011 at 2:07 pm, Lenore Says:

    Bones sounded great!

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