40 Days and 15 Minutes

 The 40 Days of Writing project is an idea put forth by an old friend who made a BRILLIANT decision to move far away to a magical land, fell in love with a Wine Guy with really cool glasses, and lives amongst some beautiful vineyards where she frolics in perpetually gorgeous, never-humid weather while drinking delicious wine at breakfast and playing bocce on the beach in her spare time. (That’s how I imagine it, anyway, Kate. Please don’t correct me if my depiction of your life is inaccurate.)

The challenge is to write something –anything – every day for 40 days. My dad always said the same thing about writing – you have to force yourself to sit down and commit to putting something on paper (or blog, as it were,) every single day, to be a writer. I don’t know what will come of this…I stopped the whole lent thing years ago, so, this is as spiritual I’m gonna get, at this point, as far as committing to something for 40 days.

I have a REALLY crappy, long, tedious, hellacious commute  and I often find myself killing time by practicing my 15 minutes of fame in the car. My 15 minutes are the result of my Oscar-Winning screenplay and Best Original Song. I go on every talk show, beginning with Jimmy Fallon, and signing off with David Letterman, where I bring my Dad (aka, Dave’s Biggest Fan,) and we do a whole banter-y extravaganza alongside Steve Martin. It’s awesome, and the genius part is that I’m never actually famous. I don’t want to write another screenplay or song after that, I just want to invest every penny and go give speeches on “Dreaming Big” and teaching young kids that “You Can Do Whatever You Set Your Mind To” and planting gardens in schools —  motivational stuff like that. Let’s put it this way, there would HAVE to be a “Where are they NOW?” segment to know what I was up to, because I won’t be on Dancing With the Stars.

Now, I realize this is all ridiculous and putting the cart in front of the horse’s great grand children, but it’s a long commute and I can’t write a screenplay in my car. (Or can I? Hmmmm…)  And, at this point, I have a fantastic soundtrack accompanied by an incredible cast of impeccably dressed, idiosyncratic actors, but if I end up at that podium, I will thank this project, that’s for damn sure. 

If you see me in my 12 year-old VW Golf on the Connector talking to myself (and maybe crying,) please don’t worry — I’m OK! I mean, relatively speaking. I’m just saying something annoyingly humble like, “Jimmy, this is all just SO surreal. I mean, I used to go to work every day practicing what we would talk about on your show, and now — now I’m ON your show. It’s just so crazy. And all I really want to do for my next 12 minutes of fame is to take over this stage with you and JT for some lyrical and satirical magic.” And then Jimmy cues Questlove, out comes Justin, Jimmy throws me a mic and BOOM. (It’s really not that bad having my long commute; I’m very active and productive.)

Since I have this dead-in-the-water blog I figured this was as good a place as any to try and write for 40 days. Welcome back, Mom, and hold on to your laptop. This is about to get crazy! I don’t know what that means and it’s probably not true at all, but I’m a little rusty and I sensed I needed to end this post.