My dad always tells people that I have the ability to make a dull knife interesting. I guess what he means is that I can take that dull knife and give it a story or least of all,  give it a personality, make it lifelike. Before too long, the knife has a name, I've constructed clothes for it, and now has a permanent spot at the dinner table, no longer used as a knife, but now, a long lost cousin, twice removed, who was found foraging for wild berries, in Iceland, and somehow, through luck and faith, made its way to me. See, dull knife, made somewhat interesting. But my dad also says that I missed my calling. No, not a minister...although the title sounds quiet regal, "The Reverend Arlene has a speaking engagement at  Buckingham palace." What my dad is talking about, is auctioneer. How he got auctioneer, I don't know, I really don't speak quickly, I may talk a lot, but not like an auctioneer. Plus my ablilty to sell things to people isn't that great, I'm real good at talking you out of that expensive vegetable peeler, when a good paring knife will do the same thing at half the cost.
   
     In case you didn't know, I clean houses for a living. I've been cleaning and scrubbing people's grim and dust for 14 years. Wow, actually had to stop and thing about that. Maybe, for my 15th cleaning anniversary, I should send myself off to a cleaning lady convention. That could be fun, me by myself and the hotel chambermaids, talking about the weird unspeakable things we have pulled out from under beds. (in other words...without getting to graphic...."toys.") Some people think that all this cleaning lady does is read other people's magazines, try on other people's clothes, and take naps on my client's beds. That only happens some of the times! The other times, I'm too busy having coffee and cookies with my clients and having deep meaningful conversations with them. The other part of the time, I'm happily cleaning away, just me and Jian Ghomeshi and the CBC. Or other days, just me and Stuart Mclean from the Vinyl Cafe, also CBC. Check them out!! Here's my shout out!!

     After a month of serious vacuuming, all great thinking gets done when one is doing a mindless task, that this blog will be about stories. Long, short, true, false, an exaggeration of a true story that gets blown way out, a false story with true elements, a long story, that should be made into a longer story, a short story that stays short, with the the ability later to go long. There maybe inquiries, finger pointing, rants, raves, mocking others, comedy, and feel good. Never ever, will there be anything profound. My mind just doesn't do profound. Will there be characters? Yes, but I haven't decided if I'm going to use the cast of characters that surrounded me, or create new ones so that my cast is not identfied. Another day or two or three of vacuuming, will help work out the bugs.

     My teachers in school always told me to write about I know. Which was something that always stumped me. Especially at the  grade school level, because  what does one know in grade school. You know that your lunch probably sucks, the kid in front of you smells odd,  your seat at your desk is hard and your butt hurts and you know that recess isn't long enough. At the high school level, you know a bit more. You know that your lunch sucks, doing group projects isn't your thing, your English teacher has a beard that probably houses a family of sparrows, your seat at your desk is hard and your butt has been numb for about 10 years, you know who sells drugs, and you know which guy knows how to hotwire a car. You know to stay away from the people who hang around the back stairwell, because chances are they are having sex, and you know not to stand to close to certain teachers because of their bad breath. And yes, there is still the kid that smells odd, just more of them in a confined space.

     With that all being said, I know lots, TONS!!! I will take my teacher's advice and write what I know!

From the 4th line,
Arlene