I Am Handy Woman . . . Hear Me Roar

The denizens of Panera Bread in Fairfax, Virginia at 10:30 in the morning are a motley crew.  Let's just say that all of the handicapped and "Mothers with Small Children" parking spaces are completely full (and yes, in Fairfax, Virginia, not only do expectant mothers get primo parking privileges, but so do those with small children; because not only do we want to encourage rampant reproduction in the suburbs, but we want to show children that walking and exercise are bad, evil things that should be stamped out with mini-vans and higher insurance premiums). Joining the retirees and suburban house fraus were a collection of young hipster types with headphones and computers (perhaps local college students?), a collection of working stiffs on their mid-morning break (aka Second Breakfast in Hobbit-ese), and some single men sipping coffee while reading the paper (I'm guessing alternative shift government workers on their Friday off).  I certainly added a dose of city flava to the human collection of curiosities this morning – a gay lawyer attempting (rather poorly) to author her first book while awaiting the FBI's acceptance of the last 10 years of her life (and hence, the a-ok to start her new job in Arizona). 

Now, creative writing is something that I have loved ever since I started my very first blog post in 2003 (back when Blogger was king and I lived in Brooklyn, New York the summer after law school and saw gay go-go dancers in the store window of the local Borders).  It is rather unfortunate that I didn't actually have a yen for creative writing in college, when I actually could have taken, oh I don't know, a creative writing class or two, but it's not like being absolutely unqualified has ever stopped me from doing anything before (I mean, hey, I made the varsity badminton team in high school without ever knowing what the hell a "shuttlecock" was – pretending you know what the hell you're doing goes a long way!).  However, it appears I will have to get over my own inner editor in order to actually commit an entire book (or even a damn page) to Microsoft Word.  I couldn't write two sentences down this morning without attempting to rework those sentences to make more sense, more fun, more snark.  This may be a long, slow, tortuous process, but hey, so is the FBI background check, so it should work out.

In other news, I have added the title of "Handy Woman" to my list of personal accomplishments . . . since moving into Sassyfras's place in the country, I have installed an under-the-counter coffee mug holder, assembled a Container Store baker's rack, and most recently, installed a new door handle and lock.  I don't think it takes away from my accomplishments at all to admit that in the midst of replacing aforementioned door handle and lock, I momentarily (okay, maybe for about 10 minutes) locked both myself and Sassyfras inside the spare bedroom (a by-product of assembling the lock portion and then closing the door without assembling the door handle portion).  Alas, the cats were of absolutely no use in freeing us from our temporary prison (though one of them did seem to try by manuevering his paws through the hole in the door; I tried to pass him a credit card to pick the lock, but he just started eating it).  I did finally manage to pick my newly installed lock with a delicate combination of banging it with a hammer and jiggling it with a long, flat drill bit just as Sassyfras was contemplating how to escape the third-story room through the window.  Something tells me THAT would not have been pretty.