I’ve been thinking about this project for a long time.

It’s actually based on my need/desire to write a book – but a good one.  An honest one.  Some of you may know that I was working on a book about my relationship with K’s Dad.  In a much longer story that you can find here andhere and here, the manuscript was lost.  It’s okay.  It’s good.

But I want to write again.

I took another semester off from my job – without pay – and I sent my daughter to temporarily live with her grandparents – to write.

Because without a book, friends, i am stuck here in Mediocrity World.

There are also concerns  – – born of long, lonely, sleepless hours – – about my standard of living.

Being a single mom, with debt from a divorce and sponsorship of an alien, living in a 100-plus year old house, is terrifying – –

I look around.  I assess my life of idealism, and I find it lacking.

I find myself craving comfort, ease, luxury.  I can sink into luxury.  I simultaneously crave the finer things, and resent them.  Believe me, friends, I’ve seen poverty.  I understand that things, in themselves, don’t make you happy.

but.

The Taurus in me begs for the high thread count sheets; the rich colors; the turquoise sea; the smooth surfaces of marble and granite; natural woods and finely made art; flattering colors and cuts; aesthetically pleasing lines and shapes; rolling music with a strong beat and a lyrical playfulness; sliding shadows in an afternoon breeze; the shocking green of foliage in a tropical destination; the calls of birds; the lingering scents of good shampoo, good lotion,  and – if you’ve been a *very* good girl – good sex.

These are things that I crave, she types, having this very morning showered in cold water in her old and crumbling house.  I want the good life.

And so, am I on a journey to earn those things?  (Somebody call up Oprah and get me a book deal.)  Or, am I just a hopeless ho for the good life?

We shall see.