X Marks The Spot! Or BRS!

The last couple of days I've been productive. Dividing my time between mowing, napping, writing and more mowing.

I mow in the mornings until it gets too hot for me and then I mow in the evening once the sun is hiding behind our tall tree line. So I guess you could say it's a shady deal.

After cooking us lunch and cleaning up the kitchen, I go lay down, on the bed, with all of our six dogs to take a nap. Which they seem to enjoy as much as I do.

I am not complaining about this, but there is one problem with this napping scenario and it never seems to fail. Because right when I am just about to fall asleep, wedged between Henry's huge backside and Little Debbie's & Big Al(ice)'s tiny backsides—the next scene, in my third novella plays out in my head.

I mean I can clearly see the setting, the characters, see what they are doing and also hear what they're saying. And it has always been this way for me, ever since the University of Texas published my first book The Road To Utopia: How Kinky, Tony & I Saved More Animals Than Noah, in 2006.

I've always thought that this was weird, but I've never thought much about it much until the other day when I read this on the Internet:

In a 1957 Paris Review interview with Pati Hill, Capote explained  “I am a completely horizontal author. I can’t think unless I’m lying down, either in bed or stretched on a couch and with a cigarette and coffee handy. I’ve got to be puffing and sipping. As the afternoon wears on, I shift from coffee to mint tea to sherry to martinis. No, I don’t use a typewriter....”

First off, it it such a relief to me to finally be able to define my writing technique when I'm asked. Because I never exactly knew how to describe my "style" of writing, in as few words, to fit it on a bumper-sticker.

Anyway, I am so glad to finally be able to simply say, "I am a completely horizontal author," but that is where the comparison between me and Truman Capote stops. And my reasoning for this is Capote was a remarkably great writer. My uncle John Howard Griffin was a great writer too, when he wrote the famous Classic Black Like Me. Which has sold many millions of books worldwide and it is still selling and is still required reading at many prominent universities.

So, "I am a completely horizontal author" fits me even though I am trying to take an enjoyable nap with my dogs when these scenes appear inside my head and I have to jump up, go to my computer and write them down—instead of lounging around drinking and smoking. Enough said.

Late last night the scariest thing happened to me while I was watching an episode of Heartland, on Netflix. In Season 10, Amy was just about to have her baby, when I glanced down, at Henry Standing Bear sleeping.

Henry was cutting zzz's, squeezed between the coffee table and end table, with "scenes" probably going on inside his noggin, too.  X marks the spot where Henry's head was (facing the chair). My chair is to the left where his butt was almost touching the leg of my chair. Here's the layout:

Anyway, when I looked down there was this gigantic spider spread out—ready to pounce on Henry's paw. X marks the spot where this creature was located.

Tony was already asleep, so I knew that I shouldn't scream, so I got up, paused Heartland, grabbed my camera and then tried to calmly say, "Henry! Let's go outside."

It worked, because Henry immediately jumped up and went to the front door, along with all of the rest of our dogs. So I let them go outside.

Then with camera in hand and feeling guilty that I had paused Amy having a horrible labor pain, I bent down and took this picture of the spider from he@#!

This spider didn't move and it looked dead, so I stood back and took a few, far away, zoomed-in pictures, but sadly none of those turned out, because I must have been shaking.

Anyway, since the spider had still not moved, I decided not to stomp it, because I wanted to show it to Tony in the morning. 

And that was a really bad plan, because after I had downloaded this picture of the spider I went Online to try to find out what kind of spider it was that had almost killed Henry and the rest of us, except for Tony, who was snoring, in the bedroom.  

As frightened as I was, I quickly found a picture of a Brown Recluse Spider. "Omg," I whispered to myself, because this was definitely a Brown Recluse. Then I turned around, when I got up from my desk chair and the BRS was gone!

Seriously, it had not moved for at least fifteen minutes and it had looked dead. Now I was in a full-blown panic mode, so I got Hazel, out of the closet, emptied her bag less tank and then let her do her thing.  

I emptied her tank, so in the morning Tony and I could go through all of the dog hair and properly dispose of the BRS wannabe murderer.

By now it was almost 2 AM, and I hated myself for leaving Amy in labor-limbo, for so long, but I turned off the TV and brought the dogs back inside, so we could go to bed. But before we went to bed I wrote Tony a short note telling him about the BRS nearly killing us and I signed it, "Love, Nancy."

Needless to say, I did not sleep well last night, because I was fearing that the BRS's significant other would come and take revenge on me or take a picture of me sleeping.

So this morning, after only a few hours of sleep, I drank a cup of coffee while Tony and I went through Hazel's findings—no BRS was to be found.

So then I showed Tony the picture of this Brown Recluse Spider, on my computer, and he said, "Nance, I'm sorry, but that is not a Brown Recluse Spider...." Here is the picture I took of it and sadly, I am still not convinced that Tony is right. And I can't help but wonder where it is hiding, for its next attack.

As I finish writing this, please note that I wrote this following another one of my late afternoon, sleepless naps with our dogs, because I am a horizontal author. And just so you'll know—Amy & Ty had a little boy. Not really it's a girl!

Y'all have a great evening and keep on laughing!