How a Pepperoni Pizza Cake and an Annoying Little Dog Have Joined Forces to Keep Me From Fame and Fortune

It’s very easy to squander a morning wandering around on Twitter and Facebook. I clicked over there on the directive of the latest article I’d read on getting published. Since my lovely agent is busy pushing my latest manuscript on unsuspecting publishers, I thought I should help her out by following up on the advice that publishers want to see you’re active on these sites (at the very least these two, but they’d also love it if you were active on Tumblr, Pinterest, Instagram, and several other social media sites I hadn’t heard of.). And here’s where the trouble begins - staying active on these sites is nearly a full-time job for those of us who are easily distracted.

All I was planning to do was tweet a clever, profound comment and get back to work, but before I could do that, I was distracted by a picture of a pepperoni pizza cake – cake! – and I had to investigate that. This proved so distracting (Admit it, that picture is WAY distracting) that I couldn't remember the clever thought I’d come up with while running this morning, so I began reading everyone else’s clever thoughts which seemed to revolve around food.

Honestly, it seemed as if every other post had to do with food. This focus on food made it hard for me to focus on my intended tweet especially because the smell of garlic croutons was wafting through the house. Upon discovering half a loaf of stale bread on the counter after the indigenous people had departed for school this morning, I decided to turn it in to croutons so I’d be more inclined to eat salad this week since my weight was already doing the winter creep up. (How did THAT happen? I haven’t been that bad, no really, but then I remember that I’m the only one who drank white wine on Saturday and the entire bottle was gone by morning.) So what was my clever, profound comment for Twitter? Read for yourself.

So with a very small bowl of freshly baked croutons, I returned to my computer and decided to make a play on Facebook since Twitter had been such a timesuck already.

Facebook can be even more distracting for me, but I never even made it to my writer page because when I opened up the website it was on my personal facebook page and it was obvious that everyone else had a better weekend than me. So I scrolled through way too many pages of pretty people having fun and I began to worry that I’m squandering this life. I’m so boring. And I’m getting old. Really old. And I still don’t own a convertible.

At this point I had to get up once again from my work and chase down my incredibly annoying dog who had spent the previous twenty minutes barking right outside my window. 

I’d tried to ignore her at first. Maybe she had a reason. But after I’d twice raised the shade above my desk and surveyed the hillside to which she was intently aiming her barrage to find NOTHING, I could stand it no longer. She was happy to follow me back inside and then flopped herself down directly behind my chair and commenced snoring. 

Ugh. Have I mentioned how annoying this little dog is? I’ve told the kids that the first one to move out takes her with them. Only problem is I’m probably about five years from that day. (Unless they allow dogs in college dorms these days. I visited college dorms for the first time in 25 years this past summer and OMG have they gotten nice – it’s not just the air conditioning, but the wifi, the laundry service and have you seen the size of the rooms and the dining selections?)

So two hours later, here I am back at the desk and I have yet to say anything enlightening or viral on Twitter or Facebook. AND really, the basic problem is that I have yet to write anything of consequence at all today. Except this rambling post.