Four years ago, I threw down $110 on a my first pair of suede salsa shoes. Those shoes announced to the world that I was a salsa dancer, and separated me from the throngs of women in ergonomic disaster. Since that day shoes of all shades, fabrics, quality, and price ranges have made love to my feet...but you never forget your first. I've had them re-soled and re-sueded about five time.

Four years and twenty chiropractic visits later, I threw down $10 on my first pair of flat jazz shoes. Sure, heels are sexy. Chronic back pain?...not so hot.

Just for today, I'm dancing in new shoes.

I have been feeling very anti-creative, lately. I just want to shop. Try on eye shadows at the MAC counter. Pretend I'm going to buy $100+ skin products. Browse through the sales rack at Anthropologie. Find hot guys hot. Work out like some obsessed body conscious skinny freak (without the skinny part). I want to be that lady. The one in the Lulullemon pants (yes, I'm judgmental about people who wear obsessed with overpriced yoga clothes), who goes to Pilates twice a week, gets a facial every month, and has never felt that pervasive emptiness for longer than a week or two. I believe those people exist (though maybe not). They take pleasure in organic, green, and beautiful places. They feel grief in the measure we were meant to feel it, and not like some creative freak who needs to spend her life savings writing plays, and books and going to therapy...

It's kind of nice to not feel sometimes. To stay skimming at the surface. To forget about my heart that gets broken, my passions that lead me nowhere, my curiosity about every character who walks into Peete's.....Who cares about writing? Understanding. Feeling...I just want some new clothes.

Just for today, I'm anti-creative.

...but the energy is out there. I must be sending out some signals because a lot more attractive men have approached me lately. Male attention, I have found, has little to do with age or beauty. It's not even perfume, tight-fitting clothing, or pheromones. I think it's invisible sound waves that only men can hear, kind of like a dog whistle.

Yesterday, I met a guy at the deli who works as a investment banker graduated from Stanford. Very cute. And very young. Unfortunately, we quickly hit the twenty-something wall of inexperience that renders the hottest guys into little babies. Yes, your job title sounds really important, and I know Santa Claus isn't real. I only want to be a mommy to people who come out of my vagina. (Also, why I don't have cats).

Then there was Farmer's Market Guy. Very hot. Not too young. And polite. A little too polite in a shifty-eyed Eddie Haskell way. All I need is one "You look beautiful," and maybe one "I like your outfit," and I'm set. Anymore, and he's a mack truck in line with David Duchovny at the rehab center, and I'm officially creeped out.

A few weeks, there was Coffee Shop Guy, who I realized I liked inside the coffee shop, but not when he walked me to my car. (That probably won't work for a relationship.) There was also Swimming Pool Guy, (Please Note: I don't know where I have been because...THE SWIMMING POOL IS THE BEST PLACE TO MEET GUYS), but he only wants to swim in the fast lane.

Ok, so maybe I'm a little like a bed of nails. More like tacks turned upside down. There's gotta be somebody out there who likes porcupines.

Seriously, though, I'm talking to strange men and not assuming that they are serial killers. At least not right away. This is progress.

Just for today, I'm open to meeting guys.

Last Sunday, I bought some beautiful, lettuce-y, organic, lettuce from the Farmer's Market. This chunk of lettuce (I don't know what you call it) just called my name. Sometimes I drool over lettuce, I must be missing some lettuce minerals.

Anyhoo, last night I made a salad with lettuce, tomatoes, avocado, feta cheese, capers, and a lemon/vinegar/wine dressing. It was worthy of a photo shoot. So, I sat down feeling very superior in my food-yness, when I saw that my lettuce was moving. But it wasn't my lettuce, it was a caterpillar the same color as my lettuce. (Please note: I did wash it). A few minutes later, I saw another piece of moving lettuce.

Needless to say, no more organic Farmer's Market for me....(I won't even get into the spider in the kael incident).

Just for today, I can try to eat healthy.

I never realized how much harder it is working for yourself. Sure, nobody cares if I take a four hour yoga lunch or ten hours to finish a 30 minute task, but at the same time nobody is writing me a check and keeping my work station functioning. Yesterday, my four month old computer had a meltdown. Where's tech support?! My chair was sending me to the chiropractor's office. Where's the office manager?! Back in the day when I worked for The Man, I just drove to work, sat my butt down in a ergonomic chair, and shot off emails anytime my browser didn't move at lightening speed.

I called Apple Support and found out that they would charge me $30 to tell me - as I later figured out - to reinstall my operating system. Thank God I'm resourceful, or I'd have to fire myself. Then, I went to Office Max and bought a chair. It came in a giant box filled little pieces. Where's facilities management?! (Or whoever puts together chairs...). I, finally, put it together...now I'm exhausted.

Just for today, I need some help.

I'm sort of having the opposite of writer's block. I don't know how to describe it. Writer's Diarrhea?...Breaking the Writer's Levees? They all sound bad. Writer's Unblock? Anyway, whatever it is I'm not messing with it. This stuff is sacred. If I could bottle it, I would be richer than Steve Jobs. However, clearly, the deluge is not pouring into my blog. My poor blog is the devoted wife who isn't getting any cuz daddy's busy with other thangs. Sorry, Blog!

Seriously, though, I have been trying to unclog the arteries for a long time now. Like any writer will tell you, you can't make The Muse appear by sheer will. For the sake of my own future, I'm going to list the things that I believe cure writer's block. This is for creative writing, but I think it works for any block around any creative work.

1) Someone once told me that if you want to get to the next place in your life embody you're worst fear about what other people think about you. "What if people think I'm a self-involved bitch?" And? "Am I a lazy, self-indulgent spoiled excuse for a grown up?" Yes, you are. So, go eat some chocolate Haagen-Dasz, fill out your unemployment check and sit down at the computer. You'll see the magic flow.

2) Slow down. There's nothing worse for writing than panic, traffic, caffeine induced stress. That was once my life. It produced a good income, lots of grey hairs, and a few blogs that almost got me fired.

3) Know that what you have to say is not of any real importance to the world. But neither is what anyone else has to say.

4) Remember that you're going to die. Sorry. I didn't invent death, but it is the ultimate deadline.

5) Eat avocados. Healthy fat.

Just for today, I have Writer's Diarrhea.