The Tender Lives of Shrimp

This morning a new feeling woke with me. It was Inspiration, for it stung my heart and raced through my veins (leaving, oddly, my brain completely unaffected).

Inspiration told me to start writing: Hell, Sylvia, start with children, the bottom of the totem pole, if you need to. Just start writing! For a moment I disagreed with its suggestion that chidren were easy to write for, but I urged myself to be prudent, to follow instructions from this supreme being, however out of touch with reality it is, what with its own laurel-laced lifestyle.

With Inspiration behind me, nagging me toward creative expression, I will write a medium-length book for attentive and well-behaved children. The book will be called The Tender Lives of Shrimp. Countless and nameless shrimp will be featured in colorful illustrations throughout the book, following my narrative about the brave disinterest which the shrimp possess, especially in the know-it-all face of Inspiration. They have eyes, but they refuse to see much.

Words Are a Waste...Unless You Use 'Em in a Song

For years, I wanted to be a photojournalist. Writing is overrated. A picture is worth a thousand words, they say.

They? Who's they?

Pipe down. I'm trying to paint a picture.

Painting? I thought you were a photographer.

I'm not a photographer...yet. I said I would like to be a photographer. Stop interrupting.

Do you even own a camera?

No, but I have friends who have cameras.

That doesn't show much commitment.

What are you, my coach?

And work for almost nothing? Ha!

I wish my subconscious would stop butting in when I'm trying to get my photojournalist career going.

If only I'd gotten a clean shot of Barry that night in 1977, I'd be a real photographer by now!

Good for nothing.

During the wintry months in December and January, I was trapped under a foot of snow, rendered immobile and unable to post anything on this blog. A foot of snow, and I survived, I survived!, I shouted at the other Angelenos driving along the Angeles Crest Highway.

Those days I spent paralyzed in the snow-lined embankment, I thought of you only, my faithful readers, wondering if I'd ever return to the warmth of the foothills. As I lay there, I thought not of death, but of dipping my frostbitten fingers into lukewarm water just to get enough feeling back to type a blog entry.

Nursed back to health by a young stray kitten -- precociously maternal one she is -- I regained enough strength to press my fingers on the keys of my notebook computer. I never felt more alive when I saw all the activity on the blog I'd missed so much. These are true fans! I thought to myself, tears welling in my defrosting eyeballs.

And all I saw were complaints.

Nice to be Chinese...for once.

Finally, a perk. The one other Chinese staff member in the office gave me a box of Ferrero Rocher (which has become the Chinese New Year tradition among Chinese, at least in L.A. County). I'm so glad for this new tradition because authentic Chinese New Year candy quite sucks. See the cough drop correllation pictured.