I've been in Deadline Hell again. 3 chapters, about 60 pages and a synopsis of the next Stella book. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad just by itself, but it fell on the heel of the revisions of Lethally Blonde which is due out in November. I only had 2 weeks to come up with Stella's next adventure. So once again I'm brain dead.
Going to my day job at the nursing home was right up my alley today. I didn't have any words left and they didn't care. In the nursing home a hug is enough. In fact, a hug is a lot better than a bunch of empty words that they either can't hear, don't understand or don't believe. When your brain is not working at full capacity, hugs are the one true language.
Sometimes, when words just don't get it, a look is enough too.
My friend, Big Dawg, in Hot 'Lanta has a great look. Like I said in an earlier blog, he's a big guy, tall and imposing. He once was a manager or a bouncer or both in a strip club up north. He can talk loud and fast. He can give you a raft of shit without turning a hair. When I met him, I thought he was the most obnoxious guy in the universe. So, of course I told him this. I mean, the guy was a drug counselor and one night when we were out with him, he got drunk and loud and began giving his card out to people HE considered to be worse off than he was! "Here's my card. When you're ready to do something about your problem, call me."
Oh. My. God!
Of course, I was the one who got the "It Ain't Easy Bein' Sleezy" T-shirt from the concession stand before we left, but I digress!
Anyway...you'd think I would've hated the guy...but I just couldn't. In fact, he just melted my heart, over and over again. Maybe it was because we are both smartasses. Maybe because beneath the smartass exterior is this huge, vulnerable heart waiting to be discovered. And maybe it was Big Dawg's eyes.
Everything about Big Dawg said "Stay away from me!" except his eyes. Big Dawg could be cussing me out and all I could see was the way his eyes said, "Don't listen to what I'm saying. I really, really like you."
It's sort of like the way he farts on his wife because he loves her, only less so. Big Dawg, for all his bravado, is just a big old teddy bear. Unless he wears sunglasses 24/7, the Smart Ones will never buy his act. They'll hear the roar and want to hug him. Thank God his wife is one of the Smart Ones. Big Dawg's heart needed a safe home.
The little ladies in the nursing home would see right through my Big Dawg. He'd look at them and they'd melt. And, I don't know for sure, but I'd like to think he'd melt too.
There're lots of Big Dawgs out there. There are millions of little old ladies stuck in nursing homes, missing their babies, and feeling lonely, too.
As Patti LaBelle once said on Oprah, "Opportunity is not a lengthy visitor!"
When opportunity knocks...be one of the Smart Ones.
