I have never professed to be an overly brilliant person. I am not a slacker in the mental department either. But I have these, "huh?" moments where smile and nod and hope to God they don't ask me to repeat what they just said (which I do to my children all the time - so I know how heinous that is!) or I shake my head and re-read whatever I just read and shake my head again as I am totally lost.

When the boys are going on and on . . and on about their Yu-gi-oh or Zatch Bell cards I am not expected to understand whatever it is they are saying - which is a darn good thing. But when I am in a conversation with other adults and fight the urge to scrunch my nose and scratch my head - it makes me wonder, "What is wrong with me?"

I will admit, I tend to only half-listen most of the time, so that is probably as big a factor as anything. My mind tends to wander to that next book I am plotting or a deadline zooming in. With stuff I am reading, same thing. There are blogs I tend to read with regularity and then there are the ones I look at every so and so 'cause half the time - I don't' get it. Again - like listening, I tend to skim and only get half of the post.

I am sorry I have a mind that wanders. I have tried to curb that, tried to stay focused, but then . . . Did you read Cece's book - posted in my "What I am reading" Great book! - oops there I go again - off on a tangent.

A segue - but still on topic - sort of....

On Jill Shalvis's blog she asked what we listen to when we write and most folks listed CD's with no or unintelligible words - I am just the opposite. I need the songs I know and love for when I get stuck in a place in the book I can sit back and let my mind fade out of the book and into words I can sing in my sleep and then re-focus and get back to the book. I just now realized it is also like a tether that holds me in place - when my mind wanders , it hears words I know inside and out (I listen to one CD only per book so the words are embedded in my children's brains!) and grabs my attention, I listen for a bit and then snap out of it and back to where it is supposed to be.




Current book - in edit stages
Current CD - Bo Bice's The Real Thing