On the Road Again

The voices in my head are singing My Baby Don't Tolerate, by Lyle Lovett

What I'm reading: Relentless by Dean Koontz

Predictably, I had to rush right out and buy the new Dean Koontz novel (along with the new Michael Connelly, which is next up). Koontz didn't disappoint. Like most of his books, Relentless will be a Shelfari favorite. I just wish these guys could write faster.

And hey, Carl Hiaasen, I'd really like a new adult novel, please. I know your young adult books are fabulous, and the non-fiction golf thing is brilliant, but I'm neither a young adult nor a golfer. Please pull a few hilariously demented characters out of your head and get them on paper. Lickety-split.

This week I'm in Warsaw, Indiana, with Jim. Business trip for him, writer's retreat for me. Hotel rooms, I may have said before, are the absolute best places for me to write. I can't clean my house, run errands, do laundry, run out and have lunch with a friend, or any one of a hundred other things that pop up that keep me from putting words on the page.

Or go to Jazzercise, which is the one other thing I need to be doing. In anticipation of this problem, however, I ordered three Jazzercise DVDs, reasoning that I could dance in a hotel room, right?

Well, not so much, really.

I started with Street Jazz! I'm always hassling Casey for some funk in her sets, so I picked this one first. The tag line specifically promises "street jam movements using a combination of jazz dance, hip hop, and funk."

I had NO idea how much your average Jazzercise instructor has to dummy this stuff down for ex-majorettes, cheerleaders, and drill team members across the country. I have a new appreciation for the Queen of Pain and all the other aliens who translate the moves that look like an MTV video played in fast forward into something the rest of us can attempt.

If I play the DVD in slow motion, I can maybe learn a section a day. I'm trying, anyway.

The other thing I hadn't figured on was that in class, while Casey has to look at what I'm doing and not double over laughing (too often), in a hotel room, I have to watch myself. There's a big mirror. This is so not pretty.

Anyway, I'm writing, and I'm dancing. (Well, I'm moving to music, and in some cultures, I'm sure what I'm doing is called dancing.)

All is right with the world.

Peace, out...

Susan