5.5 hours

wow. Today has been a thinking day. It can happen when you spend five and a half hours and $900 dollars waiting for your vehicle to be repaired. I was, however, very surprised how much reading I got done.

Interruption came from a friend's phone call. She is in the process of publishing a book put together of stories from cancer survivors and family of cancer victims. She has asked me to write something for the book regarding hope and present life. You know, me, someone who hasn't lost anyone close (to death, let alone cancer) since 1997. Although honored, I'm actually curious to see what/if I can come up with something. I'm a little doubtful for a number of reasons, however. One for example, today, in revisiting Philip Yancey's Soul Survivor, he states that he has read umpteen books on pain and suffering - I haven't. I hope to. But I haven't yet.

My friend, who is now 28, read me a short piece that she'd written 2 months after her mother passed away from cancer 11 years ago when she was 17. It was quite profound and astute for a 17 year old girl. It caused me to wonder why people write. Even more it caused me to wonder why I'm still writing this blog! :) I can see how it was therapeutic for my friend, and even for myself in the past few months. However, even this week I caught myself asking "why am I still writing when I no longer need to, and really don't always have anything to write about?"

I don't want this to simply be a place of complaining and verbal vomit. And I really don't want to be someone who thinks that my opinion simply must be heard, for that's really not me. I'll stop there for now...but the only reason i can come up with at this point is that I hope some of you find some of it at least a wee bit amusing. For instance, and I'll leave you with this. I think I had a Seinfeld reaction this morning. While waiting, a young fellow (late 20's) sitting close, stopped me in my reading to ask, "What are you reading?" My first thought was to reply, "Well, nothing now!" He proceeded to talk for awhile...in case you wanted to know, he met his girlfriend in a bar in Reno. No, she wasn't there at the shop :) Don't get me wrong, I'm all about talking to people - I just found the situation and concept humorous. Let me know if I need to explain that further.