I have seven. If you have more, I'd love to hear from you. Here they are:
1. You can go back to covering your legs with yoga pants -- less of that "shaving in case I have to wear shorts" baloney wasting valuable minutes you could be using to write a car chase / edit a dream sequence / sort all of your index cards.
2. You can wear sweaters again. Everyone knows that writers look smarter in sweaters. Cardigans especially. Unless we're wearing those corduroy jackets with the suede elbows -- those make everybody look smart. Although they haven't really made those jackets since the 1950s, and some of us just don't have the shoulders for them. Actually I have the best combination -- a 1940s wool cardigan with suede patches at the elbows. Itchy but oh so writer chic. Also, sweaters are warm when you're huddled over a keyboard because you'll be damned if you're turning on the heat until the end of October. Damned, I say.
3. You can drink hot cocoa. This is a most efficient dietary staple. Not only does this liquid keep you hydrated, but the sugar and caffeine give you energy, so you gain fluids and energy at the same time! Also hot cocoa is yummy.
4. You can exercise off the hot cocoa calories and write (!) in front of Wii Fit with the help of your kid's music stand now that they're back in school. (This is not an actual commercial endorsement of Wii Fit; I just don't know how to work any of the other electronic devices we own.) Think of it as re-purposing something they're not there to use. You put your laptop or your manuscript on the stand (no, no, it's strong enough; just find a good angle and stabilize everything with duct tape like we do in our house) and try using Ski Jump. When you're in that jump position holding steady on your toes and hoping for the most air time, what better way to take your mind off the fact that your calves are killing you and you don't know how much longer you can hold this position without passing out, than by reading over those last edits you made on page 73? There'll be time between jumps to turn pages or make notations. The Wii will wait for you to get back on. Yes it will.
NOTE: Do not try this with that Ninja Step exercise -- it will be hard to explain to the Geek Squad how your laptop fell off the music stand (again) when you lost your balance (again) doing step aerobics with angry-looking, fiercely disciplined cartoon characters.
ADDITIONAL NOTE: Don't have kids? You know that annoying boy down the street who practiced the bassoon at 7 a.m. every day all summer when you thought you'd finally get to sleep in a little because there weren't other kids shrieking at the bus stop in front of your house at that godforsaken hour? He has a music stand. And his parents have got to rake the back lawn sometime this fall. And they never ever lock the front door. Just bring something to keep the dog quiet. What. It's theft with a higher purpose. Look, a healthy writer is a productive writer. You start doing major bestseller work and finally making those home improvements you've been trying to get to for years and their real estate value goes up, too. They'll forgive a little B&E.
AND ONE MORE NOTE: Do you know just how much bassoons cost? If they can afford to buy him a bassoon, they can spring for another stand. You may even get a day or two's bassoon-less peace out of it while they're out shopping for a replacement.
5. You can close the windows. This will be great, especially if that bassoon-playing little twerp gets his stand replaced right away. But it will also keep your neighbor -- the one who thinks "work at home" means you watch old Oprah episodes and eat bon bons all day -- from being unable to believe you just can't hear her when she's called you for the fourth time this morning from her patio behind your office to come "hang out". What did you say? What? Try it. Close the window. Turn your back. You might hear the mumble of a call, but do not turn around. Closed windows in autumn are perfectly justified. Now get back to writing that scene where your heroine rescues the orphanage children from her creepy ex-fiance who's turned out to be... wait a minute. It's your book. You take it from here. Your neighbor will go back inside. Eventually.
6. You can more easily imagine wintry love scenes. You know the ones: a hunky yet sensitive and completely sexually skilled male and a vulnerable yet sassy female, trapped in a solitary cabin in the middle of a blizzard, with only candlelight, a blazing fire, a nice faux fur bearskin, and each other...
I PROMISE THIS IS THE LAST NOTE: My advocacy of faux fur has nothing to do with animal rights. It's washable. Oh, come on. Tell me you've never read something called "erotica" and thought, "Jees, are these two ever going to take a shower or what?" Would you want your children or your kitten to play on that bearskin? Ever tried to wash real fur? It isn't pretty. And you can't imagine what it does to the lint bin in the dryer.
7. You can take long walks with your dog (in your sweater! and your yoga pants!) while you work out your next scene or dialog in your head, and 1) you won't need sunscreen; 2) it's exercise, in case the Wii (or XBox, or Playstation, whatever) sessions have gotten too embarrassing ever since your neighbor caught you at it because you forgot to close the blinds (oh. I didn't mention that you should do that, did I.); 3) you can rehearse your dialog out loud and people will just think you're training your dog; and 4) you probably won't die of heatstroke trying to get back up the hill to your house since it's not a hundred zillion degrees with three thousand percent humidity anymore. Probably. Depends, really, on the cocoa intake, and just how heavy that sweater is.
