Sitting on the neighbor's horse the other day (an animal said to require daily chiropractic care now), a glimmer of an idea sparked somewhere in my ankle. Days followed days, weeks followed weeks, lawyers followed ambulances. After a great deal of thought and cat spinning (heads I go ahead, tails I spin again), I’ve decided to move ahead on ghostwriting my autobiography: There, and Lost Again. I’m never easy on those who work for me, however, and I am sure to be no exception. You see, I plan to perform this ghostwriting endeavor as a contractor to myself. At least, that’s my plan. I’ll start out with a detailed outline, goal, theme, literary allusions, namedropping, small animal sketches, etc, then, a month before the deadline, I’ll drop a literary bomb on the poor sucker.
I’ll call him/I up on the speaker phone. We’ll chat for a while, as we often do truth be known, then I’ll launch the literary “rocket bomb,” as Orwell might have called it. Here’s what I’ll likely say to the poor sot.
“Okay, ----, I see that you’ve worked very hard on this. While I appreciate your efforts, I’m afraid I’ve had a change of mind. Instead of an autobiography of me, what I really wanted was me writing an autobiography of my cat, Buttercup. Here’s what I want you to cover in great detail—“
“How can I write an autobiography of a cat, and don’t you mean biography? “
I chuckle to myself. I’ve got him precisely where I want him. “No,” I retort, “I want it from the cat’s perspective. You’ve heard of cat stream of consciousness, haven’t you? Haven’t you ever read Farrah Faulkner’s I Got Cats ?
It’s true at this point, I may encounter an injury or two, but it will be worth it to teach this numb skull a valuable life lesson: don’t trust anyone, least of all yourself.
That's all folks. Remember to tune in next time for... "Take Your Blog to Work Day."
