Working Four Days in a Row is Hard

Do I sound like that mid-70s talking Barbie? "Math is hard." No matter how they tried to feminist up Barbie she always seemed like a ditz to me. Oh, that reminds me of a woman who was in a fiction-writing workshop I took at UWGB when I first started writing. She was named Barbie and she looked like Barbie. She was in her 50s (at least), had dyed blond hair that she wore in a ponytail, straight bangs, big arched tattooed on brows (I think she shaved off her real ones), lots of makeup, and platform sandal-type heels. Big pointy boobs too. She was kind of scary. She flirted with the prof who was, I think, living in his pickup and did not have a full set of teeth. Ick.

My bulbs are blooming! Every day something else opens. I want to pick them all so I can have them with me everywhere but I resist because it's so cheerful seeing them when I drive up or go out. I wish they'd bloom more of the year but their short life makes them all the more precious.

April 12--New Kingdom Egypt, Chair of Renyseneb. He sat in his chair of ebony with ivory accents listening to his advisers. The hot, dry air of the room only moved because the slave behind him moved the fan he held to cool the Pharaoh. He hated being Pharaoh, hated sitting there sweltering, listening to noblemen complain and his advisers try to get him to support their pet projects. He wanted to be on his barge with his first wife, Nefret. They would fish and hunt. They would lie abed learning the intricacies of each others' form. There would be no gravel-voiced general looking to acquire more land by invasion, no simpering chamberlain currying favor for his wife's nephew. He had enough and rose in the middle of a long-winded account of why the tribute from the fields beyond Amarna was lower. He strode toward the stable stripping off his official trappings. Maybe a ride out into the desert would clear his head. He called for his groom while his attendants scurried behind him gathering up his crown, robes, crook, and flail.

That chair did not look comfortable. Have a day.
--Barbara