Literary Thimblerig

Oh, I have so many things to tell you. And yet, I won’t tell you any of them.

It’s been some time since I sat down and brought you up to speed on the goings-on at the Gredstead and it’s understandable that you would be wondering “whither went my gren?” And sadly, any assumption you would make concerning a correlation between a lack of posts and a lack of post-worthy events in and around my life would be erroneous. The days are just packed, my friends…the days are just packed. There are countless tales to tell, any one of which would, no doubt, amuse you enough to illicit a long string of comments. But, I’ve not taken the precious moments to inform you, my treasured webby-friends, since what rare minutes I have had to dedicate to word craft have recently been targeted upon the tale (previously mentioned) of a little girl and a certain mysterious creature. The words, they come slowly and are oft deleted. The process is taking longer than I had anticipated, so I’m leaching time from other tasks.

And so, you will not be informed of Jet’s triumph at the comedy competition. His advancement to the finals round in single-elimination, to-the-death, comedian vs. comedian battle will go unreported on this site.

You will also never know about the date night that Moonshot and I shared…our first since Norah joined us. And that’s sad, because MoMa and Aunt Gimpy’s kindly journey to St. Charles for the sole purpose of allowing Jolly Green’s tired parents an evening of out-on-the-town-ness would have made a compelling post. I’m sure you would have enjoyed knowing that we two love-birds enjoyed a wonderful dinner, a tasty pitcher of 1554, and compelling dinner conversation before huddling together through the cold to watch “Pan’s Labyrinth” at St. Louis’s lovely old Tivoli Theater.

It’s especially tragic, this misplaced literary attention, because today is Norah’s six-month birthday. It’s a big day in Little Lutine’s life. But, sadly her selfish father is too busy telling tall tales to even mention it in his blog. Although she appears to mumble only non-sense as she shows off her newfound rolling ability, you would not be blamed for assuming that her intent is a guilt-inducing rendition of “Cat’s in the Cradle” directed at her fiction-obsessed father. When her small fingers have grown enough dexterity to press the keyboard, no doubt she will craft a post of her own, detailing that horrific day, the 29th of January, on which her father could not be bothered to tear his awareness from an imaginary girl long enough to notice the very real little girl cooing desperately for his attention.

And you, being both kind-hearted and a victim of my lack of concern in your own right, will most assuredly take Norah’s side in this issue. You will say, rightly, that Jet’s on-stage accomplishment deserved more than a mere cast-away mention in a feeble blog-post in which I tried to hide my drought of detail and dearth of content behind an only mildly amusing gimmick. You, being the insightful reader that you are, will recognize immediately that I am trying to buy you off with a literary device in which I occupy your attention with a convoluted logic structure in hopes that you will not notice that I am, even now, moving swiftly toward the conclusion of this post so that I can return to my fiction.

“Don’t take your eyes off the shells,” I smile as I deftly hide the ball and pocket your hard-earned cash.

It’s almost criminal.