Casey’s recent “Week in the Life” blog has inspired me to keep track of my own exciting life. Here goes:

Monday: Today I have to get serious about the big marketing report I have to write for my friend in New York. He was my boss back when I was managing editor of Beverage Industry Magazine. Now’s he’s a honcho grande at a beverage marketing firm. Once a year I write a report for him. It pays big bucks and helps subsidize my novel writing the rest of the year. This year I’m writing a report on the beverage industry in Mexico – a topic I know nothing about. But, hey! I’m a novelist, right? Hampering my work is a very sick computer. It takes forever to get on-line and it drops off-line unexpectedly, making the mountains of research I have to do a real bitch. My computer guru friend, Jimmy, has been promising to come out for two weeks. No sign of him yet. He’s also building my website. No sign of that yet, either.

Tuesday: Last night I had dinner with my Persian friend, Manoucher Parvin. His friend Hashem Dezhbakhsh is visiting from Atlanta, where he is chairman of the economics department at Emory University. Manoucher is a retired economics professor himself, and a novelist, and a poet. Hashem’s wife was there, too. She told us about what life is like in Iran these days. It is verboten for men and women to mingle in public. Even wedding parties are frowned on by the morality police. Jolita Kavalinius was also at the dinner. She’s a Lithuanian, and a retired professor of French literature. I keep pretty good company for a bumpkin from Bennett’s Corners, Ohio, no?

More Tuesday: Jimmy showed up and fixed my computer. Yeah! It took him all of fifteen minutes. The rest of the time we looked at our high school yearbook and listened to old tapes of our rock and roll band. We laughed and laughed at the 16-year version of me signing Louie Louie, Hang on Snoopy and You Really Got Me.

Wednesday: First thing this morning I got an email from one of the women in my Writing That Novel class at the University of Akron. She’s dropping out. She says she isn’t ready to start writing yet. I always lose one or two like that. And it always makes me feel bad. Like I’m a real phony baloney or something. Anyway, tonight I have to get my remaining students ready to write that first scene of their first chapter. I’m going to read them quotes by famous writers on the courage to start writing. I’m going to hand out Casey’s wonderful essay on wabi sabi writing. I’m going to go over the first three pages of my own novel in progress, to show them how to start with action, introduce the main character, establish the setting, capture the ol’ zeitgeist (spirit of the time), use dialogue, weave in back story, make sure there’s some early conflict that hints at the main character’s problem, and make sure readers can visualize it all in their heads. All in the first 500 words or so.

Thursday: Last night’s class went well. When I got home, Carol had a rotisserie chicken from the supermarket waiting for me. God love her. And the poor chicken. Today I have to finish my marketing report section on bottled water and then go to the doctor who takes care of me from the neck up. I have go get my Effexor prescription renewed. I take the pretty red capsules for panic attacks. Not to have a panic attack – as much fun as they are — but to avoid having them. Then I have to go to Home Depot to get a gift card for my niece. She’s getting married Saturday.

Friday: I didn’t make it to Home Depot, so I’ll have to go today, after my other doctor’s appointment. This is the doctor who takes care of me from the neck down — and always gives me a hard time for not losing weight. I have to remember to tell him about my fingers. They keep locking up. It’s probably arthritis or carpel tunnel or something. Then again it could be my muse hinting that I should get a real job. Yesterday, by the way, my above-the-neck doctor and I spent my entire appointment discussing the poor quality of drinking water in the developing world. He also told me about the Inca Cola his son brought back from Peru.

Friday update: It’s arthritis. Not the serious kind. Just the normal middle-age kind. My below-the-neck doctor attributes it to my kitchen cabinet painting. The old fingers just aren’t used to it. He says to take some Motrin. And I am not only overweight, I am obese! According to that stupid Body Mass Index chart of his, anyway. I am six-feet-one and weigh 226. Is that really so bad? Okay, I’m not the beanpole I was in high school, but I can still see my toes when I look down. If I lean out a little. A couple of years ago I did that South Beach Diet thing. And I did temporarily lose weight. It was a fun diet. All I had to do was replace all the pasta, bread and potatoes with big bowls of sugar-free Jello smothered with fake whipped cream. The pounds just jiggled off into the ether. Then Thanksgiving came. One slice of pumpkin pie and I looked three months pregnant.

Saturday: The Bosox crushed my Indians last night. But, hey, I’ve got a big day in head of me. As Peter Noone of Hermit Hermit’s once sang, “It ain’t no good to pine.” So after walking the dogs and having a couple cups of coffee, I went out for groceries. I bought lots of fruit (to fight my obesity) and the fixings for tacos (to give the fruit something to fight.) I also bought stuff for a meatloaf and au gratin potatoes. That’s what I’m making for Carol’s parents tomorrow. Let a beverage expert make a prediction: Soy milk is going to become very popular with the masses. Exhibit one: regular milk prices are sky high. Exhibit two: my always trendy wife has started buying it. Exhibit three: my supermarket has just moved the soy milk from the cooler in the health food section to a much larger cooler in dairy. Sorry Judy, you’ll have to make Stella a vegan. This afternoon I am going to paint another kitchen cupboard then go to my niece’s wedding.

Sunday: What a terrific wedding last night. It was held at my niece’s new husband’s parent’s farm. It is one of the last big working farms in Hinckley. Everyone piled on three huge hay wagons and bounced around on bales to the middle of a beautiful rolling field. An outdoor chapel of sorts was made out of hay bales, pumpkins and potted mums. It was very country. The bride wore a wedding dress with cowboy boots. The groom wore jeans and a plaid shirt. After the vows, they walked off to a big John Deere combine. They crawled aboard, fired the great green leviathan up and together cut a long row of corn. Then everybody climbed back on the wagons and off we went to the barn for a pig roast. Very tasty. So were the many, many home-baked pies. This is how weddings ought to be. A true celebration of the couple’s values and dreams. Our Sunday dinner today was pretty good, too. My meatloaf and au gratin potatoes were terrific. My mother-in-law brought some apple crisp. Then Carol and I spent the afternoon living our values and dreams: She went to the mall. I napped through the Browns game. Then she raked leaves and I painted some more cupboards. As soon as I upload this, I’m going to fry up some of the leftover meatloaf for my supper.