SOME GOOD STUFF

I’m flattered by all the emails and posts on this site complimenting my writing. I hope someday Zoe will pick up the love and appreciation of words that I learned from my father and godfather and the rest of my family. It comes in handy in school and in the workplace. Even if you don’t know crap, the ability to string together a couple of sentences allows you a better chance to sound like you do. Trust me.

This evening I stumbled across a truly great piece of writing, coincidentally about child birth, that I thought I’d post here. It’s from Tom Robbins’ latest book, titled Villa Incognito. This paragraph is about a main character, Miho, giving birth to her child. Miho is a farm girl previously seduced by Tanuki, a god from The Cloud Fortress that appeared to her in the form of a fat, badger-like animal (I’ll leave the conception out):

“The baby rode in on a sweet summer wind. Miho squatted, animal style, on a bamboo mat and gave birth with scarcely a pang. Describing it later, she made it sound as if, following an hour or two of pressure in her lower abdomen, a big quivering blob of plum jelly had suddenly shot out of her to slide down her thighs. Slick, wet, and tickling. Like a tadpole winnowing out of a cocktail straw.”

A tadpole winnowing out of a cocktail straw? Are you serious? I’ve been blabbering. That’s writing.