EILEEN ROSE

Reading Natasha to an adorably rapt audience...(photo by Rich Gilbert)

Yesterday, I was invited to read my new children's book, Natasha The Party Crasher, to these adorable kids. Considering how much time I spend on stage, you might be surprised to hear I was nervous.  The honesty and outspokenness of children can make them a fairly terrifying audience.  But it was so much fun. Not being a parent, I can't remember the last time I was actually inside a proper school.  All those little chairs and colorful, unpredictable and accidentally hilarious art projects hanging on the walls -  I could have wandered around for hours.  But these days, strangers wandering in school hallways is most definitely unacceptable.  So, I had to take it in as quickly as I could. 

I was surprised at how polite and attentive these children were. I think my memories of grade school must be dominated by recess time because I don't remember it being so quiet and peaceful.  I was also pleasantly surprised at how much the kids liked my book!  The changes in their faces were beautiful to watch as Natasha is deserted by her friends and then comes back triumphant. I wish you could see their faces but back of heads only for the internet! They had so many questions which was great! My favorite question: "You wrote that? How did you make it so neat?!" Ha ha! Other favs: "Are you going to make it a movie?", "Why did you write this book?" and, of course, "When will you do the next one?" What a wonderful experience that I hope to repeat soon. 

I wonder if drunk honky tonkers would enjoy a brief story time?

Behold my virgin post on my new Blog called, 'While I've Got You Here.'  I’m not going to lie, I sat through about 8 hours of Youtube videos and one tedious Udemy course just to get this far.  I have no fricken idea if this looks like it’s “supposed” to look but, despite my fragile design skills, I’m feeling cozy here. I’m also feeling a little nervous, like the first time someone handed me the key to my own car – a shitbox, if ever there was one.  She was a Datsun F10, red mixed with rust, with faded go-faster stripes and a stick shift. That’s quite a sexy phrase for manual, isn’t it? 

I purchased that car in a state of 18-year-old, obtuse goofiness. I was not only incapable of driving a stick shift, I didn’t even know that driving a stick was any different from driving an automatic.  I forked over $1,300 in hard-earned Friendly’s Ice Cream waitress tips to the giddy man who sold it to me (that man knew a sucker when he saw one) and forced that poor little car to grind the entire 1.8-mile journey to her new home in first gear. She handled it like a damned trooper.  I remember being a little peeved at the little red trooper when, at a particularly hairy and nearly suicidal X-shaped crossing point on the Tobin Bridge, she almost ended both of us. I was heading up the ramp from Storrow Drive, summoning up all my native Masshole driving bravado to cross over onto Route 1 north during the madness of evening rush hour. I down-shifted, right at the crossing point, and the whole stick, knob and all, came off in my hand in a burst of dried-out plastic.  What’s a girl to do?  I jammed that thing back in, hit the gas and kept on trucking.  Story of my life… 

The photo above is not my exact little, red F-10, but it’s pretty close.  I miss that car.