I’m Sittin’ On The Bed Of The Inn

“I’m sittin’ on the bed of the Inn, Watchin’ the TV screen flicker and dim, I’m just sittin’ on the bed of the Inn, Wastin’ time…”

No no no…wait a minute. Those aren’t the lyrics that Otis Redding came up with when he co-wrote this famous song back in 1967 (sadly, only days later he died in a plane crash–along with most of his band members).

But they are perfectly good words to describe my week thus far.

Early Tuesday morning I drove to Fredericton with my sister-in-law. She had meetings to attend here for a few days and has been busier than a spider spinning a web in a hurricane wind, while I, on the other hand, had almost three days to do whatever I darn well chose to do.

I could have shopped for new winter boots and a jacket, checked out the museums and art galleries in my province’s capital city, or maybe just found a comfortable seat in a local coffee shop and written a few chapters of the novel that I’ve been meaning to pen. The world was my oyster this week.

Where did that idiom even come from–the world is my oyster? I just looked it up and once again our old buddy Shakespeare is credited with the origins of the saying. Pistol, one of the characters in Will’s c.1600 play ‘The Merry Wives of Windsor’ (Act 2, scene 2, 2-5) said “Why then the world’s mine oyster/ Which I with sword will open.” (And that, dear friends, concludes your trivia lessons for today. You’re welcome. And no, I didn’t bring a sword with me to open any oysters.)

So back to my week. I neglected the museums and galleries, but I did go shopping for a few hours and bought a plaid shirt that is back in style this year even for people like me who don’t own horses or wear cowboy boots or belts with huge silver buckles (yee-hah), and two tees to wear with said shirt. I also browsed around a large bookstore near the hotel and found a fairly comfortable seat in the coffee shop that is attached to that bookstore, but I didn’t use that time to pen my novel. Instead I sipped my first and last cup of Pumpkin Spice Latte that cost me almost $5.00 ($5.00!! $5!! FIVE FREAKIN’ DOLLARS!!!) and eavesdropped overheard even though I wasn’t actually trying to overhear, other coffee sipper’s conversations. Hey–who knows–I may have heard wonderful snippets of dialogue to use in my novel when I finally do sit down to pen it. I didn’t, but I could have.

So what did I do with the rest of my free time this week? Well, I checked my email, a lot, checked my news feed on Face Book and Twitter, a lot, sat in the hotel lobby in a comfy chair –a big one that two people could curl up in like The Friendly Giant had in his living room next to the fireplace (I guess I wasn’t finished with your trivia lessons for this week after all)–and sipped a cup of regular black FREE coffee while I read a newspaper and eavesdropped on overheard other lobby-sitter’s conversations. More novel fodder, perhaps.

In my hotel room I spent my time much the same as I did when I was in the coffee shop or lobby, except that the only voices I heard in my room were the ones coming from the television I switched on to see if there was anything interesting or entertaining to watch, and the ones in my head, but that’s another story for another day. There wasn’t anything worth watching on TV, by the way, even though I flicked from channel to channel to channel.

And that’s when I decided to write a blog post detailing my week. If I wasn’t going to work on a novel or the collection of monologues I have spinning their webs in my head (more voices), then at least I should write a new blog post. So here it is. The post. New.

But now it’s time to pack my bag, grab one more cup of free coffee from the hotel lobby, drive to the office to pick up my sister-in-law and head for home. I told my s-i-l that I would stop at a coffee shop on the way to the office and buy a sandwich for her to eat during our drive to Sackville, and if I hurry maybe I will have time to sit in that shop for a few minutes and eavesdrop on pay attention to other sandwich-buyer’s conversations they may have with their children or spouses or friends or colleagues.

So fair warning–if you live in Fredericton or have visited the city this week, and if you have frequented a coffee shop or hotel lobby in this city this week, and if I ever actually write the novel I ‘m planning to write, and if you ever happen to read the novel I may write, and if you read the novel I may write and then think that you recognize one of the conversations in it as one you’ve had this week although the characters in my novel look nothing like you and sound nothing like you…you may be right.

I hope you understand that I really had no other choice but to take notes and file them away for possible future reference, because it was either do that or go back to “Sittin’ on the bed of the Inn, Watchin’ the TV flicker and dim…” and that just didn’t seem like any kind of sensible choice to make at all.

Now I’m off to pick up sandwiches. Thanks so much for stopping by and please, don’t be a stranger.