The word of the week is PROSTAGLANDIN. I just really love this word even though I don't really, truly comprehend all the complexities of its meaning because I hear the word biochemistry and I stop listening very suddenly.

–noun
1. Biochemistry. any of a class of unsaturated fatty acids that are involved in the contraction of smooth muscle, the control of inflammation and body temperature, and many other physiological functions.
2. Pharmacology. any commercial preparation of this substance.

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.

I'm starting to work through this book - Fiction Writer's Workshop- that has a series of writing practices and exercises. Most of my entries in this blog over the next few weeks will probably be fiction-based exercises out of this book. Tonight's exercise is a practice in character development where you have to completely describe a character without giving detail to the face, using body language, shape, posture, and gait. The purpose is to describe a person without using facial description, to show not tell. Since this is the first attempt, I don't expect it to be a great masterpiece... in any event, it's a start!

P.S. Remember, this is fiction. This isn't about anyone real.
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He sits slumped in a corner, mouth agape, crumbs from his TV dinner hiding like buried treasure in his unkempt beard. The TV flashes brilliant colors and discordant noises as the channels flick from one to another. He barely registers the channels before his thumb spasms over the channel button. His shoulders are rounded, turning his body into a ponderous s-shape that seems beaten down both from age and weight. The stained tee shirt he is wearing allows his rotund belly to peek out from the frayed hemline, just above the waistband of his worn-out, paper thin jeans.

This is his evening routine – microwave dinner, TV, Budweiser. The only things that change are the shows he watches and the meals he eats, but even with those there is a great deal of regularity. Tuna casserole on Mondays, fried chicken on Tuesdays, Salisbury steak on Wednesdays, etc. The fact that these mealtime habits will only lead to a quadruple bypass in 5 years seems to hold no importance.

So here he parks himself, in his tattered brown tweed recliner, with its patches on the arms from overuse, beer can in hand. His hands are gnarled and knotted, with short stubby fingers and wrinkled pink scars. He heaves himself up to throw out his empty can and grab a new one, waddling out of his living room and into the kitchen. His legs, bowed from years of standing, seem to groan under his weight. To return to his position on the chair, he plops back down, causing the recliner to rock back and forth, and a bit of foam to spill. Swearing under his breath, he reclaims his remote and wraps his heavy hands around it, returning to his endless game of flicking amongst the channels, and all is right in his world once more.

So here we are, in "paradise," ready to continue this chapter of our lives and it still hasn't quite hit me that we're going to be living here. It still sort of feels like a vacation- a long vacation. Like we're strangers living in a strange place, tourists in a completely foreign environment. I think once we get a set daily schedule it might feel more real, but I'm not there yet. This is something so completely different for a city girl like me. It's not bad at all, just completely different and outside my comfort zone. The "island time" idea completely contradicts my desire for efficiency and my "D," task-oriented personality.

I'm looking forward to the limitless inspiration that a place like this can provide, the way it will completely alter my world view. I know it's a huge adjustment and that there will be times I get frustrated with Andy and with the living situation and will want nothing more than to come home. But this will only make our relationship stronger, more complete, and provide a deeper understanding of what we need to live and what is just marketing.

Per my daddy's request, he wished that I clarify that I did not beat him for "weeks and weeks" at Monopoly- it was only about a week or two of me beating him (almost daily, though). I was, by the way, 5 or 6 years old at the time. He then proceeded to buy a book, aptly titled "How to Win at Monopoly" and only then did he manage to foil the five year old Monopoly whiz kid that I was.

As a side note, I have since lost that ability to dominate at Monopoly and now lose just about every time I play.

Just FYI, don't expect too many posts in the next couple weeks. Things are already crazy and hectic and its only going to get worse and worse as the days wear on and we near moving day - August 22.

By the way, check out some of my latest content at www.daveramsey.com/momentum. I wrote virtually all the content on the site and I think it's some of my best work so far.

Thick, furrowed branches of cypress trees squirm restlessly, shackled in the soft, icy white sand. Violent waves shatter against the scabrous rocks, disrupting the native inhabitants from their silent slumber. Dense marine layers form a misty veil over the rugged skyline. All the words and images in the world, all the carefully crafted imagery still can't quite do the Monterey peninsula justice.

My parents are spending the next ten days in one of my favorite places in the whole world and my overwhelming jealously has sent me into a thoughtful meditation on this place with which I am so familiar I could almost call it home. Monterey holds some of the most vivid memories for me - more so than most anywhere else I can think of. The dynamic images of its wild and unobtrusive beauty have been seared into the quiet corners of my mind.

I remember the tiny Capuchin monkey who danced around on a leash for pennies and nickels while a man with an accordion played a Carnival tune on the pier. To this day I don't understand what a monkey was doing on the pier or how legal that situation truly was. I remember the sounds of the sea lions barking their lazy discourse from the docks while fish mongers hocked their daily catches. I remember the smell of the ocean, wearing jackets in the summertime, and identifying sea life in the tide pools. I remember days spent at the aquarium, huge steak sandwiches from Jack London's, shopping in Carmel, and catching butterflies and feeding deer in Pacific Grove. I remember quietly wandering the grounds of the Carmel mission and dreaming of one day getting married there (I'm still dreaming about renewing my vows there). I remember beating dad at Monopoly for weeks and weeks at a time. I remember the brick wall at Casanova's that led to a clamorous accidental mixture of my tears and blood and Chris's guilt. I remember climbing the Cypress trees, back when you were actually allowed to do it, and building forts and slides in the brush that grows on the dunes near the ocean.

There is so much that I remember and so much that I know I have forgotten. There is so much that I want to remember, so much that I want to show Andy, so much that I want to share with him. Just as Longboat Key is a part of his memory, Monterey is a part of mine. Is it possible that a location can hold such an intense profusion of happy memories that it becomes inextricably linked with your psyche? Is it possible to truly understand a person without seeing the parts of their life that mean so much, without understanding the essential parts of their formative years? Who knows. But I do know that my parents went to Monterey without us, so another year will go by that I will miss Monterey. But I know that next year we'll go and I'll be able to introduce Andy to it, and perhaps it will become a place that holds just as many memories for him and for us, as it does for me.