{"id":2530,"date":"2005-03-05T15:23:29","date_gmt":"2005-03-05T20:23:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=2530"},"modified":"2022-10-09T16:06:36","modified_gmt":"2022-10-09T20:06:36","slug":"my-latest-writing-assigment-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=2530","title":{"rendered":"My latest writing assigment \u2013 part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here is part 1.<\/a><\/p>\n

So this morning I had a loooooong teleconference with Cashel, about the book he has basically commissioned me to write. The book “on nature and storms”. It started out with a heart-crack moment, because we sort of did the chit-chat thing (which I’m not good at, and neither is he). “Hi, how are you?” “Fine. Good.” Dead-ends galore. Cashel’s voice sounded tiny and almost monotone. There were MANY awkward pauses. Then Cashel said, in a completely different voice altogether, kind of alert and serious, “Auntie Sheila, I really hope that you will think about writing that book on nature and storms.”<\/p>\n

And with that, we were off and running. Cashel and I talked about nature and storms for 45 minutes. We planned out our book. We brainstormed. I wrote down everything he said.<\/p>\n

Here, briefly, is what Cashel wants: There will be two distinct sections of the book. One on STORMS. And one on NATURE. These are not one and the same and must be separated out.<\/p>\n

We took on the “storms” part first. We started listing all the different kinds of “storms”. We include “natural disasters” under this category, by the way.<\/p>\n

Here is the list – My contributions were “hurricane”, “blizzard” and “volcano eruption”. All else came from Cashel:<\/p>\n

Hurricane
\nDrought
\nLightning
\nTsunami
\nFlood
\nEarthquake
\nBlizzard
\nMud slide
\nTyphoon
\nVolcano<\/p>\n

Then came the NATURE discussion. Now, to me … where I was going with the whole “nature” thing was to get into all the different elements in nature: animals, mountains, ocean, stuff like that. I was very quickly made to realize that that was not what Cashel had in mind at all.<\/p>\n

Here is where the conversation got really deep.<\/p>\n

I said, “Okay. So now we move on to ‘Nature’. I am thinking we should have different sections in the book for – like – the beach. Or flowers. Or redwood trees.”<\/p>\n

Cashel interrupted me, and his voice dripped<\/i> with scorn and irritation. “Auntie Sheila, no, not trees and flowers. Not THAT. They’re not DANGEROUS.”<\/p>\n

I slowly realized that the book was actually going to be a list of dangers, throughout the planet.<\/p>\n

“Oh … okay … so just dangerous stuff in nature, then?”<\/p>\n

I felt confused. Because to me, all the dangerous stuff in nature we had already covered (typhoon, earthquake, etc.) Oh, how narrow-minded and unimaginative I am. Cashel, in an extended monologue, set me straight.<\/p>\n

He said, “Yes – like SICKNESSES.”<\/p>\n

“Sicknesses?”<\/p>\n

“Sicknesses can be VERY dangerous!” (Again, the irritation in his voice. I was slow on the uptake.)<\/p>\n

“Yes, Cash-man. You’re right. They can be very dangerous.”<\/p>\n

“Like tuberculosis.” Cashel rattled this one off.<\/p>\n

I wrote down, under my “Nature” heading the word: “Tuberculosis.”<\/p>\n

“Yup. Tuberculosis.” (Where the hell did he get that??)<\/p>\n

Then came this monologue from Cashel: “And here’s another one. You go to China, okay? And you pick up a virus in China. Then you come home, and you get a cold, and then BOOM.” (He shouted “Boom”) “You’re dead. Your white blood cells can’t fend the virus off.”<\/p>\n

I literally wanted Cashel to keep talking in this vein FOREVER.<\/p>\n

I said, “Right. White blood cells are very important. So what other sicknesses?”<\/p>\n

Cashel began to brainstorm. He said, “Heart attack.” I wrote it down. He clarified for me, his stupid auntie, “Basically any kind of sickness caused by NATURE.”<\/p>\n

Then, out of nowhere, Cashel said in a serious voice, “I think the most dangerous thing in nature is ourselves.”<\/p>\n

I felt that go right through me. I felt his essence, his little serious essence. It was a deep moment.<\/p>\n

I said, “Ourselves, Cashman?”<\/p>\n

“Yes. Mankind. Mankind is the most dangerous thing in nature.”<\/p>\n

“I think you’re onto something there.”<\/p>\n

“Wars. Look at all the wars.”<\/p>\n

“I know.”<\/p>\n

There really wasn’t much else to say, along those lines … I wanted so badly to be in his presence at that moment, his little sensitive blond-headed presence, and hang out with him, and read with him, and watch movies, and stuff. He’s an incredible person, he really is.<\/p>\n

Then, after the digression into the inherently dangerous nature of mankind, we got back to our list of sicknesses.<\/p>\n

Cashel said, “Heart burn. Also humungous fungus.” There was a long pause, and then Cashel said portentously, “There’s a fungus among us.”<\/p>\n

I burst into laughter, and I heard Cashel laughing silently on the other end. I only knew he was laughing (in that shaking-like-a-bowlful-of-jelly way that he was) because of the occasional gasps for breath. Other than that? Silence.<\/p>\n

We ended the list of “sicknesses caused by nature” with the deadliest of them all:<\/p>\n

“Onion breath.”<\/p>\n

I certainly have my work cut out for me. A book including typhoons and onion breath. I can’t wait to get started.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here is part 1. So this morning I had a loooooong teleconference with Cashel, about the book he has basically commissioned me to write. The book “on nature and storms”. It started out with a heart-crack moment, because we sort … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[1101],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2530"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2530"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2530\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":178294,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2530\/revisions\/178294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}