13 Things That Begin With “W”

W, huh? I thought V was going to be hard, but it turned out to be relatively easy. I’m hoping for good things for W.

Here they are, in no particular order:

1. Words: I make my living using them, so words are extremely important to me. I try to be careful, to use the right word in the right situation but, of course, I make mistakes. We all do from time to time, but I’m perplexed over why words seem so unimportant to some people, and I have very little patience for whatever you call the shorthand people use to text. Ur does not spell your or even you’re. 4get does not spell forget. If U want me to engage in a text conversation with U and Ur using textlish, 4get it.

2. Weekends: For many years, weekends didn’t matter to me. I worked 7 days a week, pretty much every hour I was awake. In the beginning of my writing career, I worked my day job 10 hours or so a day, then came home and wrote until I simply couldn’t stay awake any longer. As you can probably imagine, that eventually led to some burnout and I learned my lesson. All work and no play makes Sherry a very unhappy person. ‘

3. Water: While I grew up in Montana and Utah, which are not close to the sea, I live now along the Gulf Coast, which is close to the sea. In Billings, we had the Yellowstone River, which was a pretty significant water source, and in Utah we had the Great Salt Lake. which was salty, dead water (water flows in but doesn’t flow out just like the Dead Sea), and numerous mountain lakes. But water there didn’t play a significant role in my daily life the way it does here. It seems like water is everywhere round here, and containing and controlling water is a full-time job.

4. Writing: See “Words” above. It’s what I do with the words I use. It’s the only job I’ve ever really wanted to have. And now I have it, which is more than cool.

5. Watches: For some reason, I love them. Owning one just doesn’t seem like enough. In my dream world, I would own one in every color and every possible design. I’d own casual watches and elegant watches, silver watches and gold. Fancy and plain.

6. Walking: Is probably y favorite form of exercise, but that’s not saying much. I’m not a real exercise lover. I hate to sweat, and I have a hard time why anyone would purposely choose to do so.

7, Work: When I was a young girl, I remember a home economics teacher telling us that we would probably spend twenty-five years working. At the time, I didn’t consider writing books to be “work,” and since that’s the only thing I aspired to do, I remember being aghast. What? Me? Work? For twenty-five years? I’m not sure what I expected my life to be, but I do know I wasn’t planning on earning my own living. I must have been planning on having someone support me in the style to which I thought I should be accustomed. Turns out, twenty-five years was a conservative estimate. I guess it’s a good thing I was so far removed from reality at the time. If I’d known what I was in for, it might have done me in.

8. Waterbed: Way back in the olden days, when waterbeds were hugely popular, my (then) husband and I bought one. It was really his idea more than mine, but I went along. He loved it. I was so-so about it. Once we divorced and he took custody of the waterbed, I never bought another one if that tells you anything.

9. Winter: I grew up in Montana and Utah, so winter was a thing for me as a kid. In Montana, it was frequently too cold to snow. Not so much in Utah. Some winters were worse than others, of course, but some were pretty dramatic. Now, I live on the Gulf Coast, where winter means a bit of fain and sometimes a bit of chilly weather. It’s not unusual for me to walk around outside in shorts and a T-shirt in January, enjoying the cooler weather. I miss the idea of snow, but not the reality of it.

10. Wewwy: Although I’ve had several nicknames over the years, this is probably the earliest. When my younger brother came along, that’s how he said my name and it stuck for a little while.

11. Weight: It’s a thing. Whose isn’t? I guess there are a few people who don’t struggle to get/keep their weight where they want it. I am not one of them.

12. Whistle: I’ve always wanted to be able to whistle, but I can’t. If I produce any sound at all, it’s very soft and unsatisfying. My grandmother used to say, “Whistling girls and crowing hens always come to some bad end,” but even that dire prediction didn’t stop me from wanting to whistle while I worked.

13. Wedding: I had one. It wasn’t anything special. In fact, it was so not special, that even all these years later, it is sometimes hard for me to attend other people’s weddings and not feel a few pangs of envy. But it was what it was, and there’s nothing I can do to change it, so I mention it only because (a) it was and (b) I need one last W word to finish this blog post.