A bird pooped on me in Tennessee. It landed on my arm. The poop, that is. And there was no running water in the vicinity. So I let it remain.

My good friend Josh Sherman came into town recently, and invited me to a fancy Chicago BBQ along with his mom. It was wonderful. Cajun salmon, soy ice cream, white wine, lots of adult conversation. I felt like a real person. 

But then Josh's mom, a lovely woman with short gray hair, a fellow Northwestern grad, and a total type-A, alpha-female New Yorker, cornered me on the couch and started to pick my life apart. Then I started to feel like a child again. Totally aimless, without hope of direction, dizzy from putting my forehead on the baseball bat and spinning around too many times.

Josh's mom said I needed to read a book. A book about writing and life. She said it had all the answers for a creative soul trying to tough it out, the hard days. I promised I would read it. And now I have.

I love Josh Sherman's mom. I think, at some weird level, she understands me better than I do myself. At least, she always seems to have the right things to say, the right books and articles to recommend, the right advice to impart. And this was no exception. Bird by Bird is a charming, self-deprecating book about what it means to be a writer, what it takes to stay a writer, and how to arm yourself with lots of little tricks and tools to make yourself believe you have what it takes to be, well, a writer. 

Thank you, Mrs. Sherman. Until next time.