Or at least these are the questions I frequently ask myself. So why not put in an adorable picture, and call it a Valentine’s Day special?

Question: Do you honestly get your kicks out of writing these muses?

Answer:  Okay, truth. I love laughing, and my deep hope is that you’re laughing along with me. And if I can’t make you laugh, I’ll try to wow you with cuteness (like with that photo above) or do something just as amusing.

Question: You don’t take this writing thing seriously, do you? You’re not looking for readers or expecting to market this muse.

Answer:  Yes, I do! I do! I do! I deliberately keep my muse ad-free because ads are annoying, not because I want people to ignore me. Marketing means as much to me as polyester back in the day when I quit Bob’s Big Boy and swore I’d never wear it again. Come to find out it’s in everything. So, yes, I need it, but since I’m not going to become a household name wearing a polyester uniform at Bob’s Big Boy, stick with me until I figure out how to get more people interested in what I write.

Question: Why don’t you write a book already? You have enough material.

Answer: The book is here in every muse I write, but it’s not materialized yet because I don’t have enough people who would read it. So while I’m learning this marketing stuff, please go ahead and read my blog and, by all means, pretend it’s a book.

Question: You’ll get down to business, and you won’t care about us anymore. We’ll all be like, “We liked you better when you wrote your muse, and nobody knew you even existed.”

Answer: I know it’s not a question, but I have a story that applies here anyway.

In college, we felt stranded on a cruise for spring break with honeymooners and older couples– we were the young college kids wanting to have fun with no one our age. As we waited in line every night for dinner, we noticed this lame piano player who played classical music. (What else would you expect on such a cruise.) Nobody paid any attention to him, so we went over and asked him if he played any actual songs. Of course, he could play anything. So we fed him songs to play. We’d sing along when he’d play “Carolina on My Mind” and “Piano Man.” By the last night, we had made piano man the best thing that cruise had going on. His little room was packed and overflowing. It was amazing. We called out to everyone, “We made him. He was a nobody before we came along.”

And then we said, “Sing Carolina On My Mind.” And someone started booing and the boos increased. And someone yelled, “We went to Duke, and we hate that song..” Others started joining in on the momentum against us. So the piano man looked at us as if he was sorry, but he couldn’t play our song anymore.

Since I know how bad that felt, I would never do that. No matter what happens, I’ll never forget you’ve made me. I will always be there for you.

Question: I have too much going on in my life; how do you expect me to read your muses?

Answer: That’s an easy one. Everyone has a few minutes to sit down and have a laugh. Don’t be that person who doesn’t have time for a bit of a joy break.

Question: Do you really want to talk to/interview/meet/drool over Hugh Jackman?

Answer: Remind me to tell you about when I met Rob Lowe; it’s a funny one; I do get crazy ideas in my head. But this is Hugh we’re talking about and, yes, I want to meet him. I thought I was getting somewhere when a famous writer gave me a tip on how to make that happen: read an article written on Anne Hathaway dishing on Hugh Jackman in “Les Miserables.” So I’ll share that article with you now (since it appears the closest we’ll be getting to him anytime soon.) https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/movies/2018/11/04/anne-hathaway-hugh-jackman-lost-his-shooting-les-miserables/1889085002/

Question: What’s it like having fake breasts?

Answer:  They feel fake; what else would you expect? But they give me something to joke about, especially when I can’t think of any other way to be funny.

Question: What have you done that you can no longer blame on chemo?

Answer: Since I do something ridiculous weekly, I’ll have to answer that by telling you the latest. Thursday, I backed up the car while the garage door was opening, and I sliced off the radar on the top of my car like a sliver of meat at the deli counter. Did you know that weird little wing-like thing on the top of the vehicle houses your radar? My knowledge expands, and I become more intelligent with every dumb thing I do.

Question: Whatever happened to all those basketball stories? (Okay, this one’s for you, Alex). You know you never finished your AirDare series, and you had two of the best ones planned for the end. Or, quite simply, are you ever going to write about basketball again?

Answer: Funny you should ask. If you care enough about those two missing AirDare’s, I’ll resurrect them. But speaking of resurrecting, I’ve been back in the basement. You know the project where I sort through all those newspapers and memories that survived the fire, barely, and we don’t know what to do with them. Well, it’s back. And just in time, because Dad has been named a part of The NBA 75th Anniversary Team (Team75)–the 75 top NBA basketball players of all time. (It wasn’t too difficult for me to figure out their logic: they put the original 50 in there and added 25 more names to be honored next Sunday at the NBA All-Star game in Cleveland.) Here’s the archive on Dad if you want to know what they have to say about him as a player. https://www.nba.com/75/player/billy-cunningham-76487

However, I’ve never been one for statistics. So how about a new series on the top 75 stories we’ve been hoarding in our basement. And, yes, that will involve lots of basketball stories. You saw the picture of me above at my first basketball game almost 50 years ago. Proof, you never know what you’ll find to talk about in that basement.