Continuing my alphabetical trip through my favorite reasons for procrastinating….

Tragedy. There have been several tragedies in the news this week, when community institutions, rather than serving the public, caused harm or death. Trust in these institutions took years, and even generations to build, and yet all could be gone in a day. I know that have been more demonstrations this week about yet another death of a person of color in the custody of the police, and my reaction is not writing about it, but trying very hard to listen to the stories and reactions of the people around me, the women who have to tell their sons different rules of behavior than I had to tell mine.

There is another tragedy as well. And while it’s one thing to talk about police allegedly causing death, I think we all can agree that ICE CREAM shouldn’t kill you!

The Blue Bell recall is tragic for the people who died from ingesting the listeria and a community that can lose its livelihood due to one microscopic germ. Much like Stephen King’s THE STAND, we could really be brought down as a nation by something that small.

But in my life, no writing will happen  without the motivation of Blue Bell as a reward for my thousand words.