My life is not interesting

It’s bleak, my friends. Typically, when I come here to write this column, the words fill the page as fast as my fingers can dance across the keyboard. Mad thoughts jump into my head and then present themselves in crazed paragraphs before I can give so much as a moment’s thought to what I am writing. Why, it’s practically automated, my hands controlled by the gibbering gremlins who inhabit the interior of my skull. But not this week. Before me is a great, white sea of nothingness. A sea in the doldrums. Not a single anecdote from the police beat tickles my brain and no “you’ll never guess what I saw on Pine Street!” inspiration has squirmed its way into my head. I got nothing — nothing but seasonal despair and dull gray thoughts of encroaching winter. I have failed you.

Lewiston’s Colisée is alive and well

However, to avoid dealing with another sour editor …

New owners are taking over at The Colisée and we’ll have hockey, circuses and public skating just like we’re used to. It’s good news, all in all, but I’m thinking that there should be a rule wherein the building must bear the name of each owner who has come and gone over the years. I look forward to spring graduations inside the Jones-Franklin-Merriwhether-Abbot-Snodgrass-Bell-Finkelstein-Manning-Clarkson-Whipple Colisée.

I am also lazy

I suppose I could have looked up the real history of Colisée owners for that bit, but do you know how much time that would have taken? Plus, I’m pretty sure no one named Finkelstein and Snodgrass have owned the joint and I really wanted to use those surnames.

But not TOO lazy

You will notice that I correctly placed that little accent doohickey thingamabob over the “e” in Colisée so that an editor won’t have to curse me under his breath and do it himself. Unfortunately, hunting down and placing that thingy has completely sapped me of strength and I’m not sure if I can continue for … let’s see … carry the two … 60 more words!

Also, spiders

Now that summer is dead and rotting black in its grave, I should start a tally of the number of times I’ve walked, face-first, into a spider’s web. I’ve got three so far, and if I could take onto the dance floor the mad moves I bust trying to remove said spider from my hair, shirt and/or underpants, I’d be John #!@$!!@ Travolta.

Dance fever

OK, John Travolta probably isn’t the most modern example of a skilled dancer I could have used, but if I wanted to bring things up to date, I’d have to look up how to spell “Shakira” and honestly. I just don’t have the energy for it.

Shakira is old news

I’m told that an even more timely example of an excellent dancer would be Misty Copeland. Waddaya know? I can spell that, and by including her it brings me to the proper column word count so I can hang it up for the day.

Mark LaFlamme is an award-winning Sun Journal reporter and columnist. He’s covered the nighttime police beat since 1994, which is just grand because he doesn’t like getting out of ed before noon. He is the author of eight published novels and rides a dual sport motorcycle everywhere he goes. Unless it’s winter, in which case he just sulks a lot.