“I like your hair like that, Mom,” Marley said to me the morning after my last writers’ group.

I had it pulled to the side in a low ponytail with a piece hanging free in what I hoped was a oh-this-piece-just-won’t-stay-back messy curl, not a perfectly-curly-cued bridesmaidy curl.

“Are you making fun of me or do you really like it?” I asked. Marley can be sarcastic. And I wasn’t particularly feeling like my appearance was compliment-worthy.

“I really like it,” she said.

“Oh good. Thanks,” I answered.

I liked it, but I thought maybe I was trying to look too young. I wasn’t. I was just trying to look put together and semi-professional on a day I did not have time to fix my hair because of this:

This is what happens at writers’ group.

There are six of us in case you’re wondering. Though, to be fair two of the bottles were already open and already half-empty, so we really only drank four.

“So 3/4 of a bottle of wine each?” Dave pointed out to me.

“Uh, no. More like 2/3. What kind of lushes do you think we are?” I replied.

Jeez!

We meet once a month to discuss our goals, share our victories (and failures), support each other and give advice (like actual, useful, requested advice instead of buttinsky-who-asked-you-anyway advice). We also do a ten minute writing exercise each month chosen randomly from a writing prompt app. (Oh yes, there is an app for everything.)

Our writing prompt this month was “List 10 Reasons for not Showering for a Week” and we all laughed because Julie was coming late due to Back to School Night and would be missing the prompt portion of our meeting. And while I’m sure Julie has never gone a week without showering (probably), she doesn’t shower every day. Come to think of it, I’m pretty sure none of us showers every day except for Laurel who sometimes showers twice a day (maybe to make up for our unshowering), but I’m only calling out Julie because she’d tell you herself. (Kim, Rina and Lexi might not want you to know their showering habits.)

The pieces were all funny and clever (because we are all funny and clever) and we had a good time with it.

Some of my reasons for not showering?

• We are in a drought, people!
• Ain’t nobody got time for that.
• It saves electricity – no need to blow dry.
• It saves gas. In fact, I read in the book Gorgeously Green that the number one energy killer in a house was using gas to heat water. Or something like that. I read that book a long time ago. But the foreward was written by Julia Roberts, who won an Oscar for playing Erin Brockvich so whatever I read about using a lot of gas to heat water must be true. (Yeah, not a lot of logic goes into my 10 minute writing prompts.)
• If I run I have to shower. (It seems like the polite thing to do.) So no showering = no running. For a week! Yay!

Alright, I admit, perhaps my reasons for not showering for a week are not that funny and clever. I think I was the weak link on this writing prompt.

And while I would never go an entire week without showering (unless I was camping), I did find it a bit serendipitous that the day after a writing prompt about not showering I went to work without showering and got a compliment from my daughter about my hair.

I’ll have to add that reason to my list.