I’ve spent most of today working on a 1500 word profile for my Practice of Writing class. It is due tomorrow night, and while I am enjoying writing it, the going is slow. I’ve got nothing fresh or exciting to write here (I’m afraid this is going to start happening a lot), but I can give you a couple of paragraphs from the profile.

I’m writing about my neighbor, the spunky Mrs. B, who can always be counted on to give me both a laugh and a cookie. If this thing is any good when it’s all done, I’ll post the full length version. If it sucks, well, you’ll never hear me speak of it again.

She has left the door to her 20th floor apartment unlatched, so after one knock to announce myself, I nudge the door open and walk in. Mrs. B is standing in her mostly-unused galley-style kitchen, wielding a bread knife that’s as long as her arm, with which she is attempting to open a package of cookies that her daughter had brought her earlier that day. As she tugs at the silver-colored cellophane, she starts talking without even looking up, about the lunch she just had with her daughter and granddaughter and how the salad they served her at Continental was far too large.

Each time I see Mrs. B, I am taken aback by how tiny she is. In her prime she barely topped 5 feet tall, but after nearly 89 years of living, she has diminished to a stooped 4 feet 6 inches. Standing next to her, I feel like a giant. Her hair is a meticulously teased cloud the color of apricots that frames a minimally wrinkled face. She wears a pair of red, pointy framed glasses balanced on her nose, that are attached to a beaded chain around her neck that is primary for show, as I’ve never seen her take them off her face. Her voice is that of a former smoker and when she laughs, it is a good-natured cackle.