No, not recently. This was many years ago, before we had kids, and before I realized that, well, I don’t like the gym. Don’t like my prowess (or lack thereof) being on display. Don’t enjoy the monotony of the machines. And really hate the virtually inaudible televisions playing through all of it. Anyway, even if I did like the gym, I can’t afford it any longer.

But back then I could, and my husband and I made it a point for about, oh, three weeks to go each morning, shower, and head off to work from there. Sometimes we even had time for a dip in the Jacuzzi together. All right, there were some cool things about the gym.

Anyway, there I was, climbing up the stairs in an endless flight to nowhere, and looking around vacantly. A book on the floor caught my eye, as I have always preferred books to TV, and I squinted to see it. What a great title! I thought.

Arugula’s Mother.

What could a book called that be about?

After a while–a very, very, very long while it seemed–my workout was done and I stepped down and ambled sweatily over to that book. (Oh, OK, I probably wasn’t sweaty. Rare was the day that I worked up a real sweat.)

The book belonged to someone who unlike me had achieved the mantle of sweatiness, one of those workout people I wished I could be. She was running so hard she didn’t even notice me glancing down at her book.

Which wasn’t called Arugula’s Mother, or anything like it. I actually don’t remember the title, only that it began with an A, which was all my workout-numbed eyes had picked out at a distance. It didn’t matter what the real title was. I had already come up with a story to go with Arugula’s Mother.

And so my first novel was born.

What was the story about? I’ll be back to tell you tomorrow.