It is almost a miracle. For forty-six weeks now you have clicked through to this page to be entertained, informed – OK, informed-ish, and regaled with largely fabricated tales of what my life would be like if it weren’t so busy being completely different from what I share on this blog. Week after week somewhere between 1,500 and 2,000 words have magically appeared on your screen giving you, now, a book-length series of stories to make your Fridays as least like your Mondays as possible. This, my inner homeless person would like to remind you, you have gotten for free, a condition which you can easily remedy by clicking on the “Support” button just over there.

For all these months the blogs have spewed forth as if from a ruptured pipe on the way to a dictionary factory. This week, number forty-seven I will always remember, suddenly, and without warning, the stories stopped.

I had heard about “writer’s block” before but, luckily for me, I have never had a first-hand experience. That all changed this week. As is my habit, I sat down at my computer on Monday to write my blog, pulled up a blank document and stared at the screen. And stared, and stared, and stared. No words magically appeared as I dusted the white off the page exposing the story hidden beneath. No fictional characters talked to me and begged me to write about them. There was nothing. The empty document remained as void of content as my brain. There were no stories to tell, there was nothing worth writing about. I was blocked.

For all this I must thank our friends from last week: Carl and Lupe. I spent a bit more time with them this week. We shared a dinner out and a walk through their neighborhood. I heard some more of their romantic saga and all about how freaking well it’s going for them. I sat through endless repetitions of “how happy we are” and “it still just seems like magic”. I can tell you that with all the hand-holding and mooning and cow-eyes and “snookums” and “darlings” and immodestly timed sighs, I could’ve puked. Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m very happy for CarLupe or whatever it is I’m going to have to call the joined-at-the-lips hybrid they’ve morphed into, but for God’s sake, get a room, would you?

Sitting with them at dinner the other night I was reminded, as I try to avoid the excess dopamine oozing from their pores, that I have been relegated to the status of “third wheel”. While they sit there glowing, I am cast into a “and will somebody else be joining you?” funk that the clattering of cutlery as the fourth place is cleared from the table does nothing to penetrate. I am alone but they are not. Carl and Lupe have found each other and, with their brains still swimming in a mind-addling overload of neurotransmitters, cannot help but remind everyone within sight how wonderful it all is. Bleh! It’s summer people, this should have all been taken care of back in April.

Which brings us back to Monday. I sip my coffee and continue staring at the glowing screen. The blank document remains so. I continue drinking my coffee and wait for my muse to appear. Nothing. I knock off a few games of FreeCell – I’m getting very proficient at solitaire – but nothing writable comes to mind. I go for a walk and take in the scenic vistas abounding in my neighborhood for inspiration. No insight results, but the walk was ruined by the unfortunate coincidence that everyone else taking in the views are holding hands and pointedly ignoring the distant spectacles. I mope back to my dreary cellar and throw myself down onto the sofa.

There is, in fact, no hope. There will never be another story. The well is dry. My despair is complete. I weep.

But wretchedness, unlike hope, does not spring eternal. Several days later, I peel myself off of the upholstery and take stock of my situation. What I need is a mentor or role model. Someone to provide me with inspiration during this dark time in my life. An individual who, when faced with adversity, rose up to the challenge and beat it back down. I tossed out most writers. The ones I know about are either blissfully prolific, having never experienced the block, or have been discovered lying comatose – or worse – on a white-tile floor in a small, joyless room in a foreign land. Option one is not applicable. Option two doesn’t say much for being a writer.

So I looked outside my chosen field and found my guru at once: Bob Dole, the former senator from Kansas and presidential hopeful. This may seem like a bit of a stretch but consider that in 1996, at the then-tender young age of seventy-three, in the midst of the grueling, twenty-four hour a day stress-fest that is a presidential campaign, while running against the wildly popular and not-yet-notorious grammarian Bill “Slick Willie” Clinton – a race Bob was getting crushed in – Bob Dole decided his performance wasn’t what it should be so he started taking Viagra. All of which holds out a lot of hope for all of us in our “declining years”. Then, after being soundly defeated, he started advertising the stuff for Pfizer. Talk about lemons and lemonade. What a guy. If he could be that over-wrought and still find a way to cut to the heart of his performance issues it should be a piece of cake to take care of my mere writer’s block. I began looking to see if someone was making a Viagra equivalent for literary dysfunction.

I did some online research but nowhere in Pfizer’s drug facts is any mention made for using Viagra to treat writer’s block. Apparently, it is not a drug used for general performance issues. I was unable to find any other information regarding potential creativity enhancing compounds to try so I decided to consult my “health care provider”. I found the dreadlocked Desmond standing at his usual corner down by the high school and I ran my problem past him for his advice. He was unfamiliar with my symptoms but said I could try one of *these*if I wanted. I declined and started my trek home. It was then that I found my answer. There was a tattered coupon on the sidewalk. “Try One ‘Free’” was emblazoned on it in red. I picked up the coupon and found the cure to all my ills.

Gelato.

Up until now I had always figured that “Gelato” was just another fancy name to try and get you to pay way more than you should for what is, for all intensive purposes, ice cream. Sort of like “Häagen-Dazs” a name made up in somebody’s kitchen in northern New Jersey. How wrong I was. Not only is gelato not exactly ice cream but it contains large portions of the very things that would make ice cream better than ice cream if only they would put them in. Additionally, walking into a gelato shop is an experience in itself. Everything, from the flavors on the menu to the signs on the trash bins, is written in Italian. Not only must you know that “lampone” is neither satire nor a variety of eel but you also have to know that “cc” is pronounced differently when it follows an “a” than a “u”. Considering that there are, maybe, three people in the country who meet these criteria, just watching the customers in the shop is a treat in itself.

Armed with my ragged coupon I walked into the place and took a free taste of heaven. Now, I have tried gelato before, once in Guadeloupe and once with the zombies in Costa Rica. In both those places the stuff was basically ice cream, maybe a little smoother. But the shops lacked that certain faux-European flair that comes from being forced to read the menu in a language not spoken as a native tongue further west than New York City. In Seattle however, good gelato, like coffee, might be one of the things that defines the place. It’s everywhere.

The defining thing about these gelato shops – or gelateria,  once you’re in the door – is that you are encouraged to experiment with flavors. Even a “small”, or piccola porzione, holds two dainty scoops which, if eaten properly, can provide a perfect mix of flavors with every spoonful. I tried the easily translated vaniglia e cioccolato, yum. I advanced to the fruity limone e lampone combo which remained my favorite until I tried the unlikely pairing of riso e pistacchio. It was a cup of ambrosia. Only the Italians would think of making ice cream out of last night’s leftover risotto.

Hours later, sated and sporting a clinically dangerous blood sugar level, I returned home and found my muse waiting with a chilled metal bowl and a tiny square spoon. I don’t know how it works but the stuff breaks through writer’s block like a spring storm through an earthen dam. Words flowed unbidden from my sticky fingers. Absurd concepts fell to the page as my glucose ravaged brain probed the dark recesses of my imagination. Gone was my envy for Carl and Lupe and their sophomoric demonstrations of affection. I now know the true word for love, and it starts with a “g”.

Thanks to my frosty amore I can at last offer you the forty-seventh installment of this ongoing online saga. My block is gone. Bob Dole… I can relate, man, I can relate. For you, my readers, I only hope that I can make my words as beautifully smooth, sweet and delicious as the divine source of their inspiration.