It's been hot, and busy, and I haven't felt like blogging. Well, I've felt like having a blog, but not like writing it. Kind of how you might feel like eating a good meal but not feel like cooking it.

So this week, for the next few days at least, we're having leftovers.

My handy dandy KeyNote is filled with unused/unfinished scraps and notes for blogs that probably made sense to me when I jotted them down.

For example:

According to the University of Chicago Chronicle the University held a conference in March, “The Spirit Within: Inspiration, Possession and Disease in the Ancient Mediterranean Basin.” Among the topics:

"...a bizarre idea that arose in the Mediterranean under the Roman Empire-that a woman’s womb needed to be exorcized as if it were an indwelling demon. This idea is apparently adapted from an earlier theory, found first and most famously in Plato but also to some degree in the Hippocratic doctors, that the womb could freely wander about the body and cause illness by colliding with other internal organs. In the Roman period, however, women who suffered from stroke or mental illness ...were believed to have a demonic womb that willfully attacked their internal organs. The womb eventually began to be addressed in the same way a demon is with a formula for exorcism. Thus in the Roman period, amulets inscribed with the command “stay where you belong, womb” began to be used and were said to prevent the demonic womb from moving and attacking the other organs in the body."

This is fascinating but I couldn't find any mention of the concept elsewhere and couldn't quite think of what to say about it. I had written down:

Tiltes:

Who Killed Flavia's Spleen?
The Lung in the Library.

"It looks like an inside job, chief."

You see my problem? I guess I was thinking about womb dunnits. But I couldn't get anywhere.

I'm not sure how far a womb could actually "wander" either. It's not like its the size of an appendix.

Maybe one could write a book from the point of view of the terrorized internal organs. Imagine you're a placid stomach, trapped in the dark with a killer womb. Or else you could let the womb explain its actions. Philip Roth took the viewpoint of a breast. How much better (and more offensive) is a murderous womb?

Ah...now I see why I refrained from blogging this. I didn't want to give away my idea for a bestseller.