I’ve been diligently re-writing lately. Pretty much any time I’m not sleeping or eating or doing laundry or grocery shopping – I’m re-writing.
(For anyone keeping tabs on me – I’m currently sitting at 32,079 words.)
At any rate, I’m sitting here trying to make sense of one particularly tricky section, and I suddenly felt the need to blog about my lotion:)
I am IN LOVE with this lotion. 
I bought my first tube of Hemp Hand Protector from The Body Shop when Matt was in law school – twelve years ago – and I’ve had at least one tube of it sitting on my desk ever since. And here’s the thing…. I ONLY use it when I’m writing. All the hours I used to spend sitting at my desk real estate-ing I would gaze longingly at my hemp lotion wishing could I dab a little bit into my palm and write.
Because I only let myself use it when I’m writing, it’s become a sort of sensory trigger. I make myself a cup of coffee, put my lotion on, and my brain knows it’s time to be creative, dammit.
Back when I bought my first tube of this stuff, my writing habit had no particular direction or ultimate end goal. I filled notebooks and typed away on my adorable, purplish Sony Vaio laptop, relishing the subtle, earthy smell of my lotion.
(I just finished reading Making a Literary Life by Carolyn See – an excellent read for anyone wanting to write. She wrote about how her friend and fellow author, John Espey, loved to use the word relish – and now I can’t stop using it!)
It’s made from hemp seed oil and beeswax. It’s not greasy. I can still hold a pen. I don’t leave fingerprints on my pieces of paper. And, a little bit goes a long way. One tube probably lasts me two years.
Okay, that’s all I’ve got to say about my favorite handwriting lotion. (See what I did there?)