Tegan Kehoe

Last month, I participated in National Novel Writing Month for the first time. The challenge is to write the first draft of a 50,000 -word novel in 30 days, but I was a part of the minority who chose to work in a different format. I drafted a 50k-word book of essays about life lessons from being a museum guide. The working title is " On Creaky Floors: Wit and Wisdom on the Life of a Museum Guide," but who knows how many times that will change as a more final version of the book takes shape.  I celebrate Christmas and I recently finished my present shopping, so now feels like a good time to post this raw (unedited) excerpt about relationships with material things. ~ Becoming a “museum person” also helped me understand and affirm my relationship with material things. I say museum person here rather than guide, because I don’t think this particular kind of self-identification needs to be limited to staff and volunteers -- frequent museum-goers can have this feeling, too. As