Today I acquired a waffle iron.

I swear I was not going to write about this. I was going to think up something useful to tell you. Something educational and craft-oriented, maybe about plot or structure, maybe even illuminating or totally insightful. But I have to be honest. I am really excited about this waffle iron.

The thing is, I like routine. Even though a lot of times the things I do look chaotic and kind of arbitrary, I do actually have a particular writing routine—I write anywhere, but I’m absolutely 100% happiest with my fingerless gloves and my headphones and a hot drink.

So, a long time ago at my parents house, we had this waffle iron. It was huge and heavy and not pretty, and probably manufactured before I was born. My mom got it from a yardsale or somewhere, and it had that thick, glossy 1970s enamel finish and I’m pretty sure I’m the only person in the house who ever used it.

Now, where I am going with this.

Whenever I have to buckle down and behave responsibly and get to work, I like to have a little bit of basic structure to start me off. Back in the day, teenage-Brenna was vague and unpredictable and buzzed around like a hummingbird, making overly-ambitious cut-paper snowflakes, and leaving stray socks around like a trail of breadcrumbs, but for two hours on Saturdays, I can pretty much tell you exactly where I’d be.

Every Saturday morning during soccer season, here is how it went:

I would get up, make a big, fluffy batch of waffles for me and Little Sister Yovanoff. Then, we’d fix our plates, take them into the living room, sit down on the floor, and watch Pulp Fiction.

There. My every-soccer-weekend routine: vintage kitchen appliance, syrup-drenched breakfast food, Tarantino.

And now, I literally have not had homemade waffles since I was in high school. Sometimes I think fondly of them. Sometimes I catch myself daydreaming about them, about violent, convoluted movies and snappy, stylized dialogue. (Wishing for it. Feeling nostalgic and wistful.)

But all that it about to change. Because now I have a waffle iron.