Day 30

30 days, 75,033 words.

To quote Austin Powers, 'And... I'm spent.'

I have a feeling this next week is going to be a bit of a letdown. Thank the universe that Starbuck's is selling their dark chocolate covered grahams again.
 

Seems like it, sometimes, don't it?

Every time this comes on the radio, Young Son asks me to crank it up. So this Friday we're Rockin' it Young Son-style.


It's The End Of The World As We Know It, REM

Seems appropriate, with my deadline arriving in 2 days, 15 hours, 8 minutes, give or take.

p.s. Check this out!

See you Monday. It'll all be over then. Hopefully not the whole world, tho.
 

Hey!

Aren't you supposed to be off feeding your face? I am.
 

Nuttin'

Today, I got nothing.

My shoulder hurts*. My foot hurts**. I want to hunker down and crank out a good 2K on my story but I'm not exactly sure what's supposed to happen next. And I have 3 hours and 45 minutes until I can go home.

I think I'm going to bust open the pack of fig newtons in my drawer and drown my sorrows.

I am pathetic.

* Long story. Sucks getting old.
** See above.
 

Day 25 pt 2

There's this woman I know. I don't know her well - mostly from afar - although we've met a few times in recent years. She is funny and witty and clever and... eccentric. She has 'deficits', as she puts it, but she embraces them and celebrates them. They are all part of what makes her funny and witty and clever. And eccentric. And she has a PhD, which only enhances the cachet of eccentricity, IMHO.

She blogs, although 'blog' is a lame-assed word compared to what she does. I blog; she slices off a piece of her heart and sticks it on the screen. She blogged all the way through her husband's death from mesothelioma and the year of hell after. I love to read her blog, and when a rare post from her pops up in my Google reader, I hoard it, savoring it until I have read everything else, Like a tiny bag of Peanut M&M's at the bottom of the plastic Halloween pumpkin.

Today, she ended with this quote from Thornton Wilder.

When you're safe at home you wish you were having an adventure; when you're having an adventure you wish you were safe at home.

With all the whining I've been doing about the frivolous, self-imposed hell I've set up for myself this month, this hit me upside the head like a cold, wet sponge.

Time for me to Shut The Fuck Up and write. November will be over soon enough, and then where will I be? Safe at home, whining about how I wish I was having an adventure.
 

Day 25

Make it stop! I'm losing my grip here, people. I no longer have any idea of how I'm going to get to the end, or even whether the end I had planned will still work.

Worst of all, over the weekend I came up with the brilliant notion of shooting for 75,000 words. Trying to generate 2,500 words a day when I have no idea where I'm going is bloody awful painful. I may have to kill of one of my characters just to keep it 'fresh'.

I finally took a second to tally up last weeks word count: 16,324, which means another $16.32 for TOOLOL. So that's one good thing, at least.

5 days, 12 hours, 19 minutes...
 

Guest Post: Evil Twin, Again

Evil Twin has decided to share one of our finer moments with you.

“Hey, Liz, since the guys are going to play 18 holes today, why don’t we take the boat out to the island?”

It was a lovely Sunday in July. 1987, I think. The girls (hers and mine) were two and four. The families had been out to the island several times that summer, but we decided that we didn’t need no stinkin’ men to escort us five miles down the river, and one mile across open water to the island.

Plans were made, coolers packed and the boat was loaded. The girls were wearing their lovely personal flotation devices – which had large collars with handles (which I assumed could be snagged with a boat hook in the event one of them ended up in the drink).

It was a splendid morning. Not a cloud in the sky, nary a ripple in the water. We chugged easily past the cemetery and the marinas out to open water. It was only a short mile to the island. It was very shallow, and the small sailboat nudged into the sand only 20 feet from the beach. We anchored, off-loaded the children onto the beach, and brought the coolers, chairs, umbrellas and other beach detritus to shore.

Settled in, I opened the cooler to dispense some snacks for the girls. Liz caught sight of what was inside.

“You didn’t bring the entire one-gallon bottle of Vintner’s Choice did you?”

Vintner’s Choice was our recreational wine. It was so affordable. I think the gallon bottle set us back $6.99.

“Well, I didn’t have anything smaller to put some in, so I brought it. We don’t have to drink it all.”

But, yes. Yes we did.

We had lunch. We applied sunscreen to the girls. We had a little wine. Sunscreen. Wine. Sunscreen. Wine. Wine. Sunscreen. Wine. Wine. Wine.

We roused ourselves out of our stupor, and discovered that the sun was sitting pretty low in the sky. In fact, much lower than it usually was when we left the island for home.

I looked at Liz who was now salmon-colored and blistered*. Yes. She had applied sunscreen. To her daughter. She is the whitest person I know. We were on the beach for eight hours. Do the math.

I wasn’t burnt too badly, however, I was drunk as snot. I stood quickly to load the boat and promptly fell flat on my face in the sand. Liz got me up, splashed some ice-cold cooler water in my face, and we somehow got the boat loaded (but not as loaded as I). We even remembered to put the kids on. They were so exhausted they went right to sleep in the cabin. Oh, how I envied them.
When everything was stowed away, I got my second wind. The breeze had picked up, and was quite respectable.

“I know! Let’s sail back!” I said.

“You sure? Can we go all the way back?” said Liz. Such a skeptic.

“Shhure! I bet we can make it back without the motor the whole way!”

“You’re on! No motor ‘til we get to the dock!”

And so it was. While on the open water, the wind kept us going at a sprightly pace. We made great time. Then we turned to go up-river, and we lost our wind. Fortunately, the tide was coming in, and we were able to ride with it, but the exhilaration disappeared with the breeze. We were making headway, but it was unimpressive. I went to the tiller, and shoved it back and forth, back and forth, which helped a little. Each of us had a stubborn streak, but when we were together, it was 1 + 1 = 3. We would do this!

I looked up, and Liz stood on the cabin roof, blowing into the mainsail with all her might.

“Aho-o-oy, there!” came wafting from the marina to our sad little craft.

We looked up, and there in the deepening twilight stood our husbands – annoyed, perplexed and concerned.

“Where are the girls?”

“Below. Sleeping!” we shouted.

“Is something wrong with the motor?” --Why else would we be drifting home in the near dark, they wondered.

“No! We’re gonna sail home if it takes us all week!”

“Are you drunk?”

“Yes!”

“Give us the girls!”

So I rocked the tiller, and Liz blew into the sail until we were alongside the dock, and made the hand-off.

“Give us a push. Make it a good one, and we might make it back in an hour.” I said, and the husbands gave a mighty heave-ho in the general direction of home port. Liz took stock of her sun poisoning, and I leaned over the side, and fed the fish.

By the time we got to the cemetery, the breeze picked up again, and we made headway. The last half-mile we made slow but steady progress. By the time we docked, it was dark. The husbands stood there, our sleeping children in the car, and asked, “What the hell was that all about?”

“We sailed all the way back! By ourselves!”

This is why I can no longer drink. By 1990, I had completely used up my liver.

* Note to self: Make dermatologist appointment...
 

All about me

Mr. B and the Ex have been on travel this week. Since they both work in/on/around government entities*, one or the other of them is usually either headed to or just back from DC. Sometimes their travel overlaps.

Today it has finally happened. Even as we speak, they are flying back from DC. All the way across the country.

On. The. Same. Plane.

I can just imagine them, wedged into their teeny seats, talking smack about me behind my back, hour after hour.

Frankly, it's making me queasy.

* Albeit different ones.
 

Keeping it real

Oh, joyous day! Monty Python has (have?) its (their?) own YouTube channel, with a bunch of high quality clips available for our (my?) viewing pleasure.

I believe this one is exactly what we need to Rock this Friday! straight into the ground.



Last night I showed it to Young Son and he's all, like, "So? I knew that." Kids these days. I suspect I'm going to have to start monitoring his Nova-watching.
 

w00t!

Just broke 50,000 words!

Mr. B sez "So you can stop now, right?"
:)