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Saturday, November 08, 2003

the nanowrimo storm has passed

I am at peace, floating on calm seas. The NaNoWriMo storm has passed. I thought it all out last night. It's the whole conflict/beginning/middle/end/climax/resolution/believable dialogue thing. It just isn't going to happen. I like some of what I write in here -- although not all of it -- some of it makes me laugh or smile when I go back and read it later. But an online diary doesn't have to have any of the above elements, and a novel does. So, having reasoned all this out, I am now free to move on to obsessing over other things. Back to your regularly scheduled programming.

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Friday, November 07, 2003

will... not... submit... will... not...

It's sucking me in. I'm trying to resist, I really am. But do you know what I was doing as I was mixing biscuits tonight? I was thinking about an idea for a story. Now, I have not had an idea for a story since I was in, say, eleventh grade. And this is A Good Thing, it really is, because, well, my ideas for stories had always historically been quite hokey, except before eleventh grade I didn't know any better and would actually write the stories, which generally, well, sucked, in the usual way that stories written by pretentious adolescents suck. But tragically, we never manage to find that out until we've written these things, shown them around proudly, and grown up -- only to look back in horror and embarrassment at the trash written under the influence of that haze called teenagerhood. In my personal case, I went from writing horse stories about girls named Katrina with Appaloosas who entered horse shows (age 12), to writing thinly-veiled future-fantasy stories about myself, my boyfriend or crush at the time, and our children (age 15), to writing angst-ridden self-important "deep" stories about girls who fell in love with boys only to find that the boys could never love them back because of some serious problem (like AILT) (age 16). And of course there were others along the way, frequently with characters all coincidentally bearing the middle names of my friends and me, rocking out and styling and learning to drive and having cool no-parents parties and getting boyfriends and all that stuff. These are just some of the more memorable actual examples, stuff that I would write and then promptly envision as the featured piece in Redbook, with the subheading "Riveting Fiction by Youthful California Prodigy" or something like that. Even the imagined subheadings were cheesy, see? Anyway. As you can tell, it was the by the providence of a benevolent God that I stopped inflicting this stuff on the people around me, right? So why, WHY, do I feel compelled to start afresh, years later, when really, I know better?


OK, I've talked myself out of it again. If I keep this up, I'll be safe, because NaNoWriMo only runs through November (November being, of course the Mo in NaNoWriMo), and then the pressure will wear off.

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peer pressure

I will not. I will NOT do it! There is no novel inside me waiting to get out, I can't even think of a story to tell; I am NOT going to go (belatedly) join NaNoWriMo no matter how many other journalers do it, or how much fun they make it appear to be.


I think.

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Wednesday, November 05, 2003

starting my diet back at day 1

I haven't gained back the weight I'd lost, but after about a month of eating at a "maintain" level instead of a losing level, today is hell. I'm going back to my strict 1300-1400 calories/day plan, and OUCH, I am starving. It doesn't help that the kitchen is full of candy and chips, from the aforementioned heap-o-treats brought home by T. I keep seeing that box, with the Starbursts and Cheez-its on top, and it's taking every ounce of my willpower to avoid having "just one" -- or "just one at a time," which is more realistic. I am persevering, though. I'm trying to remember how great it felt to lose those 20 pounds, one day at a time, and also how it got to where it felt totally normal to eat more healthily. I have got to get those other 24 pounds off. I hope that by Christmas I'll have a good start on them.


Meanwhile I feel like I'm hollow inside. must not munch. must not munch.

* * * * * * *

update:

well, sigh, I sort of caved. C wanted some White Cheddar Cheez-its, and I opened them for her. I looked at the back of the package and saw that the whole package only had 220 calories, so I ate a small handful -- probably not even a fourth of the package. Gotta just move on and put that one behind me... and forget how blissful and salty and crunchy those darn things tasted...

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Friday, October 31, 2003

happy day :)

Today has been happy. Here's why. :)

• Yummy homemade meatloaf for lunch. (I didn't say that today had been a good day for my diet. Which I really need to work on, I have basically just gone back to eating the way I used to eat, over the course of the last few days. Anyone notice the irony that this started happening the very day after I was going on and on in my diary about how easy it was to eat less?)
  
• Pleasant and productive shopping trip -- we needed a few wintery clothes and today was a perfect day to go to the valley and buy them.
  
• Rain!
  
• That splendid post-rain smell.
  
• Rain!
  
• A nice snapping fire in the woodstove
  
• T called and said that it's also raining where he is, which will help hugely with the effort to get the fire out and GET HIM HOME. hurrah!
  
• Rain!
  
• My plans for the rest of the evening: Put LT to bed (C fell asleep on the way home in the car), shut down the computer, put on some nice relaxing music, and snuggle on the couch near the fire with a blanket and a good book. I forgot to buy Pickwick Papers today, but I have plenty of wonderful rainy-day books on my shelf. I'm not going to start Jane Eyre because the weather is supposed to clear up tomorrow, and then I'll be left reading it on crisp sunny days, and a reading of Jane Eyre needs gray, wet days throughout to be fully satisfactory. Maybe David Copperfield.
  
• Did I mention rain?
  

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Wednesday, October 29, 2003

weird phone problems, and sneezes

I got more done today than I have in quite a while, for the simple reason that our phone lines got all messed up and I couldn't connect to the Internet till 3 p.m. *ahem*. We have two phone lines, one for the Internet, and for some reason during the night some wiring got messed up in one of the jacks in the house, so that whenever you pick up a phone (or open the modem connection), both lines would be picked up at once. Suffice to say, this made calling people a bizarre experience, and it heartily confused the poor modem. Very weird. And of course we don't pay for inside-the-house line insurance; T is a telecommunications technician so he can handle that kind of thing just fine. Except that right now T is 300 miles away. So I had them disconnect our extra line for the time being, and we're back in the dark ages, not able to stay connected too long lest someone try to call. Sheesh, and I don't even have Callwave anymore. We'll probably sign up for LTL when T gets back -- I'd do it now, since we've been meaning to anyway, except I don't touch things Inside The Box of our computer -- that's solely his domain, so he'll have to be the one to install the card thingamabob (you can see how technically inclined I am, just based on that one word, can't you).

On a totally unrelated note, does anyone know why some people have to yell in order to sneeze? Has there been any research done on this? There are so many different kinds of sneezes, really. Now me, I sneeze like a normal human being. ;-) But then there are my husband and my son (who just blasted my eardrums, which was what brought about this train of thought, in case you were wondering), who sneeze like they're trying to scare away an intruder or possibly a wild animal, or at least make me startled enough to wet myself. ("YAH-CHOOO!!" doesn't even begin to cover it). And then -- well, there was this girl in high school, God love her, but she sneezed these tiny little a-heem sneezes, without even seeming to expel any air, and it seems like that just wouldn't have done her any good at all. But who am I to say.

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Sunday, October 26, 2003

nothing is as gray as it was yesterday

This is so bizarre. LT and I have been giving ourselves severe cases of joystick-related carpal tunnel syndrome, attempting to master this Star Wars Starfighter game I bought at Wal-Mart on Friday. (note: he is already better at it than I am, even though I have played it for more total time. This means I am a grownup now, for real, right?). Anyway. The idea of this game is that you drive through these scenes and shoot at things and try not to get killed. The first mission is a training mission, and all of you video gamer types are going to laugh yourselves silly when I tell you that it is REALLY HARD on the easy level and I'm really proud of myself for making it through about four of maybe six stages in forty minutes when you're supposed to complete the whole mission in four minutes. This mission involves flying this little yellow starfighter thingie (like Anakin uses to destroy the control ship in Episode 1, my resident Star Wars aficiando is telling me) through this ravine and shooting these mines and stuff. It makes me seasick when I first start playing it. But the weirdest part is (remember up there I said this was bizarre) is that after I've been playing it, it makes me seasick to stop. Like getting sea legs. This screen is only just now starting to slow down on its pitching and yawing, and I have the strange sensation that really I'm looking at this upside down somehow, even though plainly I am not.


Remember when River Raid -- for the Atari 800, not the 2600 or whatever that one was with the huge cartridges -- had really cool graphics? And Miner 2049er, how I loved that game. (now the screen seems sideways. I have to stop myself from tilting my head to make it straight). And Zaxxon. These really hokey 2-d graphics that we thought were just Top Of The Line. We who had 800's looked down on those of our friends and cousins who had the bulkier cartridges and the funkier graphics. And now those are antique video games. You can download them with ROMs (which basically make your PC run like an Atari, or something) for your PC (not that I would break the law like that) and the whole darn thing -- ROMs, a zillion games, whatever else you need -- takes up like 60K on your hard drive. That's how fancy and top-of-the-line they are. Not that I would know this personally, of course. I wonder how long it will be before we will be laughing because we thought this two-week-old 2.7GHz-512M-RAM-120G-hard-drive machine was pretty snazzy. Probably not very long at all.


Today has been a better day than yesterday. I still have a lot on my mind but it doesn't weigh me down as much as it did. We came home from church and just kind of relaxed, although I did some housework first, to alleviate guilt. Except now, you can't tell I did any at all. Children see a blank space of hardwood floor and think, FANTASTIC! More space to play Legos/put together a huge floor puzzle/play with my dollies/get out my dollhouse! And lazy indulgent single-Mom-for-the-week that I am, I do not keep on them about having Only One Thing Out At A Time, so as a reward I get to put it all away after they go to bed. But oh well, it's a cheerful happy mess and it's not as hard to put away as it looks. See how much more myself I am feeling? already finding the happy side of a mess in my living room. By tomorrow I'll be waxing rhapsodic about how my little baby girl has grown into this 4-year-old with a horsie dress and a sweater and Mary Janes and a single ponytail in the back, carrying her little Bible out to the car for church. Or hey, maybe I'll do that now. What the heck.

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Friday, October 24, 2003

giving platelets... or not

Well, what a waste of an afternoon. For the most part. I zipped into Barnes and Noble on the way to the blood bank, and bought four nice matching Austen books (thereby finishing my collection of her novels in nice matching paperbacks), as well as a Maeve Binchy, and, on impulse, Lois Lowry's Gathering Blue, so that I would have a couple of options to get me through the two hours sitting still with needles in my arms. I negotiated the dreadful Fresno freeway traffic (uurrrggghg), got to the blood center, did my little "have you had sex with any prostitutes in the last two years" survey (I wonder, does anyone ever answer yes on that question? probably), got my finger poked... and got sent away because my iron is too low. Damn. I had forgotten about that -- not that they told me it would be checked -- they just said no alcohol, no caffeine, no this, no that, when I made the appointment on the phone. But I do have low iron. I'm not sure if it's because of my horrific periods or not. Anyway, I was so depressed for a few minutes -- I felt like I let Conor and Jared and Kayli down (all kids with this rare and vicious form of leukemia -- I'm friends with Conor's mom and it's through her that I learned about the importance of giving blood products, and found out about the other kids). I felt like I let the blood bank down, and I felt absurd for having stressed so much about getting there on time, pawned my kids off on my parents, etc., all so that I could go do this, and then I couldn't. I got over that -- after all, I tried, and after I work on getting my iron to normal levels I can try again. But I do feel kind of silly having scheduled this whole trip down there around that and then having the main event fall through.


I did get a lot of cool books though. So all was not lost.


I also went to Borders after the blood bank, returned a book T had given me (bless his heart, I love Jane Austen, and he got me a Jane Austen biography, but not one I'm interested in), and got three books: one with Jane Austen's and Charlotte Brontë's juvenalia, one with four of Shakespeare's comedies, and My Antonia. I did a little bit of necessary shopping (and got some surprises for the kids; they were gratifyingly pleased about that when I went to pick them up) and went to the Olive Garden, where I was treated rudely and the food was not as good as usual and I just generally wished I hadn't gone there. So. On the plus side, snazzy new books. On the minus side... almost everything else. sigh.


Good news though -- T just called and it looks like he'll probably be home by Tuesday. yippee!

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two old poems and some miscellaneous stuff

Well, T just called and said that he's been called out on another fire, and he'll be home to kiss us goodbye and grab his stuff any time. So we're in the midst of scurrying around getting his stuff ready to go, and writing him love notes, and drawing him pictures. I have a few minutes to spare while his clothes are in the dryer so here I am, trying not to think about how much I'm going to miss him.

I was going through the papers he keeps with him when he's away (sentimental stuff) and came across these two poems I'd written. They're the only two poems I've ever written that I still like. The first is about falling in love with my best friend; I wrote it just over ten years ago.

All these years
peeking around corners
waiting impatiently for him to appear
THE MAN OF MY DREAMS
He would have all the right pieces
yes, his puzzle would be well-put-together
He would be all I could ever want from a person.
A best friend, a partner in my walk, a fabulous person
all wrapped up in a body for which I'd have died
I waited
and watched
applicants came and were discarded
nobody seemed to fit and I would have lost hope

had I not turned

and seen you.
God pointed you out
(how could it have ever been any other?)
You'd been there all along, our love patiently waiting
to be found
(like misplaced glasses sitting on my face)
No earthly discovery ever pleased me more
than when I found us
sitting right beside me all the while.

--September 10, 1993

OK, so I was 18. "Would have lost hope?" But still, I like it. And I always had wanted to marry young. :)

The other is one that I wrote one night a couple of years ago, having just picked up my then-five-year-old sleeping son to put him to bed.

You used to live under my skin.
My every breath and motion rocked you.
My muscles wrapped around you in a protective embrace.
Your movements kept me company.
Your presence answered my prayers and filled my dreams.
You gave my body a reason for being.

Then you were a noisy bundle of Boy
hungry for my breasts, needful of my attentions.
I doted on you
(along with the rest of Western civilization).
I fed you, held you, stroked your head, changed your pants,
dressed you in fuzzy yellow sleepers.
You gazed at me like I was the only person you ever needed to see in the world.
I have never felt so important in my life.

I turned my head, and then looked back at you
and found in place of that bundle
this tall
capable
headstrong
loving
beautiful
intelligent
PERSON.
Who told you your legs could get that long?
When did you get permission to be four feet tall
and learn to read
and make up stories out of your own head
and have a best friend?
It is almost impossible to see that needy, helpless baby
in this joyful, wonderful boy before me.

That is, until I creep in when you are sleeping
and fold you into my lap with your head under my chin.
You almost wake up, but then
your breathing is even and your lashes are on your cheeks.
(who says you can have lashes like that?)
I rock you gently back and forth
and cuddle your head.
You are busy dreaming about dinosaurs or animal crackers
or motorcycles or big trucks or helicopters
or jigsaw puzzles.
You don't even know your Mommy is wetting your stubbly hair with her tears.
I have found my baby boy again.
You won't remember this moment in the morning
but I shall never forget it as long as I live.

August 3, 2001

That one, I still really do like, and it means more as time goes on. (for example, now I can't even put him on my lap and tuck his head under my chin; he's too big.

Today is the day I am going down to give platelets. I put off leaving until T could come home, so that we could kiss and hug him before his departure for what could be a two-week absence. I think I'll still have time to go by the bookstore on my way to the blood center, but I'll be putting off all the other shopping and dining until after I'm done there. I have printed out a long list of book ideas for myself -- some of them culled from the book list from ivillage, and some from Amazon's recommendations. I have discovered the joy of tinkering with my Amazon recommendations -- I spent an unmentionable amount of time doing that over a couple of days and now they actually recommend things I would be interested in, for the most part. It is almost creepy how they remember what I've bought in years past better than I do -- and heaven forbid you buy one Star Wars book from them; I had absolutely NO idea there were so many Star Wars books in existence. I think I'll have to make LT his own wish list for them; I had to delete them all from mine because my wish list was 80% Star Wars stuff. yikes.

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Friday, October 17, 2003

alone for the afternoon

My parents took my children with them to the city and T won't be home till 3:00. So I have two and a half hours to spend totally alone and what am I doing? Sitting here writing a diaryland entry. How totally pathetic.


OK, well, I am playing Alanis Morissette, Toad the Wet Sprocket, Barenaked Ladies, Meredith Brooks, Evanescence, and the Proclaimers at non-kid-friendly volume levels. Good thing the neighbors are all either a) deaf, b) away at work, or c) members of an aging-baby-boomer garage band which generally tunes up at midnight and gets really blasting by 1 AM, so I don't have the slightest inclination to accommodate them with my stereo volume. In fact I've often been inclined to pipe some really, ah, stereotypical Wagnerian opera at extremely high volume directly into their living room at 5:30 in the morning while my poor bleary-eyed husband's getting ready for work. But I digress.


I just don't have a lot of activities I enjoy that are substantially more pleasant without children in the vicinity. I don't smoke, don't drink, don't swear, don't even have a secret stash of Godiva chocolates (which actually, I don't like) hidden somewhere. Here's a list of possibilities that generally run through my head when my two munchkins are going to be gone:

• Sex. T isn't home yet so that's out.
  
• Blasting loud music. Check.
  
• Going to the grocery store. Well, it's not that I enjoy this, but it is a necessary activity which is simpler to do solo. And I did that already today.
  
• Going for a brisk walk. Did that.
  
• Going to a fancy restaurant. Doing that next week.
  
• Watching a nice romantic comedy without having to use my psychic Mom powers to mute or skip to the next scene at just the right moment. Hmm, has possibilities... but can't do that while "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" is playing....
  

It used to be that reading was at the top of that list. But now that the kids are older, if I'm going to neglect my housework to read, I can do it almost just as well while they're happily occupied playing with Legos or running around the yard as I can while they're gone or asleep. So when they're gone, I'm kind of at a loss -- what to do to maximize this time on my own? I guess I can just bask in my uninterruptedness... for the first twenty minutes until I really start missing them, and start having to remind myself every two minutes that I'm supposed to be enjoying this break....


I know that many of you are agreeing with my first paragraph right now: I'm totally pathetic. Which is as it may be, but I guess I kinda like it that way. I'm just gonna go lip-synch to "Bring Me To Life" while I fold some laundry and give up on being wild and reckless for today. ;-)

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