Challenge Accepted

I've been a poor correspondent lately, but with good cause. After a dry spell so long I don't even want to calculate it, I've been writing again. Really writing. Not journaling or blathering stream-of-consciousness incoherencies into a notebook, actual structural writing.

I was struck with inspiration by an email I received from NaNoWriMo. That's an awkward, geeky way of saying "National Novel Writers Month." Every November, the organization challenges writers everywhere to write a novel over the next 30 days. Specifically: 50,000 words in 30 days. You sign up on the site and commit to the challenge... "Permission to Suck, Granted!" as they say.

My friend and colleague Mary Ann Roe, who runs the store at the museum, first introduced me to NaNoWriMo several years ago, but I never registered. Somehow, this time it just seemed right.

So I'm in. I have taken up the gauntlet.

Two days into it I've produced around 3300 words. Now all I have to do is stick with it.

I write for an hour after I put Grayson to bed each night: from 9:30 to around 10:30. Anne Lamott says that if you're having trouble carving out writing time for yourself, you should write when you would normally be watching the evening news. Because what's a bigger waste of time than local news? I don't watch the news, but I do spend that hour sitting on my butt, reading or watching TV. So I have surrendered that hour to NaNoWriMo. Wish me luck.

One of the entertaining things about taking up the challenge was getting the five chapters of a children's novel I started some 8 years ago or more into a modern format. The first chapter of the thing was written originally on the boxy old Mac I had in the early 90s. The subsequent four chapters were produced on a ten-ton Compaq laptop that I got from G. I guess he acquired it when it was retired from the place where he worked at the time, and I fell in love with the idea of having my own portable writing computer. As I said, it weighs a ton, it also takes forever to boot up because it is still looking for the old network it was hooked up to before I acquired it. It also has this funny old-school trackball mouse built into the frame of the screen. You work the trackball with your thumb, and the mouse buttons are built into the back of the screen - or the top of the computer, however you want to look at it. I've never seen that design before.

Anyway, Of course there's no way to download my writing from that computer to this one. The Compaq has a 3.5 inch floppy drive ) no USB ports. So I had to boot up the file and transcribe it by hand. It was actually a good way to refamiliarize myself with The Story Thus Far and get my mind into the idea of writing again.

Grayson was utterly fascinated with this old dinosaur of a computer... and with the idea of a story written by his mom, which he didn't know I could do. He hovered over my shoulder as I was transcribing, reading as I went and alerting me at each typo. He told me he could help me with a title, which I don't have yet, and with chapter titles as needed. I said I would call on him for help very soon. And I asked him if he wanted to read it for me and tell me what he thought. He said Yeah, it seems interesting. So I mean to print out the first chapters and let him read along. That should provide some incentive to keep going.

The Cure For What Ails You

As you know, I have a slight tendency toward the blues. The bad thing about this is that, of course, sometimes I'm inexplicably sad. There is an upside, however. The upside is that I have come to recognize that feeling blue is not necessarily related to actually having any reason to be blue, and so I have learned various ways of counteracting it. There's no sure antidote, sometimes one thing works while another does not. Sometimes, frankly, nothing works. But here are a few things that work pretty well.

1) Puppies or kitties. This is almost a guarantee. I'm not convinced a lap full of puppies wouldn't cure just about anything.

2) Cooking something you love to eat, or baking something really evil and comforting like chocolate chip cookies.

3) Sharing what you've cooked. Sometimes I take cookies to my 90-year-old neighbor

4) Getting outside, particularly in this weather, particularly with the dogs, or with Grayson, or both.

This Sunday, Grayson being absent, I took both big dogs to the Norman dog park. I didn't take them at the same time, because sometimes when they are excited they can pull my arms off, or take me sneaker-skiing, neither of which is any fun. So I took them one at a time.

First Flower.

Then Roxy.

Both dogs had a wonderful time. Flower in particular was as happy as I've ever seen her. All those other dogs to meet! All those new smells! All those people to pet her and make much of her! She enjoyed the park quite a bit, but then I took her over to the nearby pond, and things really got good.

She splashed in the water! She rolled on the grass! She ran and slid, shoulder down, on the grass down the hill. She ran with the other dogs. She gulped so much water out of the pond that she threw up. She sat, wet, drippy and smelly, in my lap, threw her head back, tongue lolling, and smiled at me. She smiled at everyone. She was so happy that I think her happiness was infectious. It certainly lightened my heart, and some of the other dog owners there commented on what a happy dog she was.

At last I loaded her up, – dog smell and dirty paws and all – back into my car, and took her home to trade her out for Roxy.

Roxy takes play much more seriously. She was quite anxious about being in the park at first. Tail tucked, she skulked around the edges, avoiding other dogs, and sticking close to me. I was a bit afraid she wouldn't come out of her shell -- until she found a tennis ball. Then it was Game On. I threw the ball until my arm was tired. Then we crossed to the pond and I threw the tennis ball into the water until I figured enough was enough and I took her back to the park to return the tennis ball.

I was sure Rox would be too tired to keep playing, but an obliging fellow back in the park who had one of those ball-throwers-on-a-stick starting really slinging them for her, and she went after them as hard as ever: hell-bent-for-leather. Finally, fearful that she would have a heart attack and drop dead, I thanked the man with the ball-slinger and took Roxy home, too.

Both dogs slept most of the afternoon. And I felt happy.

Good Enough

I am amazed at how long it takes to heal from Divorce. That capitalization was accidental, but I think I'll go ahead and leave it. It suits.

I'll think I'm All Better Now, and then one day I'm Not. I'm in the shower wondering where my life went and getting weepy over something said four years ago that has now become ironic. Like how, at the height of The Big Fight with G's mother, I shot back at her, in all confidence "G LOVES me!" Only, maybe he didn't, I just didn't know it yet.

Not being loved is the worst. It makes me wonder how long I went unloved and didn't realize it. Maybe there's something fundamentally unlovable about me.

Lately I'm plagued with this idea that I was just Not Good Enough. I'm not a very girly girl. I'm no good at fashion or decorating or making bows. I despise scrapbooking, can't bear Sex in the City, and have no particular fascination with shoes. I can't arrange throw pillows, either. And I'm not much of a cook. But I guess all that is what was important to G... all the stuff I'm not, and not any of the stuff I am. When we split up, he couldn't think of a single thing he admired about me.

This is only partly self pity. Partly, behind and below the self pity, and maybe bubbling beneath, about to burst through, is this rage. Really? Not good enough? It makes me want to bite through steel bars. Because of course I am good enough. I'm more than good enough. I'm funny and irreverent. I can cuss like a sailor and quote shakespeare in the same breath. I love animals and I'm not afraid of snakes. I pay for my own drinks. I laugh at myself if I fall down, and I fall down fairly regularly. I can be showered, coifed, made up and dressed in under 20 minutes. Ican grow a plot of vegetables and make my own pesto. I vastly prefer action films to chick-flicks. And throw pillows are an annoyance. I'm not a woman like all the other women. But I'm good enough. More than good enough.