The slog and drag of the humdrum
Here are the things I don't
write about here:
My son's colds and coughs
Chores, like vacuuming up the fur, dust, and
sand that accumulate pretty quickly in a
house with three cats, a dog, and three
humans
The laborious process of rewriting my novel
(well, I may mention this in passing, but not
in great detail, since that would send all of
you to snoreland, but it is indeed laborious,
like work-on-the
same-three-paragraphs-for-six-or-seven-hours
laborious)
The difficulty of writing something that is
long-term, of continuing through it without
the instant feedback of blogging
Cooking dinner whether I want to or not
How we're figuring out
where the kid will go to school for
kindergarten in the fall
Tips and tricks for keeping
one's sanity after weeks of rain and
afternoons inside with an energetic
four-year-old
Coping mechanisms I use to see us through one
of Mr. T's business trips
My political views
Natural disasters
The pros and cons of having another child
The perhaps impossibility of having another
child
My anxieties about the quality of my writing
and the wisdom of my current career choice
RIght now I'm stuck smack dab in the slog and
drag of the humdrum. The novel is taking
precedence over the blog and I don't feel
like I have enough time to really shine up
any of my short pieces of fiction for this
space. I'm not sure that many people want to
read the fiction anyway. It seems that most
readers are interested in my personal pieces,
either angst from the past or my depressive
musings on current life. Not that my current
stuff is all darkness, exactly, but I think
my views are cloudier than the average
person's, cloudy with a little patch of blue
sky that expands as I examine it, which can
make the whole process hopeful, I suppose, in
a Jennifer Trinkle sort of way.
It feels as if my mind is preoccupied, that
it is working on something. I just need a few
hours with a keyboard to find out what it is.
But who has the time? I'd rather work on the
novel or maybe that just feels like the right
thing to do right now, a necessity, a way to
lose myself in words and justify my
existence.
So I'm not sure what to put in this space at
the moment, but I know my mind will crack
open again and offer itself up for material.
In the meantime, I may be posting more short
writing prompts, or perhaps reposting some of
the oldies but
goodies. We'll
see.
Image: Everyday me, as
recorded by my computer.
Channeling Sam Kinison
Illustration
from YTMND.
MOMMY! I WANT MOMMY!
(here I am!)
NO! NOOOOOOO! I WANT DADDDYYYYY!
(ok, he’s standing right there;
parents
switch positions)
NOT DADDY, MOMMY!
(well, Daddy is the one who is here right
now. Would you like robot pajamas tonight?)
NOT THE ROBOT PAJAMAS – THE SHARK PAJAMAS! I
WANT THE SHARK PAJAMAS!
(the shark pajamas, buddy?)
THAT’S WHAT I S A I
D:
THE SHARK PAJAMAS!
(parent begins dressing
child in shark
pajamas)
NO! I WANT THE ROBOT
PAJAMAS ON!
(parent and child together):
AHHHHHHHHRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH!
Another day ends in tears at the writing to
survive household. Maybe our three-year-old
son is developing neural networks at
incredible rates and his thoughts are pulling
him in different directions. Perhaps he is
experimenting with control – how much does he
have? How will we, the beleagured parents,
react to his cries of frustration? It’s
normal (right??), but exhausting, and
patience-trying, and sometimes it’s hard to
see the humor in it all.
Bath time last night was a screamfest. I
wasn’t there – baths are generally my
husband’s responsibility – but I could hear
every outburst. I finally realized what it
reminded me of: my son was channeling the
long-dead 80s comedian Sam
Kinison.
Here is a little taste of my current home
life, minus the lunges and hair pulls, with a
very young-looking, relatively thin Kinison
on the David Letterman show. The comedian was
known, as Wikipedia puts it, “for his
extremely vitriolic humor” and can be
offensive, so viewer beware.
writing to survive – where one day you can
read about Gertrude Stein and Edgar Allen
Poe, and the next you can watch Sam Kinison.
Now you know about my tasteless
side.