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.