Behind Already!

I started the NaNoWriMo last night. After staring at a blank screen for almost an hour I cleaned the keys, got a snack, chatted online with Sally and then finally wrote a sentence. Then I watched ER and checked blogs. Then I wrote another sentence. And then another one. I have about a page and a half... of the six pages per day goal.

Sooooooo, maybe I'll "make it up" once I get going. Maybe I'll just fly through the rest of it like sheep to the moon!!

Then again, maybe not.

I did finish The Maytrees by Annie Dillard this afternoon. It's the book club book this month, and today is book club Friday!! When I read this book I felt submerged in it - surfacing for the real world felt as physical and transitional as climbing out of a swimming pool. And the urge to re-read this one, to slip back into this narrative is as strong and as steady as a tidal pull.

In yarn-y news, I broke down and bought the Interweave Knits Holiday magazine. I also may have accidentally placed a small-ish Knitpicks order. Maybe. I did manage to have a little talk with myself first, though and realize that ordering another $20 worth of stuff to get "free" shipping was just stupid. Sigh.
I also have misplaced my Interweave Knits Favorite Socks book. That is making me really grumpy. If I don't find it I will replace it - it's that good. And as a bonus, If I don't find it and replace it and then find it I'll give one of them away on this blog!! Because that is how we roll.

Knit on, Knitters!

Bad Larry's Pumpkin Blood Punch Recipe

Orange juice
Pineapple juice
Triple Sec
Gin
Southern Comfort.

Mix and serve over ice.

And don't say I didn't warn you.

Old dogs, Old tricks.

I could try to blame this on Bad Larry's Pumpkin Blood Punch.
I could say that I was not in my right mind.
I sent an email last night that I honestly had no business sending. To a person who will probably resent the fact that I sent it, will not reply in any way and all of my good intentions will be the paving stones that drown me.

I heard something that surprised me and made me feel some combination of sad and furious. And overprotective and entitled.
And the situation is full of tricky sharp edges. Admittedly, in my early twenties I would have run headlong into the fray, asserting my opinion and handing out band-aids. But I have grown in the last ten years and tend to hold my hands up in surrender and take to the high road at a flat run. My new mantra? "My dog is not in that fight."

Until last night. I can still recognize the signs. My first impulse was to drive to the person's house and have one of my infamous "come to Jesus" conversations. I was fixated and feeling anxious. "My dog is not in this fight" became "I have to do something. I have to do something."

Really? No. I don't.

Whatever is going on will not be changed or altered by my interference. Will not be "saved." People fuck up their lives all the time, every day. And they take others down with them.
It does not matter that I have been in a similar situation. It does not matter that I have fucked up (repeatedly) in just the same way. I could talk and preach and explain and plead until I run completely out of words and nothing would be any different at all.
It doesn't matter what I heard or didn't hear. It doesn't matter what I know or don't know.
My dog is not in this fight.

But, of course, I sent an email. A brief, carefully worded email that basically just said hey, people are talking about this and that's not good.

Immediately I felt like I had done something wrong. Immediately I felt like I had let someone down or like I had betrayed someone I really cared about.
And I guess I had. Letting this need to "help" get in the way of my new position on other people's lives and problems and dramas - that is, I'm totally there for you if you ask me to be but otherwise I know nothing, I see nothing, I hear nothing - sending that email negated years of careful distance and I let myself down.

And I guarantee that the effect my little "helpful" email will have, if any will not be good.

It must have been Bad Larry's Pumpkin Blood Punch. Or maybe all of the chocolate... Or maybe I'm just tired and my inner joiner has taken over.

Whatever.

My friend Sally had a link to NaNoWriMo on her blog and I thought, "What the hell?" It's like, 6 pages a day (ack) starting at midnight tonight and ending November 30th. It's all about quantity and not so much about the quality. Cool, right?

And Bad Larry's Pumpkin Punch? Awesome. Seriously.
(Orange juice, pineapple juice, gin and triple sec. Uh huh. Yeah).

So what will my novel be about? I don't know. A large-ish woman with a sick husband who works too hard and eats too much crap? Now that's a compelling novel right there! Oh! And she sleeps a lot and complains about her life to anyone who doesn't run away! Now that's a likable character right there!

While we're on the subject of writing, the guy who wrote Little Children (Tom Perrotta) has a new novel out (The Abstinence Teacher). He was on some NPR program that I was listening to - probably Day to Day. Anyway, the interviewer brought up the fact that all of his books tend to focus on sex in the suburbs and asked if he believed in a happy marriage. He basically answered, sure but what's the story in that? The wedding is usually the end of the story and he said that his novel Little Children was sort of the "what comes next." Interesting. I liked the book and was surprised at how much I liked the movie... though the voice-over omniscient narrator was a little odd.

And while we're on the subject of good books... I'm reading The Almost Moon by Alice Sebold. Wow. It's uncomfortable but really good. The first line of this novel is, "When all is said and done, killing my mother came easily." I'm only half-way through this book, but frankly, the main character killing her mother is not the most uncomfortable part. And the writing is so freaking good. (For those of you hooked up with Zooba, that's where I got this book).

Well, the husband is feeling a little bit better, thanks to his new medication. I hope to be at Twist tomorrow night for Stitch and Bitch and then Friday is my book club. Saturday is my cousin's wedding and then Sunday I'm going to a movie with Lara. According to her blog I'm one of her favorite people.

So there.

And also, like Lara I might have accidentally ordered a few things on Etsy today. I'm planning ahead for my Winter Wonderland Coffee/Yarn Swap. I got some more coffee bean stitch markers and some coffee soap and also some coffee-dyed yarn from Shelly Kang - also known as Shelly The Heathen Housewife Shelly - AKA, my second favorite Shelly.

So all over blogland there were adorable pictures of children in homemade costumes, beaming with pride at the accomplishments of their mothers, just waiting to quietly make their way to a lovely Halloween party and/or Trick-or-Treating. My kid? She took an orange t-shirt and wrote on it with permanent marker. It reads, "What? This IS my costume. I'm the scariest thing you've ever seen!" Then tonight she wore a black stretchy dress and black footless tights and black fairy wings. She was my "Scary Fairy." I wore my PJ's and went as a 2-year-old because right now that's the scariest thing I can imagine. And I'm good "in character." Whining for chocolate comes naturally to me.

OK, kids. It's almost midnight... I have six pages to write in the next 24 hours. And also? I have to sleep, work, knit, read and deal with my family. No wonder I haven't written anything longer than a blog entry in fifteen years!

The Least Scary Thing

Of course, on Halloween.

The husband has gout. Not a barrel of fun, but also treatable and controllable. It's not Lupis, rheumatoid arthritis, or some kind of cancer.

Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers...

Now, grant me patience and fortitude to clean the smoke smell out of my house.

Stillllll Waiting.

Still in pain, still grumpy, still smoking. You know, in my house.
I'm going to complain about him here... keep in mind that I do love him and I want him to feel better, but taking care of anyone who is in pain and grumpy and smoking in your house can get to you.
I stayed home with him again today - the people I work with are amazing. I did go in around 3 for an hour, but that was just to give myself a reason to shower. And I had to go to the grocery store.
It really is like having an infant again, he needs something about every two hours and I can't leave him alone.
And when I got to work it was so nice to see everyone... you know, everyone who did not need me to get them more water or empty their pee cup.
Too much?
Thought so.
Sorry.
It was nice to have grown-up conversations.
Better?

Anyway, he is now grumpier because the doctor's office did not call today. I am assuming that they did not get the labs back in as they hoped. He is assuming that he has cancer and she just didn't want to tell him. Those Cancer Treatment Center commercials? Also not helping.

I am clearly not designed for care taking.

In other news, my mother in law has clearly hit her head on something really hard. Yesterday she acknowledged that I have a second job and he has no job so therefore the fact that we are out of money has nothing at all to do with me and my spending habits.
Then she wrote us a big check. And also gave me cash to get dinner so that I wouldn't have to cook "after all I had been through." You know, taking him to the doctor and making sure they drew blood.

And by big check I mean two house payments and some yarn... just kidding (not really, I'll probably buy yarn). Two house payments and utilities and groceries. And yarn.

Well, regardless of what I spend the money on I can't say anything mean about her for at least another month.

I am going to work tomorrow... and then tomorrow night is Halloween, which I traditionally spend at Andie's house. I'll be there for at least a little bit, but depending on how he does all day by himself I might have to cut the evening short.
Ditto with Thursday knitting.

I hate waiting.

We're waiting on some potentially serious test results for the husband. He's been in a lot of pain for about a week and has been more or less unable to walk since Friday.

Consequently, he has also been SMOKING in the DEN which is making my entire house smell like ASS.
I am trying to maintain perspective on this.
It's a short-term solution and the non-smoking ban will go back in place as soon as he can hobble his own ass outside. I'm trying to think of it as a long, drawn-out party in which everyone I know is chain-smoking.

I am also going to be in trouble if it ever comes out that Febreeze causes any kind of illness.

His knee is huge and he did not fall or overtly injure in in any way. His knee is apparently on strike. His father was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis when he was this age so that is a scary possibility. There is also the possibility that he has some kind of immune deficiency. And that is sort of scary, too. He had x-rays and blood tests today. The x-rays were fine - she said there doesn't appear to be any fracture or breakdown in the structure of the bone. We should know more - if only about what it isn't tomorrow.

Neither of us slept much last night. It was so bad that every time he moved he would scream. We've been focusing on the immediate needs today - it took me an hour to get him out of the house. I was ready to call an ambulance and let the EMT's figure it out, but he was determined to get to the doctor's office on our own steam. Stubborn man.

My co-workers have been amazing. I didn't go in at all today and they really pulled together and made it work. I am so lucky in so many ways.

He's asleep now, and I'm going to Febreeze the living room once more and try to get some sleep, too.