ALL THE THINGS

I've only written 383 words today* (on the current book, that is) and less than that yesterday. I'd been doing a minimum of 500 words a day for a while now, so it feels like cheating to let myself off so easily.

Then again, this is the seventh day in a row that I've had a horrible, throbbing headache right at the front of my skull for most of the day. Which is odd, really. My barometric pressure-related headaches are usually at the back of my head, just above my neck. This particular week-long series of headaches has been weird anyway, because it's been accompanied by dizzy spells (never before), nausea (only once or twice before -- and only recently), and ocular migraine (which I usually get completely separate from an actual headache). So, yeah, all kinds of awesome there. It makes me a real delight to be around, too.

And so, I'm trying to remind myself that I deserve a little bit of slack right now, because I'm feeling pretty lousy, and it's hard to concentrate when your head aches like this (not to mention the other symptoms that get in the way). But it's also hard to slow down (and harder still to not feel bad about slowing down) when there is SO. MUCH. TO. DO.

I've finally nailed down my birthday plans, I have emailed the elephant sanctuary people about scheduling a visit, I'm working on a plan for an important misadventure. These are huge accomplishments.

But there's also the passport application I need to submit, an international misadventure to plan, the Iceland trip to book. I need to get my car inspected. I need to submit my application to become a notary again, so I can officiate at my friend's wedding. There's at least one other misadventure to plan (but then I also need to take stock and make sure I've had all the misadventures I wanted/needed to have before I no longer have an opportunity to have them)...and then there's also making the arrangements for July. At least we have some shape of a plan for that.

When I was in my last semester of undergrad, I was working, completing a volunteer practicum for my major, finishing my senior project (a web site portfolio) for my major, finishing my honors thesis (which consisted of a research paper, a book-length collection of writing, and a quilt -- even though I'd never made a quilt before), and taking something like 16 credits. THE ONLY THING that got me through that semester was this big desk calendar that I color-coded and hung on my closet doors, so I could keep track of everything. At least, that's what I've been telling myself the last dozen years or so.

Last month, I bought another big calendar, so I could mark it all up and color code it with all the things I needed to do (because I'm writing a book in less than six months and it's the busiest derby season we've ever had and there are ALL THESE THINGS that I have to do, that I want to do).

I was going through it yesterday, trying to sort through some of the immediate things I have to do, and I remembered the opening to the movie If Lucy Fell. It's one of those movies almost no one I know has ever seen (unless I made them watch it with me) or even heard of. It's one of my favorite movies. I love Eric Schaeffer's quirky characters and dialogue. I love the soundtrack (which is basically Marry Me Jane's first album -- almost no one has ever heard of them either, and that makes me sad). The thing I love most about If Lucy Fell is that it opens with Calendar Day. (Probably the only reason I'd ever want to own a house would be so that I could have a room for Calendar Day.) On Calendar Day, Lucy and her roommate Joe paint a calendar over an entire wall in their condo. And the whole month goes up on the wall -- all the plans and the goals and the rescheduling. And I've always loved that idea.

I probably sound a little unhinged. I'd like to blame it on the throbbing in my head, but I'm not sure that would be fair. And I'm not sure it's fair that I'm blaming the pain in my head on the weather. Yes, I have a well-documented history of headaches related to barometric pressure changes. And holy crap has the weather been turbulent lately. But, I also have a lot going on now. A lot coming at me. SO MUCH TO DO.

I've got these tattoos on my wrists that remind me to be awesome and to keep working on love. In the book I'm writing, I've just given my main character a tattoo on her wrist. One word: Steady. She doesn't need to remember to be awesome or to work on love -- she just needs to find a way to keep it together and make it through.

More than any of the things on my calendar (or in my head that haven't made it to the calendar yet), I think that's what I need to do now. (And, oddly, Amanda Kravat -- the lead singer for Marry Me Jane -- released a song called "Steady Now" on her first solo album. I guess if I find myself needing to write a third book, I've got the title.)


* And then I went back to work on the book some more after I wrote this, and I went over 500. 

True friends

I've been threatening to move myself into a bubble or a hyperbaric chamber to alleviate the headaches I get from low pressure systems. A friend emailed me today to say:

I will NOT let you live in a hyperbaric chamber. But if you fight me on this and move into one anyway, I INSIST on coming to help you decorate it. We will COVER it with millions of paper cranes and butterflies with inspirational sayings on their wings. Will it have windows? Because I could get you some colored markers that write on glass but wipe off.  Fears erased daily!  The fear-erasing-hyperbaric chamber!  YES.

Because THAT is what friends are for.

100 days

For three Novembers in a row, I've tried a modified version of NaNoWriMo that involves writing every day in November but no word counts (because I like general goals like "writing every day" rather than the pressure of word counts).

This year, I kept going.

Today is day 100.

Wow.

In the last hundred days, I've had to deal with several health issues (including a significant increase in the number of barometric pressure-related headaches I get that seems related to the concussion I sustained in August), all kinds of work stress (related to several projects, being censored by people who have more power and authority than I do, and the ethical ramifications of that censoring), and not a little personal turmoil. I've had to shove myself deep into memories I'd rather leave locked up inside heavy boxes in my head, re-read (and therefore re-live) words I wrote at my most heartbroken, and mine my worst experiences for the sake of a story I need to tell. I finished a book, and I immediately threw myself into its sequel.

There have been days I haven't wanted to write. Days when it was logistically hard to write. Days when it was emotionally unbalancing to write. Days when my hands and fingers ached. Days when I counted the sentences and said, "That's good enough to say I wrote," even when I felt disappointed by the lack of output.

There have been days when I've sat in front of my computer for hours on end, not caring about the physical and emotional pain. Days when I've glanced at the word counts on my screen and wondered if my computer is as bad at math as I am, because there's no way I wrote THAT much. ...Except that I did.

I haven't even really given anything up to do this. I still managed to rewatch every episode of The West Wing on Netflix (plus every episode of several other series). I still managed to spend hours upon hours reading (I was so disappointed in myself for only having read 45 books in 2012 that I'm already on book # 10 for 2013. I WILL make 50 again this year, dammit.). The apartment is a total mess, but let's face it: That's not all that unusual.

I don't know what precious alchemy worked its magic to make this work for me here and now. It's not particularly well-timed, but it's working. So I'm going with it.

I should live in the shower

Except the water would eventually go cold and I'd get so pruney I would shrivel up into the World's Biggest Wrinkle and I'd miss out on a lot of really awesome things (like derby and trapezing and chocolate). Not to mention that my books would be ruined if I tried to read them in the shower (I am very careful when I read in the bath) and the computer would just be a no-go. I'd miss my friends.

Yeah, okay, I shouldn't LIVE in the shower.

But the thing is, I have so many great ideas in the shower. Whether it's an idea for work or for whatever I'm writing at the moment or an insight into someone I care about or an epiphany about myself.

Tonight, I came home from work all excited because I already had an idea for what I was going to write today. And then I wrote these two tiny little pieces (not even scenes, not even partial scenes) and then I forced myself to write the intro to the second chapter until I felt like I couldn't write anymore. And I started obsessing over how many words I'd written today, how many words I'll need to write each day to get this book done by mid-July when I want to have it done.

I was feeling crappy (and I'd been in a bit of a weird emotional place most of this week anyway), and I decided to take a shower.

Best. Idea. I could've had.

As the hot water rained down on me, I came up with the next movement in that second chapter. And I also had some personal epiphanies (about the things that have been making me feel weird, about my life in general, about my place in the world RIGHT NOW).

I got out of the shower, sat down, and wrote. I banged out a thousand words tonight. (I feel good when I do 500 on a work night.)

And then I did the math again. Based on what I've got so far, if I keep at a decent pace, I will have this book done by mid-July and maybe even earlier.

Just now, I was about to crawl into bed. The last few days, this is when Ramona (my main character) decides to tickle my brain. She gives me ideas I have to get up and write and then whispers other thoughts in my head while I'm trying (and failing) to sleep. As I was rearranging the blankets on my bed and turning on my white noise machine, I was reflecting on some of what I wrote tonight and I thought, "I really like Ramona. I like her voice. She's so much wittier than I am."

And then I just had to laugh. I don't know how we do things like that. I mean, it's one thing to write a character who is braver or kinder than you are (because you wish you could be that) but it's a whole lot harder to write a character who is funnier or smarter than you are.

I don't know how it happens, but I sure am glad it does.

Only now/now what?

I keep the promises I make. Always. No matter what. Which is why I rarely make them, and I think really hard about them before I do.

I promised my therapist that I would write about my grieving process. In many of our sessions, she said I needed to do so. She said that it was important. She didn't ask me to promise, but I did.

And I tried, but it just wasn't working. Nonfiction isn't my thing, never really has been. I can write little things (like, say, blog posts) but I can't carry the momentum of a memoir. Especially not about something like my mother's death and how I've reacted to it.

So, I decided to do what I do better and write a novel. Only, I realized that if I was going to write a book about grieving, I needed to first write a book about loss.

And that's how I started writing what I call "Ramona's book" (but what is titled Only Now) almost two years ago. Yesterday, I wrote the last parts I needed to write to bring me to a complete draft. Tonight, I smoothed over the first big edits I wanted to make to get myself a draft I feel is presentable to my writing partners (and to read all the way through myself).

I've written for 83 consecutive days, and I have a draft of a book that was really hard to write for a lot of intensely personal reasons. I deserve a break.

But I made a promise, and I haven't written that book yet. That doesn't mean I have to write it NOW, but this is where things get dicey.

I promised I would write a book about my grieving process (the misadventures and the pink letters and the red notebook and trapezing and all of it). I know that I will grieve the loss of my mother every day for the rest of my life. But I also know that my grieving process is going to take a pretty substantial turn in less than six months. July 17 would have been my mom's 60th birthday, and that is the day my sisters and I have agreed to scatter her ashes in her favorite place on the planet. That means no more misadventures.

And that doesn't mean I can't write about them (in a fictionalized way) afterward. But here's the thing: It's going to be a big freaking deal for me. ...And I feel like I need to have "Ramona's second book" -- the book I promised my therapist I'd write -- done by then. It just feels like something I need to do. (Kind of like ALL of the things I've done to try to make myself whole after Mom died.)

Tonight, as I was cleaning up some stuff in my last chapter, I stumbled across a line of dialogue that I knew was the title for the second book: Now what?

I don't know that it's a sign from the universe or anything like that, but it's enough to convince me that I should at least try to do what I know is insane:

I should try to write a book in less than six months.

The more I say it, the more it feels like a promise....

The Last Word

A couple of blogs ago, I wrote about how I'd been thinking one of my many flaws is that I have to have the last word all the time. It's been on my mind a lot, because I find myself in a situation where I can't have the last word with someone, but I still really, really want to.

Last night, just before I fell asleep, I remembered part of a song I used to listen to (and scream along to) a lot when my mom was sick (I think around the time that she had her second surgery). I couldn't remember all the words or even who it was by ("Break Me Out" by the Rescues) and I was too tired to look it up right then. I forgot all about it until just a little while ago.

I went through my iTunes library and I found it and I remembered how much screaming along to that song had helped. I started going through my entire library making a playlist of songs that helped through my mom's illness and death (most of them are scream along songs or songs that, for whatever reason, make me want to do a little dance no matter where I am).

I'm only to the Es. I just rediscovered "Effortlessly" by Sister Hazel. It starts out, "I won't be so hard on me today / I start to take myself so seriously / Shouldn't be so hard to be / Effortlessly."

And I remembered how I maybe didn't articulate my point very well in the "You're So Last Summer" post.

The point was that sometimes, I am too hard on myself. Sometimes, I forget to take up space, to speak up for myself, to treat myself the way I treat other people. (Kind of funny that the Golden Rule needs to get reversed occasionally.)

The point was that I take the idea "keep working on love" very seriously -- which is why I do so many wacky things with my friends and I why I write so many sappy emails and send so many things in the mail to people and why I give so many hugs. Every single one of us needs to know that we are loved, and I try not to let the people I love forget that I do. (I am not always great at this. Keeping this blog helps remind me that it's an ongoing project, that "love is not leisure, it is work.")

The thing is, sometimes I forget that it's important to love yourself. Maybe that kind of love doesn't need to be as big and loud and grandiose as the love you show others, but it still needs some attention from time to time.

 (And maybe now I can feel like I had the last word on this, and that might help me feel a little better, too.)

Get busy living

I have often said things like, "That's the universe speaking to you." To other people. I believe in signs from the universe, it's just that I seem to miss the ones directed at me until they're screaming at me and beating me about the head.

Today, I finally got the signs right, almost 13 years after they were set in motion.

See, that was when Jackie (one of my top five favorite people on the planet) gave me a copy of the book Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli. She told me that the eponymous character in the book reminded her of me.

I loved the book, and I had one of those hand-over-my-heart-touched kind of moments thinking that Jackie thought Stargirl was like me. (She's said this many times in the years since, so you know she really believes it. And that still floors me.)

The sign from the universe part was this: there's a passing mention in the book that Iceland has these spots that are designated by the government as "enchanted places." I didn't know if that was true or not (it's a novel after all) but that was enough to convince me that I needed to go to Iceland. I even bought one of those travel books (which did not, by the way, mention anything about "enchanted places").

A year or so later, my mom and I were visiting my great uncle in New Hampshire and during lunch, he mentioned (I don't remember why) having visited Iceland (I think during World War II, but I might be completely making that up).

Shortly after that, I saw some passing reference to Sigur Ros and asked my brother-in-law to download some of their music for me (I had dialup until four years ago) -- I wouldn't necessarily know any of their music if you played it for me right now, but I remembered liking what I heard at the time.

I kept meaning to get a passport (I still don't have one), but I never got around to it. I never had the money for it, let alone the money to travel anywhere that would require one. Or so I told myself.

In 2008, Matt Harding released my favorite of his dancing videos and one of my favorite moments in that video takes place in Iceland. I thought, "I really need to get there someday."

Almost two years ago, I met the most confusing and cryptic guy I've ever known. The first thing that made me want to get to know him was his casual mention of the fact that he'd spent a night in Iceland several months before we met, and the words he chose in his brief description of the country when I pressed for more details.

Last year, while my writing partner and I were setting the ground rules for our version of NaNoWriMo, he decided that we should have code names. Since Em had just legally changed her last name to France, Ben opted to be Germany. I didn't even have to think before I claimed Iceland.

One day last spring, I was showering before work when I felt what I thought was a lump in a place no girl wants to find even lump-like things.* I had a full-on panic attack that stopped just short of hyperventilating. I ended up being too freaked out to go to work that day, but I did email my friend Emer who, in an effort to calm me down, sent me a link to the video for Of Monsters and Men's "Little Talks." (The video DID make me feel better. I fell in love with that song.) In July, I saw them in concert. Although there are songs I like better than others, there isn't a single song on their album I'd say I dislike.

...And that brings us to today.

This morning, shortly after I'd read an article about an Icelandic girl suing the government to recognize her name, my friend Anne posted a link on Facebook about Iceland Airwaves. I clicked the link. I looked at the prices for the packages that included airfare, hotel, and admission to the festival. I'm not sure what my tax return will be this year (and I'd planned to use it to pay down my credit card debt) BUT, if I put the entire tax return toward this, I thought I could swing it. Holy. Crap. I sent Anne a message saying basically all of these things, calling myself insane, saying that I couldn't even believe I was considering this. (But I WAS considering it. Seriously. And what's more: I WANTED to make it happen.)

We sent some messages back and forth this morning and during my lunch break, including this:

Anne: GET LIVING.

          there's some saying on that, I think: get busy living or get busy dying?

Me: Yes, get busy living or get busy dying is from Shawshank Redemption (it's also a Fall Out Boy song).

Anne: Fall Out Boy. Love it.

(Incidentally, Fall Out Boy is my favorite band.)

And that's how I decided to go to Iceland this fall. Nothing's booked yet (and I still need to get my damn passport), but it's kind of amazing how you don't even really need to think about some decisions - they just fall into your head and heart, because you'd really made the decision eons ago without ever noticing.

Dear Universe: Thank you for being patient with me. ...And for continuing to send signs.



 * I turned out to be fine.

"I can’t go to the places where I used to go. And it can’t be like it was. And I wasn’t ready to say good-bye just yet."

- Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

I've been meaning to sit down and write something about how it's good to be able to laugh at yourself, and I'm glad that I have that ability (as evidenced by the fact that my current profile picture on Facebook is a REALLY unflattering picture of me laughing HYSTERICALLY, which makes me snicker every time I see it).

I've been meaning to write about how I discovered Douglas Coupland by reading on Wikipedia how Panic! at the Disco named the song "I Write Sins Not Tragedies"* in reference to part of Shampoo Planet when Tyler writes each of his friends' fatal flaws on a dollar bill and says, "What I write are not sins; I write tragedies." (Shampoo Planet is a pretty awesome book, by the way. As are The Gum Thief and Hey, Nostradamus!) I wanted to write about how if anyone was going to write my fatal flaw on a dollar bill, they'd need a whole stack. One for fear and one for the way I hold myself back and one for how I miss the obvious and one for how I have to have the last word. (And then that was going to segue into having the last word in an argument with someone who would never read the post anyway, necessitated by the fact that I missed the obvious over the course of many months.)

But I'm not going to write either of those posts.

Because the post I need to write is the one I don't want to write. The one I don't want to think about....

I have worked on my novel for 61 consecutive days. Each day, I have written at least a few sentences, sometimes whole scenes, once an entire chapter. I have never written for so many days in a row before. I don't know how long I will keep the streak up, just that I feel compelled to do it, especially as I add more days to the count.

It's awesome in about nine hundred different ways (and it's gotten me more psyched about reading -- just finished book # 45 of 2012 last night -- and about writing in general, about this book specifically). But the thing is, I'm writing a fictionalized account of my mother's death. And the huge downside, the part I haven't mentioned to anyone who has said, "Good job!" when I've mentioned the streak, is that it means I have to hang out in this very painful little corner inside myself while I'm doing all this writing. Some days, I feel absolutely eviscerated by it. It puts thoughts of my mother front and center, every day. (Of course I thought of her, missed her, every day anyway. But some days those thoughts weren't quite at the center of everything, weren't hogging the focus of both my conscious and subconscious. Like they are now.)

Twenty-three years ago yesterday, something horrible happened. Something that broke part of me in ways that can never be unbroken. Something that makes missing my mom a much more complicated and painful thing. Something that made me think, for a good chunk of my life, that I was unlovable and unloved. (Sometimes, this time of year, I still wonder about that. I guess it's part of the brokenness. I am thankful that there are people in my life who remind me -- often -- that I am loved, even at my most broken.)

I don't want to begrudge anyone a happy new year, a chance at a new beginning. It's just that, for me, it never feels that way. I'm not sure it ever will.

For me, right now, I have to take my narrator's advice and just focus on this moment, this breath, this instant. ...Which means it's time to eat the frozen hors d'oeuvres, per Mom's annual tradition.




* Oddly, I discovered my favorite book -- Carter Beats the Devil by Glen David Gold -- thanks to a post by Kevin Griffin of Better Than Ezra on his tour blog years ago. Years later, he made another recommendation via Twitter (City of Thieves by David Benioff) which was also really awesome. Lesson: Musicians make good book recommendations. (Or, Kevin Griffin and Brendon Urie do.)

You're so last summer

For several years, Taking Back Sunday has been my go to band for loud, screamy music when I am in a bad mood, a sad mood, a want-to-tear-down-the-world-with-my-bare-hands mood.

Months ago, I was listening to a mix at work while I was doing something or other on my computer (I really spend WAY too much time in front of one) and part of "You're So Last Summer" absolutely jumped out at me for the first time (even though I'd heard the song plenty of times before):

The truth
Is you could slit my throat
And with my one last gasping breath
I'd apologize
For bleeding on your shirt

Later that day, I emailed Em and said something like, "Hey, this is totally me." And, even though she was mad at me at the time, she said, "Yes, it is."

The Sunday before Thanksgiving, Kate and I saw Taking Back Sunday live. It was the tenth anniversary tour of their first album, Tell All Your Friends, so they played every song from the album (including "You're So Last Summer").

It was an awesome show and I stood within inches -- twice! -- of the lead singer when he came into the crowd to sing four or five different songs. (Side note: I have no idea why the people around me were all about touching and even kind of petting him. Yes, he's a talented guy. I suppose I could see there being some wow factor in saying, "I touched Adam Lazzara" but I don't see any more wow factor in that than in saying "I stood two inches away from Adam Lazzara" and I didn't have to touch a sweaty stranger to be able to say that.)

Adam was standing on the other side of the sound board during "You're So Last Summer." As I was screaming along and it got to the part I quoted above, suddenly things felt different. It felt really sad and lonely to sing those words, to relate to them like that.

Standing there in my ass-kicking boots of cosmic wonder (that's what Emer calls them anyway) sweating in a ginormous crowd of strangers listening to one of my very favorite bands, I realized that I didn't want to be that girl anymore.

My old boss (who I randomly ran into on the street today, even though he now lives in Africa!) used to tell me it was okay for me to take up space. (He's a social worker. They say stuff like that.)

And it is. I guess somewhere along the way, I forgot about that.

Since the show, I've been listening to a lot of TBS. I've noticed that several of their songs mention the color red.

"Little Devotional"

I picture you in blue
But I have to say
I’m more partial to the red
Deep, dark, and devastating
Leaving no question
As to where you’ve been

"...Slowdance on the Inside"

And this town may be a darker shade of red

"MakeDamnSure"

Scissor-shaped across the bed
You are red, violent red

It makes me think of my red notebook, about all the amazing things my friends did with it, about how the red notebook conspiracy has inspired me to be a braver, better person. My friend Mia pasted a picture of me in my fancy red dress onto one of the notebook's pages and on the opposite page, she quoted a song about a red dress: 

If anytime I think that I might drown

In all this standard issue gray

When I'm feeling small and pushed around

I close the door and draw the shades

I put on my red dress

I put on my red dress

Can't take my red dress away

I still love TBS and how they make me scream away the pain of a bad day, but these are way better lyrics to live by.

Expect love. And hope.

Today, one of The Bloggess’s blogs led me to an Amanda Palmer blog, which led me to another Amanda Palmer blog, which led me to this quote: “if you love people enough, they’ll give you everything.”

It reminded me of an entry in the red notebook:

The title of the last blog I posted related to the red notebook came from a David Levithan book: “I hope, but never expect.” When I read that line, I underlined it. Like, five times. I underlined it so much, because I thought it was so very true about me.

Except, maybe not.

I do hope (much more than I like to let myself think about, because hope hurts a lot of the time -- it's often the conjoined twin of disappointment).

And I expect almost nothing of anyone. Ever.

Except this: I expect the people I let into my life to be decent human beings.

Everyone can be an asshole every once in a while, given the right combination of circumstances. But MOST of the time, you need to be decent. You need to be concerned about the people you’ve touched; you need to show up when you say you will (or get in contact – with adequate notice – to say you won’t); you need to do the right things just because they’re the right things to do, even if it’s hard, and especially if it’s not.

That’s what I expect.

When I was in my earlyish-mid-20s, I saw a therapist for about nine months. At the time, I was convinced that I was a terrible person. I explained to my therapist that I worked SO HARD to be a good person. It was exhausting. It was neverending. Obviously, I had to be a terriblehorriblenogoodverybad person if it took so much out of me to be a good person. In one sentence she turned my world upside down: “A bad person wouldn’t put that kind of effort into being good.”

Since then, I’ve stopped worrying about it. I just keeping working at being a good person. I work at being a good friend. I try to remember to be awesome. Most days. (Some days, I’m an unreasonable jerk, just like anyone else can be on any given day. Those days suck, and I just want to get through them as quick as I can.)

But most days I try. Most days I remember that love and friendship are the best things I have to offer, and I offer them freely.