A Writer
So. I signed up. To write. A novel. In a month. This next month to be exact. It’s called Nanowrimo. http://www.nanowrimo.org/ Writing starts midnight November 1st, and pencils down…or computers shut midnight on November 30th. 50,000 words. Now, if anyone has the time to do this it would be me- owner/operator of project deadbeat. Yet its not that simple is it? The brain manages to create all sorts of roadblocks that one must hurdle themselves over, like 6ft walls. You can go to the website to watch the word count grow…or not grow as the case may be.
This has been one of those weeks. Where nothing goes right and it feels like nothing will go right ever again. Im sitting here drinking Limoncello, I don’t even like Limoncello, but it reminds me of good meals and good company in Italy and sometimes that is enough.
This week I discovered a new song called “This Woman’s Work” by an artist that I cannot say her name because it sounds vulgar especially coming from me. So I will leave it to you to google it and laugh. Anyway, Greg Laswell also does a really great cover of this song. So I listen to this sad song and cry. I made a stew you see. A really fantastic chicken stew. It serves 8. At least. It looks like it might serve 12. But its just me and my dog here and I wonder sometimes if I will ever have a reason to cook a stew that serves 8 and actually need it to. I listen to the song and drink Limoncello and contemplate this.
I fly tomorrow. Its getting kinda real, meaning this is no bullshit stuff this learning how to fly a plane. I asked my instructor the other day, “how many times have I almost killed us?” I took his long laughter as a heartening sign.
Im supposed to be learning on my computer at home the ground school portion of this new skill. I procrastinated. Finally discovered I needed Windows to run the program. As a Mac girl this was annoying to say the least. With some help and advice I researched how I run windows on my Mac. I bought my upgrade OS- twice. It never showed up in the mail so I had to go buy it…after calling DHL and discussing with the nice lady how “ships in 24 hours” cannot possibly mean 4 days. Gave up and attempted to load the pilot training on my hp netbook- it has windows. After a lengthy conversation with a nice man from India, its not the right Windows software to run my new program. I thought- ok I will just READ the book. Go old school. Nice try. My lovely cat Mackenzie vomited. all.over.the massive pilot training book. Needless to say it has taken a few days to wash and dry out. So after 1 week and 3 days of trying to figure out how to learn how to fly at home I am currently at the same spot I was 10 days ago. The lesson here? I have no idea. So I sit here and drink Limoncello.
I did something working out at the gym. Something to my shoulder or scapula or some such part on my back. When I lift my right arm my back looks deformed, only on the right side. I blame the guy who made me rush. He obviously wanted to work out on the same machine. AND because I remember I had been mean to him in the past, yessss I can be grumpy at the gym, I decided to be NICE and hurry up. Well now I can’t lift my right arm with any degree of control, and With a fair amount of pain involved. Im hoping this is fixable. I fly tomorrow and my right arm is the only arm that controls the throttle, which is probably the most important part of flying…I’d venture to guess. But I haven’t read the book yet due to the vomit situation so what do I know? Really. So its been one of those weeks.
It is late. Im going to go eat some stew and contemplate writing a novel. Maybe listen to that song again. I don’t even like Limoncello.
Intrepid Women 
My four year-old boy plays soccer now. He’s in an under-6 league which specializes in overkill – 10 weekly games, an hour per game. I’m 40 and I have an attention span which will get me through a couple of hours of something dazzling on television but otherwise dooms me to zone out during conversation and to complete the first few steps of many projects around the house which remain ever-unfinished. Imagine how much concentration he has at 36 years my junior.
The games are hilarious and exciting for the first 17 minutes or so, but then the wee ones start to fade. My son keeps running with vigor but his aim no longer is focused on the ball, rather, he alternates among swashbuckling poses, flexing his muscles at the girls on the other team and staring out into space. So too, does the focus of the cheering section fade – particularly that of the players’ siblings.
Coach has girl on the team and a 3 year old named McKenna who spends a good portion of her time playing with her dolly on the sideline. Since mom is on the field guiding the older kids, McKenna is watched sporatically by the parents of the other players, and even we get lax after a little while. McKenna quickly grew bored of dolly during last week’s game and turned her interest elsewhere. The adults failed to see where.
At halftime, the players rushed the two Thermos jugs of iced water and lemonade (the water jug usually stays pretty full). I came over to greet the boy, and to tell him how great his kicks were despite their being aimed at his own goal. While I was mid-sentence, he spat his lemonade back into the cup and turned the cup over slowly to spill its contents on the ground. “Hey, that is rude! What are you doing?!”
Startled and guilty, he turned the cup back over. “It’s yucky dada, I don’t like it.”
“Give it here, please.” I took it from him and drank the remainder of the the lemonade – or tried to. One way my son is tougher than I am is in his gag reflex. Where he calmly removed the cup from his lips and dumped the contents, I immediately burst forth a Vaudevillian spit-take that was nearly chased by a geyser of my breakfast. Nearly panicky that my boy and I might be poisoned – it tasted like radiator fluid with a splash of citrus – I started looking around for why this happened. At the bottom of the cup was a jellied goo. I opened the spigot to the lemonade but it ran clear and normal. Further investigation revealed blobs of clear goo in the bottom of other, unfilled cups. Someone was trying to kill us all.
“McKenna, put that down, sweetie!” Coach admonished. I turned to see little, unattended McKenna with a pump-bottle of herbal scented hand sanitizer
(accidentally hit publish button prematurely) …herbal scented hand sanitizer, going for broke, filling up several Dixie cups with digestive sabotage. My gag reflex struck again.
For hours afterward I could taste the tart chemical funk on my tongue – even after brushing the teeth and flooding my mouth with Listerine – and horrid though it was, I knew I had tasted it before. Tonight, reading your blog, I suddenly remember where. You see, I don’t like Limoncello either.
Best post yet. So honest, funny, open, insightful. Keep ’em coming.
I think that you writing a novel is awesome!!! I can’t wait to read it.
I, however, like Limoncello.