Better Late Than Never OR Still Waiting to Win

.....the lottery.

I know, as a friend recently reminded me, planning to win the MegaMillions is not a strategy for life. Still.

The things I've learned, relearned or had to admit about myself this week:

1. I have an addictive personality. I know, stop ROFLYAO. I know. Nothing like opening with the obvious, right? This week's addictions (because it's a busy squirrel factory in this here brain, people) include (a) music - Vitamin String Quartet, Imojean Heap, the adolescent stylings of Jason DeRulo, and Gomez.

In a sad attempt to engage with my neglected children Nathan and Sophia (Chloe won't let me neglect her, the smart girl), I played bits and pieces of songs by the Vitamin String Quartet and made them guess the original artist and song title. It was a hoot. There were prizes given. Everything was fine until Sophia realized that Nathan was ahead by about 3.47 points in the elaborate point system we'd devised. She got upset. Her bottom of the barrel Halloween candy sucker went flying across the room, connected with a cat instead of the intended target (Nate's head) and there were the expected, subsequent tears.

The cat will get over it. The hair that came off on the sucker will eventually grow back, right?

My other addiction (why do I sound so proud?) is writing. Lately, I've gotten in to some serious writing grooves and I am loath to stop when that happens. It really and truly upsets me. Yes, I know that I have to remove my astronaut diaper occasionally and hit the showers, but seriously? I can suffer for my art. Why can't the people and felines who live and work and commute with me suffer a little with me? When I've made the big bucks, they'll want to be lavished with gifts, right? Let them earn it, I say.

2. I continue to fight my need to be a complete loner. Sure, y'all see this happy go lucky, cheerful chica who never seems to have a care in the world. I am a cyber-cheerleader, spreading a kind, happy word wherever I go online. But the real me is a dark, dark hellion, desiring nothing but the solitude of the grave. Or a cave. On a mountaintop. Imagine dark. Dour. That's me. Anyway, I'm fighting it - without meds. Chocolate and red wine have amazing pharmaceutical powers. So does singing loudly to Indigo Girls songs when alone in the car.

But seriously, me + deserted island = paradise. Although, I'm sure at some point I would get sick of me, too.

3. I am still trailing in the Mother of the Year awards race. This week, I parented by text and for bonus points, used the phrase "sucks ass." To the ten year old. Yeah, I know. I should write a book of parenting tips. Y'all think I should be jailed, don't you?

4. I am resilient and resourceful. Day before yesterday, I mentioned to MathMan that I should back up my story which has grown to 41,500 words. I expressed concern that I was inviting danger by not having a backup copy of it on a jump drive or something. I had visions of dropping my laptop out the car window on I85 and it being run over by the semi truck that's tailgating me. Bad, bad dreams.

(Don't dwell too much on the reasons why I would be dangling the laptop out the window in some unseemly reenactment of Michael Jackson and the Baby on the Hotel Balcony incident. Just stay with me here a minute. And stop clucking your tongue. I know we're supposed to be all warm and fuzzy about The King of Pop now that he's escaped this mortal coil too soon, but please. It happened. I'm using it.)

So last night, before I followed through on my very correct idea, I had my own incident. You know the kind, right? I'd gotten into one of those writing grooves and voila! I'd added another 3,000 + words to the story. Some of it was very good writing, I felt sure. And some of it was pretty hard to write because it required me to reach deep for some repressed emotions and memories.

Well, it wasn't a laptop dropped from a moving car into the path of an oncoming semi, but the little spinny thing that Microsoft Word does has the same effect. I tried saving the document, but it just spun and spun and spun. I muttered and went to the bathroom because I had to leave to pick up MathMan from a late meeting at school. When I returned, Word had reopened and the options for auto-saved documents appeared at first to be promising. Feeling hopeful, I clicked on the most recent one. It came up with nothing. I clicked the second, which was auto saved about 25 minutes before I'd finished writing. A very large piece of what I'd just written was gone, daddy, gone.

I didn't have time to rewrite the piece just then, because I was already late to get MathMan. I panicked momentarily, which looked more like losing my shit, to the untrained eye. Trust me - losing my shit is much more disturbing than what happened last night. I kicked the desk and cried in spite of myself. The kids didn't quite know what to do. They looked concerned and then got out of my way as I dragged my sorry ass out of the house.

I sat in the car and pounded the steering wheel for a second, then remembered my camera. I pulled it out, turned it on video and recorded myself telling the story, the best I could from memory. Today I wrote the scene over again, without using my recording. And I think it's even better than the first writing of it. Maybe that's not a bad writing strategy? Write, erase, rewrite. Maybe not. That would make me crazy. Anyway, I was glad to have the piece rewritten, saved to a jump drive and feeling like it was even better than before.

But really? Talk about cruel jokes of fate. I mean, who doesn't want to write a rape scene two days in a row?

Until next Wednesday, my lovelies.....

Lisa