Daily Journal #6 - Not so daily after all

January 11, 2016

Recently I listened to the novel Brooklyn by Colm Toibin. I selected it because it was on one of those lists of books you should read before you see the movie. Not that I'll actually ever see the movie unless I stumble across it on Netflix a couple of years from now, but I thought I'd give the novel a try. It's a small break from the cozy mystery vortex I've recently inhabited.

I wasn't crazy about the book at first. It wasn't awful. The dialog (usually a deal breaker for me) was fine. The characters were well-sketched. It wasn't full of action, rather a telling of a life. A part of a life. I think it's what people might call a quiet story.

Told from the perspective of Eilis, the main character, the writing was straightforward and almost mundane. Was it lacking detail? I couldn't put my finger on it. Eilis seemed a little hard to get to know. She only told you the bare minimum about herself and there seemed to be a paucity in the sharing of her emotions. Sometimes I wanted to cheer her for her ability to hold it together and other times I wanted to throttle her for her naivete. True to most of my own life, she was a little late to understand things. By the time she had a full grasp, the consequences had already engulfed her.

As you have probably figured out, Eilis maybe bothered me most because I was seeing myself. I suppose that's a common reaction to many stories, but this one, in particular, struck me as Eilis went back to Ireland after having established a life in Brooklyn. When she returned to her home, she experienced the same feelings I have every time I visited my parents' home after I left for college. That feeling of being a guest in your own home. It's also the feeling I get now when I visit the kids in Georgia and stay with MathMan and Sophie.

I starting writing this from the spare bedroom of my former home. I was there visiting. We celebrated Sophie's birthday on the 7th. It was wonderful and loud and crazy and fun and sad to spend time with Nathan, Sophie, Nathan's girlfriend Kade and Doug. I couldn't help wishing that Chloe had been there, too.

But visiting there is hard. I AM a guest in my old home.  A new dynamic fills the house as it is just Doug and Sophie's home now. Three of us - Chloe, Nathan and I can only be guests there. When I am not there, I don't have to think about that reality. I prefer not thinking about it.

It takes me a day or two to adjust to the feelings of weirdness. I have to check myself. I can no longer act like a human bulldozer, cleaning and commanding while everyone rolls their eyes behind my back. I'm the person who gets to have things done for them as if by magic. I'm not entirely comfortable in this role even if it is kind of nice to get what you wish for once in a while.

By the time I've adjusted, I'm contradicting myself by feeling an itch to head home and be in my own space. Domestic Queen of my domain. I tell myself each visit that the next time I come, I will get a hotel room or insist that Sophie visit me in Indiana instead. It's not that the visits are unpleasant. It's just - - - - it forces me to take a good look at what I left behind and how our family has changed. While necessary to own the situation since I was very much the engineer of those changes, I think it's unhealthy to revisit my old life every couple of months. I never get beyond the guilt and regret before the reset happens.

But back to the novel. The thing I am most struck by now is how Toibin unravels the story in a way that's natural. Most of us aren't information dumps of self-knowledge. Hell, most of us struggle with self-awareness. Eilis doesn't spend large amounts of time puzzling over her own behavior. She's more interested in observing the actions of others and only occasionally assigning intent. It's only in short bursts of enlightenment that Eilis identifies some profound trait or value held by herself or another character that gives her some clue as to what may be not morally right or wrong, but right for her or the other character.

After a while, Eilis began to feel at home again in Ireland and began to question her life in Brooklyn. From Ireland, the time she'd spent in Brooklyn seemed like a dream. The life she'd had - school, work in a shop, her rooming house, the man she'd fallen in love with - it didn't seem real anymore.

And I can see how this happens, too. Having straddled two lives since 2013, I recognize the opposing tugs of the familiar and the unknown, sometimes being unable to know the difference between the two.

Sketch #2 - Her

It was a dangerous game and she knew it. But that didn't stop her from edging out there further, further. It would go too far. She knew that too. But that didn't stop her from pushing beyond the bounds of decency, or normal.

She had to know, but oh, he'd remain closed-mouthed if she asked directly. She'd done exactly that more than once and he'd always wielded the same tactic. You couldn't even call it a glossing over. It was an outright silence on the matter as if he hadn't heard the question.

"It's like I've been beaten with my own stick," she said to her ex-husband who had enough sense and class not to smirk when she recounted her most recent tale of woe. She'd been dumped. The irony wasn't lost on either of them though neither mentioned it. She muttered about Karma while he looked anywhere but at her.

They talk about desperate measures, she said. And these are desperate times. Things had gone so wrong and now knowing seemed less painful than not.

But holy shit. Those words, delivered so succinctly and so matter of fact, weren't just an arrow to her heart. No, that motherfucker sliced right through her and landed squarely on her future selves too. Hell, she suspected that years from now those words would be arcing through the air and landing hard and sharp on her sorry ass ego.

.......She was smart and funny. The prettiest girl in high school......

......So what happened? The thin, beautiful women he was chatting with on a sex hook-up website braced herself for the but.....

But I was never attracted to her physically.  She let herself go. She's 48, overweight, gray hair.

And there it was. The thin, beautiful girl who'd lured him so expertly into thinking he was fixing to fuck the girl of his dreams felt her stomach drop. Blinking back tears, she morphed into something not at all sexual but something rather repugnant apparently.  48. Overweight. Gray hair twisted around her finger in a nervous knot as she considered her response.

The thin, beautiful sex object could afford to respond any way she wanted.  He was going to let her get away with anything because he was still hoping for a hook-up. But instead of hitching up her feminist pants and defending his ex as desirable despite her age, her weight, her silver hair, she remembered the game and typed something about how understandable that was. Who wanted someone who'd let themselves go? 

He barely registered her response.  He was ready to move on to more titillating topics like how he wanted to bend her skinny body in half and fuck her hard.

The skinny girl she'd pretended to be shadowed her at every mirror, frowned at her soft middle as she slipped as fast as she could in and out of clothes, sighed when she wanted to eat an entire bag of M&Ms with no consideration whatsoever for color order.

She hates the skinny girl. She wants to be her. She stops herself mid-spiral. That skinny girl won't always be skinny. Or even if she is, won't always be young.  There will always be younger, thinner women. And, she reminds herself, this particular skinny girl wasn't even real.

Instead of giving in to her cravings she chewed on the double standards of sex appeal. The man who'd found her so disgusting wasn't anything to shout about. 45. Overweight. Balding. Bad teeth. And yet he felt perfectly within his rights to expect someone like the woman she'd invented to want him.

She trolled the internet for new hairstyles and color. She fought her cravings and took up walking and lost twenty pounds. She bought foundation garments that could double as torture devices for the weak of mind.

She lay next to the new man., the one who rarely touched her, and thought again of those words. 48, overweight, gray hair. His last girlfriend had been significantly younger, slimmer, and therefore prettier by default.

The new man had his own tactic. It's me, not you. Can't you just accept that I love you and leave it at that?

"It's like getting beaten with my own stick," she thinks because she doesn't want to talk to her ex-husband about this anymore. The situation is so absurd.

She thought about how the days of getting by on her looks were behind her. She had been only marginally aware that she did that, but now it was clear. The way men wanted you when you were young and slim and fresh was actually predicated on those traits. The awareness of this sent a shudder through her like the one she felt when she realized that her days of having the soft warmth of her own babies were behind her.

She could starve herself to nothing. Walk until her feet ached. Dye her hair and attack the wrinkles with creams. And still she was always going to be 48, 49, 50. The words young and fresh were never going to be applied to her again.

She started to talk to herself about being undesirable. Or something different than desirable. How would she operate without the barrier of sex? It had been such an important part of her repertoire for so long that she felt as though she were losing one of her senses.

What else was there to her? Oh dear lord, was she going to have to grow as a person and become interesting?

The thought nearly exhausted her. Instead she resolved not to care. To accept the new definition of herself. She knows it's silly to allow the opinion of others to determine her self worth, but there it is.  The root of the problem. Has she ever existed outside of being defined by someone else?

Hell, one day she might even embrace this new, sexless self, but for now she's still puzzling over the sensation of invisibility when she puts on her shoes and walks the downtown streets in an attempt to salvage a little bit of what was once considered fuckable.

Winged

I've alighted again. For how long? It's anyone's guess.

I'm back in my hometown and happy to be here. Even so, most items remain boxed. The trunk of my car has become a weird closet holding bits of an old life. Root around in there and you'll unearth boxed shoes, pocketbooks in protective sheaths, a can of WD40, books, a ziplock bag of utensils.

I have no idea what I'm doing.  I could be on the lam without much effort, but don't have any firm plans to break the law. It's not exactly chaos though. Work is stable. Beer is stable. Exercise is consistent. (Pauses to consider the irony, shrugs, examines sore foot.)

Physically I'm recognizable. The hair is long and silver. The breasts too large. The hazel eyes are more feathered at the corners, but that's to be expected. It's been a long year.

In other ways, the cocoon has been shed. I spend enough time at the American Legion that the bartenders know my drink. I can tell you on what night you can shoot pool for free at the bar on Main Street (Wednesdays). I'm relearning Euchre. To great concern and the open consternation of MathMan and the children, I've taken to listening to country music. I hear whispers of intervention.

Life is exploding with characters. I want to collect them all, write them down, get their stories just right. I think of my own story and wonder when will it be not so damn raw? I poke and poke and come up with too much feeling, too little sense.

I spend most Wednesdays convinced that it's Thursday. I don't think it has anything to do with playing pool for free. It's because I'm twisting myself into knots wishing for the weekend so I don't have to answer the phones. Answering the phones means there's a damn good chance I'm about to invite someone's despair into my ear.

"Law office, may I help you?"

And then the words come. Sometimes faltering. Sometimes tear-stained. Angry. Afraid. The callers who want to know right off the bat how much this is going to cost are the easy ones.

Working in an office that deals mostly with divorce wasn't the brightest idea coming on the heels of busting up my own family. I have a genius for putting myself in ridiculous and painful situations.

So I'm listening to the audio version of Naomi Wood's Mrs. Hemingway and there's this line that goes something like this.....

Hadley, his first wife, to Hemingway:  You create these messes for material.

I listen, rewind, listen again.  This is Chuck to remind Bill to shut up.

I hear you, Universe. But I'm still looking for that compass.

Thought she was James Dean for a day

Lipstick. Some things never change.

When last we met, I'd solicited suggestions for blog subjects. Many of you offered ideas for which I am grateful, but clearly not grateful enough to blog over the weekend. The truth is that I was otherwise engaged taking Sophie and her friends to see one of their teachers participate in the Polar Plunge which raised money for our local Advocates for Children. We had a great time despite freezing off our gnocchis.

We went for lunch then got our blood flowing by running relay races through the aisles of a (thankfully) nearly deserted Staples. They finally shooed us out of there when one of the girls tried to fit herself into a filing cabinet drawer. It's a shame, really, I think she would have fit.

I spent the rest of the weekend thawing out, writing apologies and getting on Mathman's nerves.

But now I'm here and you're here and I have a topic suggested by my friend Bill whom you really must visit at his eclectic blog. Bill is one of those multi-talented people you want to hate because they do everything well, but you can't because they're so danged nice. He writes, builds furniture, paints, is into photography, long walks on the beach.... no wait - he's happily married. I don't need to write his Match.com profile.

Thank you, Bill, for the idea. A 500 word essay on If I Were a Guy.

I've often said that one of the things I like about having Nate as my son is that he gives me a glimpse of what I would be like as a male. The two of us are alike and in other ways which may or may not overlap, Nathan reminds me of my brother. So much so that sometimes I do that Mom thing where I accidentally call Nathan by my brother's name.

How would I be as a male? I'd probably be less cautious than I am as a female because society tells boys that risk is good. I'd be more outspoken (believe it), more eager to push to the front of the line, more ready to deal with confrontation, more confident in my athletic abilities, more competitive, less concerned with what people think of me.

Not all of that is true, of course, because boys suffer their own forms of doubt, fear, rejection, social anxieties, pecking order confusion, and angst. But it's nice to think that some part of our species escapes the torture of not knowing who they are, why they're here and never being satisfied with where they are. Perhaps I'd be better at hiding it.

If I were a guy, I'd learn to dance. Play guitar. I'd write the songs that make the young girls sing and take off their dresses. I'd hold open doors, be gentle with animals, read  Norman Mailer and Jane Austen. I'd learn to cook and clean, but manipulate my way out of having to do either. I'd build up my female friends because they have a harder time of it in this male-dominated world no matter how many barriers they bust down.

I'd write my name in the snow.

If I were a guy, I'd go outside to wait for the woman who let her dog shit on our lawn just now. She'll walk by again and I'd ask her to pick up that fucking dog shit. Except I wouldn't say fucking because I'm not that kind of a guy. I'd hand her a plastic bag so she'd have no excuse for not cleaning up her Bassett Hound's load.

If I were a guy, I'd pick up the tab and remember important dates and do all the things women are supposed to do, but I don't so can I assume I would if I were the opposite of me?

I wouldn't grunt when I lift weights, wouldn't cat call or wolf whistle or bellow like a moose when playing XBox. I'd keep my fingernails clean, but never have a manicure. I'd never wear a Speedo or any other kind of banana hammock. I'd have pubes like a 1970s porn star, but no facial hair. I'd have my back hair removed. I'd wear boxers, but never let them show over my pants. I'd always have one suit and a pair of dress shoes that fit me. Just in case.

But first, and this is important to note because I've done some serious research on this issue, you'd have to wait for me to leave the room where I'd be standing in front of a mirror staring at my schlong just because it's there.

What would you do if you were the opposite sex?


P.S. Another blog post here.

But who is going to hold me to it?

Normally, I eschew things like New Years resolutions. A resolution is nothing more than another opportunity to fail.

Because I'm more than a little tired of who I am naturally, I've decided to try some new things. Push myself a bit. Don't worry. I'm setting the bar pretty low and I've brought a paper bag in case any of this causes hyperventilation.

1. Drink my coffee black. Like the midwife who delivered all three kids once said "it takes a whole lotta sugar to keep me sweet." Hell yeah. But it's time to acknowledge the wafer thin wall between bad eating habits and future ill health. There is no reason to ruin a perfectly good cup of coffee by adding enough sugar and cream to make a dessert. A spoon should not be required to consume coffee.

2. Read more. Anita mentioned that 2012 is the Year of Reading the Books You Own. Yes! I purchased a ridiculous number of books last year from a used book store that was going out of business and at the Friends of  the Library book sales. While I can't guarantee that I won't be lured by the siren song of the library's new releases shelves, I am setting a goal of reading at least one of the books I own once a month.

3. Stop making fun of the sound the oldest cat makes when she crunches the dry cat food. She probably isn't that amused by it anyway.

4. Stop projecting my shit onto other people, especially those closest to me. Just because I'm feeling all balled up about something doesn't mean that MathMan has to be. A true challenge. Misery often does love company. Especially if company comes bearing cheap chocolate.

5. Stop worrying and learn to love the bomb. Feel free to project your own shit on me here to get the meaning.

6. Annoy one celebrity a day on Twitter. Hey, it's a branding strategy, okay?

7. Ignore the cesspool of American politics. It's like attempting to ignore an itch on your butt when you're in standing in line at the DMV. You don't want to scratch in front of the people behind you and you can't leave your place in line.

8. Wii Just Dance. No matter who is around to mock me.

9. Stop looking for a job. Is it like love? When you stop looking, that's when it finds you? And if not, why not?

10. Stop censoring myself out of fear that potential employers will see my blog, facebook, twitter, pinterest, etc. and decide that I am not "their kind of people." Maybe my blog and social media is what I should be doing while I finish working on the novel and a couple of other projects I've added to my To Do list. After nearly 500 job applications, it's clear I'm going to have to make my own way.

P.S. If you're a potential employer, I'm kidding! I'm a rule follower. A hard worker. A team player. Versatile, appropriately innovative and I possess strong communications skills. And I come cheaply. See! I use adverbs!

P.S.S. Some of you might be surprised to learn that I censor myself. I know!

11. Stop judging people by the inane stuff they post on Facebook. Being a judgmental asshole says more about me than about the people doing the cut and paste I bet you won't do this statuses, the TGIF posts, the Monday complaints, the weather reports and the questions about which new, expensive phone to buy. It says I'm easily bored, snobbish, pretentious, sanctimonious and jealous. It says they lack creativity. See what I mean?

12. Acquire new skills. I can't really afford to go back to school right now, but my friend Christine posted online a list of free educational opportunities and more than one of them appeal to me. Learning for the sake of learning? Why not?

Twelve for 2012 seems hokey enough, right?

Have you used this arbitrary date to promise yourself anything?

It's the New Splenda Lady Come to Call

MathMan and I are attempting a low carb lifestyle. Attempting is, of course, the operative word. Goodness knows the world is dark place of hidden sugars and sweet sabotage.

We're on day three and we've already, both of us, fallen off the turnip truck. Wait - are turnips considered safe foundation vegetables with Atkins? My brain is too busy coping with DTs to suss it out so let's do this - we've both tumbled belly fat first from the meat wagon. I licked my way to nirvana with a lemon custard ice cream cone and MathMan succumbed to the Blackberry Mountain Pie singing its siren song from the kitchen counter.

I ask you though, can you blame him?

This is so easy to make. And delicious.

Anyway, we realize we're on a collision course with reality. We either rid this house of all white products and listen to the wailing from the battlements when our children discover that there's not one speck of milk chocolate, nary a crumb of cupcake, not a single Cheez-It left behind OR we accept the fact that we're doing a modified Atkins which includes some whole grains, some dairy and wine for Lisa. A mash up of Atkins, low-glycemic, Weight Watchers and South Beach. Save us, Dan Marino! Won't you help us, Valerie Bertinelli? Have mercy on our fatty deposits, Marie Osmond. Rescue us from ourselves, Nutri-system and Jenny Craig! (for free)

Atkins. How very unsustainable. It's one thing to require me to stop propping up the refined sugar industry each time I drink a cup of coffee. It's altogether cruel to expect me to forgo some half and half or cream, too.

Our discussions focus around what we're eating, how much we're working out and the effect it's all having on our slap and tickle. One reason we've decided to take this route (again) is because MathMan doesn't find my admonition to not come into contact with my fat tummy much of an aphrodisiac.

We're competitive, comparing what we weigh and how much we've lost or gained. For the first time in memory, we're both in need of lifestyle changes at the same time. So often one of us has lost weight while the other has gained. It's very frustrating.

Even as we're in the battle together, we irritate the other. He's trying to undermine me so that I stress eat and I'm jealous of his ability to do pull ups and to make slight modifications in his diet and lose fast and his lack of hormonal issues like PMS that make sticking to Atkins especially tricky.

Yesterday, he was doing pull ups on the contraption that fits over the door frame and I walked by chewing on a celery stalk. "Now there's a sight," he huffed. "You don't even like celery."

"Shut up. This isn't celery. This is a Marathon Bar."

"They don't even make those anymore."

"You realize you're in a rather vulnerable position hanging there, don't you?"

I know the low carb thing makes me moody. I'm an addict, after all. My love of sugary things is inherited and began when I was quite young. I learned to count to ten putting teaspoons of sugar on my Puffed Wheat and Cheerios. There was always more jelly than peanut butter on my PBandJs. When I made the ice tea for my mom, she'd remind me to add some tea to the sugar. My dad, the guy whose daily breakfast was a tall glass of 2% milk with a quarter of the can of Hershey's syrup, used Brach's Malted Milk Balls and gallons of Meadow Gold Ice Cream to show his love and taught us to put milk and sugar on our cherry Jello. Imagine - sugar on...sugar. I'd say blech, but it would be a lie. I'd still eat my Jello like that if I could do it in private.

So here I am again, trying to change my ways without killing someone during a sugar-free rage. If only I could be dealt with like a heroin addict. Lock me in a room with nothing but black decaf, water, and three pounds of beef jerky and I'd get beyond the rough part. I don't even care if I hallucinate babies crawling across the ceiling, just release me from the gritty clutches of sugar, please.

Also, what was I thinking to begin this lifestyle caper over a holiday weekend while I'm experiencing those aforementioned hormonal issues? Madness. The kids aren't helping either. Chloe made owl cupcakes to take to a birthday party and the leftovers are in the fridge mocking me with their owl eyes.

So, listen, if you see me out there on the internets bumping into walls or showing my butt, as we say down here, please take no offense. It's a phase. Just shove an Oreo in my direction and get away fast before I say or do anything else obnoxious.

All of this is good for me, I know. When I'm seventy-two and not taking ten different prescriptions I can't afford, I'll look at MathMan, still fit and trim MathMan, over our 9 Lives entrees and be glad for every day we did better than worse when it came to moving more and eating better - more vegetables, more lean protein and less processed junk except for those fabulous Atkins high protein, low-carb bars which I can, given enough vodka in my system, convince myself taste just like Baby Ruth bars.

In the meantime, I think my brother said it best - if vegetables tasted like Ho Hos, I'd be a vegetarian.

What's your poison? Points to anyone who gets the title reference. I'll send you some sugar. Or rather "sugar."

I'm at the wrong end of the looking glass

Happy New Years Day, gang.  I hope you enjoyed a safe and entertaining New Years Eve, if that's your thing.  After MathMan and the kids got me down off the roof and back into my clothes, we just hung around the house watching Sherlock Holmes on DVD, feeling slightly odd about Dick Clark's appearance on the countdown, toasting each other with sparkling grape juice and tossing around curmudgeonly quips about the general hoopla taking place on the television.

Do we know how to party or what?  Dear god we're such Hewitts.  Those of you who know my family know exactly what I mean by that.  For those of you who don't, well, just be glad.  The Hewitts are not fun people. Trust me.

And I don't know how we've turned MathMan into a Hewitt, but I guess living with me for twenty gabillion years has done just that.  I am so so sorry, MathMan.  I was really hoping the kids would look like you and that your whimsy would rub off on me  Alas, no.

If today is any indication, 2011 is going to be the year of dicking around for me so you people with your grand plans and schemes for being productive and disciplined and thin and zen and all that can just.......nevermind. You go on with your bad selves.  I'll be here cheering you on.  Because that is what I do.

I'm dragging around a case of I don't wannas.  I don't feel like doing anything.  Especially not anything productive or grown up and responsible.  I scooped the litter box and spent an hour and a half reworking this blog's design. Isn't that enough?

But that's how I am.  If there's a big job to do like taking down the holiday decorations, for example, I must dive in instead of thinking about it.  That's how I end up still wearing my flannel pajamas at 7p.m. while directing Nathan who is helping me move the television from one location to another because rearranging everything in the living room is the best way to guarantee that we'll begin the new year with a little less dust and detritus from 2010. What begins with me absentmindedly sipping coffee and taking a few of the ornaments off the tree at 8:30 a.m. snowballs into a day of cleaning and rearranging.  But things got done.

If I stop and think about what has to be done?  Forget it.

That's how I'm treating the urge to upend everything and become a shiny new person because it's January 1.  I know what I need to do, but I'm not going to overwhelm my delicate self by thinking about it.  I'm just going to dive in.  Tomorrow.  No wait.  Tomorrow is Sunday.  Monday.  No wait.  The kids don't go back to school until Tuesday.  Tuesday.  Definitely.  For sure. Tuesday.  For now I'm just this...

Oh yeah, I watched Valley Girl last week.

How did you guess?

May 2011 be whatever you wish it to be.

So I turned myself to face me

"What time is it?"

"7:24.  Wait. Is it Monday? Don't you have school today?"

"Yes!"

MathMan and Nate typically leave the house at 6:15a.m.  All they could do at this point was mitigate the damage of being late.  Thankfully, Nate didn't have any exams yesterday morning.

Sophie made it to school just in time.

No bones were broken and cursing was kept to a minimum.  Considering the frenzy we were in, this was remarkable.  Are we, as a family, maturing?

After a beginning like that, I had no idea how the rest of the day would go.  The plans I'd made for the day weren't ruined, but now my timing was off.  Would I fight the cats for a spot on the bed so I could lay around and watch Love Actually three times in a row? Or maybe finish any of the three books I've partially read?  

When I went to bed on Sunday night, I'd had my whole day planned.  Once most of the people were out of the house by 7:30, I'd work out, eat breakfast, shower, write, do more job searching, read and then, later in the day, make dinner and get the Christmas decorations out of the garage so we when Sophie got home, we could put up the tree, as promised.

So now what?  It was already after 8 o'clock and that half an hour made all the difference in the world!  Well, in my mind it did.  It's a ridiculous game I play with myself to keep from accomplishing anything.  A ready made excuse.

When I got back from dropping Sophie at school (she missed the bus), I went around the house, picking up the trail of clothes and towels that had been left behind by people dressing in a hurry.  I made beds, noticed that things were dusty and wow, did I really vacuum late last week?

Hours later, the bathrooms were clean, the whole house was vacuumed and dusted, furniture was rearranged (for the first time since we moved into this house in April 2009, our dining room is a dining room instead of an office), all of MathMan's text books were in one place instead of scattered in three different rooms, dinner was prepared and the boxes of the decorations were in the basement and ready to go.

By 6:30p.m., I still hadn't showered (gross!) or eaten or even consumed a cup of coffee.  Nevertheless, I'd accomplished a lot.  I'd even gotten the cat litter I forgot to buy the other day because Chloe drove to town and picked it up for me while she was there.

When I finally sat down to eat some dinner and drink a beer in record time (what happened to that martini drinker?), I thought about how the day represented life in general.  Just because you're tossed a curve, doesn't mean you have to let everything fall apart.  The ability to adapt is one of our most important survival skills.

Lately, it seems that I'm using that skill more often to navigate the job search (you would not believe the ways my resume has been adapted), the constant low-grade financial fever, and writing.  Yes, even writing.  Everyday I make plans to write X number of words or to work on X number of pages of revisions and every day something happens or I can't pull it together blah, blah, blah.

But then I look back at the writing day and see that I wrote a few hundred words.  Or I got through six pages of edits. Or I read some excellent writing which is as valuable as writing myself because it's like the company you keep, right?  I may not have met my big audacious goals, but that didn't mean that what I had accomplished didn't matter.

MathMan called me late in the day.  "How are you?"

"Fine. You?"

"Good.  Nothing came crashing down because we were late."

"That's good. I was worried.  I got Sophie to school just in time.  I also made sure that my alarm is set for tomorrow."

"Excellent.  I don't know what happened.  Oh well."  He pause and laughed.  "Honestly?  I haven't felt this well rested in a while.  It feels good."

Yes, it does.

How are you adapting?