Thanks for the fish

I’ve got the serious gardening bug. I’m honestly starting to wonder if I have some psychological condition that makes me want to horde food. Actually, it’s not just food…it’s the passion for making everything myself and being self sufficient. When you think of all the things you eat, use, buy each day, if the industrialized world ended tomorrow, how much would you be able to recreate? (How much would you really need to or even want to if you really thought about it?)

I have a desire to make homemade yogurt and I found a way to do it in a crockpot. I actually bought a yogurt machine from the 70s at a yard sale several years ago, then in one of my “downsizing” phases, I got rid of it. Now I want it back, but I already have wayyyyy too many kitchen appliances. So I’m going to try it in a crock pot! But as was the case for homemade cheese, I need to find some non “ultrapasteurized” milk. Even the organic stuff at the store is ultrapasteriuzed. So I suppose this means a trip to whole foods or the natural foods store in Brunswick.

Other ventures I’m intrigued by but not quite ready for…textile making! How much fun would that be? I was looking online about angora rabbits last night. But the site I was looking at was geared toward people who already knew how to spin wool. Now how would one learn how to do that? I’m intrigued. I see a goat (for milk and cheese), a rabbit (for angora), a sheep (for wool), possibly chickens and bees…. Of course J is not on board. He just doesn’t have the vision I do. And so I will live with my vegetable garden for now. I’m feeling a little manic, can you tell? It’s Spring! Zing! Bing! I was actually quite lethargic today, but in my mind I’m very restless. I just do restless by sitting very still.

I have a bonus coming to me on Friday. I think it will be about $2K after taxes, but I’m notoriously bad at math, so I could be way off. I hope not. I really want to replace my entire wardbrobe and I just got a 25% coupon from the Anne Klein outlet (my favorite place) so I think a shopping spree is in order. I’ve been holding off for when I lose weight. My goal was 145, but I’ve decided to make an emergency change of plans and say if I can get to 149, good enough! It’s under 150 and that’s all that really matters. I’m 5′8 for chrissakes.

Soo.. as part of my newly motivated weight loss efforts, I stuck to a salad (with nuts, dried cherries and olive oil) and a veggie sandwich for dinner and ONE glass of wine. I’m actually not as hungry as I would’ve thought. Those veggies are sneakily filling. I’m feeling a little snacky right now, but Anne Klein is telling me not to have anything. She has more self control than I do.

Work is utterly boring so I just write lists like “Garden projects for 2009″ and “house projects for 2009″ and “food to can and freeze this year: my goals” and little graphs of how much weight I could lose in a week. Then I surf the net. Go out for smoke breaks. Go to the bathroom. Throw in a little work just for good measure. Tomorrow I vow to work on the structure and plot of my book. Might as well be productive in some way.

Well, I complain about not having enough time for anythign and here it is, 8:21 and I’ve already worked on my book for an hour, had dinner, practiced piano for a good 30 minutes and here I sit. What shall I do now? I guess I shoudl do some reading, or maybe some situps. Or both. hmm…

With steamed potatoes (hmm… carbs) and of course, a glass of wine. Went out with some friends last night for good food and company. Of course the night ended by playing video games. : ) These are mostly J’s friends and we see them about once a quarter. I think we need to make a more concerted effort to get out more..with other people. We seem a little sick of just each other lately. Grumpiness abounds.

He’s off on his run now..in the rain. He’s hard core. I have eaten about a gazillion calories in carbs today. Back on the wagon tomorrow. I don’t even want to go to ww anymore because every week it’s a gain or a very small loss and I can’t take the look the leader gives me. She’s not very encouraging when you’re not doing good. I need a pep talk or something.

Looked out the window about a half hour ago and there were dozens upon dozens of these little grayish birds in the yard, pecking away at the ground, scrounging scraps from under the empty birdfeeder (guilt!) and just looking very merry. We looked in our bird book and identified them as a junco. We surmised that they are on their way north to Canada and stopped in for suppah. They were fun to watch.

We set up a growing station downstairs for my herb seeds. Now I just need to buy those flats to plant them in. I suppose I could just do them in pots, now that I think of it. Hmm. I don’t really know what I’m doing. I’ve tried things from seed indoors a few times, never with great results. It’s hard to remember to water them all the time. We did rig up a light with a timer though, so at least I won’t have to worry about that. I looked over my seeds, and some they say to start indoors, like mint, thyme, and wormwood. I would rather just throw them in the ground outside. Rosemary seems especially difficult to get going, but god, I love Rosemary. I’m already starting to feel a little manic about the thought of gardening. I can’t wait!!

I’m still trying to clear the freezer out of the stuff I froze last summer. I found a bag of tomato sauce I made and am having that with penne tonight. If my memory serves me right, it was just tomatoes, but man, what flavor! I say this every year, but THIS IS GOING TO BE THE YEAR I can a ton of stuff. No excuses. I wont’ be happy until my entire kitchen, basement, bathroom, spare bedroom are stacked to the rafters with cans. If only I didn’t have to work full time, I could devote myself to the really important things in life, like food preservation.

What else? I bought Microsoft Office Home and Student for the laptop I haven’t bought yet. My editing isn’t going quite as well as the writing, but I’m tryign to cut myself a little slack, while not cutting myself too much slack. It’s a precarious balance. I tend to do better with things that are black and white. But this is art, right. You can’t be too rigid. I’m still trying to figure out my plot and structure and that involves doing some reading about how a plot and structure should work. I have a lot of good ideas, but I don’t want to implement them until I know that I have a solid foundation. I’m getting nervous though about spring coming… I have a lot of plans and things to do, and I’m already having a hard time fitting it in. I would like to just do it in the morning, but that doesn’t seem to work out so well.

But… when I get my laptop and get my “writing room” all set up, I might be able to drag myself out of bed. That room has a south facing window that looks across our pond and it’s just such a nice view, and such a nice room really. I actually like it better than our master bedroom. It has a lower ceiling (as opposed to our cavernous cathedral ceiling in the mb) and it’s decorated with beautiful pictures that didn’t fit in anywhere else in the house. My favorite being Botticelli’s Primavera. I know…it’s super romantic and maybe even tacky and childish, I dunno..but I love it. I saw it in person in Italy and just stared at it for 10 minutes. I love it! I feel like Venus is giving me inspiration. She’s my muse.

And since this post already makes me sound cookoo, I might as well note that I just watched another 911 conspiracy theory movie called “In Plane Sight.” Very interesting and with a lot of information I hadn’t heard before. Stuff about the pentagon, and the planes, and video coverage that showed some interesting things, that I won’t get into here. But if you’re interested, check it out on netflix. You may not buy into any of it, but where’s the harm in seeing what the other side is saying, right?

Whew! I am one tired lady. I’m going to bed early tonight. I wish I didn’t have to go to work, but my life is in my control. If I keep working hard, I can be a successful writer and then I can kiss the 9 to 5 life goodbye. Mwah!

You know how I hate routines right? Or does the latent anal retentive side of me secretly love them?  A little of both. At any rate, my Saturdays have turned pretty routine, consisting of:

Sleeping in (the best part of the day, by far…I do love sleep)
Eating breakfast, and then shortly after, lunch
Going to the gym for half hearted cardio and a pretty good weight lifting session
Borders - bought a blank book to write notes about my book
Grocery store - Spent a near record $150 this week. I budget for a $100, but there were 2 bottles of wine and a bottle of vodka, but I still tried to pin it on J’s organic granola.
Home - to take advantage of all that wine and do some editing (or at least trying to create a workable structure) for book
Piano practice. My teacher says I need to put in 20 minutes per day on the song I’ve already memorized just to keep it at this level. Plus I have a new song to memorize (classical gas)
And now we’re off to dinner with some friends at a yummy place with the word “road house” in the name (not Texas Roadhouse… a local place).
I also did my finances. I thought about titling this post “Scrooge McDuck” because that is what I have become. Leave it to a shitty economy to turn me into a miser. I open Quicken and just stare at my money. Not that I have oodles of it, but I’m socking away a fair amount..though most is for short term thigns like vacations, my garden, etc. I have a general fund which I used to keep a minimum of $700 in for car maintainence, etc. Now I have $4K. The more I save, teh more I hoard, but I’m forcing myself to buy a new laptop. There’s a lot I want to buy, but I’m finding it hard to let go of it. (this runs in my family by the way…along with craziness and alcoholism…)

And that’s my Saturday. Much the same for tomorrow, but hopefully with more reading. I also decided today that I have control over my own life and I will (oh yes, I will) get what I want. Next step: figure out what the fuck I want.

I’m getting to know my characters all over again. Just writing for an hour a day, I went kind of stream of consciousness, sort of following a plot and making up my characters as I went along (often forgetting key things about them from day to day). Now, I’m trying to make sense of it all. I have index cards files for each character and I’m going through my draft discovering all kinds of crazy things about them like:

Kate never repeats men or places.
Joe never really wanted to live in the country.
Meryl will do everything in the house if you let her.
Doug says he’s allergic to cats, but he really isn’t.

This shit is fun. I’ve always liked editing. You take a pile of crap and mold it into something better. Good stuff! I did half an hour so far but feel like since J isn’t home I should try to do something around the house, you know… like clean. I haven’t done shit lately. He says he likes to clean and I’m all for believing him, but still, I feel slightly guilty. And slightly useless. He’s become a total running nut and he’s meeting his running club tonight, training for a 10k. He’s like superman. I don’t know what he’s doing with me. God, man… you change a lot in your 30s. Are we growing apart? But really… when we first met, we were even more different than we are now. Then we sort of assimiliated a bit.. and now we’re going off in different directions again. I don’t know if it’s bad or not. I just get mad because he’s so healthy and it makes me feel like a slob. HOw dare he make me feel bad? The a-hole. : ) But really, I think it’s great that he’s doing this. He always used to say as we went out for a walk “I wish I could run!” and I would say “You can! Just start slow.” And he would say “No, my body isn’t made for it.” But he did it. And he loves it.

And I’m doing my writing. This is part of our unspoken agreement. We won’t get in the way of each other’s dreams. That’s the way I want it. I don’t know if it was my mother or some other conduit that forced into my psyche “don’t let a man ruin your life!” It’s really a different generation speaking…I guess. But then I do know women who do too much. They take care of the child rearing, the finances, have a job. I just never wanted that… I just wanted to be equal. And I walk the walk. I don’t vaccuum, I don’t do laundry. I go to happy hour when I want. But then I feel guilty…or not just guilty.. like we’re doing it all wrong. Like we don’t love each other because we keep separate bank accounts.

OH boy… why do I insist on moaning about my marital problems/nonproblems here? I suppose I need a girlfriend to talk to, except I’m just not the type of person to talk about these things since really NOTHING IS WRONG. Clearly.

I got some new wrinkle cream for drugstore.com. Olay Pro-X…supposed to be as good as a prescription retinoid. It’s that time of year when the snow is melting, the threat of coats comign off is threatening and I realize, holy shit! I look like crap! : )

J just called. He’s 20 minutes from home so I better start cleaning! I CAN redeem myself in one night!

Left work at 4:15 because my boss wasn’t there and I got there at 7:30. My friend D isn’t at work so I was left with two rather annoying, unintelligent coworkers. I know I should be compassionate, but hell, sometimes stupid people piss me off. Or just get on my nerves.

It’s times like this that I realize that most people are good hearted people becuase they don’t want to hear me talk about how the rest of the world are idiots. I’ll assume my dear readers are just as good hearted so I won’t go into my normal diatribe about how two of my coworkers are the dumbest people I have ever wroked with. Lucky you!

So I got home and tackled day 1 of editing my novel! It was fun. Way funner than I thought. I like it! The possibilities are just limitless. I’ve got my characters and a general plot, but now I can think about making them richer and deeper. It’s a little sad, but I’m actually starting to like the fictional world I’ve created way more than the actual life I’m living. And I’m starting to like my heroine more than me. Do you think this is a problem? I say no, because all I’m doing is writing down the fictional better world that has been in my head all along. Which is perhaps one reason why I’ve never been particularly pleased with the real world. But shit, if it’s my “bliss” who can judge me. So maybe I was just meant to be a fiction writer. If I accept that the real world will never live up, then where’s the harm?

I made some lentil soup for lunch tomorrow. For dinner I had 2 martinis, a bag of popcorn, and a carton of yogurt with walnuts. I have my weigh in tomorrow and dont’ have particularly high hopes. Oh well.. and I have been smoking, and even drinking diet coke. So what habit am I working on now, you ask? Um…um… there must be one I’m tackling. I haven’t smoked pot in 10 years. Does that count? A habit conquered is a habit conquered.

I talked to my sister today and realized that I don’t talk to her much anymore. She was mad because me and my parents were speculating about how much money she and her husband made and my dad was stupid enough to tell her that. He also got the figures slightly wrong. I guess being over 70 will do that to you. They make more money than god so I don’t know why she has such a complex. But apparently she still wants to be known as “the poor one” despite the fact that they paid nearly a million dollars for their house (ok, more like $650K or so). hmm…. whatever.

My other sister worries me. She seems rather unstable. So strange for my family…

And me, I’m unhappy and discontent as usual and am waiting for life to do something drastic to me because I don’t have the guts to do it myself.

the first draft of my novel!!!! Holy Fucking Shit!!!! That was fun… ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha haha…. and now I figured out what to do next…manana. Tonight, I’m going to have a celebratory hot bath and go dream about how awesome I am.

I’m feeling a little stressed out, mostly about writing. I set this goal that I would write for an hour a day for the whole month of March. Now I have 9 days left and I’m afraid I’m going to finish my book before then! Logic would say, “no big deal, just start editing for an hour a day.” But my 2,000 daily word count is something I know I can’t cheat on. It’s black and white, so I know I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing. How will editing work? What if I sit there for an hour and don’t get anything done? Does that count? Will I still get my reward (new laptop)? Even though I could’ve ended the book last night, I started a whole new subplot just so I could keep going. At this point, I’m going to end up with War and Peace.

I guess I really underestimated how much I could write in a month! I guess my plan of action is to wrap up this last subplot and end it. It needs to come to an end. I know there will be massive rewriting, reworking to be done and it will probably end up nothing close to where it is now. And that’s ok. It’s part of the process. I keep telling myself to trust the process. I’m just scared that once I move into phase 2, I’m going to lose my momentum and I really, really, really don’t want that to happen.

But I’m also excited. I will reach my goal and go out and reward myself with a laptop. Then, I’m going to set up shop in my writing room where I can shut the door and the blasted noise of the vacuum cleaner (why do I feel like I have to say ‘of course I’m not complaining’ every time I complain about the vacuum?) Of course, that also scares me because I will be changing the location of my writing. I know it shouldn’t be as superstitious as all this, and I’m trying to stop myself from thinking that way. I always freak out when I want something this badly because it just doesn’t happen very often. I want a lot of things, but I only want a very few things so much that I’m consciously afraid I’ll lose them.

I also want more time to devote to writing. Well, not to the writing itself but for reading about writing. I need to refresh my memory about plot points and themes and character development. Now that I have something to work with, all the books I have will be a lot more useful to me. I was reading this stuff before, but with nothing to apply the concepts too, it was kind of pointless. But now I just don’t have time. Things have already fallen out of my routine because of my hour a day. I don’t practice piano much, I do almost no cleaning around the house, I haven’t done laundry all month (of course I’m not complaining, she says guiltily), I forgot to scoop the litter box this week, I’ve done hardly any reading, and have also not called my mom or sister back yet.

On the other hand, I’ve had time to go out to eat several times, drink copious amounts of red wine, and get plenty of sleep, so maybe this is just an interesting lesson on my priorities.

I’m remotivated on the weight front simply because I want to go on a shopping spree but have told myself I can’t until I get down to 145. I’m 6-9 pounds away from that now (depending on the scale, time of day, and what I ate the night before). The plan is to be at goal weight by April 8, which is the end of session 1 of weight watchers and two days before I go to New Orleans. It would be awesome to buy a new outfit for my trip, be able to enjoy the culinary delights of the Big Easy and then get back on track in time for session 2. My new plan of attack is the eat the same thing (basically) every day. Oatmeal and half a banana for breakfast. A veggie sandwich for lunch. A yogurt for a snack. Sandwich, soup or some other light thing (6 points) for dinner. And a martini. I’ll let you know how ti works and then I’ll call it “L’s sandwich and martini diet.”

still involving cigarettes and diet coke, but in a more controlled psyche. I made the decision to have those cigarettes, and there were good reasons involved. And the diet coke was controlled too. There was only one of them and I realized I didnt’ even particularly enjoy it.

I gained 1.6 pounds at WW, which was good because I needed something to kick me in the pants. I still didn’t do great today, but I will refocus for tomorrow.

The writing was good. I’m reading this book called “The right to write” by Julia Cameron and she talks about listening and “taking down” stuff rather than “thinking up” stuff, and that is how it is sometimes. I just write. I set aside time and I pick up where I left off and the words just appear on the page, like they are here. They may not be brilliant or clever or eloquent, but they are what they are.

And now I’m cold and my hair feels greasy because I didn’t wash it this morning so I think a hot bath is in order and that is one of my favorite things in the whole wide world. J is watching “babel” which looks utterfly depressing and horrifying and I’m glad I decided not to watch it with him. He’s pouting about me going to happy hour tomorrow even though he went to happy hour last week and I never said a word about it (never even thought a thought about it). Last weekend he was rejecting me, now he’s a jealous husband. Who can figure men out? Who would want to? I’ve got my writing and my martinis and my hot baths and my Julia Cameron.

shitty days.

Days where you roll back every healthy habit you’ve adopted. You’ll have 5 cigarettes, you’ll have a diet coke, you’ll eat pumpkin raisin bread continuously through the whole day, you’ll skip yoga, you’ll get annoyed at coworkers and even be a little mean to them, you won’t even have the decency to feel guilty about that. You’ll hate yourself and call yourself a fat useless twat and then you’ll curse the stupid undercover police pulling people over on the highway, even though they didn’t pull you specfiically over.

And then you’ll admit that that is EXACTLY the kind of day you just had. And THEN you’ll stop talking about yoruself in the second person because it’s kind of annoying and will sit your martini, eat your beans, do your one hour of writing that night even if it’s the only damn productive thing you did all day!

I’m all funked out lately. I don’t know if I wrote about this last night or not, but writing is sort of having this profound effect on my psyche that is not always positive. I imagine this is what people in psychoanalysis feel like. I dredge up all this stuff and my psyche doesn’t know what to do with it. So I have nightmares. J interprets my nightmares to mean that “I’m afraid of the world.” Um, no. I don’t think that’s it, but thanks for the vote of confidence dear. I had a nightmare that someone was breaking into an apartment where a girl and guy were (maybe I was the girl, but it didn’t look like me). She was sleeping on the couch, and the intruders were going to take away somethign much more valuable than money or even life… what it was I’m not sure… maybe sight? consciousness? perception? I can’t think of the word I’m lookign for…you know, what the brain does…con… shit. comprehension?

J saw some robins on the way home. That’s the first sign of spring. I’ve already welcomed spring. As far as I”m concerned, it’s here. I don’t care how cold it is or what birds are chirping. I’m over and done with winter. IT’s a thing of the past and I don’t intend to think about it anymore.

I also had a dream I was taking the metro (subway) but I decided to go to the one at the mall becuase it was less intimidating. I think maybe it was supposed to be Pentagon City mall in VA. That has a metro stop. It wasn’t exactly right though. I’ve had a similar dream before, with trains, etc. and me traveling alone.

 

Last week at this time I looked at my calendar and thought… yikes! I have a piano recital AND my writing group..which one will I go to? Well, turns out I bailed on both of them. It was just that kind of Monday.

I didn’t sleep well last night, probably because of too much organic red wine. Then I felt ok this morning… I did my Morning Pages, which always makes me feel good, but I was tired. And then… I don’t know… I’ve been really sensitive lately… but J sort of yelled at me this morning. My hearing has really gotten bad lately. I’m having a hard time hearing and understanding people, especially when there’s a lot of background noise, or in J’s case, when he turns the opposite direction to my ear and then mumbles (!). So I have to say “what?” a lot and apparently it’s really getting on his nerves. And he loses his patience and then I get upset. It’s so weird and uncharacteristic for me to get upset about stuff like this but even now I feel like I’m going to cry over it. Anyway, it sort of ruined my whole day and I’ve been moping around and pouting and I just couldn’t face my writing group. And no, I don’t have pms.

I guess what is bothering me is that I really don’t know whether a year from now I’ll look back at this time as a tough time in my marriage that we got through, or else I’ll clearly recognize it as the beginning of the end. Things just seem weird. And even though we plan for paying off our house in 10 years, and we plan for a Greek Isle vacation next year, I’m just not sure that we’re going to make it to that. And that makes me sad. Or else everything will work out fine, she says with her head buried in the sand.

Sigh… anyway, I’ve gorged on totally unhealhty macaroni and cheese, more red wine, and of course, there is the total lack of sleep, so it’s possible I’m jsut totally delusional. But I’ve already done my hour of writing and I can say that I’m totally addicted to it. I’ve really crossed a line here. I’ve made progress of momentous dimensions. I think writing a book has probably changed lives before and made the author realize as much about life as they have taught the people reading it. It’s opening things up for me… I don’t want to say wounds… but it’s making me see myself for who I really am. And I think, in the end, it will help me get over things that I’ve been grappling with my whole life. It’s interesting. : )

I got a package in the mail from my sister tonight. She’s been making home made soap and she sends me samples. That makes me happy. Here’s one that smells kind of medicinal: lemon and ground rose petal and chamomile. It looks pretty though. hmm… hwo great to produce somethign like that. : ) I’m proud of her. I’m proud of anyone who does anything other than sit on the couch, watch tv, and gossip about lyndsey lohan. It takes guts to do more than that.

Well, you’ve probably noticed that I’m rambling, so that’s a sign maybe I should do something else. I really feel like, well, sitting on the couch and watching tv, preferably with an entire box of buttery Ritz crackers, which I do not have, or Oreos, which I also do not have. The fact is, I’m full and drunk and have nothing to do for the rest of the night. And so I’ll sit here and turn my head to the left and watch as the sun goes down though the woods and enjoy the fact that it’s 6:40 and not 5:40 (or 4:40) and I only have a few hours till I can legitimately go to bed, dream, and figure out what is going to happen to my heroine in tomorrow’s 2000 words.