The Storm Dweller's Tales

The Perfect Gift

2012-02-02T13:40:00.000-08:00

Margaret was secretly counting down the days until her birthday. She always tried to downplay it when people brought it up, but she waited for every card and every gift with glee, tallying them up as if they were points towards being elected Prom Queen. She waited eagerly for all of them except one.

Her sister Mary never gave good gifts. Last year Mary had given her a picture of a landscape with a rainbow, and Margaret hated it. She just knew it was a jab from Mary and her gay-loving liberal leanings. That's all that rainbow meant. She'd tossed the picture in the trash can, complaining all the while about how her sister didn't seem to really think about what she liked at all. Mary was so selfish trying to force her beliefs on Margaret on her special day.

She eyed the envelope on the table. Mary e-mailed the day before, with an apology that she couldn't make it to Margaret's birthday party this year, but that she'd sent a card. She offered lame excuses about how she was attending some seminar about the educational rights for people with disabilities. It was just like Mary to be more concerned for retards than her own sister. Likely Mary would claim to be doing it for the benefit of that genetically defunct spawn she'd given birth to. She should have put the child in a home as far as Margaret was concerned.

There was no box, so maybe Mary had taken the hint and had sent Margaret a gift card or a check instead. At least then she could pick out a gift she liked. That was Margaret's theory, if you were a horrible gift giver you should just send money so the recipient could at least pick something they liked. It was the courteous thing to do. Mary immediately thought of a pearl necklace that she could put the anticipated funds towards.

She picked up the purple envelope, trying not to sigh at the obvious jab at her for hating homosexuality, as if that were a great crime. Mary was so backwards. Homosexuality was against nature and Margaret had every right to dislike those people. They weren't worth the precious oxygen that they breathed, and she couldn't understand why Mary insisted on wasting her time with them. She slit the envelope open to find a finely printed card on a thick and expensive stock. But no check fell out and no gift card either. Surely there must have been a mistake. She opened the card and read Mary's hand-written words:

"Dear Margaret,

As it seems you feel that I have horrible taste in gifts I have thought long and hard about what I should do for you this year. I decided to do something different. You see I got the picture for you last year, because it was a beautiful photograph of the woods near where we grew up. It reminded me of our childhood, when we'd spend Sunday afternoons playing after church. We spent so much time talking about Noah, the flood, the rainbow, and so many other things we learned at Sunday school. It seemed well suited to your conservative beliefs and I had hoped it would remind you of happy times.

I overheard you talking at the party about how much you disliked the gift and accused me of trying to raise your ire because of your particular distaste for homosexuality. So this year I have donated $200 in your name to two of my favorite charities. $100 was donated to the Gay-Straight Alliance and $100 was donated to the Autism Society of America. Since I know you enjoy being able to complain about my gifts to your friends, I am giving you a perfect opportunity to do so this year. Happy Birthday!

With Love,

Mary."

A Witch Named Wicked

2012-02-02T05:00:00.000-08:00

There once was a witch named Wicked,
Who had a broom as swift as a cricket.
She flew through the night sky
Both hither and nigh.
Now if only she knew how to land it.

Days Like This

2012-02-01T15:55:00.001-08:00

I have had the song "Mama Said There'll be Days Like This," running through my head for days now. I don't know what prompted me to think of the song, but it's a mantra that seems to be getting me through the little bit of a rat race I have left. I feel like the anticipated closing for the week of the 20th seems optimistic... but maybe... just maybe. I believe I will confirm the dedication date next week and then plan to give my written 30 day notice to Section 8 and to my land-lady around the 15th. I hope to be out well before March 15th, as she already has someone lined up to move in, and chances are that person probably really needs to be in sooner than later.

I have been kyping boxes from the warehouse here at work. (They're happy to be rid of them.) And I have decided to start with getting my book shelves packed up. The boxes we receive our invoice paper in is a managable size for books I think. After all really large boxes of books are not going to be pleasant to carry down two flights of stairs.

The Beau and I had a pleasant evening last night. We talked politics for a little while. I found that despite some of our juxtaposed positions, politics was not an unpleasant conversation to have with him. As someone who despises politics at all, that was an interesting sensation. He brought up Newt Gingrich's indiscrestions with his former wives as a small concern. I have always held the opinion that sexual indiscretions have nothing to do with whether a person is a good politician. Some of our best presidents were notorious philanderers. Issues of sexual morality irk me, because in my humble opinion it's a subjective issue. He brought up Bill Clinton in the discussion, and I laid out that the only respect that I lost for that man in the whole fiasco was over the fact that he perjured himself. The other piece I take issue with when it comes to the indiscretions of politicians is their lack of regard for the very public humiliation their wives go through. In fact I would almost go so far as to say that some of them very intentionally set out to publically humiliate their spouses. But again, those are moral issues, that have nothing to do with whether or not they will promote social justice, clean energy, economic recovery, and good foriegn policy (amongst a myriad of other things) while in office. The Beau calmly articulated that his problem with it was simply the fact that if they would break one set of vows in their personal life, it casts doubt on their commitment to uphold the oaths of office when the going gets tough in the public eye. I can honestly say I'd never considered that angle before. So what do you know? I actually have something else to consider when holding public figures accountable for what they do in their private lives. And that is not a moral issue. It is simply an issue of responsibility and accountability, two qualities one would HOPE they could find when selecting a political leader.

Now I wind up the first of this month, putting the excitement of the Habitat House away. questions over Politics, Ethics, and Morality I'm laying to rest for the moment. And I am paying the price for allowing my children to stay up late on a school night. Pookie is fighting going to bed now... and all I hear is, "Mama said there'll be days like this..."

Cinderella's Castle

2012-01-31T15:37:00.000-08:00

I stopped at the house over my lunch break. The tile has gone in the bathrooms and the Laundry closet, and the crew was preparing the kitchen surface to begin the tile there. It's a little darker than I thought, but I LOVE how it looks.

I've garnered a number of large boxes at work. I'm trying to bring myself to the reality of this house by making sure I see it and start doing the work that says I'm almost there. I still can't seem to make myself believe that this is really happening, as if I am merely moving through a dream, or I expect someone at the last moment to jerk the rug from under my feet, and ask me just who I think I am. I feel a bit like Cinderella at the Ball, afraid for the toll of the clock to send all my dreams dissolving in a sprinkling of fairy dust, knowing that in the morning I will be bellowed at to scrub floors and prepare meals. But this is no dream, and it is no fairytale. It is real and tangible, and the sooner I accept that, the better. Maybe once the ink is dry on the mortgage I'll be able to grasp it a bit more firmly.

Death Knells and Roads Travelled

2012-01-30T12:10:00.000-08:00

It seems I am finding that a new cycling period has been added to my plate for traumatic anniversaries... because I really needed another one, right? But after the third year in a row of finding myself travelling back in time to the end of my marriage, I suppose I am realizing that it may not be so much that I have unresolved issues about the marriage, as much as the fact that the beginning of the year is a high stress period anyway, and my body is associating the stress of today (stress at this point precipitated by very positive things in my life) with the stress experienced for the last three months before I finally fled the marital residence.

I've been pondering over the topic of marriage anyway. The day I completed my sweat equity hours, a sensation settled over me that I was now ready to marry the Beau. In fact I expressed to him that I was ready to marry him, but I wasn't yet ready to plan a wedding. He chuckled, and seemed to know exactly what I was saying.

I spent some time on the phone yesterday with my mother, and mentioned that the Beau had gone to work on the Habitat House, opting to figuratively swing a hammer over playing nurse-maid. She saw that as an avenue to ask me whether or not he was moving in with me after closing. I was shocked and all I could muster was the simple response of, "No." While my thoughts raced with comments of, "Do you think I'm fucking stupid? Why would you even ask me that?" And she swept into pointing out that he hadn't offered to make up the difference in food stamps when I lost them and that he couldn't support my children, comparing him to the sperm donor who never supported me. I didn't respond to anything she said, hoping that my silence would speak for me. But I've thought since then that there are major differences. The man works hard, and he DOES support HIS child. My children are not his obligation to financially help or support. The man whose job it is to support the children, will not do it... ever. I have no illusions about that, nor does the Beau. No he can't support my children, and it is not his job to. But he does understand that by marrying me, he is contributing at least a little to their support, if nothing else than in the way of providing an environment in which they have something resembling a nuclear family, with two mature adult role models. I understand that the children's care is top priority in all of this, and finances are pertinent to that care. It is a major factor in the equation, but not the only factor. For her, it seems to be, because of fears relating to her past experiences, and fears because of my previous choices. She bases her opinions on half information and I have simply stopped discussing the relationship with her, because every time I do, I seem to inadvertently be handing her more ammunition against the guy, which I feel is an injustice to them both. I don't think she sets out to be hostile towards him, but that's how she ends up coming off in her conversations with me. Maybe hostile is not the right word, perhaps unduly biased would be a better description. I've listened to hours and hours of her concerns and experience. Of that time, I've maybe only spent 20% of it being the one speaking. All of my points she has a counter argument for. Some of them are valid. Some of them I look at and think, "I understand where SHE is coming from, but what she is worried about is absolutely invalid to who and where I am in life." I'm meeting her for lunch on Wednesday when she's in town, and I've decided if she doesn't bring the topic up, I will let it lay. However if she does, I'm going to ask her if she really would like to have that conversation with me, because she is not going to like what I have to say. My tarot reading indicated that something I would do or say during that meeting would leave her with a little food for thought, which I interpreted as a go ahead to just be myself without reservation.

But last night I began thinking of the end of my last marriage, and this concept of a "sacramental marriage" as my mom presents it. She did not marry until her late 40's because of all the men she loved, and who loved her, she knew that they were not the ones that she wanted to enter that sacrament with. They were not right. My step-dad she knew was right, even though the last several years have been tough for them. She cites she married him for the right AND the wrong reasons, but she holds to that sacrament.

I will not enter marriage at this point in my life with the notion that divorce is not an option. Having been divorced once, it's quite apparent that actually it is. It isn't that I believe people should be married willy-nilly, or that I believe they should give up on the commitment when the going gets tough. I believe in the "'til death do us part" before God and all of that jazz. I don't believe people should get married unless that is exactly their intention. But I also know that people change, and that ten years down the road you may discover the person you thought you married turned out to be someone else entirely. I understand that doesn't necessarily have to be the fault of one party or the other either. Entering a marriage with the decision that divorce was not an option kept me in a relationship, that I never should have entered into, for the better part of a decade. The other piece that held me there was pride. So damned and determined was I to prove that I hadn't made a mistake to myself and to my family, I was going to try whatever I could to make it work. Divorce IS an option. But the job of the Beau and I after we are married is to work to make it the least appealing option for one another. And I don't mean in the malicious-I-will-ruin-you-if-you-leave-me kind of way. So that is an area in which my values diverge with my mother's. That's quite all right.

So in thinking of beginning a new marriage I am rehashing the death knell of the previous one. My mom believes the issue of the second wife was the final death knell, the proverbial straw. And in part, maybe it was, although before the conversion to Islam, that was an issue that had come up before... the other woman thing without the permanence that a polygamous marriage would imply. In fact I have to wonder why the ex would have thought I would ultimately go for the idea of a second wife. I'd finally told him to fuck off on the idea of a one time Menage a tois before that. I gues my fuck off wasn't loud or direct enough for him to hear. I hope the divorce drove it home. And yes I entertained the idea, discussed it, tried to see how it might work, because I was almost that desperate to salvage the marriage... almost. But that was where the sacramental piece of the marriage absolutely broke down. His conversion to Islam, and my desperate conversion soon thereafter in his mind negated the vows we'd taken as "Christians." To me that indicated that as far as he was concerned the entire marriage was negated... dissolved. The vows were not valid, so therefor I really was not his wife in any other regard except in regard to the legally binding contract entered into under American law. And obviously American law didn't matter to him all that much either. I would say in regards to the issue of polygamy, but throughout the relationship he'd shown disregard for "the law" on many levels outside of that, and continues to demonstrate disregard for the law when it comes to the custody order. In fact he disregards the prescriptions of his claimed religion when it comes to the support of his children, but I digress.

Back to the contention that our dual conversion negated completely our marriage vows. God, was that a blow to be absorbed. It was right up there with the massive struggle to carve away the idea of enduring grace embodied in a savior, to instead take on a veil and a lifestyle of rules and strictures that ultimately left me feeling muffled and throttled. I have not re-assimilated concept of enduring grace into my life although I so desperately miss it. I miss it, but at the same time it reminds me that for a long time I bordered on it as being permissive of not learning from my mistakes. I discarded it for a reason and to pick it back up smacks of hypocrisy to me. It's a concept and belief system that has such value that I will not denigrate it by adopting and shedding it at my convenience. There could also be that little sting of pride that keeps me from wanting to admit that maybe I was wrong for discarding it to begin with, and that just as I may have discarded it for the wrong reasons, maybe I miss having it for the wrong reasons.

The second nail in the coffin of the marriage is the incident I talked about some time ago. I suppose by mere book definition it could be called spousal rape, but I have not really revealed this to anyone else because of how convoluted it was to me, added to an already stressed situation. I pondered over that too, as to why it is still stuck in my craw. As far as my trauma Rictor scale goes, that one incident barely registers as a tremor in the face of the collective traumatic experiences in my life. But I realized that it happened within the last three months of the marriage, and it wasn't about the trauma of the experience as much as it was his disregard for that boundary. It was a symptom of the complete loss of respect for me as an individual human being within the relationship, if such a thing ever existed to begin with. Even though he wasn't violent in that instance, he seemed to feel entitled to have sex with me, and would do so regardless of whether I really wanted to in that moment or not. (I didn't want to have sex in that moment because the relationship had gone to hell, and I was terrified of finding myself pregnant again in the midst of it all.) How long would it be before he did resort to violence to get what he felt entitled to? I certainly didn't want to stick around to find out. I didn't want a sexually traumatic experience to happen that would knock everything else I've ever experienced off of my Rictor scale. So that was the second of a trifecta.

The third was the argument where he very calmly asked me to stop yelling. I don't even remember anymore what we were arguing about, probably the issue of the second wife. It seemed like that was the one that was so forcefully shoved down my throat for so long. He asked me to stop yelling and said something about wanting us to remain friends, and I bellowed at him never to call himself my friend. I told him that friends did not treat each other the way he and I had treated each other. It was in that moment the realization that there was nothing left, and the thought that maybe anything I thought there was to begin with had really only been an illusion. It was a disappointing moment of epiphany, and it forced me to look at myself in the mirror later and ask myself why I was still there. I didn't even have a friend there anymore. It was not long after that particular argument that I made the call to my mother to ask her advice on what I needed to do and where I needed to go. And she over that weekend put the plan in place to get the children and I out of there, and told me none of it, afraid that I might slip and reveal anything to him before the plan could be successfully executed.

There was plenty before those last three things that I should have recognized and called it quits over. All of the upstart businesses, all of the begging and pleading to churches for financial assistance due to the poor choices. The more I look back over the course of the relationship as a whole, he seemed to have a penchant for currying the favor of people of a deeply religious stripe, and then turning hostile on them when they began to question his motives or denying assistance. He would offer to do work for them under his new business, and only half do the job, or not follow through on what he promised at all, and would hold computers or web-sites hostage, demanding payment for work that even I knew was shoddy or half-assed, although I never felt I could say that it was so. Some of the work that was completed was work that he dumped in my lap, with the guilt trip of being a stay at home mother and not having a "real job."

I had insecurities, pride, fears, low self esteem. I believed that he just needed someone to believe in him because it seemed like no one else did, and I knew exactly what that felt like.I had a penchant for believing that maybe my history was to blame for it all, and that if I just tried harder... In other words, I was a text-book co-dependent. And I do have to watch myself to make sure i don't slip back into that behavior. The Beau made a comment at one point about trying to be his most recent ex's knight in shining armor, and I just flat looked at him and said, "You can't be that for me. That is not what I need." And he seemed to agree. But by the same token, maybe I should follow up and ask him if that's something he feels he needs to be, because if that is a need he has, I am not going to be able to meet it for him.

I made a lot of choices in my marriage that I am nowhere near proud of, and do not claim to be blameless. All I know, is that I am trying to heal from yesterday, and trying to understand how it got me to where I am today. Where I am today, is not necessarily a bad thing.I may not like the road I travelled to arrive here, but none the less I am glad that I've made it this far.

A New Favorite

2012-01-29T09:09:00.001-08:00

I noticed that not all the lyrics are transcribed in here correctly... the refrain is actually:

"What doesn't kill you makes you stronger
Stand a little taller
Doesn't mean I'm lonely when I'm alone
What doesn't kill you makes a fighter
Footsteps even lighter
Doesn't mean I'm over cause you're gone."

And where the person who transcribed the lyrics may think the person he/she assigns this song to is the devil, actually the line is, "'Cause your dead wrong."

Fiction Friday: A Little Help from a Friend

2012-01-27T07:50:00.000-08:00

Well apparently I flubbed up the Fiction Friday prompt for this week. On top of being flipped off by someone who ran a stop sign on the way to work this morning, it just seems a natural part of this week for me. This apparently is the LAST Fiction Friday challenge, as next Friday our Friends over at Write Anything will be unveiling their new writing challenges. With that said, I will leave my original story up, as I think it has a lot of value. (It actually may be one of the best short stories I've written.) And now I will honor the ACTUAL prompt and compose something else.

"[Fiction] Friday Challenge #244

The final challenge is a musical one… and is as much a thank-you to you—the [fiction] Friday authors, from all of us here at Write Anything (nee Stuff), for the years of support you’ve given the meme and the site through its many evolutions.

A very special thank-you to [fiction] Friday founder Dale Challener Roe… in creating [fiction] Friday you helped launch hundreds of stories and writing careers, assisted in building a writing community and most importantly, provided a birth place for hundreds of enduring friendships."

"What's wrong?" Joan asked Sarah.

"I have this song stuck in my head and I can't remember what it's called or who it's by."

"I hate it when that happens. How does it go?"

Sarah hummed a few bars and began singing the words she remembered:

"Do you need anybody
I need somebody to love
Could it be anybody
I want somebody to love.

Would you believe in a love at first sight
Yes, I'm certain that it happens all the time
What do you see when you turn out the light
I can't tell you but I know it's mine..."

"Never heard it," Joan said flippantly.

"Oh you have to have heard it. It was popular for like ever. Everyone knows that song. You know... it's that one song."

"By that one guy that plays a guitar! Right!?"

"Yes! You know it?"

"Sorry. I don't."

"Bitch."

"Friends are always happy to help."

"Damn. I wish I could remember what the name of that song is."

Fiction Friday: The Note

2012-01-27T05:00:00.000-08:00

[Fiction] Friday Challenge #244

Use the image as a prompt for your story.

Suicide was not something Clare ever discussed with her counselor. She'd been raised by someone who ranted and raved about how selfish and weak a person who committed suicide was. So she never talked about it, not directly. Her counselor had tried to get her to come out and discuss it openly, but she refused. So instead they talked in metaphors, in a language that seemed privately shared now, because Clare was afraid that the thoughts she entertained proved her father right, that she was selfish and weak. He'd spat those things at her as the Bailiff led him away from the courtroom. As he yelled, she stared at the chair she'd sat in while she woodenly told the judge what her father had done. He'd always said "those people" were weak, but he never seemed to consider what hopelessness and despair could do to a person. Pain, some days, seemed harder to face than death.

"Fine, Clare," her counselor sighed some time ago, after asking her directly if she ever though of killing herself, "You won't come out and directly say that you're thinking of killing yourself, but the behavioral rating scales you've filled out have red flagged all over the place for suicidal ideations. So here's what I want you to do. Keep a calendar. Every day you have a 'bad day' I want you to draw a picture of your choice to signify it, and every day you have a 'good day' draw something different to represent that."

Clare didn't know why she picked the Beetle for the "bad days." No. She did actually. Those days made her feel like an insect and she wished someone would just come along and crush her. The "good days" felt like forward momentum, so she chose an arrow to represent them. It was a code between her and her counselor. But there was a piece of the code she hadn't shared... she'd secretly given herself an out. Every month she counted the arrows and the Beetles, and she'd decided that when there were more Beetles than arrows, it would be time to do it.

She had it all planned. She would take one of the sedatives she'd been prescribed, and she would follow it with a poisonous tea. Poisonous herbs were not hard to find, many of them were sold as homeopathic remedies, and in small amounts they were therapeutic, but in larger doses they were deadly. She'd spent a lot of time learning about the medicinal properties of plants as a a child, and she knew which ones killed quickly, although not altogether painlessly. So the sedative was important. She would take it before the tea, and she would simply fall asleep and never wake up again. She'd planned to lay out a tarp for easy clean-up, and she would lower her air conditioner in case it was a while before she was found. She didn't want to stink up the place. After all if she was going to be a bitch and pull the most selfish act ever, the least she could do was be courteous in how she went about it.

The calendar was a tool, to show her how well she was actually doing, and since she'd begun the arrows were beginning to grow in number and the beetles became fewer. She knew that the visual indicator helped boost her confidence, and this was reinforced with praise from the counselor. Her secret out seemed to relieve some of the pressure to "perform," and ironically she was performing well. But Clare knew one day the pendulum would swing back. It was inevitable. And when the day came that the Beetles outnumbered the arrows, she would write on the calendar, "This is my note, and it is the only reason why. I'm selfish and weak. And I am not sorry."

Homework: Morning Mantra

2012-01-26T19:47:00.000-08:00

I was able to meet with my Pastor today, for the first time in at least a month. We did general catch up on how things were going, particularly in light of the fact that I wrote down our meeting time for the incorrect day, Thursday instead of Wednesday, and so therefor I missed it. One appointment missed is general human error. Two in one week is evidence of a bit more dissociation than usual. Difficulty with word-finding abilities, and an even harder time articulating those words when I do retrieve them from the part of me that holds their definitions, as well as getting half way through a task or a thought to suddenly forget what I was doing or saying does not look good when measuring symptoms against my diagnosis. People who don't understand what it's like to live with dissociation will chalk things like that up to fatigue and human error. All combined together, it's an indicator to me that I'm not handling life's demands well at the moment, and I'm being lax in implementing my coping mechanisms.

It also means I'm driving my neighboring co-worker nuts because I am now verbally walking myself through simple tasks such as dialing phone numbers or composing e-mails that I have the verbiage burned into my memory for. I have been tempted to write the message regarding aging invoices into a script, as it seems I get halfway through the memorized monologue, forgetting whether or not I have already given my phone number and extension, or wondering if I even addressed the person with the correct name. One customer threw me for a gigantic loop today, as I read her response on payment for one account, but found her contact information in another that, before, was unrelated. Fortunately one of the credit analysts assigned to that account was able to let me know that the two companies were in the process of merging and that one person was handling the bookkeeping for both accounts during that process. I feel like I'm walking through what I have heard Alzheimer's as described to be like. When moments of clarity hit, they're very sharp, and I get a lot of work accomplished. When the fog settles again though, I have no energy, no motivation. I lose my competency and my ability to even give a damn that I've lost it. This piece is new for me. I know what it's like to be tired, but these bouts of indifference and disorientation are completely novel. It's not even a flippant or lackadaisical attitude about work. It's as if complete apathy is taking over until I figure out how to reorient myself with the task at hand. I really hope that it is the by-product of fatigue, and as the running settles down, I'll feel more like myself again.

So my Pastor at the end asked me how I was doing spiritually. I said I just wasn't. My house is in shambles, I haven't read my runes in over a month, I owe two other people readings, I haven't been to church. The most I've done for myself is take my bath every evening, because it's become a necessary therapy to soothe tired and aching muscles and bones so that I can actually get to sleep. She asked if there was something quick I could do every morning. I drew a complete blank. So her suggestion was a mantra of some kind. Something I could easily recite as an incantation and ground myself. So my homework is to compose said mantra and to have it in her in-box tomorrow morning. I figured it would be good to center it on my theme, so here's a shot:

"In this moment I will be here.

I will breathe and experience the here and the now.

Whether this moment is good, bad, or indifferent I will live in it.

This is the only moment like it that I have had or will ever have.

Once it is past I will never have it again.

I choose to be here, now, in this moment."

Widdershins

2012-01-26T06:00:00.000-08:00

A pattern. A cycle.
The rules of all existence
Dictating one direction
The wheel is meant to turn.

East to west the sun
the stars, and the moon
trek across the sky
watching this world learn.

Against the current I walk
Everything in reverse,
As I travel back again.

From East to West
Now West to East,
My world is widdershins.

Special Needs Gift List

2012-01-25T15:05:00.000-08:00

The blog "Flapiness is..." has become my new blog crush. The author does in many ways what I wish I could do, but lack the time, energy, and perhaps the calling to do. She gives a wealth of information on Autism, having a young son who is on the spectrum. "On the spectrum," being one of those pieces of Autism lingo to indicate a diagnosis of Autism in one of it's many spectral manifestations in a politically correct fashion. (She very intelligibly discusses the issue of semantics around an Autism diagnosis in one of her posts.)

Today she has posted a list of gift ideas for parents of special needs children. All thirteen of which are fantastic ones, though not completely universally applicable to all parents. Broadly speaking they can be applied to a vast majority of Special Needs parents. She got me to thinking about what I as a single parent of a special needs child, and two other very high energy children value in terms of gifts. Whenever anyone asks me what I want for Christmas or Mother's Day, or any other occassion, I never know what to say.

I actually almost resent receiving jewelry (something I will have to kindly train the Beau in) because the only jewelry I consistently wear is earrings, and as to necklaces and the like, I tend to make my own. Jewelry making materials are better received on my end than expensive jewelry I'm afraid of breaking or losing. This is a sensory related issue for me, as many pieces of jewelry are too heavy and distracting. I prefer glass beads and natural stone to metal chains. Perfumes, even though I don't smell very well is not a geat gift for me either. Other than that I have nothing that I desperately want, and when I do, I tend to save up for it and buy it on my own, because I don't think to ask other people for things even when gift giving occasions are forthcoming.

So with this in mind, and having read the post over at Flapiness, maybe it's a good idea to have a standard gift list on hand of those things that never fail to please for myself or my family, something that my friends and family can refer back to when they're out of ideas, and I draw a blank when they ask me.

1) Baby-sitting - I would rather have a hand written certificate entitling me to one night of free babysitting when it can be conveniently arranged than a gift certificate for anything else. As I said over at Flapiness, often the cost of a babysitter is at least twice as much as the cost of the activity that people would like to treat me to. They buy a gift certificate for me because it's a luxury I normally can't afford for myself. This, to me, is self-defeating in it's purpose. I can't count the times I've received a certificate for something really nice and expensive, something luxurious, to which I have expressed extreme gratitude while thinking, "When the hell am I going to be able to go do this? Will I even be able to get away long enough to do this?" The gift is often given with the intention of providing me some relaxing activity, and ironically trying to make the arrangements to do it becomes a stressor all in and of itself.

2) Movie Gift Cards - Movie Gift cards are great because on the nights that I do spring for a babysitter I can sneak away with the Beau to take in a show, or if finding a sitter is too much hassle, I can treat the whole family to a matinee in the cheap seats. In fact anything that can be done as a family activity is great. This would include gift certificates to family friendly restaurants, the roller skating rink, the local aquatic center, etc...

3) Gift Certificates to favorite stores - These would be ones that I can get to over a lunch break, but that I hardly shop at because they put my bank account in grave danger. These would include Bath and Body Works, Hobby Lobby, Book Stores, and believe it or not movie rentals. Also gift cards to children's consignment stores are welcome as well.

4) Craft Supplies - I love doing crafts, with or without kiddos. Beads, yarn, foam crafts, paper crafts, even some sewing crafts are great! Though if you get the spawnlings a craft that involves materials such as plaster of paris, paint, or massive amounts of glue, I will glare at you and tell you that I'm sending them to your house to make the craft in question. Consider yourself warned.

5) Body Washes, Lotions, & Shampoos - Not heavily perfumed of course, preferably stuff for more sensitive skin. Itchy dry skin is a nightmare for SID'ers. But since these are the first things that drop to the bottom of my priority list when funds are tight, they are always welcome and practical gifts for the children or myself. Soon to be included in that list will be items such as deoderant and facial washes as they kiddos approach the teen years.

6) Wal-Mart Gift Cards - As much as I hate the giant chain, and avoid shopping there when possible, the ability to buy groceries, clothes, toys, and household goods makes the card a versatile gift that I can apply where it is most needed. Also since Wal-mart offers the site to store option too, it makes shopping for the kiddos' gifts a breeze. We can shop from our own home, without the overstimulation of large crowds and a visually busy environment, and then I can go pick things up at the service desk easily over a lunch break. I also encourage the kiddos to save up their allowance too, so that we can order stuff from Amazon and get the free shipping on it, and Amazon offers a discount on use of their gift cards, so those work well too.

7)Dollar Tree Gift Cards - Believe it or not these are incredibly useful little things. It's the kiddos' favorite store and often where they get to spend their allowance if they are too impatient to wait for an Amazon purchase. Plus I purchase a lot of the household goods that hit the bottom of the priority list there to include things like trash bags,napkins, dish soap, and paper towels.

8) ITunes Gift cards - Yeah that one is self explanatory.

9) Gift Cards for Hardware Stores - With my three kids, home maintenance can be quite the issue. I like to save these for expensive repairs that might crop up... like a wall needing to be patched.

10) Gas cards - Gas is expensive, and with running children to appointments and activities these are greatly appreciated. Also with that would be cards to Oil and Lube places or Auto Parts stores for an oil change or other vehicle maintenance issues. As a single woman in Wyoming, I can't afford to be without wheels.

11) A Portrait Package - Family pictures also fall to the bottom of the expenditure priority list when finances are tight.

12) Starbucks or Olive Garden Gift Cards - As we don't have a Seattle's Best or a Peet's Coffee, Starbucks is an indulgence I can treat myself to some time on the way to work or over a lunch break. For that matter Olive Garden works too as I like to go there for a cheap $5 feast on soup and breadsticks with co-workers. And going back to number 2 it's also a place I can have kids in tow without more than the usual worry over a sensory induced melt-down.

13) You - The most important gift ever is simple encouragement. Don't be afraid to pick up the phone because you don't know how busy I am. If I'm busy I won't answer. If I'm not, I'll pick up the phone. It's as easy as that. Some days the only fuel that keeps me going is for someone to tell me that no one else can love my children as I do, that I AM the best person for the job, and to hang in there. I sometimes need to be reminded that it's worth it. I would rather hear that every day from the people that I love than have all of the material items in the world. Like number 1, your time is more valuable to me than any other gift.

Getting out of My Head

2012-01-25T08:35:00.000-08:00

I've been invited to a "Farewell to Fiction Friday" event on Facebook. It's a little disheartening to think that Write Anything is dropping the meme since I've just picked it back up. I've always heard mixed reviews about the value of writing prompts, some going as far as to infer that real writers don't need prompts. I just kind of shrug my shoulders at the sentiment. The prompts are helpful to me in nudging me to get out of my own head for a little while with my writing. Since I've picked it back up it's demonstrated that my story-telling skills are still on life support somewhere in the dusty recesses of my mind. There have been a couple that it's been tempting to say, "Pfft... I got nothin' for the material they provided." What's done is done. I can't work with that guidline. But then my brain goes to work and asks my creativity what it's price is. The price as always is to accept the challenge and just write. So I begin to write, and my creativity tells me that it hopes I find what I'm looking for, and it seems that inevitably I do.

If the Fiction friday meme is discontinued, my brain is trying to figure out what to do after the last posted prompt. I feel odd continuing under that banner on my own, as if I am kyping someone else's idea. A part of me sneers and asks if that is not what I have done with Poetry Thursday, something that I have never had any qualms about. And my creativity sticks it's nose in the air with an indignant scoff and reminds me that, I, at one point, had picked Thursday as my poetry day before I knew such a meme existed. With my fascination with re-modelled fairy-tales recently, maybe it's time to do a bit of my own reconstruction on the old myths. My Fiction Friday could become a Fairytale Friday, and some randomly picked Fairytale, Nursery Rhyme, or Fable could be my prompt.I see alot of re-reading the old Grimm's fairytales, Mother Goose, and Aesop's Fables in my future to undertake such a project. It's something I will have to mull over. I have at least a month's worth of prompts in which to consider it.

Meanwhile, I missed an appointment yesterday, something I haven't done in ages. I had it on my calendar, but paid very little attention to my reminders yesterday and cleanly forgot it. It speaks to my level of fatigue that I let a detail slip like that. It speaks to my level of fatigue that I'm not even worried that it was a dissociative slip, and that Where I am apologetic about the miss, I don't feel all too guilty about it either. It was our family counseling appointment, and part of me says that I should feel guilty, considering the counsellor makes accomodations to see my family after business hours, but I also know I haven't missed like this in God knows how long, and her concern of late has been as much for my well-being as for my daughter's, who the primary service and tratment is intended for. I called and left a message with an apology this morning, and I imagine she will call me back later to inquire what happened. I'm tired and my dilligence on utilizing my coping mechanisms has slipped.

Saturday I will be out at the job site again. I haven't been by the house yet to see if they're excavating for water and sewer yet. I did let the foreman know to call me if he wanted me to come over in the evening to clean up and sweep floors so we could begin tile work, but I haven't heard anything yet.

Today I'm hoping to receive one more piece of paperwork so I can go file taxes and get that over with for the year. I keep telling myself that once I've closed on the house, and get moved I can rest a while. It feels like a lie because inevitably it seems like something comes up to keep me from that rest just when I think I've finished up what's keeping me from it. I have to give myself permission to believe that lie, if only for today.

Speaking to Myself From the Past

2012-01-23T19:40:00.000-08:00

I wrote this last year when I found out about the mass in my right breast before I had it removed. I left it as a note to a future self, and found myself reading it again tonight:

"Sometimes what we walk through isn't about us at all. It is about what others around us have to learn from us, and it hurts because pain is the best state from which to demonstrate grace, and to teach the importance of setting boundaries."

I needed to hear it again apparently.

Focus

2012-01-23T15:15:00.000-08:00

Her left eye twitched uncontrollably, and she stretched, trying to fend off fatigue. Focus. What the hell did that mean? There was no focus today, only a fog that she moved through, batting away random thoughts and information from other pieces of her mind. So skillfully had she cordoned those pieces off when she was young she'd forgotten that they were a part of her, and then they'd begun to act indpendently. It was years of therapy in her pre-adolescent and adolescent years that had forced her to be re-introduced to them, and to re-learn how to work with them, each having assumed a bit of their own persona, characters, actors designed to help her survive various unpleasant situtions. Some days she conjured to mind an image of what that entourage would look like if it could be seen in the real world. No... she never actually saw them. That would be hallucinating, and that would just plain be crazy. But she knew their faces none the less and their voices. Funny that, having voices in your head that belonged to you. but in some fashion decided they didn't really.

Focus. But there was none. She wanted to sleep. She wanted to write. Mostly she wanted to sleep, but since she couldn't sleep she wanted to write. An old but new idea shimmered in her mind, glimmering through the fog. But the fog swirled and threatened to over take it. She wanted to sleep. But she couldn't sleep at her desk. She really shouldn't write at her desk either, but it was better than falling asleep. The tapping of fingers on keyboards, and the sounds of printers, combined with ringing telephones and the hum of flourescent lights in a steady blanket of white noise.

Focus. There was work to be done. But she wanted to write. She rubbed her eyes. Trying to make phone calls seemed a futile effort. Her word-finding abilities seemed to have abandoned her, and she found herself stuttering while making those cold calls, forcing fake chuckles and joking at her own expense about the lack. It was embarassing, but she pretended to the customers that it didn't bother her at all. Why should she care if they thought she was an airhead? She didn't. She cared that she FELT like an airhead.

Focus. The massive dose of caffeine that she'd had was supposed to give her that focus. It wasn't. The other pieces of her felt distant, muffled by the fog. There was only one more hour left to go. Surely she could pull it together that long, and then she could go home and write... or sleep.

If she thought she had trouble making outgoing phone calls, working a spreadsheet was an even worse idea. The foriegn language of undecipherable numbers, and the repetition of the neat and orderly columns threatened to drug her to sleep as much as the background noise of the office did.

Words were her lifeline through the fog. Words would guide her through it... written words that glimmered and shone like a mirage in a desert. Focus. She couldn't find her words. That's why she couldn't call customers. How could she write if she couldn't find her words. Would the glimmer lead her out of the fog, or would she blindy tumble off of a cliff pursuing that glimmer?

Her eye still twitched in time with the almost imperceptible flashing of her computer screen. Conversations ebbed and flowed around her. The separate pieces of her mind remained quiet, as if they knew that raising a cacophony would lull her into sleep, lull her into losing her words forever. Focus... but on what? She couldn't remember anymore. She was awash and adrift in fatigue, anesthesized by white noise. There was no such thing as focus and the glimmer in the fog disappeared. She was over this day.

Housing Secrets in the Structure of Story

2012-01-23T12:11:00.000-08:00

The Beau and I were discussing the SyFy channel, (much better when they spelled it correctly as Sci-Fi.) He'd commented that the fact "Warehouse 13" appeared on the SyFy channel was probably why he hadn't heard of it. I agreed. Generally SyFy seems to have one or two Flag-ship series', and the rest of the shows they air lack any sort of depth or substance... mostly old horror and paranormal flicks. What they have done well in the past as far as the network goes are their 4-5 part mini-series adaptations of well written books. They did it with Frank Herbert's "Children of Dune" (although I found reading the Bene Gesserait hand language while listening to the spoken conversation maddeningly difficult) and they did it with a retold version of "The Wizard of Oz" called "Tin Man." One person reviewing the latter stated that they felt as if this new re-telling were the grown up, more realistic version, and that the original was the watered down kiddie version of the story. I find myself feeling the same way about the ABC Series "Once Upon a Time." I'm not sure what other mini-series SyFy has produced of late, but another one I enjoyed came to mind, Stephen King's "Rose Red." I was looking for it this weekend in hopes to watch it on-line, but instead came across an Amazon link to it, pricing it out at $6.99. What the hell, right? I allowed the children to spend their allowance money on-line for some of the movies and the like that they wanted, and for good measure ordered the birthday present Son-Shine was asking for so I could save on shipping.

I haven't watched "Rose Red" in probably 6 or 7 years. I never have read the book, although I think I may. Some people are not into horror and suspense at all with their literary tastes. I, however, have always been drawn to it. After all there are far scarier things in real life than are to be found in books or movies. My sister J likes movies with creepy undead girls coming back for their vengeance (think "The Grudge" and "The Ring") whereas I don't find myself at all bothered by those. Make-up and strange noises are not that frightening to me. Unknown bumps in the night however, and invisible poltergiest-like attacks... those are a different story. You can't defend yourself against something you can't see, and on nights that I really feel like scaring the bejeezus out of myself, those are the movies I will watch.

And so we come to houses. I have a fascination with physical structures, particularly structures within stories, so tainted by the horrors that have occured there that it corrupts the very timbers of the place, until they themselves become as monstrous as those that performed their acts there. The larger and more sprawling the better. There is an element of having to question one's reality when they feel trapped or attacked by an inanimate object. A story, words on paper seem like an inanimate object, until you pick it up and begin to read, to engage and invest yourself into learning it, as you would wander down the hallways of an old house with a flashlight. I have a fascination with structures that in stories are eager for their vengeance, but are reluctant to surrender the secret answers of why they are exacting revenge to their victims, protecting those answers like a rapist secreting away his victims so that the world never knows what became of them. "Rose Red" fits the bill nicely, although I can't help but wonder if Stephen King got a bit of his idea from the old Winchester Mansion.

Being a person who explores a lot of houses in dreams, and one who enjoyed the exploration of large buildings with small corners and closets as a child, I suppose it's fitting that these are the types of stories that truly frighten me. If the structure you believe will hide and protect you has become the very thing attacking, then what hope of survival has a person? There is no escape from that, is there?

All these perponderances has brought to mind a story I began the first paragraph to years ago. I began it for a game, but always the concept has laid in wait inside me... a house lieing in wait, one that steals light, and demands a high price of it's owners, one that may demand a high price of the story-teller revealing the secrets it's so reluctant to offer up.

It brings me back to "Once Upon a Time" in some ways. There are a few recurring questions and statements through the series, that I imagine are easy to forget if you only watch one episode a week. However watching all of them directly in sequence drives home how often they are asked or said. "What is your price?" Is the first one. Rumplestiltskin is often on the receiving end of that question, from someone who is willing to agree to anything for what the believe they need, even if he tells them that it is an unspecified favor that will be asked of them later. But he is not always the one to ask. "What is your price? What are you so desperate to have that you will give or do anything." That ties into my post about the series "The Booth at the End."

Another recurring statement in the series is, "I hope you find what you're looking for." When the sentiment is proffered by the town mayor/evil queen it smacks of disingenuity, as what all of the characters are looking for is a Happy Ending. They search for it in a construct, where she has made sure to strip them of the chances of ever finding it. Proferred by the other characters, it smacks of empathy and longing, as if by wishing that someone else finds what they're looking for, they too then have hope of finding what they themselves are in search of... of what we are all in search of. Even though most of us realize by now that a happy ending, or even an unhappy ending is simply a new beginning to something that may or may not end happily. As a story-teller tracking my characters through their ominous structures of a story, it is the wish I breathe to them. I hope they find what they're looking for, because if they find what they are looking for, then I have found the story I was looking for.

The last one that is repeated by various characters, often in moments of frustration and defeat, "What's done is done." It is as if they state as a good luck charm. They spout it out in hopes of coming to some kind of peace with a situation they find themselves in, which will allow them to move forward with minimal damage. However, as life moves forward for each character, the frustrating battle they hope to close with that statement, they find really isn't ever done. They keep having to face it over and over and over again. The town mayor, never says this line, at least that I have counted yet. I may have to rewatch and see if she does say it. She as the villain seems to have a way of shooting herself in the foot. She runs interference on the other characters, which only serves to raise their ire and their curiousity, where were she to have left well enough alone, they might have happily returned to their normal orbit in life, none the wiser of her grand scheme. Some of her motivations are clear, but others remain an utter mystery throughout the story arcs. One I have yet to figure out is her obsessive insistence on being her adoptive son's mother. In some instances she seems to express genuine concern for him, and at other she manuevers him against the Main Character as if he were nothing more than a pawn.

Rumplestiltskin as another villainous character does tender this statement every now and again, with a knowing grin, and sinister glint in his eye. He is that villain that plays both sides of the story, and does nothing to hide his duplicitousness from the other characters. He seems to be working for and against the best interests of all of the other characters at the same time, with no apparent rhyme or reason. But the person watching knows there must be both rhyme and reason to everything he does. He is fascinated by the details of the contracts and agreements that he binds people to, exacting prices far greater than what they believed they would have to pay. He turns his profits on the simple and subtle turn of a phrase. It would be completely against the grain of his character to be acting for and/or against other characters randomly.

The whole town is a structure, like the houses of my dreams and of my favorite horror movies, reluctant to let go of it's secrets. A majority of the characters wander through it, oblivious to the need to unearth those secrets, while one person works to help keep them buried rather than excavate for the truth. She is invested in keeping that truth from being discovered. While I as a story-teller, in my own writings, find myself identify more with the characer of Rumplestiltskin, playing both sides of the story, excavating the truth as I see fit, and re-burying pieces of it that I'm not ready for the reader or the characters to yet discover. I invest time and words into allowing it not to be revealed too quickly.

I may say to the characters at any given time, "What's done is done." But then speaking out of the other side of my mouth I offer an out, and wait for them to ask me what my price is. Like Rumplestiltskin, I know which of mycharacters are desparate souls, because I as the story-teller have generally placed them in that catalyzing moment of absolute desparation. My price is simple, although expensive... I bid my characters to poke around this structure I've created for them, knowing that at any moment it can turn on them. I bid them to bring me what they find in the deep and dusty recesses of this vengeful structure, to tell me what joys and horrors it has tucked away. And I send them on their way, telling them, "I hope you find what you're looking for." And I do... because what I've sent them in search of is the very thing I'm searching for too.

For Shelly

2012-01-23T07:24:00.001-08:00

Re-Modeling the Fairytale

2012-01-22T20:51:00.000-08:00

I've been wiped out the last couple of days. I'm not sure if I'm fending off a bug of some kind, or if the relief of completing much of what needed to be done for the last time ever has finally allowed the fatigue to come crashing in. After painting closet doors yesterday at the house, I came home and I have spent the entire rest of the weekend on the couch.

Television is something I generally consider a waste of time. Particularly if I don't sit down with a craft of some kind while I'm watching. But this last month I have been doing marathon runs of old television programs on the weekends. This weekend I gave "Once Upon A Time" a try, and have found myself pleasantly surprised at the reconstruction of old and familiar fairytales. A few of my favorites, ones that I spun into the Fiction Friday prompt about a ferret, a priest, and a spinning wheel were inter-tangled in the arcs of the series. Each episode presents a re-telling of each old character's story in a new light while leading you down the path with breadcrumbs to the present day plot lines. It occurs to me that this is probably the very reason that my one television indulgence without fail, and without a craft in hand, "Warehouse 13" is probably one that I enjoy so much. Each artifact explored in the episodes not only allows you as the viewer to learn a little bit about history, but to get you to think to take a different perspective on what you know and to ask "what-if?"

"What if?" has always been my favorite question with story-telling. I rather think that it is probably every story-tellers favorite question, although I may be being a bit presumptuous. "What if I drop this character in this room with a cocked gun in hand? What if that character is bluffing? What if they're not? What if the character in the corner calls that possible bluff?" What if.... what if... and then you decide what the answer is and you chase down the unfolding events that come from that one catalyzing "what if?" moment. And you tell it. You show it. You live it and breathe it until it becomes this enchanted thing that you share with the world, understanding the moments that they are captivated by it's depth, as it captivated you while it was gaining it's depth.

The concept of re-modelling fairy-tales has always captivated me. What if the Prince were not supposed to marry Cinderella? What if her soul mate lived three houses down, only she never met him because she chose never to venture out? What if his soul mate was suppose to have been Rapunzel? What if the frog had refused to give the Golden Ball back to the princess at the well? What if instead he gave it to some other more charitable maiden? What if the Miller's daughter had not learned Rumpelstiltskin's name? What if she had given him her baby, what would he possibly want with a child? What if a mere spinning wheel was passed down from generation to generation? What if it was capable of spinning new yarns that captivated those generations time and time again... threads of gold from something as simple as a few storytellers making hay over the question "what if?"

Fiction Friday: Sensationalist Altruism

2012-01-20T08:29:00.000-08:00

Fiction] Friday Challenge #243
"Use this as a springboard for your story- writing from any point of view you’d like to take. “A new Olympics event has been introduced. Although it has met with resistance due to the danger and unusual abilities competitors are required to be have, its a huge crowd pleaser.”

"It just can't be done. You can't expect that many people to fall within the competition goals and not to have a huge risk of injury, not to mention the liability afterwards! I know they're looking for new events for the Olympics, but this is absolutely ridiculous."

"You know, Grace, I feel sorry for you, always thiking like an attorney. This is using a competition that the whole world tunes into to bring awareness to a much needed program." John tapped his finger on the folder he'd placed on the table-top. The proposal was absolute madness.

Grace shook her head, her green eyes flashing. "It's dangerous on more than one level. And what about materials? Where the hell are you going to dig up the materials for this competition. Is it going to be held in one city? How are you selecting the team and the beneficiaries of the competition?"

"Well that will be your job to work out. This is going to appeal to the philanthropic and altruistic side of people all over the world. large companies will race to donate the materials just for the marketing opportunities it will provide. You're the attorney. you'll have to help figure out the legalese."

"It figures you come up with this madcap idea and yet you expect me to be the one to make it work in such a way as to cover your ass. We can do a project like this outside of the Olympics. We can advertise that we are funding the project in conjunction with the Olympic competitions but to make it an actual competition is stupid."

"Can't you imagine, Grace, all of these athletes putting their physical prowess into a competition that helps to benefit the less fortunate? Can't you imagine how good it would make them feel to be doing something beyond their ego and a sense of national pride? It's a great idea. I know it is, now your job is to tell me how it's going to work."

"You're one to talk about ego. No I can't imagine it. This is not a sport. This is... if you make me write up the competition guidelines and the legal ramifications of this, and actually submit this to the panel, this is the last project I will ever work for you. You can't build a house in a day, much less 7 or 8, and expect the team to be safe while doing it, or the structure to be liveable once it's done. I don't care if it is for a good cause."

"Correction, Rome can't be built in a day, but I'd hedge bets with enough incentive a house could be."

"And just like with this crack-pot competition of yours, I bet you'll lose."

500 Hours

2012-01-19T19:31:00.001-08:00

Today I took a vacation day to go work on the Habitat House. I had more than several reasons for doing this, the first and foremost was the goal to complete the 500 hour requirement, which I completed and surpassed today. Now on Saturday I will be out there because I want to be, and not because I feel like I am plugging away at some insurmountable goal. Going and working on building my house has a whole new energy to it now that requirements have been met.

The other purpose to it was to meet the crew that has put the most time into this structure. many of them don't work on the weekend, the only time that I am typically able to be there. So it was nice to meet and thank each and every one of them in person. The Beau also took a vacation day to come help, and so they were able to meet him as well. With ten people on the crew today, all more than happy to give me their hours, it was a fantastic way to finish out the requirement.

The light fixtures are in, and they are beautiful, although the chandelier for the dining room hangs a little low. Today we painted shelving bracing in closets, and interior doors. The doors were subsequently hung, shimmed, and they were beginning to trim them out as I left today. It did not appear that the excavation to tap into sewer and water had begun yet, but all the electrical was completed. Next will be tile setting, carpeting, cabinetry, and trim and finish work. I am tempted to take yet one more vacation day to go out and do some more work, but we'll see how that looks after Saturday.

I crossed the finish line today, or at least it feels like I have. The rest now is just icing on the cake... cooling down, and breathing. It's about damned time.

Manufactured

2012-01-19T06:00:00.000-08:00

I look around this place and the world feels surreal.
The shift in the air artificially stirs,
Pushed about by machines made by human hands.

The plastic wood grain of a desk feigns natural appeal.
Faux murmurs of chatter, forced tinkling laughter,
and fake proferments of sacharine sentiments laden my senses.

Manufactured conversations to match manufactered spaces
All brightly lit under a flourescent glow.
No one else notices the lie we've wrapped ourselves in,
Accepting instead fabricated truths.

Spiral Out

2012-01-17T12:34:00.000-08:00

I came across a song last week that I haven't really talked about since 2008. Those of you that have been around probably remember my discussions of "Lateralus" and it's connections with the Fibonacci. I find myself riding the spiral again, moving out of a tight orbit into something far reaching.

Mental health is a topic I'm finding myself drenched in this morning, and as I read Squirrel's description of what it's like to deal with being bi-polar, I found myself identifying with some of what she was saying. Just as some of the symptoms I struggle with, resonate with some of my daughter's Autistic symptoms, there are some symptoms I deal with that resonate with what Squirrel describes.

I saw a PostSecret from someone saying they liked the television show "House" but hated watching it because they were convinced they had all of the conditions the show talked about. Sometimes I feel like that. Am I reaching to diagnose myself with more problems than I really have, or am I just identifying to understand others, and perhaps myself a little better? I like to think it's the latter.

My biological mother was diagnosed as manic depressive way back in the late 70's early 80's, or at least that is what I am told. I am told she also chose not to take her medication. She made a lot of choices and I have trouble with the concept of blaming those choices on her disorder. As my Mom has often said, you are not responsible for your illness, but you are responsible for your treatment. Bio-mom neglected her treatment and so therefor I hold her fully accountable for her poor decisions.

Squirrel suggested I may possibly have a mood disorder considering the way I described my highs and lows, and how even when my highs are overlapping with positive emotions, I still feel irresponsible, irrational, and over all just plain out of control. I considered as I wrote the comment on her post, that it's possible that I run myself through the exhausting marathons I take on, simply to keep my energy at bay. It's easier to deal with the dissociative symptom of slow information retrieval than it is to reign myself in when my energy is spiking and I feel on top of the world and invincible, or on the other end of the spectrum when I have a high irritable energy that leaves me moody and snappish. During those hyperactive highs, self-discipline and self-control do not exist and it frightens me. When I was younger it didn't bother me because I had a "Damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead, I'll deal with the damage later" attitude. Now that sort of uncontrollable energy scares the hell out of me, as negative consequences are not something I want to deal with now nor in the future. It's not beyond the realm of possibility, when genetics are considered that I may have some sort of mood disorder. If my moods were the only factor to be considered I would probably say she's right.

The difficulty for me in this (besides the automatic recoil of horror at being in any way similar to my biological mother) is even if I do have a mood disorder, Dissociation, PTSD, and life in general muddy the waters in identifying what's caused by which problem. And when you've compartmentalized your personality so one particular identity manages a particular set of mood aspects and behaviors, and the alter assigned for the task quite adamantly maintains the corner market on those, the end result is the Central Processing center becomes flooded with information from several different alters at the same time when there are offset moods caused by an outside problem. Trying to sort out which response takes precendence comes before even thinking about whether or not the other responses are symptomatic of an underlying problem. It's like listening to a debate in the House of Representatives with every representative convinced their particular concern should be at the top of the priority list and they should have the floor so it can be addressed. I don't even stop to consider if there is an underlying situation causing all of those demanding my attention to be in a more agitated state, a situation that quite possibly has nothing to do with what they're clamoring about. The cacophony used to shut me down entirely, and then control was surrendered to whichever alter grabbed it first. Often times that response bred disastrous results. The center serves as a sort of Speaker of the House, banging her gavel and demanding that everyone shut up and speak in turn until she can figure out which reaction/topic/action/emotion/situation is the most pressing. I do a lot of figuring things out for myself in retrospect when it comes to underlying causes and agitating factors, and in some cases a lot of back-pedaling and apologizing to myself and to others.

I've been on SSRI's in the past for Post Partum Depression. Zoloft the first time around put me in an incredibly zen state for a few months. I enjoyed it. It was a blessing since I'd just had my son, and was dealing with sleep deprivation common to a new baby, while at the same time dealing with my youngest daughter's sensory induced meltdowns. Remaining calm in the midst of the storm was the best gift I could ask for. Then something shifted. It was speculated my hormones shifted due to breastfeeding, but I never did receive a definitive answer as to the cause for the shift. I had a severe meltdown and was taken off of the medication. The precipitating situation in that incident included having cleaned up the house twice that day, giving up after the children subsequently destroyed it,to then have the ex walk in the door that evening and ask, "What the hell have you been doing all day?" This all occured in the midst of cooking dinner and breastfeeding. I don't believe I'd even made it out of my pyjamas that day.

Almost a year later I was struggling again. I was unhappy and my emotions were scattered across the board. I was in a controlling and abusive relationship in which all parental responsibilities were dumped on my shoulders, and the responsibility of running the storefront of a pipe-dream business fell to me as well. Meanwhile my ex stayed up to all hours of the night, doing whatever it was he was doing, and sleeping during the day. Our waking time overlapped long enough to have volatile arguments laced with criticism of parenting skills, housekeeping skills, and employment status. During the days I had irate customers demanding to know when their computers would be fixed, and if I knew what was wrong with them or when their machine would be ready for pick up, and I was unable to give them any answers other than the technician was unavailable (or rather he was sleeping,) and I would ask him to get in touch with them as soon as he was able to. Which meant they would never hear from him because he was awake after business hours long enough to demand I cook him some food, and to argue with me about the piss poor job he thought I was doing on all fronts before I could finally go lick my wounds and go to bed. I was not truly there for the children during that period of time. They were being neglected, I knew it, and the guilt was incredible.

I was diagnosed with Pre-Menstrual Dysphoric Disorder and was put on Welbutrin. The Welbutrin was fantastic. I had my energy back, and could focus like you wouldn't believe. I could run the storefront, clean the building, and manage the children without blinking. I could do it all and it felt great. Later when I learned about my son's ADHD and how it's treated with stimulants because ADHD'ers have a paradoxic reaction to them, I wondered if I possibly was ADD. I do have periods of high energy (read hyperactivity) but they are few and far between. Stimulants help me focus and accomplish so much. It gives me a high level of energy, but it's an energy I can utilize and drive instead of feeling driven by it. That's how the Welbutrin was. But then the downside... and I have found this is true with any type of stimulant including energy drinks and the like. They start screwing with my sleep patterns. If I habitually use energy drinks or any other kind of stimulant, it doesn't matter how in early in the day I take or drink them, the end result is that I develop insomnia. Sleep deprivation gives me an entirely different set of problems, to include loss of focus, lack of decision making or any kind of critical thinking skills, and for that matter an inability to string an intelligible thought all together. I walk through a fog and am capable of saying or doing just about anything positive or negative in that state. My mental faculties shut down and I'm on a sort of survival driven auto-pilot. Empathy doesn't exist in any form. I certainly can't function at work like that, and I don't think I would attempt to drive my car in that condition, and parenting in that state is absolutely out of the question.

So what's left? Coping skills, sensory interventions, self isolating behavior... writing. My short sightedness in a way is a coping mechanism. I often talk about working life one puzzle piece at a time. I do that because the big picture is often too overwhelming to me, so I work the piece that's in front of me before I move to the next. Writing often helps me analyze where the piece that's in front of me fits, and how I will move to the next piece.

Today the piece in front of me was to check my mailbox for a check I was expecting and to deposit it in the bank. Thursday it will be to put in 4 hours at the job site. Tomorrow it may be to call the Insurance company about my son's medication again. When I think of life, and coping with it, there's an old idiom that comes to mind for me... I have to eat this elephant one bite at a time. That's my coping mechanism. I have to deal with each emotion as it presents itself to me, each symptom, each moment, and apply the skills that I have learned along the way to making the best decisions. Sometimes I screw up of course. I may not be responsible for my mood disorder (whatever that may be, ) I'm not responsible for the DID, or the PTSD, but I am responsible for my treatment. Which is to say, I am responsible for utilizing the tools I've been given to manage my symptoms, and to minimize their impact on the people around me as much as I possibly can, one moment at a time, one puzzle piece at a time. It is my job to be present minded enough in the moment to do that, so that I don't have to project myself and overwhelm myself with the bigger picture of the future. Like the Fibonacci, by dealing with today responsibly, added to the responsibly handled decisions of the previous day, it seems tomorrow has a way of taking care of itself.

Hope on Wings

2012-01-16T14:49:00.000-08:00

The snow is falling and it's making me sleepy this afternoon. I feel like I'm in a state of stasis until Thursday when I move to complete the last of my obligations for this month. February will be loaded with Doctor's appointments instead of meetings, and hopefully we will get the construction completed on the house.

I find myself looking forward whilst stealing glances over my shoulder. It's interesting when you start coming to the close of a chapter in life that you begin to think of what started you on that path.

I have everything rattling around my brain again, like fireflies moving as one cloud, swarming, amassing, and falling away, like the snowflakes outside driven by the wind. Castorgirl talks of a "Guide on the Side," and how relating an experience with determining what particular piece of information a man needed, while she was working at the library, was not where he'd indicated he needed to begin, and how it associated to the concept of therapy to her. It seemed similar to an epiphany I had four years ago when it came to what therapy was and wasn't.

I was particularly resistant to working with some of my therapists as a child, this notion in mind that I was broken and that they were there trying to fix me. On some level I didn't want to be fixed. My brokenness had allowed me to survive. Working under the assumption that I NEEDED to be fixed just affirmed that I WAS indeed broken. And maybe that meant that perhaps even though that brokenness had allowed me to survive, maybe it had been there before the abuse, and maybe that abuse had been the response to the brokenness, and so therefor I was to blame for those experiences to begin with. Self blame is a self-perpetuating and self-propogating enemy. It was easy to think that maybe there was something about me that brought out the worst in other people, something that turned them into monsters. But there was always a struggle of wanting to be normal, to fit in, to have a life. And so the pendulum would often swing from one extreme to the other while I traversed through therapy. It occurs to me now there were only one or two therapists that I actually felt understood me or at least empathized with my struggle. The others I viewed as mechanics, weekly consulting the psychological owner's manual, having me come in so they could pop the hood, run diagnostics, and try to change thoughts and behaviors as one changes fluids in the engine of a car. They seemed hopeful it would quiet that obnoxious knocking sound that warned I was a child careening out of control towards jail, prostitution, or some other equally undesirable end.

There was something my mom said to me a few years ago about the Life Coach she sought out that really turned my view. I don't remember what it was she said, just the epiphinal moment that maybe I as a patient had approached therapy all wrong all of these years. Therapy, Life Coaching, whatever lable you wanted to apply to it, wasn't about fixing a person, or even fixing their life. It's intent was to suggest coping skills that could be implemented, self empowerment, self acceptance. It was mean to encourage a change initiated from within the self, and encouraged through guidance on utilizing some of the tools the person already posessed, but maybe didn't know they had. It was an easy change in perspective to accept, as I've walked with Pookie through a number of therapies, with goal focuses on self regulation, self-soothing, adaptability, and coping skills. It is a place to learn life skills and tools, but then the patient has to be the one that decides to utilize them. The therapist can't catalyze the change, they can only listen, empathize, and offer guidance, suggested coping tools, and where appropriate medication. It's been an empowering and motivating change in perspective, viewing those I seek counsel from as someone to be learned from rather than someone to be depended on, and has helped me work towards the self-sufficiency that I hope to impart to all three of my children.

As a result of thinking in terms of therapy, I find myself thinking of the topic of dependency, which leads me to the ex. I find sometimes that there are still jabs from him every now and again that pierce my armor. I have to calm myself and ask what it matters. It doesn't, but it does. I do not engage his criticisms or his accusations, because to engage opens a venue in which I allow myself to become his victim again, in the attempt of winning the fight or the argument, when there doesn't have to be a fight at all. Why should I allow myself to be put on the defensive when there is nothing there anymore I should have to defend? The rules are laid out for both of us. All I have to do is stick by them, and ignore his antics. I hope that the lack of engagement is beneficial to the children, because sometimes it hurts and it makes me angry to hear what few comments I do, and not to defend myself against them. I'm still deprogramming some things, and learning that it comes down to mind over matter. If I don't pay any mind to it, then it simply doesn't matter.

And so a list of the things I have accomplished in four short years have become my mantra. A time period of 2 years is consistent through it... 2 years for the divorce to be final, 2 years in transitional housing, 2 years in Section 8 housing, 2 years to build the Habitat House, 2 years in a relationship that has shown me that kindness can trump all, and that being angry with someone is not synonymous with hurting them.

I remember that I had a seven year old who could not read, but now is the biggest bookworm an eleven year old could be. Her favorite series at this point in time is Harry Potter. I remind myself that I finally got a diagnosis that clearly defined what made Pookie different and now her academics are outpacing her class, and her social skills are beginning to catch up. I remember that my son had the advantage of getting into school right away, and did not have to struggle to catch up. I remember that his diagnosis, and the painstaking decision to follow the doctor's recomendation about medication has allowed his wonderful creativity shine through, since it allows him to slow down enough to develop it.

I remind myself I am building dreams, and I am working hard to build them, and that one major goal lies just a few steps away. I own my own car. Soon I will own my own house. My credit is $451 from being completely cleaned up. My student loans are back on track so that I can return to school whenever I am ready to. The children are thriving, healthy, and well. In spite of a little exhaustion, I am healthy and well. I'm thriving, and in love. I feel competent, and independent. I've held down a job for three years and will likely be able to make a life long career of it. It has taken me four years to arrive here. The biggest accomplishment of all these things, was that I didn't give up. And I continue to move forward, still unwilling to give up.

I don't know what makes me continue to steal glances over my shoulder at the past I have moved forward from. Perhaps I am afraid of repeating it. Perhaps I am fearful it will come calling with it's sense of victimhood and self entitlement to collect the debt it claims I owe it. Perhaps I'm afraid of just a sense of victimhood.

The more time passes though, the less those years pain me, the less I worry, and the fewer glances I steal. Another year is coming up on closing in my existence in this world, and I once again feel as if I am moving forward to another chapter. I feel as if this chapter speaks of a harvest, reaping the fruits of my labor after a long, toiling, and trouble filled journey. I have only a little further to go for my respite, and with me are the life tools others have helped me learn to use along the way. I was afraid of my own competence mere months ago, that it meant that I could truly be independent, because that's what completing this house really means. It means I have worked and accomplished something on my own. 200 hours of sweat equity performed individually on top of raising three children by myself, and working a 40 hour a week job is nothing to sneeze at. Now I'm not afraid of my competence. I'm ready to embrace it. The transformation I began four years ago... the butterfly that I felt struggling to break free of it's cocoon is now out, waiting for it's wings to dry before lighting to the wind, like hope on wings.

Coming to the End

2012-01-15T08:27:00.000-08:00

I plan to take a vacation day on Thursday. With being required to attend a Section 8 meeting that afternoon that can last anywhere from and hour to three hours, and being that the Habitat site will be open for work that morning, I figured I might as well make a day of it. Between the last two Saturdays, work at the transitional housing program, this Thursday, and this coming Saturday, I anticipate that my 500 sweat equity hours will be completed. I hardly know what to think about that. The relief is of course immense. I will no longer have to scramble and add up blocks of time to earn this opportunity. It also means I will never have to fill out paperwork or provide verification for Section 8 or tax credit programs ever again. The only service I will still be receiving at that point is the subsidy on childcare which actually requires pretty minimal verification. Namely that I'm employed during the hours childcare is being provided and how much my income is. I don't have to verify for assets or anything else on that service. And then there's the Mental health waiver for Pookie, which does require a monthly meeting to measure success on reaching service goals. That's a program in which income is a very minimal factor in deciding the necessity of services and looks more at the need of the child. But considering the gamut I have been running, those two things are a piece of cake.

Once I've closed on it a whole new set of work begins... moving. And I HATE moving. But it is the last time I will HAVE to do it. And that's comforting too. It will be nice to own my own home, and to have free reign over how I improve or change the property.

We finished putting up the second coat of eggshell white on the walls and it is starting to look more like an actual house. I imagine this week we are looking at beginning to set tile and to start getting light fixtures and electrical outlets wired and installed. Once the tile is in they will have the carpeting installed and the cabinetry set, counter tops toilets and sinks installed, and begin the trim work. I also know that this week they will begin excavation to tap into the utilities. The gas is already hooked up and the electric. All that remains is water and sewer. Landscaping will not be done until spring.

As the Beau and I were in the kitchen together, paint rollers in hand, I thought once again of how wonderful it is that once we do tie the knot, we will be moving into a home that we have built together. That's an amazing sensation that I can hardly begin to describe. Just watching this house take on form from the ground up has been an amazing experience in many ways. It has been a long, frustrating, arduous... and rewarding adventure this undertaking. And I am no longer afraid of what it means that I am capable of. I know my next undertaking will be school. I don't know when I'll begin it yet. It may or may not be this Fall. It might be Fall of 2013, but I will do it, of that I have no doubt. I'm transitioning off of programs because I have worked hard to get to this point. Many have told me I have made all the right calls to build this solid foundation underneath myself. But in reality I'm much more shortsighted than they give me credit for. I have built this home, this family, these opportunities, by chipping away at each problem that came up as they came up. I had no game plan in mind beyond surviving one day to the next, and retaining what little bits of security I might find. So often I have wanted to give up, particularly this month where I have made the final pushes to get through the last of the marathon. But here I am, just a few more steps from the finish line. I can take a few more steps. A few more steps are simple after all the uphill fight and rough terrain I've already run thousands of steps through. Every step geared towards survival has carried me to the verge of thriving. I wasn't sure I'd ever get here.

Fiction Friday: To Have a Dream

2012-01-13T06:00:00.001-08:00

"[Fiction] Friday Challenge #242 for January 13th, 2012

Martin Luthur King Jnr was born this week in 1929. Use the first four words of his most famous speech to begin your story (of any genre) with “I have a dream”."

"I have a dream," the radio blared at Darla before the announcer jumped in over top of the famous sound clip that was thrown in will nilly everywhere it seemed anymore. Everyone knew those words, but did they ever take the step further to listen to the rest of the Speech?

"I have a dream," she muttered turning the radio off in disgust. When she'd been married, her in-laws had said things like, "Why does HE get a national holiday?? HE was nothing but a troublemaker. He gets his own holiday and three of our presidents are all honored on one day."

She bit her tongue and kept herself from retorting that those three presidents that they were so proud of were considered nothing more than trouble makers in their time too. Some might even go so far as to call them traitors and had the conflicts that they went through ended differently. It was doubtful that history would have raised them up as heroes, and would have instead condemned them as infamous criminals. How fickle people were in what they decided was an appropriate principle to act on, and what was not.

"I have a dream," she repeated to herself as she swung her flannel clad legs over the side of the bed and allowed her bare feet to hit the carpeted floor. The famous man's words rang out clear in her mind... that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.' People called her a bleeding heart liberal, but she watched the news and hoped that people would read that declaration and see that it said "all men" not "all American Citizens."

"I have a dream too..." she muttered. "I have a dream that we wouldn't have to fight for equality for anyone anymore. That people can be accepted no matter how different they are." It was the same dream, just couched in different terms. Racism still existed in the world. She was afraid that it always would, but it was not politically correct to be racist. So people found other things to discriminate against. It wasn't politically correct to do that either, but they could be subtle about it.

She chose not to put her wig on today. She chose not to wear a hat. Let them stare, she thought, I'm tired of itching and sweating and being uncomfortable because it makes other people uncomfortable to see the results of the chemo. Oh yes people discriminated, and they didn't have to use words to do it. "I have a dream that I can live in a world where people can be themselves and not feel threatened by it." It was the same dream, just in a different time. She wished that more people had the same dream, and that they too might choose to make a little mischief over it.

The Daily Exorcise of Writing

2012-01-12T06:00:00.000-08:00

Worries and anxieties fester within
As despondency beckons, it threatens to pin
My worn out shell like a tiny insect
Impaling and immobilizing my body for all to inspect.

These demon emotions haunt my eyes
While I work against the plethora of lies.
Lies I tell myself, afraid to succeed,
Afraid that it's true what the world claims to see.

Afraid of my strength and will to move on.
Afraid that my excuses for failure are gone.
Scared that expectations will rob me of rest.
Afraid there's no end to this exhausting quest.

The cursor cuts it's path across this screen
Like a razor to flesh bleeding words in ink.
Breathing and drowning in ink with silent screams
To daily exorcise the demons that terrorize me.

A Brighter Day

2012-01-11T09:31:00.000-08:00

It's amazing what a single conversation can do to lift a person's spirits. The Beau called last night and we had a fun evening of salatious and flirtatious discussions. I told him he needs to go out of town more often if that's what it takes for us to have those conversations. And this morning sees me sighing wistfully and anticipating his return.

Meanwhile fatigue is not letting go of my insomniac body, although my mood is not quite as foul this morning as evidenced by my writing yesterday. Insomnia still has me going to bed well after midnight, to rise at 6:30 for work, and headaches are daily now. My poor aching back is complaining more loudly than ever, something I am usually very good at ignoring.

I have completed and turned in my paperwork for most of my services this month. The only remaining one is the Section 8 recertification, a process I'm completing just in case the house is not completed and closed on schedule... a process I'm hoping is absolutely unnecessary, but I'm going through anyway in case it is necessary.

Son-shine received a 30 day over ride on his medication, which has put me $33 out of pocket for the emergency partial refill. But at least he has his meds and we have bought a small window of time for the doctor to figure out the best option for him.

And life goes on as it always does. Staying in the here and now is incredibly challenging, especially since here and now I'm exhausted and sore. I want to sleep, but instead I heed the beckoning of life to tackle this brighter day with what muster I may possess.

System Overload

2012-01-10T09:58:00.000-08:00

System overload. It hits me quite often. Particularly during times like these when I feel like I am fighting a battle on all fronts. When a piece of equipment hits system overload, the results can be catastrophic failure. This is a benign term for explosive forces expelled resulting in devestating damage, death, injury, and destruction. It's why we invent fail-safe mechanisms that hopefully will shut the machine or system down before that kind of pressure can even build.

Dissociation by it's nature is designed to be a fail safe mechanism. The pressure becomes too much for one identity, no problem... another one takes over. Except when the identity that takes over was not designed to handle a specific skill set or other input whether sensory or emotional. So dissociation works better when information is shared. Co-conciousness they call it. Co-conciousness also means an awareness... an awareness of fatigue and frustrations, of anxiety and panic... of pain. It becomes internalized and the alters clamor, suddenly afraid that they will be asked to process actions and emotions that they were not designated to process. The body rebels, refuses to sleep, refuses to function. It' sore and it's tired. Children don't understand why I'm grumpy. Autism doesn't understand that shrieking in such a piercing pitch, and telling one's mother to shut up threatens to send mom into a nervous break-down and violent fits. Insurance companies don't care that a medication has been successful for a patient when they re-vamp their formularies. Programs don't care how much I have on my plate... they have their requirements after all, and it is my choice to seek their help. Choosing not to seek their help is no choice at all when it comes to caring for children.

Just breathe through it all, I tell myself. Just breathe. But it takes so much work to breathe, and I'd almost rather drown. I want to sit down in the middle of the road, and say it's too much now, to prove to myself that I was stupid for even trying. I'm too tired to finish. I'm just too damned tired. Voluntary commital sounds more appealing every day if it meant that I could just sleep. How selfish. How expensive. How dare I even think of hiding behind the guise of a mental break down? Everyone knows I am so much stronger than that... everyone but me.

Engage the fail safe and let them system shut itself down, or keep letting the pressure build and wait for the marvelous explosion that will destroy everything in it's path... including me. Someone stop the world. I want to get off. This ride is making me sick.

Planes of Existence

2012-01-09T15:14:00.000-08:00

I feel as if I'm on an odd plane of existence today. There's so much stuff rattling around my brain, it's hard to keep track of which train of thought requires the most attention. Maybe all of them. Maybe none of them.

I'm having issues with coverage for my son's medication. The CHIP program that he's on has been covering his medication for almost two years now without incident or interruption. Apparently at the beginning of this year though they revamped the control class and the manufacturers they would cover. The result? They will no longer cover any form of Methylphenedate. So now the doctor is trying to ascertain which stimulant medications will be covered, since I can not afford the $171 a month it would cost to buy his medication on my own, and trying to determine which one to switch him to with the least likelihood of side effects and the most likelihood of symptom management. As someone who doesn't really like to medicate children in the first place,the prospect of switching meds so suddenly leaves me nervous for him. The reason the doctor chose this particular medication was because of it's low risk of side effects and pretty outstanding success rate in treating ADHD symptoms, and as a Mom I have not been able to argu with the result. But on the other side of things, we have a Meth problem in various parts of the U.S., and Wyoming is not immune from it either. There are parents who get meds for their children through CHIP and Title 19 programs and then turn around and sell the medications, or worse, use them to make a more dangerous form of the drug to be sold. It's all so dizzying and just leaves me shaking my head. So I'm waiting for a call from the doctor's office to find out which medication she will switch to so that I can go pick up a prescription. She, the pharmacy, and the insurance are trying to get it all hashed out, and chances are my son will go to school tomorrow without medication, and his teacher will hate me until it all gets resolved.

Today I am sore all over from a rather strenuous weekend. I spent four hours painting ceilings and walls on the Habitat site. Then for once in my existence I hired a babysitter and just went out. My co-workers planned a night of bowling. The Beau was going to go, but did not stop to see if it was his weekend to have his son, and of course it was. He had thought to leave his son with both the volunteer babysitting my children for work on the Habitat site, and with my babysitter for the bowling, and I told him to forget it. I told him to pick the cub up and go home, that the Cub only gets to see him every other weekend, and it was not fair to leave him with babysitters for nearly an entire day, especially considering that he had to leave town early on Sunday to go back up to Billings for more work related training. It brought to a head for me the irritations I've been experiencing over my lack of ability to get a hold of him, and his waning presence at all, leaving me to believe that he's just not that into the relationship anymore. I expressed again that I feel more like we are friends with benefits than an engaged couple. We had a good discussion. One that I'm still not entirely satisfied with, but he did apologize very sincerely for the lack of planning on his part about Saturday evening, and said that he knows it's been a bit touch and go lately, but to please not read too much into it, that he does not view this relationship as a friends with benefits arrangement at all, and that he's still very serious about wanting to marry me. It was a good talk, and we still came out on the other side, me venting my frustrations in a less than diplomatic way this time around, and we still have not had an argument. I did point out that I have a lot to do crammed into one single month and that is probably only serving to amplify my frustration levels. He seemed to be aware and accomodating of that. As I told my friend today, in many ways I don't have a lot to complain about. There is this one issue about coordinating and communicating that is irritating me, but over all I really am enjoying a stable and consistent relationship with this man, and maybe that's what is scaring me.

Bowling was a lot of fun. I am a horrible bowler, and it's always great to be the one who makes everyone else look really good. One of my co-workers said, "Well you steadily improved each game." To which I said, "It didn't take much to improve over that first game."

Yesterday I thoroughly cleaned the apartment, and made the spawnlings clean their rooms. Pookie and I had a rough patch, but after some pretty dire consequences grudgingly dealt with a heavier hand than I like to use, she improved and got to the task at hand... mostly. K-Bug asked if they could shove everything in their closet. I told them as long as it wasn't clothes, trash or books that was fine. What she didn't seem to realize is that I only left the option for toys to go in the closet and sice that where the bins are for their toys anyway... Wonder if she'll figure that out. She didn't say anything yesterday, so I'm guessing not.

Today I'm sore from all of the activity over the weekend. I used muscles in my body, that I don't think I knew existed before, and tonight I think I may double up on the self punishment and remind it of other muscles that haven't been worked in a couple of months. My exercise bike is looking pretty lonely and neglected lately, and since the Beau is gone until Friday, I have to find something constructive to do with myself besides sit on the couch and catch up on old episodes of t.v. shows. The bike has been neglected, and my beads haven't made it out of the closet in a while. Now that the house is thoroughly cleaned and all of the Christmas decor packed away, I feel like I have room to spread out and do things.

Fiction Friday: Of Faerie Tales

2012-01-06T08:30:00.000-08:00

"[Fiction] Friday Challenge #241
Include these characters somewhere in your story–a weasel, a priest and a spinning wheel."

Father Richard sat in his quarters and regarded the old spinning wheel in the corner of his room. It was an odd thing for a Priest to have in his posession, particularly in a kingdom where a spinning wheel was such a rarity. When he'd abdicated the throne to join the priesthood, his mother had begged him to take it with him.

"Guard it with your life," she'd said. "All of the spinning wheels in the kingdom were ordered to be burned not long after I was born. It's precious."

No one came into Father Richard's cell, so no one ever inquired about the object anymore. He wished now in his age that he had asked his mother why the object was so precious to her.

Father Richard felt a nudge at his hand as George nuzzled him. George was a small orphaned weasel that Father Richard had cared for. If anyone thought him odd when he'd first brought the spinning wheel into the Monastary, they thought it doubly odd when he'd brought in a baby weasel. No one bothered him generally, but whispers here and there drifted back of a wizard and his familiar pretending to be a priest.

The spinning wheel gave a slight turn, something it was prone to do every now and again even though no one had disturbed it. "Perhaps it's time you knew," a voice said from the corner where the wheel sat, giving the old Priest a start. By the wheel in an old tattered gray cloak was the ugliest old hag he'd ever had the misfortune to lay eyes on.

"How did you come to be here," Father Richard demanded as he jumped to his feet. George clung to his robes with a squeal as he nearly toppled to the floor.

"Come now, Priest. You have something of value within your posession and you are getting on in years. What will be done with the wheel when you have passed into the next great adventure?"

"I haven't decided," he replied uncertainly. "But that does not explain how you have come to be here."

"I have come to reclaim what is mine. You have no heirs, and if the wheel is left here, what do you think the other Priests and Monks will do with it?"

"I imagine they will either destroy it or send it to the convent for one of the sisters to work with."

"That would be a shame. The years that this wheel has sat idle have been a shame. Almost as much of a shame as the 16 years in which it was left hidden and forgotten in a high tower room, after all of the spinning wheels in the kingdom were ordered destroyed."

"What is so blessed important about a single spinning wheel?"

The old hag sat on the stool next to the object of discussion, arranging her tattered cloak carefully to veil her feet. "This is an object of legend," she said low and serious as Father Richard settled himself in the chair to listen. George jumped down to the floor and scampered over to the old woman, climbing into her lap. Her old gnarled hands stroked the tiny creature's head. "You have heard the fairytal of Rumplestilstkin, I assume."

Father Richard chuckled. He'd heard it, yes, but Fairytales were all but banned in the kingdom, although some story-tellers passed them along in quiet whispers to wide eyed children when the adults were not around. He nodded at the woman.

"And the tale of Sleeping Beauty."

That story was the biggest culprit of all, and hushed. When it was told by fathers to young children, mothers clucked their tongues and told them that they were bringing bad luck, that they risked the wrath from the witch in the tale. "Yes," Father Richard replied trying to hide his amusement. They were fairy tales... superstitious nonsense told in hushed whispers to frighten children. "You can't possibly be trying to tell me that this is the spinning wheel from those stories. Rumplestiltskin is a tale that's been told for almost two centuries now, and Sleeping Beauty..."

"Happened nearly 180 years ago," the old woman said wearily. "The Beauty of the tale was your very own mother."

Father Richard did laugh this time. "How is that possible, old woman? I am only 55 years of age, and my mother was quite young when she gave birth to me..."

"Yes, she was a youth of nearly 18 when she had the joy of bringing you into the world. I was there, as I was there when she was born, and that foolish father of hers thought that he could thwart fate by having every spinning wheel in the kingdom destroyed. I barely moved this one to a forgotten store room in a tower of the castle before he came to make sure that it had been removed from my chambers. I was there to advise your great grandmother how to save your grandfather from the grasp of that little imp Rumplestiltskin. There's no telling what that creature would have done with a child. I shudder to think of it."

"I think you need to leave."

"And I think you need to listen, Priest. I have always come to the assistance of your family in the best interest of this kingdom, and have sometimes had to act against the wishes of your family when men like you were too bull-headed to see sense. That spinning wheel has saved your kingdom a number of times, and it will continue to do so as long as I have any say in the matter. Your mother when she was old enough to understand the danger the kingdom was in because of the turmoil in the outside world, she saw the value in turning the wheel to spin the spell that put the entire kingdom asleep for the length of the century. While the rest of the world burned itself down, this kingdom remained safe. Everyone who entered was immediately gripped by sleep and soon the rest of the world believed this country was cursed. After the century passed and trade resumed, those pieces were forgotten and the tale embellished and changed. The king was none the wiser until pieces of the tale came back to him, and he tried to destroy the story by outlawing it's retelling, as he tried to destroy all of the spinning wheels by ordering them burned. Your country is coming to need the wheel again, and since I have had no luck convincing any of the males in your family to be the catalysts for change, it is time for me to reclaim it, and keep it safe once more."

Father Richard sat silently. George raise his head and peered at him with those warm beady eyes. I am a priest, he though silently to himself, and this woman is telling me of witchcraft. But it did not raise his hackles, and it did not frighten him. Part of him wanted to disbelieve, but he didn't It all made too much sense. "What would you have me do, witch?"

She stood, her tattered cloak melting away, and her aged looks reversing centuries in an instance until a young radiant woman stood in front of him. George perched on the floor looking at Father Richard expectantly, as if he had known all along what was going to happen. "Finally," she sighed, "A man who will listen to sense. Your friend has told me many good things about you and I was hesitant to believe him until I spoke to you myself. The wheel must be turned and you will know the words to say."

She was no witch, Father Richard realized. She was that mythical creature that no one believed in anymore... a Faerie, bent on protecting her land and the people within it. He should have known that. Dealing with Faeries often came at a higher price than dealing with a witch. "What will happen?"

"Trust me and see," she replied beckoning him towards the stool.

The End of the Tunnel

2012-01-05T08:14:00.000-08:00

There's a light at the end of the tunnel.
I think I've almost made it out.
It's up there shining brightly,
Bringing hope where once was doubt.

There's a promise of a new day,
Just over that next hill.
It promises I will make it
If I exercise strength of will.

There's a ribbon at the end of this race,
Beckoning me not to quit.
It waves gently in the breeze,
Taunting me to run towards respite.

There's a light at the end of the tunnel.
Beckoning me to push on through the pain.
There's a light there burning brightly.
I just hope it's not a train.

One of These Children Is Not Like The Others

2012-01-02T10:41:00.000-08:00

***I decided to write this after reading the post "So You're Wondering If Your Child Might Be Autistic" over at Flapiness Is. ***

If ever a child seemed out of step with the world it was my Pookie. K-Bug seemed prodigious in my eyes, the bias of all mothers I'm sure. Her younger brother was so affectionate and easy-going. But my Pookie, with those beautiful blue eyes and that sweet smile... there was something different about her. I loved her desperately the moment the doctor placed her in my arms at the hospital thinking that all of the hardship from my pregnancy was over. It seemed however, the challenge had really only just begun.

The first sign in retrospect that anything was amiss was her trouble nursing. She preferred to suck on her tongue over anything else, and had to be nipple trained on a bottle before she could actually nurse. It was later in Occupational Therapy that they would point out that the reason her words were sometimes slurred was not due to a lack of ability to articulate, but because of low oral motor tone. The muscles around her lips and mouth needed some work. But why would that set off any alarms? Plenty of women have issues with nursing, and many children deal with various challenges with speech that are overcome with learning and practice.

Ahh but speech was another thing that came along that worried me. When she was still not talking much by the age of 2 1/2 I really began to worry. Her sister again seemed so prodigious, using words that she'd heard me use, grasping onto and beginning to comprehend the use of complex sentence structures. But this daughter of mine wouldn't talk, wouldn't ask for things. She would babble, and her oldest sister amazingly would interpret what it was this younger otherworldly child wanted. I called my mom, not knowing what to do. She tracked down resources in my county and they came and tested her. Her cognitive function scored low, but they cited it was hard to measure cognitive function on someone who didn't speak much. They attributed her lack of speaking to her older sister's ability to speak for her, said that it was a learned laziness of a sort, and that she would be fine. They advised to have her tested again if she still wasn't speaking by about 31/2 to 4 years old.

When she began walking, something she was also a bit late in doing, she walked on her toes. Everywhere she went she tip-toed around, never tripping. I ignored it, thinking it was simply a phase she would outgrow. She walked before she crawled, and I was advised to make her learn how to crawl as well. So I played games, pretending to be various animals with her. She thought it was the most hilarious thing in the world for mom to be on her hands and knees making sounds like animals, and she was all too happy to imitate.

Speech eventually came and I was relieved. Other things came about though. I had her hearing tested because I worried that she had a hearing problem. I could be yelling her name for five minutes sometimes before she'd actually respond. Or I'd give and instruction a few times, and then yell at her for not doing it and she would yell back that she didn't hear me. Often she wouldn't comply with instructions at all, or would only do the first thing I told her to do, if I gave her a multi-part directive. And the worst thing was she never outgrew throwing temper tantrums. In stores, at home, anywhere. For better or worse I had a shrew of a child on my hands and everyone around glared and poo-pooed me as a horrible parent. I began to feel that they must have been right. I had no idea how to handle this child.

It was later that I learned about language processing delays, and word finding disabilities. It was later that I would learn about Sensory Integration Dysfunction. The word Autism never occurred to me. Autistic people were those Savants that had incredible abilities, but no one ever paid attention to because of their deficits in other areas of life. They didn't make eye contact, and most people believed they were retarded. Those other areas of life were social skills, but I didn't know that at the time either. I knew nothing of Autism. I could tell you about any number of the Special ed kids I went to school with, what great people they were, what their challenges were and how they worked to overcome them, but I had never personally been around someone with Autism.

My mother in law worked with Autistic children as an aid in the local school district. When I was talking to her about my daughter, the challenges of raising her, and not knowing what to do, she was the one that asked me, "Do you think she could be Autistic?" She'd seen the fits, the non-compliance with instructions, the toe-walking, and the disparate behaviors with this very typical looking child. I didn't know. Why would I think I had a child with Autism? I didn't know anyone in my family who was, and no one had ever said someone in her father's family might be. Again, retrospect tells a very different story.

So when I took her to the Pediatrician I asked. The doctor looked at her and said, "No way. We look for three classic symptoms, and she doesn't display any of those."

So after her check-up and being given a clean bill of health I returned home and continued to blame her challenges on my poor abilities as a parent. Meanwhile the ex made comments that he wondered if she might be retarded, or had something wrong because of the medications I had to take while I was pregnant with her, just to keep bot her and I from dying. Retardation didn't sound right in my mind. I knew it wasn't that. And a reaction to the medications I'd been on didn't sound right to me either. I'm no doctor, but I can feel it in my gut that the only reason she and I both made it through the pregnancy was because of the medications that helped reduce my contractions. She was an incredibly smart child. The problem was behavior, not intellect.

The most frustrating behavior for me above the tantrums was the penchant for making messes. Her destructive force seemed to top both her brother and sister and they would then join in the fun. Anything powdery was an obsession, or anything that could be smeared, anything wet. (The potty training phase was of particular challenge.) She hated having her hair combed and would run and scream in terror at the first sight of a brush. She didn't like wearing shoes. In fact she still strips off her socks and shoes as soon as she gets through the front door of the house. She loved ripping paper just to hear the sound, and would toss it in the air like confetti just to watch it flutter to the ground. I would get one mess cleaned, to find that she was in the midst of making another, her brother and sister laughing and clapping as they joined in the mess making. She generally did not laugh much while engaged in that behavior. I always had a feeling one of these children is not like the other, and I couldn't figure out what it was that I was doing wrong.

When I finally left the ex, I was able to get my daughter in to a developmental specialist, who before even seeing them in her office, had observed some atypical behaviors that indicated stimming. She put my daughter through an entire battery of tests that took hours. When it was done, she told me my daughter clearly landed on the Spectrum, at a very high functioning level, but she was on the spectrum none the less. She also marveled that my daughter was the first Autistic child in her many years of practicing that had responded so well to positive reinforcement, that she had completed the testing in one sitting. She shook her head when I told her about the other Pediatrician and his statement about three classic symptoms.

All I could feel was relief. I now had a word to define this difference in my child, although I still didn't really know what it meant. I believe that in many ways I still do not know what it means. But what it did mean in that moment was that a challenge defined was the first step to a solution devised. I now knew how to ask for help for this child, because now I knew what I needed help with. One of my children is not like my others. All three of my children are special little people. My Pookie is Autistic and I love her for it and some days in spite of it.

Children of Trial

2012-01-02T09:51:00.000-08:00

Carrie thought he was crazy. How could he possibly be happy about this. Their new baby was barely five months old, a child she sometimes cried over because she felt like she didn't know her, and he was happy they had another one on the way. She wasn't a mother. How could she be? All she knew how to do was change diapers, and wince in pain every time the child needed to nurse, and even that was slowly slipping away from her. She hadn't wanted to go back to work, convinced that if she stayed home with the baby she'd learn how to love her, to nurture her, to know her. But he had been laid off (although she had a sneaking suspicion he might have quit or had been fired,) and that was that. She had to go back to her job. She found a daycare for the baby, and went back to work. In some ways it was a relief. She knew how to work. She didn't know how to be a mother. But then that proved to be a challenge too. They moved her to a new position because they wanted to keep the woman they hired to cover her during maternity leave. She was no longer as competent at work as she wanted to be, and now she was pregnant again.

He was crazy. Why couldn't he understand how unhappy she was? The one thing she could do right for the baby was going away. Her milk was drying up, and she had to give up nursing all together now that she was pregnant again. It was too much for one body to handle to do both at the same time.

He found another job. They lost their home. She lost her job. Then he lost his. And Carrie felt full of despair that they couldn't even provide for the daughter they had. What kind of cruel joke was it that she was now pregnant with a child she didn't really want? Some would have said she had options for that. Maybe she did. But she knew it was an option he would forever punish her for, and one that she would never find it within herself to forgive herself for.

It was the middle of Summer and so hot. He wanted to travel out of town to see his parents. Carrie was happy to get out of the one small room they were living out of. He refused to turn on the air conditioner because it burned too much gas. So Carrie dealt with the unbearable heat, trying not to complain, and wishing that she had thought to bring a bottle of water with her. They cam back that evening, and the next morning she woke in terrible pain. They were Braxton Hicks contractions. They had to be. Everyone got them. Her first pregnancy had been completely text book. Why would this one be any different? He wouldn't hear any of it. He took her to the doctor, the incubator for this child he was so happy about was not to be listened to. They told her she was in pre-term labor, gave her medications to stop the contractions, to fight an infection, and put her on fluids for being so terribly dehydrated. They put her on bed rest, and the child she was trying so hard to love and care for was sent away. Exiled to her grandmother's house because yet again her mother was unable to take care of her. Carrie felt so guilty that her first-born was already being ousted by this baby she didn't want. She'd wanted her first-born, so desperately she'd wanted to have a baby then. And she wondered what was wrong that she could not connect with this child she wanted. And now she felt guilty that she didn't want the child that grew within her.

Carrie fought for her life for two months, and for the child within. She obeyed the bed rest, took her battery of medications, despairing that they only kept the contractions at bay, but did not stop them entirely. She was so very tired. When the doctors finally took her off of the medications, the contractions stayed the same. The baby wouldn't come. The doctor wanted to induce, fearful that Carrie would be too exhausted to deliver if they waited any longer.

That man, the one that was so happy about this child she didn't want, read over the risk sheet for the procedure and tried to talk her out of it. He didn't want to compromise the incubator that proved to be such fertile ground for procreation. She called her mother, who explained to him that all the risks listed were ones that Carrie already faced as a result of the pre-term labor, and she advised Carried to ask security to escort him out of the hospital room in order to have the procedure done if he continued to be an ass. He stopped being an ass.

They placed the epidural and started the pitocin drip. Carrie slipped into blessed sleep, the waves of her contractions something she was used to now, and grateful that where she could feel the ebb and flow of them coursing through her entire body, she no longer hurt from them. It was almost the rhythm of a rocking boat now that lulled her into sleep. She was so exhausted from it all. When the nurse woke her in order to check for dialation she immediately ran into the baby's head, all ready to crown, just waiting for Carrie to push. They called for the doctor, two pushes and the child was there. Stubborn, tough, smart, belligerent, everything she'd had to be to survive a womb and a mother that tried so hard to reject her before she could thrive on her own. They placed the baby in Carrie's arms, and the baby she didn't want became the child she knew she could never let go of.

When her first-born arrived home, Carrie worried that she would know that her mother was connected to this new child in a way she had never felt connected to her. She worried that her oldest would hate the new baby. Her oldest now a little over a year old fawned and cooed over her new sister, as enamored it seemed as Carrie was. All she could do was hug and love this child who only knew how to love and welcome the sister that threatened to take her mother away from her. Carrie would never be able to let go of her ever again either.

Be Present in the New Year

2012-01-01T16:36:00.000-08:00

The New Year it seems is off to a beautiful and peaceful start. I decided on my new theme for this year. (I'm still so grateful to Jodi for introducing this idea 5 years ago.) I didn't talk much about the theme I finally landed on for last year... determination and fortitude. However, despite my lack of discussion, they were both traits that 2011 put well to the test for me. This year, having developed both of those traits in spades, it is time for a very different goal. Life as a single parent, as a parent of an Autistic child, as a volunteer, and as a person fulfilling many of the other roles I do on a day to day basis, has dictated a rigid structure of planning, and filling blocks of time with obligations and demands to the point of exhaustion.

It's an old song, one that I've sung in the same out of tune voice for some time in this space. I've spent much time focusing on ordered, ethical deeds, and it has all been well worth the effort, and will continue to be so, of that I have no doubt. But it at the same time, in this rigid structure I have developed in which to function, has sapped me of some of the joy of living. Always my mind is projected into the future. Each block of time scheduled as a foundational brick to build towards a more stable/secure/comfortable/easier future. And I am finding that with that solely as my focus, I am investing myself in that future to the extreme and expense of today. So, bearing in mind all of the themes I have worked to this point... Journey, Growth, Authentic Voice, Determination and Fortitude... I now must rein myself in, and build on those. I don't have to work on building tomorrow at the expense of today. I can work to enjoy both the present and the future. As my children are growing up quicker than I can blink now, I fear I have missed so much already, being so busy tending to their most basic needs to take note of what fascinating people they are developing into. After my frantic-making scurrying about of the last year, building dreams for them and for myself, and now being so terribly close to seeing those dreams come to fruition, I need to re-learn how to be in and enjoy the moment. And so my theme this year, for every day of this year, whether it's a good, bad, or indifferent day is simply to Be Present. Just to be here, continuing to be responsible and to act with ordered and ethical deeds, but not to worry about tomorrow, to enjoy today, doing the best I can today, and letting tomorrow take care of itself as a result.

I am so tired of worrying and scurrying, and fearing that if I don't get everything taken care of that I will fail my children or anyone else I care about. They all deserve my best, and my best is not what I have been giving this last year. I have not been here. I have been up there somewhere, dragging everyone behind me with a 20 foot rope, as I have scurried to get to an exhausting goal. Now the goal is in sight, and I am coming to realize that as much as they need this structure that I have been working to build, they need and deserve to have me, not just my efforts, but ME. Here and now, not someday down the line when the house is finished, or when I've earned my degree, or I'm not off running some other gauntlet that may or may not vastly improve our standard of living. Someday is today. It's this year. I'm here now, ready now to give and be my best, because I deserve that too.

May You Have an Exciting Life

2011-12-29T20:43:00.001-08:00

I've begun posts several times since my last one, but life seems to have steam-rolled right over me the last month. Things are over all going well... stressful... but still well. It's left me so incredibly exhausted.

Pookie's behaviors are settling down some, although now she is picking at her scalp to the point of leaving scabs once again. I'm unconvinced that the medication prescribed both to help with the sensory issue around itching for her, as well as to help her go to sleep at night is in any way doing any good. But I will persist in trying for now, after being chastised by the doctor several times to get the scrip for it filled. And finally now that the state has moved on Waiver services, finally approving the plan that we submitted months ago, I had the first monthly meeting in months with the family care coordinator. She was very polite in telling me that I needed to research a respite provider, stating that I really need to be caring for myself as much as for all three of my children, which was her very polite way of telling me that I look like Hell and she's worried about me. She also made sure that I knew we are well under budget for our waiver plan with plenty of units available to be billed on the waiver. For me it's a matter of taking the time to interview and line up a potential provider. Time is an expensive commodity for me, and I have so very little of it to offer, even in hopes that the expenditure will mean a return of getting some back for myself.

Time is money they say. Time is not money for me... Time is made up of moments, hopefully that have been carefully weighed to maximize the full potential return that I hope for. With services up for re-certification across the board again, and being in the home stretch for the Habitat House, time is every bit as precious in the minutest amounts as money is at the moment. I have 40.25 hours left to go before my requirements are met. So far of the 500 total required 187 of them have been my own time. I believe by the time the house is complete, I will have clocked over 200 of my own individual hours. I will have 4 days of watching babies for 2 hours this coming month. So that will be 8 hours. I fully intend to be on the job site all 4 Saturdays at 4 hours a day. There's another 16 hours. Each of those four days someone will have to spend 4 hours watching the children for another 16. 40 hour can be done, just with that if push comes to shove. However, chances are there will be other volunteers on the job site on those Saturdays, and it will not take me the whole month to meet the requirements. As for my work at the transitional housing program, I will continue volunteering for them on Thursdays through the end of the school year, and then I will have to decide if I want to give them another year net year, without feeling like I'm helping them with an ulterior motive. I want to be able to do that, but I also know that I have been running myself at a break neck pace for almost 4 years now, and I am going to have to slow down sometime. In fact, I told the Beau I could not marry him as early as July simply because of that fact alone. He understands that it's not a matter of wanting to or not wanting to. I just can not expect myself to finish this project and then dive right into planning a wedding, no matter how simple we intend to keep it. It may well be July of 2013 before we finally do tie the knot. In the meantime he has decided that he will get his truck paid off, and that he will be seeking a small apartment for himself, citing that another year at his father's house will probably drive him crazy, considering his father's lack of regard for his own health, and the antics of some of his siblings. He's burnt out on the criticisms, and is ready to tell them that if they want dad to be cared for and checked on, it's their turn to step up to the plate. I can't say that I blame him. And personally it's comforting for me to hear him say he wants to make that move to independence.

In the meantime, while I wait for the completion and closing of the house, it's time to re-certify with the housing authority, and file for taxes, and begin pre-qualification paperwork for closing. January will be less busy as far as work goes, but my personal obligations will more than make up for the lack.

For now though, I think thoughts of January will have to wait so that I can sleep and think of getting through tomorrow. Because after tomorrow, I have a three day weekend to try and rest before more of the mayhem begins. Good night world... and don't do me any favors while I'm sleeping please. I have all the excitement I can handle. Thank you very much.

Angels and Banshees

2011-12-14T13:46:00.000-08:00

The storm that I begged the wind for last night in my despondency is making it's way over the mountain today, though I'm guessing that we will not see the snow fall here in the lower elevations. It's just not quite cold enough for snow to fall and stick here below the mountain.

Pookie did a much better job this morning at getting ready to go without shrieking at me. She has decided that instead of holding a birthday party, she wants to go to dinner and a movie as a family on Saturday, which will still leave me financially strapped until Wednesday, but which in some ways relieves me of the dread of having five or six young children running about my apartment. I am truly at wits end with the shrieking, and no amount of yelling or threats has to this point deterred her from the behavior. So last night I told her that we will not have any more mornings of shrieking and delaying getting ready for school, and no more disrespectful retorts or shrieking in the evening, or we will not be going to dinner or a movie this weekend, and will instead have the small family celebration that we typically do the day of he birthday. She tested a bit last night, after calling me out of my bedroom, upset that her sister had dropped an article of clothing on her head from the top bunk. She began yelling at me beause I told her if she had been in bed as she was supposed to, the article of clothing would not have landed on her head. I told her that if she'd called me in there just to yell at me, that she could resolve the problem herself, that I was too tired to be angry anymore. Something in that statement severely upset her, because she started in on the shrieking behavior, and that was when the Beau stepped in and very firmly told her that she WOULD NOT scream. One step in her direction on his part had her scrambling for her bed. And she blubbered and cried in defeat. I gave firm instructions to K-Bug not to talk to her, not to respond to her in order to avoid further arguing, and we went back to bed. As of ths point she has not lost the privelige. We still have a few days to go though.

After crying in the bath just to get it out of my system. I begged for the wind, and heard it begin to keen. I prayed for snow, for the tempest to come and wrap me up in it's arms. I asked that a new day would bring me the courage I needed not to lock myself away, the patience to deal with my little Banshee, and the grace to recognize her for the child she really is. Fight or flight is kicking in every time she begins talking back, or begins to shriek now, and it's so hard for me not to view this little person as an enemy on some days.

I didn't sleep well last night, and today I am quiet and withdrawn. The Beau is coming over again tonight. I imagine that we'll talk some more tonight about what I briefly touched on last night, this sensation that the relationship has deteriorated from and excited-let's-make-this-a-partnership-and-be-together to a friends with benefits sort of arrangement. I'm not averse to the latter if that's all that he wants, but then I'd like to be able to set my expectations as such. However he is still stating that he wants to be married, and face life together for better or worse. For me, I'm looking at coming up on closing the house and being left with a few short months to plan a wedding with the time period he wants to be married in. I can't at this point see it happening, not without knowing what being partners actually looks like. Not without knowing what it is this man sees in me that he wants to make a permanent part of his life. Those are the two things at this moment that will keep me from walking down the aisle... not my mom's arguments, not her concerns, not the number of times he's been married. None of those things matter to me in the grand scheme of things. But knowing how we work as partners, and why me and not someone else are the two things that do.

My lunch hour was spent walking the mall in search of a gift that I thought would be easy to find for Pookie's birthday. She asked for a snow globe. Nothing specific, but she wants to start a collection. Where it comes from is the angle snow globe my mom gave me last year, because I love angels, and one day would like to collect them. I have just held off because of little hands. I have a few small dollar store ones that won't send me into a murderous rage if they're broken, and the other two that I cherish are put up, to include the snow globe, and one that looks like it's made of ivory (but I'm sure is not) of a Guardian Angel keeping watch over a praying child. My mom gave me that one years ago when I first came to live with her, the idea of Guardian Angels becoming something I clung to desperately. I still do believe in Guaridan angels, although I believe they sometimes manifest themselves in those around us more than just as an ethereal protector. In any case, i tried every place I could think of (Hallmark being the obvious choice that escaped my memory.) I tried the Christian book store in hopes of finding an angel or a cherub, but they only had nativity scenes, and I was hoping not to give her a Christmas themed one. I tried the collectibles place for an angel/fairy/kitten/puppy... They had wizards, witches, and wild animals, but nothing that a 10 year old little girl would be particularly thrilled over. I tried a kiosk selling personalized mementos to find blingy globes with flashy decor, ready to be engraved with your special occassion for between $40 and $50, and thought, "No fucking way." I even tried Sears thinking in their Christmas decor maybe they might have an angel. No. They had beautiful village pieces, but no snow globes. Target was the shortest route to where I'd parked my car, so in a last ditch effort I wandered over to their Christmas section, and finally found the snow globes, many of which were christmas themed, but a few that were not. I found a pretty pink little ballerina with angle wings, frozen mid-pirhoutte in the glittery shower floating in her globe. And I was able to get the gift box and wrapping all for a little less than what I wanted to pay for it. So I am quite proudly displaying my find on my desk. The ballerina will compliment the tacky pink argyle piggy bank that Pookie asked for quite nicely.

Waiting for Joy

2011-12-13T22:25:00.000-08:00

There is a piece of scripture that has always been thrown at me. It's only the tail end of it I remember but the gist of the beginning is about the despondency and the darkness, metaphorically referenced in the deep of night, and the tail end of it is, "...joy will come in the morning." Joy never came in the morning for me. The same problems were always there to face, with no more apparent solutions than in the hours that they kept me awake. And so my brain, trying to make sense of it grasped for something more meaningful, "...joy will come in the mourning." A comfort that there might be hope in the face of something that seemed utterly hopeless.

I find myself seeking that joy in the midst of mourning now, having let myself have a really good cry. I briefly expressed to the Beau tonight that at this point in time, I feel more like we are friends with benefits than a fiancee, and that I hope that changes soon. I know he and I both have a great deal going on at the moment. Personally I recognize that I am probably a bit more needy and clingy than I normally would be in the face of life on life's terms at the moment. And he is feeling under the weather himself, though I am convinced his physical ailments are the manifestation of his stress, of which he only shares a small part with me.

I was disqualified for $200 worth of grocery benefits because I made $50 over the income cap, which has added another stress on top of the Holidays. And I will be receiving another raise at the beginning of the year which will certainly put me over the top in income, and will net out to a budgetary loss once the increase in health insurance premiums are factored in. I have reached the cusp of that chasm between being poor enough to qualify for the services that keep my family afloat, and making enough money on my own income to actually make ends meet. I am moving up in the world. Isn't it grand?

The pressure of my work load at work has increased. My call count has suffered immensely in the face of projects, credit applications, and the implementation of new processing procedures.

Issues with budgeting on the Habitat house also came up. I chose the lighting months ago, being told that I had a $20/fixture allowance. I browbeat myself trying to pick the things I wanted, but working to fit it all within the allotment. I came in at close to $100 above, due to choosing ceiling fans for the living room and the master bedroom. The spreadsheet came back from the director though with a $250 overage, and only a $10/fixture allowance, months after they were selected and purchased. The big to-do over this comes in because this then does not leave me enough in upgrade funds to upgrade the carpet padding as intended, however my sponsor believes that may solve itself as the carpet place was running a special on the carpet I selected. She will still deal with the disparity in the allowance later however so that future potential homeowners do not run into the same issue.

Then to top matters off, Son-shine's teacher called me yesterday to let me know that he did not complete and turn in assignments from last Thursday as he was supposed to, and Pookie's teacher sent home a note that out of the last 5 homework days, she has only completed and turned in one assignment. And Pookie has been spending every morning for weeks screaming her lungs out and refusing to dress for school. She spends some evenings engaged in the same screaming and arguing, and that right now, will be the one thing that breaks me down. I can not handle it anymore. I drop her off at daycare feeling like an ogre, and a mean horrible mom, and go to work hoping for a reprieve, to find that there is none there either. I have no sanctuary right now.

Tonight she began it again, and I didn't have the energy to yell, or be angry. Fortunately the Beau was here to back me up. Otherwise I'm not sure how I would have handled her tonight. After she was finally settled into bed, I took a bath and just cried. I was ready to lock myself in there and just stay. I still want to. Now I'm drinking a cup of tea, and praying to find some joy in my dreams when I can finally get myself to go to sleep, and begging the powers that be for a tempest to blow in, and for the snow to start flying. I want to wrap myself in a blanket of white, and simply rest a while.

Mothering the Banshee

2011-12-09T14:56:00.000-08:00

Margaret dug through the news web-site looking for stories about child neglect and abuse. Typically she avoided those stories. They always depressed her, but today already feeling depressed she believed she couldn't get much lower. She knew she was a terrible mother, a lousy employee, a shitty bookeeper, and all she wanted to do was escape. A convent sounded nice, a cloistered one, where she would take a vow of silence and everyone would forget she even existed, maybe even her.

She tortured herself with the news stories of mothers suspected of murdering their children, or abandoning them with babysitters, trying to tell herself that she couldn't be all that bad. She was still in there doing the job wasn't she? But the truth was she was ready to give it up.

After spending a string of mornings and evenings listening to the child shriek at the top of her voice over every inconvenince, and refusing to dress for school or brush her hair, Margaret felt herself approaching her breaking point. Wasn't it enough that she was juggling a full-time job, all the outside of commitments of parenthood, and a number of other things involved in building a life? What had she done in life that now she deserved to spend almost two weeks of living with a discontented little Banshee intent on torturing her eardrums and threatening her sanity? What had she done that in the face of tight finances and a simple clerical error on her part, that now this child seemed rooted to the floor while she shrieked her head off, refusing to be ready on time so that Margaret began to worry over whether or not her job, the family's only source of income, would soon be in jeopardy over the tardy-making antics.

So Margaret yelled back, and she threatened. She threatened that if she was fired for being late there would be no Christmas, that all of the presents that were currently under the tree would be taken back to the store in order to pay rent and buy groceries. After a yeling match she lowered her voice, forcing the child to be quieter so she could hear what was being said. Margaret cued her, warned the child, that the fact that she was no longer yelling should make her stop and think about how angry Margaret really was for the weeks long torturous start to the mornings, and the just as torturous end to every day. She threatened to spank the child without reserve. And the Banshee quieted long enough to throw clothing on and brush her hair so that Margaret could race her to her bus stop in time to catch the bus, and then run the rat race to work. There she encountered more cranky people, more work than she could shake a stick at, and more decisions to be made, all the while feeling like a horrible incompetent mother, which meant that she must be a horrible incompetent human being.

So she scoured the news sites, looking for examples of women who not only lacked the mothering gene as she seemed to, but also lacked any sense of remorse or accountability, so that she could at least feel like she was doing something right. A stack of files hit her desk with a startling thud. Trying to make herself feel better about her parenting was going to have to wait until she dealt with trying to prove she was a decent employee.

December Came in Like a Bear

2011-12-03T10:26:00.000-08:00

It came in roaring and rearing and threatening to maul everyone in it's path, this new month we find ourselves in. But I don't think I've ever been so glad to get a November over with. I find myself looking at my Christmas tree just thinking, "Let's hurry up and get this over with, shall we?" I find myself excited in many ways for the Holiday, but I look forward to getting past it too.

Obviously I did not make the NaNo goal, but I did meet my goal. I got the story down in bite sized chunks from start to finish. It needs to be polished, shined, and fleshed out. There's room for the entourage of characters to be developed a little further in their interactions with "Corrine," but the story is down, and not left half finished. I wasn't sure I could manage it, but I did, and was not disappointed that I found myself punting on the word count goal.

Last week was the week from hell, with month end and fiscal year end all rolled into one. One of my co-workers threw an adult temper tantrum, it was reported by one or more of my other co-workers, and I was called into my boss's office to relate what happened since I was the direct witness to it. Needless to say it resulted in a write-up and I have no doubt she believes I'm the culprit that went to the boss about it.

I'm doing a fine tuned juggling act with finances to get bills paid and make Christmas happen, but I think I will squeak by as I usually do. And I have the projected schedule on the Habitat house which has me all kinds of ready to hyperventilate with excitement/dread/terror/joy/relief/disbelief. I have about 66 more hours left to garner and we're hoping to get another church group out for the painting. The projected schedule looks like this:

12-2: Mudding and taping
Next week: Texture walls
12-10, 12-13 & 12-15: Painting
12-17, 12-20, & 12-22: Trim paint and installation & cabinetry (Carpet measurement and ordering) Start water/sewer lines.
12-24 thru the first of the year OFF
1-3, 1-5 & 1-7: Tile set & grout (Homeowner will need to fill out the mortgage application, provide check stubs and W2's for mortgage qualification) Complete tap into water/sewer lines
1-10, 1-12 & 1-14: Carpet & Appliance set, Pantry filled, Street repaved
1,17, 1-19 & 1-21: Finalizing last minute details & walk though

This timeline could move faster if we had a group to paint. It will also depend on the cabinetry Project Foreman chooses to go with. Prefinished will move the project along faster.

A home dedication should be planned for the first week of February

Invitation list. (Habitat Director will work on the invitation list)

First week of February: Habitat Director will get the mortgage paperwork ready. Homeowner will get a copy to look over. Meeting with homeowner to answer questions on the document prior to closing.

Closing will be the later part of February or after all details after walk through are complete. Homeowner will be given keys & take possession at closing, and homeowner may move in any time after that.
Will reserve funds to put in sod and a tree (or shrubs) in the spring after the thaw. This will be a contract note added to closing.

I asked the gal who runs pay-roll at work if there was anyway I could get my W-2 early this year due to the paperwork processing on the house, and she said she could, which also means I may not have to wait until February for my tax returns. That's also a relief. I can put back the down payment and maybe one to two months worth of mortgage payments, as well as pay off the whopping $451 I have left in collections to completely clear my debt. It will be nice not to stress about that anymore. And since I've worked on getting my student loans back into good standing, they won't be holding me back when I start looking at taking a class or two to get my feet wet again on my education. I hadn't realized before that I was killing two birds with one stone, but find myself grateful that I have.

Tonight we are going to see the Wyoming Symphony Orchestra perform. K-Bug entered a competition to win the chance to conduct. She was not the child chosen for it, but she was given two free tickets in the prime seating section, along with a "buy one get one" coupon for the two additional necessary tickets for our family. Except that the Beau is also coming, so when I went to purchase the additional tickets, I was sweating dropping $40 each for the two tickets. Fortunately the lady selling them placed the adults in the seats we already had for free and charged the other two tickets out at student rates and gave us our free one for the coupon. So five people to see the symphony in prime seating arrangements totaled me about $60. It was still more than I wanted to spend, but K-bug was so excited about getting to attend, and I figured it would be nice to do something as a family anyway. Maybe this will be what I need to get in the Holiday spirit. God knows I need something to lift my spirits from this haggard pace I've been keeping for a while now.

NaNo Snapshot: The Journey Begins

2011-11-30T10:04:00.000-08:00

Corrine wasn't going to make her deadline on a lot of things this month, but most especially her writing. She doubted she would even meet the goal or would want to once the next day rolled around. Work was something she would also have to punt on, considering 8 hours of pushing to get through her aging had instead been spent preparing a last minute report for a meeting with the largest customer account her company had. And in the meantime her Grandmother had sent a very encouraging response to her e-mail, to let her know the video had not been sent to her biological father, and that indeed he was out of the family member's lives. Her grandmother wrote to him in prison, but never shared anything about Corrine, and equally relieving to Corrine was her Grandmother's statement that he never asked about her either. That statement alone made her want to believe that maybe the man was indeed truly remorseful, and that he would continue to leave her and her family in peace.

In the face of preparing for Christmas, and trying to make sure all was well with extended family she was exhausted. Finally Brian had been able to come over after almost a week of not seeing each other. He'd had mechanical issues with his vehicle over the weekend that he had to track down and fix. Corrine took the opportunity in speaking about vehicle repairs to ask for the Christmas present she really wanted... to have her brakes repaired on the car. She told him to forget blingy jewelry and the like, and to wrap the rotors and put them under the tree for her. He told her he wanted to look at it first to confirm that was the problem and then he would start pricing out the parts for her. He in return gave her a heads up on the scope for his rifle that he wanted, and she looked forward to getting it for him. It would make his next hunting season much easier for him.

Now she found herself on the last day of the month, and still not settled on a writing project. What would she write? How could she pick one set of characters over the other, or even start a new story with new characters. She'd left so many unfinished. "Get it down from start to finish," Rhian had said. It seemed such a simple task. Don't confuse yourself with the details, just get the story out... but which one?

Her mind went back the previous evening with Brian, watching a family movie with the kiddos, seeing her children cuddle up to him and play practical jokes with him. She enjoyed looking over at him to see his smile during the antics of the comic relief, thinking what a great smile he had, and that she hoped she could see it more often. Her mind went back to their time together behind closed bedroom doors, and her sighing confessions to him before falling asleep that she wanted to love him for the rest of her life, and treasuring his reciprocated sentiments with the added, "and longer I hope." She treasured that she had fallen asleep in his arms, and hadn't even noticed when he'd finally rolled over for his own comfort. She lived for moments like that. They seemed like an oasis in the midst of everything else.

Now the month was drawing to a close and it seemed some things were concluding and she was able to start putting them away until they cycled back and begged for her attention again. Some things except the question of writing.

She looked at the picture of her and Brian from last year's Christmas party, and remembered Xyllon's advice to look at it, to remember that was a part of her too. At one point she had felt it was gone... and then a tall, quiet, hard working cowboy walked into her life, with a serious face and a mischeivous glint in his eyes. He'd treated her in a way no one ever had, and had won her over despite her fears. He'd reminded her of what Xyllon was trying to point out, that romance and love, passion and lust were still a part of her. Her villain had reminded her of petty resentment and a sly vindictivness that waited to pounce on her or anyone else it had a desire to sink it's hooves into. It reminded her that it was a part of her too. Rhian with her sarcastic logic, and level judgement, Gareth was his good intentions and penchant for ruling things in black and white, and right and wrong, the two spies that had disappeared after her chastisement thirsting for adventure, and Curtis who was as concerned about her desires in life as he was for his own in his story... all of them were a part of her. Each she had taken a rib from her soul to form, and they walked through her life, asking her, begging her not to be forgotten, not to be denied, because if they were... if they died, then a piece of her did too.

Glory was the one characterthat had not begged for Corrine's ear as much, and given the plight she was in, she should have been the one asking for it.

"Your youth isn't dead yet, you know." Glory sighed. "I know this because you haven't allowed my disease to kill me yet."

"My youth has always been diseased, Glory. I think I have been happier than any other person to move beyond childhood."

"I'm not your childhood though. She wears princess dresses and fairy wings, and scrapes her knees on trees because she climbs them to pretend she's in a high castle tower, remember? I'm in college. I'm fending off an annoying suitor. I have attitude, and spunk, and energy. Those are pieces of you too, but you're afraid they're gone. You forget that those are traits, that even beyond your 20's that people still see and admire in you. Whatever you perceive as your disease hasn't killed that piece of you yet. Now the question is are you going to let it, or are you going to start writing again?"

"It's like I told Rhian, I just don't have any ideas for a story where all of you fit."

"Of course you do. There's no written rules about what kind of story you have to tell, it just has to be YOUR story."

With that Glory blinked into oblivion, as Corrine sat dazed under the flourescent lights of her office. How could she be so dense? The story had been in front of her the whole time. She opened her word processing program and began to write, "It was the first of November and the snow was falling. Most people were remarking on the luck that the storm waited until after Halloween for the kids to Trick or Treat. The fall weather had been nice, but winter was her time. Selene was glad that it was finally falling..."

NaNo Snapshot: Resentment as a Crucible

2011-11-28T12:10:00.000-08:00

Corrine woke early in the morning with words flowing through her mind. Would that they were words to a story, but instead it seemed that sleep finally had taken her well enough beyond anger and resentment to be able to write to her Grandmother. She had her mom review it first, in case she was missing something, and she warned her Aunt that the e-mail had been sent. Her Aunt sent a very validating and encouraging response. Corrine hoped her Grandmother would understand.

"Dear Grandma,

I hope that you had a good Thanksgiving. I thought of you often.

I do have some things I need to address with you, and this is a particularly hard e-mail to write, given the timing. Mom and I did watch Grandpa's memorial video. I appreciate you sending it to me. I did notice that there were pictures of the children in there. I am afraid I may be too little too late in saying this, but I am very hopeful that you did not send a copy of that video to Mike, or that if you did, those photos were edited out. I did make clear when I gave you those photos this summer that none of them are to be passed on to him, and I hope that you remembered that.

We also talked this Summer when you had me look at the genealogy books, and you said that you were afraid that the pictures of Mike might bother me. I answered you honestly, they do, but I also respect that he was part of your life, and more than likely in some very positive ways. I would now ask that you respect that any good memories I may have had of the man are overshadowed by some very hard realities. What I see when I look at those pictures is the face of the man that raped me repeatedly over the course of several years, the man that beat up the only woman who was ever a mother to me while I listened and watched, and the man that threatened her with a loaded rifle while I ran in terror to find help. I know that you didn't live any of those experiences, and I have not been very open to sharing about any of those things with you, because I have always felt that doing so would be more harmful than helpful. I don't want to hurt you. My silence about it has been my way of trying to be respectful. But please know, that handing me something that has pictures of Mike in it and asking me to look at it opens those old wounds that I have worked so hard to heal from, and it hurts me. It feels like an ambush. I understand that there are family histories and the like in which it will be necessary and appropriate to include him, and if you wish to show me those, please at least give me warning that his pictures are in there, so that I can then assess whether or not I am able to handle it at that moment, if at all. I may choose to not to look at those because I try very very hard not to relive that pain. That pain only serves to hold me back from taking care of what I need to today, and it makes me a bitter and jaded person.

You have said that he is remorseful. I am going to tell you now that the best way he can show his remorse to me is to leave me and my children alone. He is never welcome to be a part of my life. If he has any remorse at all, he will 'live and let live.' That is the only amends that I ask from that man. Forgiveness or lack thereof is not a factor in that boundary. Some days I am better about the forgiveness piece than I am others. However, I will not expose myself or my children to the risk of that level of harm ever again. You have a right to have him in your life. I have a right not to.

I am sorry if any of this has hurt you. It is not my intention to do so. However I feel if I do not say something, and let you know where my boundaries lie, that it will be something that alienates us from each other, because my only instinctual response to keep from being hurt otherwise is just to distance myself. I don't want to do that. I'd much rather we have a mutual understanding under which we can both still enjoy a relationship with one another.

The timing on writing this is horrible and I am sorry for that, but I hope that you understand. I am hesitant to even send this to you. I love you, and I hope that you are coping o.k. And I hope that you know, if you need something I am happy to help where I can.

Love,

Corrine."

It had been so difficult to write, and even harder to send. Now she was anxiously awaiting the response, hoping that she had not touched off a firestorm nearly 1500 miles away from her. She kept re-reading what she wrote, looking for anything that might be taken the wrong way, or something that would be a glaring faux pas in the family. Well the whole e-mail probably was, but still. She felt tired, fearing that where the letter would help her, it was going to be incredibly hurtful to her Grandmother although she did not want it to be. Her resentment at least in that dimension had burned itself out, and left her exhausted.

The resentment of her brother's attitudes, she hoped would simply resolve themselves as he grew older, and maybe a little more confident that Corrine was not there to try to take anything from him. She hoped he would grow into the realization that people had always been more important to her than things. She hoped that he would realize that about her. But he'd had very little time to get to know her. Inheritance was going to become an important issue going forward, to him more so than Corrine. Fortunately though, her mom was smart enough to try to give to Corrine the things she intended for her to have while she was still around to do it. A certain painting had sparked a bit of resentment for him over the weekend.

Corrine's mother had pointed it out and told her that it was hers once the house was built, along with a couple of other paintings. She told bother Corrine and her brother that she wanted to get it out of the cabin now so that she didn't have to come back for it later. After Corrine left the room, her brother complained to their mother that he really liked that painting, and their mom told him that was too bad, it had been given to her for an event that was important in Corrine's life, and that there were things in the house that were made by or for Corrine, just as there were things that would go to him that were made by or for him. He grudgingly took it to he car. It was not going to be an easy issue for him. Right now he was in a stage that made him sound like a five year old saying, "Mine! Mine! Mine!" Corrine really hoped that he grew out of it and soon. It made it hard to enjoy being around him.

"I hope he does too," Rhian said grimly from behind Corrine. "You've had a lot of crap to deal with this month."

"This year,” Corrine corrected, “And I still have not chosen a project to work on either. There's no way I'm going to finish in the next few days."

"I think you have chosen a project and you just don't realize it."

"No matter which one I choose, I'm leaving someone out in the cold, but I can't figure out for the life of me what to do to incorporate all of my characters into something."

Rhian raised an eyebrow. "No ideas at all huh? I find that incredibly difficult to believe."

"Well not at the moment at least."

"Now that you're done looking in the mirror, and dealing with that petty little monster you call resentment, maybe you should look in the mirror for some inspiration."

"I'm tired of looking in mirrors, Rhian. I’m tired of having to face my demons every day. So many people actively avoid them and yet I am expected not to. It would be nice to leave them behind for a little while. It would be nice to talk about someone else's life for once."

"What is writing, but a mirror on the author's soul? Look. You’ve been put through the ringer of late. I get it. But don’t sit down and give up. Not yet."

"I'm tired of looking at myself. I have nothing of myself left to give to any project. I'm worn out, tired, an over used punch line in life. I don’t think I even want to write anymore."

"You have more than you give yourself credit for. So sit down and write. Write poetry, short stories, journal… do something. Forget about the damned deadline. Focus on the goal. 50,000 words whether they are good or bad, whether they make any coherent sense or not. Create a new character if you have a mind to. Just get it down from start to finish. That is the goal."

Corrine sighed. “It sounds so simple. I re-read some of my old writing and it just seemed to come to me no problem. I miss that. I miss my words.”

“You have them. So use them!

“Yeah. Yeah. Now if I only knew where to start.”

“There’s always ‘Once upon a time…’”

Corrine gave her a flat stare. “I’m not joking, Rhian.”

“Neither was I.”

NaNo Snapshot: Resentments

2011-11-27T19:31:00.000-08:00

She found herself brimming with them today. She didn't know why, but Corrine found herself resenting a number of things in life. Her brother had a little less attitude than the last time she'd been to visit, but there was one thing that did bother her. Every time she visited the cabin he always seemed to make it a point to point out that it was "his" house. Her mom had explained before that indeed she had placed the deed in his name, because of various legal protections involved against Corrine's biological father. Corrine didn't care who owned the place in deed as long as she was given the recognition that it had been her home too, that she also grew up there, and that her blood, sweat, and tears had gone into building the very walls that held up the roof, when she was younger than her brother. Initially her mother had told her the place would be left to her, long before she met her current husband or had a son. She had always suspected she might be disinherited over genetics, but in talking with her mom, she'd been disinherited over much worse... her ex-husband. Because as much as Corrine's mother wished to protect the property from Corrine's biological father, she also didn't want to risk that Corrine's ex-husband would try to wrest the property from her in the event that they ever divorced. It all made perfect legal and logical sense, but in many ways it still hurt.

She'd spoken with her brother on another matter, reminding him at the tender cusp of 16 years old how fortunate he was to have two parents in his life that loved and cared for him, imperfect as they both could be, and she explained to him that she had not had that advantage. She was encouraging him that his life choices after 18 were his to make, and that their mom could not make him do anything, however she hoped that he would listen to their mom's advice and play his cards right when it came to his education. When she had mentioned that she owed their mother, at the very least to care for her as age became an issue, citing that she had cared for Corrine having no obligation to her, he had referred to Corrine as a stray off the street. He hadn't said it derogatorily, and Corrine had affirmed that indeed, that was pretty much what she had been. Now her fear was that as time wore on, that analogy would turn into a nasty derogatory attitude. She feared that she would be written off as not really being their mom's child in his mind, and that she would be barred from the property if she ever did anything to piss him off. It had shocked her to find out from her mom, that he could do the same to her as well. She shook her head wondering how she and her mom had found themselves in a position as the two people who had built the place together, as the very ones who could be ousted by a young man who at this point seemed very possessive of "his" house.

Corrine's mom had thrown in a word of warning about the house she was building combined with the decision to get married, no matter who it was... In the state that she lived in, no matter whose name was on the deed, a spouse could force the sale of a home in which equity was built and had a claim to half of any existing retirement funds, all legal realities that left her mom in a position to decide that her best gamble was to put the property in her young son's name. Corrine didn't resent the protective measures. She resented her brother's attitude. Her mom pointed out that she felt Corrine's brother at times felt threatened by Corrine's presence. Before she'd returned 3 years ago, he hadn't had to share anything, or compete for their mom's attention. Corrine still often struggled with the petty thought, "Look kid, she was my mom before she was yours." But at almost 32 years old she didn't need their mother the same way he did at 16 and she was not there to compete for time and affection. she had her own life to tend to, so she didn't say anything because it didn't matter. At least not to her.

These discussions all came on the heels of finally watching the memorial video for her Grandfather. Her uncle asked her to record a quick clip paying tribute to the man, and she had been all too happy to. She waited to watch it with her mom, and found herself glad that she did so. It felt like her Grandmother had ambushed her again, as she had with the genealogy volumes earlier in the year. Her mom at least had the foresight to warn her not to be surprised if there were pictures of her biological father, and there were. If that were not bad enough, pictures of him showed up deliberately during the recorded tribute she'd given. Corrine was still too angry to write to her Grandmother and to ask her not to ever do that again, and to iterate once again that because they'd also chosen pictures that had her children in them that a copy of this should not be sent to him in prison. She had a feeling though that she was too little too late on the last, and she wasn't sure that she could handle herself if her Grandmother came back with a remorseful response that he'd already received one. She respected that the man was her Grandmother's son, and that there were good memories there for her to hang onto, that he had not always been a predator. She understood that many of those images had probably very positive things associated with them for her.

Corrine's mom had asked her how she would handle it if it were her own son. Corrine told her that she hoped she would have the balls to separate herself from him, despite the relationship, because she didn't want to be around people who got off on hurting other people. However if she found she did not have the will power to disown her child over such behavior, she certainly wouldn't stick his picture under the nose of the person that he'd victimized. Her mom was satisfied that she understood the guilt, pain, and remorse that came with knowing your child had committed such a horrid act, but understood Corrine's point well also. Yes, Corrine's Grandmother remembered good things about her son, but all Corrine remembered about her father was the face of the man that raped her repeatedly over the course of several years, and beat up her mom in front of her one night. She remembered the terror in her mother's eyes when she returned with help, to later find out that he'd stuck the barrel of a shotgun in her Mother's face while Corrine was seeking that help. She remembered the man that asked her if he gave her the gun, would she pull the trigger. And she remembered at the tender age of fourteen, considering doing exactly as he asked, to finally decide that he was not worth going to juvenile detention and later to prison over. Corrine wondered if he knew how close she actually came to the line of doing exactly as Kern had suggested, and eliminating her father as a threat to her forever.

Instead now, she found herself trying to cool her anger at her Grandmother, feeling as if the woman was intentionally re-victimizing her with tales of her father's remorse and redemption, shoving pictures under her nose, because her Grandmother had some desire to patch up the whole matter. Her Grandmother was all about appearances, and it just didn't do to have her son in prison, and her granddaughter so far away as an unintentional black sheep when the rest of that side of the family was so enmeshed. How did Corrine address this without disrupting the woman's appearances that were so very important to her, and without being disrespectful? How did she handle this in the face of her Grandmother's grief over the loss of Corrine's Grandfather? Corrine already missed him dearly. She had always felt safe and loved and protected with him. Now that he was gone, Corrine looked back over the family dynamics throughout the years, piecing together her mom's observations with her own, and she seemed to find things to be resentful of at every turn. She and her mom both agreed that when it came to the inheritance she had been promised to receive from that side of the family, the portion that would have gone to her father, her Grandmother would likely disregard her Grandfather's wishes and give it to her father anyway. In which event Corrine had already written it off as a loss. If her biological father did receive it, he would pawn and piss it all away. She had no trouble with that concept. The material loss didn't anger her. It was the principle behind it. It all seemed so petty, and she loathed feeling all of it.

The more she thought of it, the more she realized she didn't really have a family to fit into. She was disinherited and written off, mainly over the choices her biological parents had made, and in part due to some of her own. She didn't pity herself over it, but she resented the defensive stance that people took that left her out in the cold. She wasn't asking any of them for anything. She didn't want her name on the deed of the house, or her Grandparent's money, or her Great Grandmother's dishes... or any of that. She hoped to receive a small memento, some small knick-knack that she could place up on a a shelf and remember the people she loved fondly by, but beyond that she had no interest in material gain. What she felt entitled to was recognition. She felt entitled to recognition that the cabin wouldn't exist but for the work she and her mother had exerted to build it, and that she had survived much of her childhood in that cabin. She felt entitled to recognition that it had been her home too, and that regardless of who it was willed or deeded to, that her heart would forever have a claim and a stake in that property. Her heart had no regard for who the law said owned it, and that she would be hurt very deeply if for any reason her brother decided to push her off of it entirely.

In regards to her Grandmother she felt entitled to being recognized, to having the pain she'd suffered and the work she had done to heal from it honored and respected, though it would never happen. It seemed that in many ways her Father had inherited his narcissism from her Grandmother, although her Grandmother engaged in hers in a socially appropriate manner. Corrine doubted very much she had the capacity to understand how deeply Corrine had been injured and what she'd had to go through to put the pieces of life back together again.

She felt entitled to seeing her biological father disinherited for his absolute disregard for the well-being of any of his family members, including his Mother's. She would rather see his portion of inheritance divided equally among her aunts and uncles as to ever see him benefit from any of the family he'd so blatantly disregarded by his actions, whether they realized it or not. Corrine didn't care if she received anything as long as he didn't. He didn't deserve it. He'd spit on everything his own father had stood for and hadn't cared who he hurt.

She resented her Grandmother's ambushes, and her need to keep up appearances.

She resented not really belonging to a family. She resented feeling like an orphan in the world.

She resented that she had grown so very resentful, and wished that she could turn her back on all of it, except that would mean giving up on the hope that maybe she really did fit in somewhere, that she just couldn't quite see it.

NaNo Snapshot: Dispensing With Threats

2011-11-27T19:30:00.000-08:00

Her last bit of writing felt too contrived, as if she’d restrained the character that she was writing, giving him someone else’s voice. His change of hear felt too sudden and yet there it was, but because of Corrine, or because of another character, she couldn’t tell. She was losing time and quickly to meet the goal she had set for herself and yet somehow was still not quite ready to give it up. And today she would lose more time as she went and met with an old dear friend.

Rhian had been right. Her time on the mountain was refreshing and relaxed, but there were still demands on it, demands that she welcomed, and distractions that were also welcome too. She’d watched “To Kill a Mockingbird” with her mom the night before. How she had managed to almost reach 32 years of age without ever having read the book or seen the movie, she wasn’t sure, particularly growing up with a lawyer in the house. She’d thoroughly enjoyed the movie, though, and now longed to read the book. In some ways she felt a need to be fed by the stories of others, and by her own stories, and on the other hand she’d been gorging herself greedily on the tales of others for so long. Perhaps the extra weight she carried was the result of gorging herself on the fare of others without properly exercising her own imagination, and like her body it made her feel too tired to exercise. And so she perused some of her short stories, even going back to a small sequence of autobiographical ones to remind herself that she could still tell them. The introduction to those reminded her of what it felt like to be trying to recover her own voice. Now she had it though, and it was just a matter of using it, and using the voices of those that came and spoke to her.

“You made me this way,” a sonorous male voice cut across her thoughts. “You made me this way and then you punish me for it. What cruelty is that?” Kern sat regally across the table from her, his dark hair grayed at the temples, and his nose sloped sharply giving him the distinct appearance of a bird of prey.

“I suppose it’s time to start dealing with the villain,” Corrine muttered to herself. “Please explain, Kern.”

“You wrote my back story immediately upon creating my character, and my sister’s. You gave me anger, and you gave me pain. You made me a murderer, and then you turn around and imprison me.”

“It’s the natural consequence of becoming any of those things in most stories, Kern.”

He peered at Corrine as if she were a rodent he was ready to snatch up in his claws. “You know that I am not talking about the story. I mean in general, you toss me in the pit with that… thing that you fear so. But you are not afraid of it, as you claim, and I know that. You are afraid that it’s right. You’re afraid that you’re weak, that you’re naive, and that your lack of action will be your undoing. You could have made sure that the people who have harmed you would never do so again. You could have had the upper hand on so many occasions.”

“Funny thing is, Kern, I was under the impression that I already did have the upper hand.”

“And yet you are still afraid that they are a danger to you and your children.”

“They will always be a danger, Kern. They always were before.”

“Precisely my point. You have had the opportunity to dispense with that danger on a few occasions, and you have not utilized them.”

“As you’re trying to dispense with the danger that you perceive?”

“It is the only thing that I have to insure that no one can be harmed the same way again.”

“By harming others?”

“You take their power base away. You take control…”

“I don’t want those things, Kern,” Corrine said firmly.

“Part of you does, Corrine. Else I wouldn’t be here.”

NaNo Snapshot: Over Analyzing

2011-11-27T19:29:00.001-08:00

Corrine listened to the bacon sizzle in the skillet as she tried to work out a kink in her neck. Conversations with her mother and feasting had taken up the better part of a day and a half. It was a much needed relief to be up on the mountain and away from everything. The children were settled in and playing with their uncle, and she was able to relax.

Her characters hung in the background waiting for the opportunity to talk to her, to persuade her to write their stories. She was toying with the idea of bringing them all together, but from different times and different genres she wasn’t sure she knew how to work that, short of working it into a sci-fi time travel piece. She wasn’t sure if she was ready to do the research to travel across history with her characters.

So she sat at the table and listened to calming music, trying to meditate on how she wanted to write, who she wanted to write. It seemed the urge to just relax was just as distracting as the work of daily life. With just a couple of paragraphs down on paper, she wasn’t certain what direction to head, or if it was even the project she wanted to work on. The movie, “Big Fish” had come to mind for her. She had been enamored a few years ago with the concept of tall tales, and had at one point planned to write some for her children. “Big Fish” had been a fantastical story about a man whose son didn’t know how to pull fact from exaggeration in his father’s stories about his life, and Corrine found it a delightful tale.

Now she wondered if fantastical story telling could be applied to any one, or all of her characters, to bring about the weaving of fact and fantasy in a way that would intrigue and delight others. What was the point of writing a story? What was it that she hoped to convey by telling a story and recording it?

Perhaps that was the problem to begin with. The stories she’d always begun were merely stories to her. They were not designed to teach, or to inspire, or to record an important event. Was that perhaps why she didn’t finish them? Because they had no real purpose other than to be spun as fine as fine as fairy floss into a pretty piece of fiction.

S.J. Tucker sung in through her headphones, speculating as to which part of her that her lover wanted to get to know, and warning him that he couldn’t just make a cross-section and leave the rest. Was that what Corrine was doing to herself when she tried to write the stories of others? She always felt when a new character came into being that she pulled a rib from her own side to shape them before breathing life into them. Maybe she was not able to pull a full story around them because she did not allow them to develop into their own characters.

“Because any of these foolish thoughts are helping you get any writing done at all, aren’t they?” Gareth said snidely.

“I’m just trying to figure out why I’m having so much trouble getting started on any particular project, Gareth.”

“You’ve never had any trouble getting started in the past. Do you remember the rune Tiwaz?”

Corrine stifled a laugh. “Of course I do, but since when do you read runes, Gareth?”

“I don’t,” he replied disdainfully. “But what does it mean?”

“Intellectual analysis, spiritual enlightenment, a connection between the earthly and the divine. It has arboreal symbology and it’s a three fold gift of the gods.” He nearly choked at the plural use of the word. “It’s Norse mythology, Gareth. It’s a letter from a language that represents a concept, whether you profess to believe in their variety of spirituality or not.”

He nodded. “And in the reversed position?”

“It represents intellectual death… stagnation due to over analysis.”

He nodded again. “I would guess if you were to pull your runes with the subject of your writing on your mind, you might find that you would be aptly described in this fashion. You’re so worried about why and how you’re telling a story, you’ve convinced yourself you’ve forgotten how to. And yet, you tell yourself stories every day. They flow through you about yourself, about the world and people around you, and you dismiss them. You don’t listen to yourself anymore.”

Corrine sat thoughtful for a moment. “So what do you recommend, Gareth? Should I pick up where I left you, continue that project and hope that I can knock another significant chunk out of it?”

Gareth shook his head. “Your head isn’t in that world right now. I can see that now. No, you need to wait to pick up that story again until your mind can freely travel to that world without feeling guilty at leaving this one behind. Your mind is in this one, you need to write about this one.”

Corrine shook her head. “So you’re recommending a completely new project? How in the hell is that going to work with only five more days left in the month?”

“Are you going to stop writing just because you reach a certain date on the calendar?”
“Well probably not, but the point was to reach a certain goal this month.”

“Which goal is that though? Do you simply want to meet the word count specified by some organization, or do you actually want to finish a story? It seems in the past you’ve proven you can meet word volume without any difficulty. Your ability to describe scenery, and convey emotion behind dialogue results in a great volume of words. What you have yet to prove to yourself is that you can actually complete a story.”

“I thought however that you wanted me to complete your story.”

“Rhian and I have spoken about that,” Gareth said drawing a deep breath. “If you talk yourself into believing that you no longer remember how to write, then all of us are doomed to oblivion. However if you pick up a project that you can complete, then…” He let the sentence trail off.

“Then what, Gareth? Then I might move on to your story with renewed confidence that I at least still know how to write?”

“No. Just a renewed confidence that you can finish anything you start if you choose to. Rhian has pointed out so many things about you that I viewed for a very long time as you selfishly abandoning all of your characters. But she’s right, you’re becoming the hero of your own story. You haven’t been writing our story, because you have found you don’t need heroes in your life anymore, you don’t need an escape, and you don’t need to be rescued. You are working and making your own mark in the world. You don’t need to vicariously do that through your characters any more.”

“I’m hardly a hero, Gareth.”

He pointed to her three children playing a board game with her teenage brother. “You live your life with the purpose of taking care of them. You work as hard as you do for them. That is heroic.”

“That’s not heroism at all, Gareth. That’s just responsibility.”

“And yet there are so many in the world who do not see it that way. You of all people know that. You look at your mom as a hero, how do you think those children view you?”

“My mom is a hero, Gareth, because she had no obligation to me whatsoever and took me in any way before adopting me.”

“And yet you recognize your obligation and you face it, take care of it, and even are proud of it on most days. You’re building a life for yourself, and for them. You teach them strength and courage. So write about those things. Write about someone who knowing their other choices, choices that might have made life seem simpler, but seemed impossible to take in the face of knowing what the consequences of ignoring their responsibilities looks like.”
“But Gareth, that’s you. You were orphaned in your life, and survived on the kindness of Gavrin and Tyrna, and then later Dirianna. You’ve done nothing your entire life but try to make the right decisions and fulfill your obligations.”

“You forget that at one point in my life that I was a street urchin and a thief.”

“You know what I mean, Gareth.”

“I do know what you mean, and I know that like me you still beat yourself up over some of your life choices. You do a penance for them, just as I do. Part of that penance seems to be not allowing yourself the room to tell and believe your own stories, no matter who or what they are about. And if you finally become convinced that you can not write, or worse, that you should not write, that is impractical and a waste of time… You’ve pondered over what story you want to leave behind for your children, discarding the misadventures of your childhood because it’s not a legacy that you want them to have. But you should leave them something. You should leave them your heroes. You should leave them your love. Those are the stories you need to tell. Breathe life into those, Corrine.”

Corrine shook her head. “Heroism is best left to other people, Gareth. I’m just doing my best day to day, and trying not to screw it up too badly.”

“Most heroes are, Corrine. Most heroes are.”

NaNo Snapshot: Panic in the Dark

2011-11-23T15:55:00.000-08:00

Corrine froze, trying to talk herself out of a PTSD reaction. The lights in the room were out, and the man that was in there with her leaned in close, looking in her eyes. She could hear his soft breath in her ear, and feel his knuckle brush gently against her cheek. She was nearly in a panic, as the little light that floated in her vision blinded one eye and then the other. She could feel him move in closer and she had to force herself to sit still and keep her mouth closed.

Now she remembered why she'd avoided seeing the eye doctor for so long. She'd blamed it on the inopportune timing of the expense and the prolonged wait for her insurance to reimburse her, but she knew now that was not it at all. She tried to tell herself that this was no different than any other medical examination, and she couldn't quite understand why it terrified her so. Maybe it was the invasion of personal space that was so nerve-wracking, having a strange man's face so close to hers that she could feel his breath, feel him hovering over her with the attentiveness of an enrapt lover. But that couldn't be it. She'd had other doctors in close proximity, and in much more intimate locations of her body that she should have been more prone to panic about. Not knowing what was causing her to be terrified of this examination was almost maddening, but she knew she would ahve to figure it out. She would have to endure eye exams for the rest of her existence, only she didn't remember it being such an intimate feeling affair when she was younger.

The lights came back on and the doctor advised her to relax and recover, which left Corrine wondering if the terror she was dealing with showed on her face. "You're probably seeing spots and flashes from all of the little lights and flickers," the doctor commented as he jotted notes on her chart. Corrine relaxed. So he hadn't noticed that she was expecting to be attacked or violated at any moment during that particular exam. And she internally laughed at herself for being so silly about it all. He went on to explain that her eye health looked good, the surface of her eyes looked great under the micrscopes that he'd looked through, and that the exam they had just completed seemed to indicate that internally and her eyes were doing well. He explained there was slight degeneration from her last prescription and an adjustment had to be made on the correction for her astigmatism, but that over all he was pleased. Corrine breathed a sigh. Passing the eye exam felt almost like finding out she'd gotten a B on a test that she was sure she would fail. He took her back out to the main waiting area so she could talk to another lady about getting lenses in her new prescription for the frames she already had. And the doctor wished her a happy holiday before moving onto his next patient.

She left the doctor's office sweating the expense, and muttering to herself to quit stressing about it, reassuring herself that the insurance company gave her an allowance on vision that would cover the lion's share of the cost, and that she should be receiving the reimbursement soon. So she turned her attention to the nearest old fashioned burger stand, and scarfed her ready made heart attack on the way back to work. She was about half way back when she began to think about her near panic attack during the eye exam. She still couldn't understand what about it bothered her so much. The doctor was a professional, and she'd been in far more compromising positions during medical exams and had been no where near panic. She shuffled through her mind trying to figure out the culprit that made her feel so vulnerable. She'd half expected his hand to drop down to fondle a breast. The whole thing had felt intimate and perverted.

"You'd have to be blind not to see the answer," Glory said from the passenger seat.

"No pun intended, right?"

Glory gave Corrine a flat look. "When was the last time you felt like that?"

Corrine shivered. "When I was a child of course."

"And?"

"Are you really going to make me go through this?"

"I am. You weren't afraid of being attacked or hurt, you were afraid of being touched. When was the last time you were afraid of being touched."

"In my bedroom. I must have been 11 or 12 I think."

"And why?"

"Because I woke up and I knew he was there. I could hear him, hear the air move, hear him breathing."

"What did you do?" Glory was watching out the window. Her mouth was set in a grim line. She knew what the answers were, and she knew that it was important for Corrine to know too, as unpleasant as it was to have to walk step by step through the memory.

"I pretended to go back to sleep."

Glory heaved a huge sigh. "And then what?"

Corrine tried to focus on the road. "You know what, Glory. He reached under the covers. My own father... he..."

"Right. And what could you see?"

"Nothing," Corrine said knitting her eyebrows in confusion. "It was dark."

"There you go."

Corrine wanted to smack herself in the forehead. It was the darkness that had made her feel exposed. Blankets and clothing had proven during childhood not to be deterrents to intimate intrusions on personal space, and in particularly harmful ways, especially under the cover of darkness. She didn't know what a person was doing when it was dark. She couldn't predict it... but in the light, well that was another matter. Glory had disappeared to wherever it was that she chose to go, and Corrine knit her eybrows wondering how she was going to deal with that exam in the future. She was pretty certain the light needed to be off in order to get a good detailed look at the optic nerve. She would have to find some way, some coping mechanism to remind herself that she was safe going forward, that she was not a child, and that the darkness was there to expose her eyes for the doctor, and nothing else.

Word Count: 1,069
Running Total: 30,927
Remaining: 19,073

NaNo Snapshot: That's Living

2011-11-23T12:12:00.000-08:00

Corrine looked at the caller ID as the call came in. It was her boss, and she was half afraid she knew why he was calling.

"Hey, come see me, please," he said after she picked up and greeted him. She walked into his office with a small notepad and a pen, just in case he was tossing another project in her lap, to follow on the heels of the other two she hadn't even begun yet. "I've noticed your call count is really low, Corrine. The goal really should be 40 a week and you haven't hit that in months, and the last few weeks have been really low. What's going on?"

Corrine reached for answers. Lack of focus, lack of concentration, stress in her personal life, added responsibilities... "I think I'm just trying to strike up a balance with the new duties I've taken on." It wasn't a lie. It just probably wasn't the whole truth either.

"Well have I given you too much?"

"No. I don't think that volume wise it's a problem, it's just a matter of balancing everything out so that I get everything done. Because you're right. Not everything is getting done. Missed days due to illness haven't helped either."

"O.k. well just make sure you get that call volume up. We have a number of small balances out there that aren't getting a lot of attention, and we need to get those cleared up."

Corrine nodded. "Yes, and I'm pushing on the interest now too since our last department meeting. I'm using Lindy's suggestion, letting customers know that we are preparing to close out year end and we're pushing to get our aging cleaned up."

"Good. Th aging and customer calls are still your top priorities even amongst the projects and added responsibilities of credit applications."

She nodded again. "On a personal note the house has been stressing me out too, and my focus hasn't been very good."

"Well you're building a house. That's not at all stressful is it? I understand, Corrine. I was just concerned." He thanked her for coming in.

She sighed and closed her eyes as she returned to her desk. She knew she would really have to make a concerted effort to get more work done today, and her characters would have to deal with it. Worries about the house, and about the kiddos, and about Brian, and about whether or not the ex would continue to be a nuisance would have to deal with it. She could not jeapordize her job because of everything else she was dealing with. She knew her job performance was suffering, and in some way she hadn't cared, although on another level it stressed her out. She wondered if she was flirting dangerously close to self-destructive behavior, if the stress was finally breaking her down from having to juggle all of these things on her own. She wondered just how long she could continue to run at a marathon pace before her mind or her body gave out on her completely, and the whole house of cards came tumbling down around her. How far would she have to fall down the rabbit hole, gaining velocity until the sudden stop at the bottom knocked her back to her senses?

She made 25 customer calls in one day, the day flying by in a blur as she tried to get demand letters, e-mails, and reminders taken care of. By the end of the day she felt as whipped as she had after doing 6 hours of hanging drywall. Sh had nothing left to offer by the time 5:00 rolled around. There seemed to be no end to her exhaustion, and she felt as if she were horrible company for Brian, as she finished packing things up for the trip, and tried not to be grumpy with the children who seemed to be intent on being excessively noisy. Brian pulled out his saxophone and played while Corrine's oldest practiced her clarinet, and Corrine tried to shut herself down to the sensation of feeling sensory overload, reasoning that it was her problem, not theirs that she was so damned tired.

She found herself though picking up on little things thought that gave her comfort. As she was in the kitchen pulling dinner from the oven, her oldest clung to Brian's arm, hugging it for whatever reason, and he reached around Corrine placing his free hand lightly on her shoulder, giving it a comforting squeeze. Or later she smiled when she returned to the living room during a movie to find that her daughter had cuddled up in his lap as she lay enrapt in the plot unfolding on the screen. His offer to carry things to the car for her while she tried to conclude preparations for the trip were most welcome also. Those were little things that she treasured when he was there. Those were things that calmed her and that she looked forward to. She found herself thirsty for them when he was gone, and the burdens of the world saw fit to treat her like Atlas, sitting squarely on her shoulders. She wondered if he thirsted at all for the little things she did for him, the touches on the shoulder, the longing looks, the encouraging words. Did they mean as much to him as they always meant to her. She didn't know.She hoped that they did, otherwise she feared that maybe she was just hopelessly codependant and needy.

A couple of times she thought she caught glimpses of Rhian hanging around, observing the whole dynamic with pensive glances, but she dematerialized whenever Corrine tried to check for her, looking for some indication the character had anything to share. She got the distinct sensation that the character was stalking her, playing the role of a fly on the wall in Corrine's life, and she didn't want to be caught at it. Corrine smiled at that, wondering what that woman, that writer, could possibly have up her sleeve that she was so carefully watching her author, and paying attention to the mundane happenings in her life.

"That's your mistake," she heard Rhian whisper, "Assuming that the daily things happening around you are mundane. Living, is never mundane. And you, my friend, are living."

Word Count: 1,049
Running Total: 29,858
Remaining: 20,142

NaNo Snapshot: Diseased

2011-11-21T11:38:00.000-08:00

The whole house felt diseased. Corrine had a typical evening after her 6 hours of fun hanging drywall, but she woke around midnight to the sensation that she just couldn't get comfortable. As the sensation persisted, she began to realize that her entire abdomen was screaming of malfunction and she began to suspect that whatever she'd eaten was being quite disagreeable to her body. When her body forcefully rejected the contents of her stomach and intestines she was sure that was what it was. It took a couple of hours of rising and going back to bed before she finally collapsed in exhaustion.

By morning her stomach had quit turning back flips, but the thought of food still turned her stomach and she spent her day on the couch resting and watching a show on her computer, long after the time Brian should have called for their nightly conversation. She finally hung it all up and went to bed, hoping she would be up for the work day. It was at four in the morning when Corrine began to suspect that maybe her meal choices had not been to blame at all for the previous night of intestinal dischord. She woke to the pleading sounds of her young son asking her to help him as he was sick. No sooner had she helped him with his laborious sicking up and settled herself back into bed than her youngest daughter followed in her little brother's footsteps, sicking up all over the bathroom floor and leaving poor Corrine gagging as she tried to clean it up and help her daughter at the same time. She parked them in the living room, one on the couch and one on the love seat with plastic buckets close at hand so that she could hear them if they needed anymore assistance, and she tried not to let worries of another work day missed keep her from falling back asleep. Now she prayed her oldest child would miraculously be spared whatever viral bug was causing the most unpleasant symptoms. She could not afford another day of missed work, and she most definitely couldn't afford to lose her Holiday pay in the event that a child was sick on the day before Thanksgiving. Particularly not after finding out that $200 worth of grocery benefits were being cut from her because in the last two months she fell just $50 over the income cap to qualify. Time on the mountain in some ways could not come soon enough, but in other ways she had so little time to prepare for the trip. At least groceries for those few days would not be a concern. Going to the cabin was like going to an all expenses paid resort. All it cost her was the gas to get there and back.

Today she tried to convince herself that she was recovered enough to get the cleaning done that she had been unable to do the previous day, and even dared to hope that she would be able to get the packing done and the trunk of her car cleaned out. She'd wanted to run the vehicle through a car was wash and get it vacuumed out, but in the face of being two days short on the coming paycheck, and knowing now that the following paycheck would be lacking a day's worth of pay also, suddenly an $11 car wash seemed a frivolous and unnecessary expense. After all, her mother didn't give a damn if the car was vacuumed or not. And considering the state the vehicle had been in the last several months, it was stupid that the little layer of debris on the floor boards bothered Corrine now.

For now she started with the bathrooms, determined to attack perceived hot points where germs would be lurking behind from the misadventures of the last two nights. She went in to strip her son's sheets and wash them and realized that he had one of those misadventures all over the carpet in his bedroom and hadn't bothered to tell her, or maybe had been too tired to. In any case she found herself with the unpleasant task of cleaning it up, and thanking her lucky stars that she had the foresight to buy herself one of those little carpet steamers while they were on sale in a close-out store. The sheets landed in the washer along with the soiled dust ruffle while she steam cleaned the spot on the carpet. The two children made it a day to run a marathon on watching 'The Chronicles of Narnia,' a series of stories near and dear to Corrine's heart, while they lay resting.

She went like mad, punting on small things where she could, and cleaning around the two children on the couches as best as she could. She sprayed disinfectant all over the light switches and door handles, and places on door frames where little hands had left half prints. She wondered the whole time when she'd become such a germophobe. It was finally when her oldest was home, and all three were settled in watching 'Harry Potter,' and dinner was in the oven that she sat down on the couch, satisfied that the environment around her would not further promote the incubation of any further bodily misadventures.

Her characters were packing their bags to accompany her on the upcoming trek to the family cabin. They would be speaking to her the entire length of the three hour drive, she had no doubt. Her boundary was firmly in place with her mom, who agreed that there was no need for further discussion on the issue of marrying Brian, knowing that Corrine still had not made any hard and fast desicions given the state of limbo she felt the building process on the house left her with, and also feeling as if she'd spoken her piece and now Corrine would decide whatever it was she would decide. Now for Corrine, she felt as if there were a million and one details to attend to before making the trip, and she went between stressing about them, and eliminating the ones that didn't necessarily have to be done, she just wanted them to be done. Her paycheck was short due to the days missed from her own illness earlier in the month, but she believed she had figured a way to pay her rent on the next check without it being late. But she knew she would have to be smart and make sure she accounted for her other bills as well, considering that the next paycheck would also reflect a lost day of pay, and would be only a little bit better for absorbing the overage, because she expected to claim out the rest of her FSA and to not have to pay extra fuel expense from the out of town trip.

She hoped her characters would talk to her up on the mountain. She needed them to. She had begun to get the sensation that they were going quiet again, deciding that her life was after all too busy to have room for their stories.

Word Count: 1,193
Running Total: 28,809
Remaining: 21,191

NaNo Snapshot: Materializing

2011-11-19T20:20:00.000-08:00

It was another night that Corrine stared blankly at the cursor on her screen. She'd spent six hours working on construction of her dream house, watching walls materialize in clouds of white gypsum dust, and the sounds of cordless drills driving screws into pine studs. It truly was a dream in the making for her. She'd gone to select appliances earlier in the week, a sale giving her the upper hand to select high dollar laundering appliances below her budgeted upgrade allotment. Why shouldn't there be dream machines to go with the dream house after all?

She knew there was a part of her that would never really believe it was her house she was building. Some part of her believed that she really was dreaming, or that she had somehow spun work she was doing for someone else into her own fanciful delusion. Part of her was afraid she would put in all of this work and someone somewhere would find a reason that she was not worthy to close on the home after all, that the next person in line would be found much more deserving of it all than she was.

But it was real, and it was going up stud by stud, shingle by shingle, steel siding in a color she chose, and one piece of drywall at a time. Her tally of sweat equity hours today had skated far past the 400 of 500 required mark. She had a little over 50 hours of work left to garner from her efforts, or those kind enough to donate theirs before she would be told she officially deserved it. Corrine was exhausted.

The blinking cursor threatened to hypnotize her into sleeping as she cast about her mind for the words to a story she was determined to write this month. At least the annoying and intrusive thoughts of,"Once upon a time..." had finally let go of it's perseverative repitition.

Now there was only the cursor, patiently waiting to move, and Curtis sat on the couch near her with his Stetson in hand, grinning at her like a fool, but offering as much input as Corrine offered the cursor on the screen.

Now that she built solid and tangible dreams in her life, it seemed she might of forgotten how to spin impossible flights of fancy. Building her own house had always been a dream. It had seemed impossible, and now... Now sleep beckoned with promise of impossible things. What impossible thing could Corrine do next? Perhaps her impossible writing project could be conjured into being a few bite sized pieces at a time, as it seemed her house had remarkably been. Perhaps it needed to start with something as simple as letting herself dream the impossible, and accepting them as merely improbable.

Word Count: 465

Running Total: 27,612

Remaining: 22,388

NaNo Snapshot: Not a Fairytale Start

2011-11-18T13:51:00.000-08:00

"Once upon a time there was a girl..." Corrine started in her head. She couldn't concentrate on her customer calls to save her life, although she knew she was severely pushing the wire on having them done before the end of the month, particularly considering the following month everyone would be in a flurry for the end of the year work that had to be completed with Auditors looking over all of their shoulders. She was tired. It was Firday, and it was finally snowing. The weather made her want to go home and wrap herself in her fluffy bathrobe. Coffee might be a nice addition as well. "Once upon a time there was a girl who wanted to be a writer. She imagined she could sing more beautifully than anyone else in the world, and that she had beautiful long hair. She imagined she was a princess. But sadly she was none of those things."

Corrine glanced over at picture of herself with her three children. It was a few years old now, but as far as family portraits went it was still her favorite. The world had been such an uncertain place then, but her two daughters hugged each other smiling and leaning into her. Her son sat on her lap and leaned towards the camera as if he were expecting to be told a delightful joke. Corrine was smiling… a real smile. Not one of those just-take-the-god-damned-picture-and-get-the-camera-out-of-my-face kind of smiles. Life was uncertain but it held more promise in that moment than even she could possibly know.

"Once upon a time there was a girl, who believed she was a princess. She wanted to marry Prince Charming and have a hundred children when she grew up. But she'd been enchanted with an evil spell." She was not set to write a fairytale. Yet the story kept going back to the beginning in her mind, rewinding to a spindly legged girl who scraped her knees on tress, and always seemed to be too clumsy and too loud. She wondered if it would ever get passed a false start.

"Once upon a time there was a girl. She lived on a farm. She was neither beautiful nor talented at anything special, but she wanted to be a writer. So she practiced telling stories to herself." Corrine shook her head, as if the motion would rattle something loose in her brain. At least it might wake her up so that she would focus on work. This was what came of having too many stories to tell. They all jumbled up together, intertwining, each character pulling and tugging this way and that until they blended into each other's stories... into her story. She need to pick one project and work on it in its correct sequence of events, from beginning to end. She had a need to complete one this time. She owed it to herself, maybe to her children too. Some day, they would want to read the book that their mother had written, whether it ever saw the light of publication or not. But what story would she leave behind for them to read? How much of her life would be worth passing on to them?

"Once upon a time there was a girl who went through horrible horrible things. She swore one day she would write about all of the things that happened to her. But later, in the distant future, there was a woman who looked back on the girl she was and wondered why she would want to do that?" Why indeed? And why was it at the front of her mind now? Corrine closed her eyes. November seemed to be such a strange month. She'd passed another anniversary of yet another event that had shaped her life in many ways. It was an event that left her mom thanking her every year for saving her life. What was Corrine to do with that, being thanked for unwittingly saving the life of the person who had done as much for her several times over? And yet every year the e-mail came. This time she told her mom to enjoy the new morning the following day, and that she loved her. Corrine had reacted on instinct, afraid that the person attacking her mom would chase her on her way to find help, and then decided it didn’t matter if they did. She didn’t think. She just did. She hadn’t set about trying to rescue anyone, whereas her mom’s efforts had taken work and effort, and a determined decision to follow through on, over and over and over again. But the thank you came anyway.

"Once upon a time there was a girl who was poor. She lived on a mountain with her family, but within the family dwelt a monster that only she knew about. The monster would wait for her to come home from school, and make her do horrible things, always disappearing before her mother returned. The girl thought no one would believe her, so she never told anyone about the monster. One night..." What was the point of trying to string all of those things together? Did she want to shock and horrify other people with her life? Did she want her children to know the details of those things? No. She no longer had any interest in writing the story about a helpless vulnerable girl, who only survived because she just didn’t know how helpless and vulnerable she really was. "Once upon a time there was a girl who believed she was invincible. She could bleed, and she could hurt, and she could cry. But she would never die, no matter how hard she might wish for it. Monsters lurked all around her waiting to hurt her, but they could never kill her, no matter how hard they tried."

She did not want her children to know her pain. It served no purpose for them to read about those things, even after they were grown. So why was it at the front of her mind now? Oh yes. She'd begun to think about why she'd originally ever wanted to write. "Once upon a time there was a girl who didn't know how to live within the world she was born into, so she created one for herself, in which she was beautiful, and could sing, and in which animals found that she was so quiet and gentle they would come to her without fear. She went to her world on dark nights when monsters lurked under her bed and in her closet."

She'd lost a lot of her writing over the years. Almost all of those lost pieces felt like miniature deaths, pieces of her that she'd been cut off from. There was only one set that she didn't mourn. She wasn't sure how she'd forgotten about it, but she had. She'd began writing down her memories of those times and places as they came to her, tossing them willy-nilly into a digital container for later use. But after a while she found herself trying to force herself to remember, instead of allowing the pieces to be cast in as her mind freed them up. She likened it to going down the shaft of a coal mine and staying there long after the canary had ceased its song. She quit writing those memories, instead slinking off to lick the wounds she'd forced herself to reopen and forgetting that she'd ever intended to write her own story, turning instead to stories about other people. "Once upon a time there was a woman who passed out from toxic gases deep in the bowels of her mind as she mined for diamonds among coal. The shaft became unstable and collapsed on her, leaving her trapped in the darkness of her past." She didn't mourn those pieces, sealed away in a collapsed mine shaft, barred with a sign saying, "Danger. Keep Away! Too unstable to Excavate."

"You're going about this all wrong you know," Glory said stretching in the chair next to Corrine. Her smooth blond tresses cascading beautifull over her shoulders.

"Well I don't particularly care for the fairytale opening," Corrine muttered, "But it seems to be the only place I know how to begin right now."

"Oh the, 'Once upon a time,' is just fine. It can be dispensed with later when you start the editing process."

"Then what am I doing wrong?"

"You’re starting with a girl." Glory pointed at the picture that Corrine has been looking at. "Your story should begin, 'Once upon a time there was a very courageous woman, who loved her children more than they would ever know.'"

Word Count: 1,448
Running Total: 27,147
Remaining: 22,853

NaNo Snapshot:Living Tales

2011-11-17T21:56:00.000-08:00

There was something in the wind tonight. Corrine could feel it drawing on her soul as it raged outside of her window, the force of the gale taunting her to come out and to taste the coming storm. Instead she'd taken her salt bath, after a rather hellatious day, brewed her chamomile tea, and had come to her computer. She still hadn't decided on a project, and reading the two pieces she had begun, still failed to produce any results for her. But one thing she had always professed to believe was that characters were around her every day, some didn't even know that they were, as they lived and breathed, and moved through life. Some existed in the world, and others only in her mind. She felt in danger some days of becoming a character in someone else's story, and had a sneaking suspicion that maybe she already was somewhere, unbeknownst to her.

Earlier in the evening she sat in the waiting room of a dentist's office while two of her children went in for cleanings and check-ups. She had tried to write on the only device she had handy, her cell phone, but that proved a frustrating venture.

As she wondered how long she would have to wait she couldn't help but notice the man across the room from her. He was chatting to himself and regaling himself with some incomprehensible tale. He must have found his tales incredibly amusing as he chortled, and sometimes broke into long fits of giggling. Corrine would periodically look up at him and smile. After all, she told herself stories all the time, some of which were more amusing to her than others, but she did so privately. The man across the room appeared to have a disability or a mental illness, but Corrine did not find that a factor that was off-putting, nor was his behavior. As a child she had constantly been chastised for her conversations with imaginary friends, that now in the adult world she referred to as characters. She had been also chastised for her story-telling, and the subject matter which she chose to write. Now she only wished she could chat with her characters and chortle at her own quaint little tales without worrying that the person across the room thought she was crazy or retarded. Perhaps she was crazy, and maybe at times a little retarded as well. Maybe one or both of those were ingredients that made a character interesting enough to tell a story about.

Now she sat at her computer thinking over the man, knowing that she should be in bed rather than trying to write it down. But the pull of the storm was fierce... fiercer than the pull of fatigue. There was an energy in it, a charge. It was not something that would make Corrine spontaneously laugh out loud, but she could feel it pulling, beckoning to begin something beyond the few paragraphs she'd tried to get down the day before. She pondered briefly over her thoughts on the write-offs in her life, and how it seemed to some of the people that were most important to her at one time, she had been a write off to them. But it brought her to another thought. There were so many beginnings in life, and it seemed not all of those beginnings had endings. Like many of the stories that Corrine told, there were many situations in life that never really concluded because somehow, some way, the story was still in the process of being told.

She'd journaled some time ago that sitting down to write was akin to reading a choose your own adventure novel. Telling a story was about imagining the possibilities. So an author might plot out a straight line for their character to manuever, all the situations they had to walk through to develop in the way that the character was intended to at their inception. But funny things happened during story telling. Some times characters seemed to develop a mind of their own, and they had different ideas about how they should respond to a situation. Some times characters had a bad habit of pointing out the writer's flaws and making fun of them within the story, bucking the will of the writer and going their own way so that the author found themselves flipping back to a different page to find out what's behind door number two, instead of making the character exit through door number one as intended.

Life could surprise person like that as well, but there was no back-tracking to a previous decision made and seeing what resulted from a different choice. Characters in the real world developed in a linear fashion, but not necessarily so with writing.

Corrine yawned and ran her fingers through her sandy curled hair. She tried typing in a few sentences before stifling another yawn.

"Finally," a young woman said from her couch, putting a guitar aside.

"So you're ready to talk to me, Glory?"

"After calling you a narcissist and then sulking for a year, yeah I guess."

"I thought you'd written me off."

"I thought I had too, but only because there was a part of yourself you had written off. Or at least I thought you had. I think it's time to talk, you and I living our parallel tales."

Corrine raised her eyebrows. "I'm not sure I know what you mean."

"It's time for the minstrel and the bard to get together again. We have some things to hash out. And now that you're actually writing, there's no better time."

Corrine let her head loll back against the couch pillow. "Do characters do that?" she asked. "Do they write their authors off and just go away?"

"Hey you're the one killing me off in my story with cancer. You tell me. I'm a figment of your imagination, remember?"

Word Count: 985

Running Total: 25,699

Remaining: 24,301

NaNo Snapshot: Write-offs

2011-11-17T13:24:00.000-08:00

Corrine, labored over the tax configuration on a huge write off, but her mind was going a million miles a minutes on other things. The customer she was working on was a company that her own had carried during the process of a law-suit, and ultimately they had lost the litigation. So that left Corrine's company very unhappily writing off a significant sum of money. And it meant that Corrine had to tally up sales tax paid to state and counties so that they could recoup as much of that loss as possible.

Corinne had begun two separate writing pieces the day before and had been interrupted before completing them. Now upon revisiting them she could no longer remember what she wanted to do with them, and let them sit in the draft stage, not sure if they too would be written off as literary losses... well conceived ideas that she miscarried before they could fully develop.

But it was other losses that she pondered today. A young woman she knew was very vocal about her mother's lousy parenting, and Corrine tried very hard to bite her tongue, knowing that at one point in her life she too had been as vocal and with as much vitriol. She did finally say something to the younger woman, as diplomatically as she knew how, to let her know that someday she didn't even have to care about the woman who had caused her so much pain if she didn't want to. It brought her back to the two individuals whose ill-conceived marriage had brought about Corrine's existence in the world, and the reasons that neither of those people were a part of her life anymore. They were write-offs. Selfish and narcissistic individuals who would rather hurt a child than to take responsibility for themselves, who relished the pain of the weak and the vulnerable. One was in prison, and the other should be.

It brought her to thoughts of her half sister, who recognized the selfishness of the mother that gave birth to them both, but still held an affection for her. It wasn't Corrine's place to tell her sister that their mother was a write off. Corrine had no idea what had transpired after she was removed from that home, what their mother in common may or may not have done for the remaining children, and whether or not she may have at some point developed any redeeming qualities. All she knew was what happened before, and the person that she saw before she left for the last time. As a child that person had been a monster to her. Now as Corrine looked back on the memory she saw a very broken individual, who had no trouble writing off the child that came from a previous marriage.

Her biological father had in many ways written her off, directing his anger for his ex-wife at the daughter who looked too much like her, and gleaning bits of information from counseling sessions to find the best and most hurtful ways to take his revenge by proxy. It was all a very benign thought process for Corrine now. At the age the young woman was at, Corrine would have been balling up her fists and in tears over thoughts of it at all. Now, it was a simple reflection on where she was presently as compared to before. She was grateful for the peace that had come from great lengths of time. Those people and those memories were a write off... not worth her time to divert her from what she was doing now, not worth trying to pursue or reconcile.

There were people she'd been written off by on some level that she still ached over. Her grandmother was one. Oh she still spoke with her Grandmother and the like. For some reason she in some ways felt a need as the Granddaughter to replace the son that had gone to prison, to somehow make repairs on his behalf for the ways in which his crimes had damaged her Grandmother, although logic said she couldn't possibly do that, and nor should she want to.

Instead in her last interaction with her Grandmother, she'd patiently tolerated conversations about how her father was doing in prison, and how remorseful he was, and how he'd found god, and was doing so much better. She'd been polite over being handed genaeology books containing pages of pictures and stories about him, conveniently lacking his rap sheet or that fact that he was serving 35 years to life in prison for crimes committed against his own flesh and blood. And when her grandmother later said that she hoped it hadn't bothered her, she shrugged and said that it had, but he had been a part of their lives and that couldn't be changed. What else was she supposed to say? Her Grandmother wrote letters to her father in prison and listened to how sorry he was, but never did she have the courage to sit down with Corrine and ask how badly he had hurt her, to find out what processes Corrine had to go through to heal, nor to recognize the achievements Corrine was making. Corrine felt anonymous to her. Corrine's pain was unimportant in the face of her Grandmother's son finding his redemption.

The only piece of that situation that did still anger Corrine, was the other way in which her Grandmother had unforgivably written her off. Her Grandmother had been raised mostly middle class, and then her Grandfather had worked himself nearly to death to maintain the same level of comfort for her after they were married. But now she lectured Corrine about her access to public services, calling them socialistic, and claiming that family and churches were supposed to take care of the poor. Corrine patiently held her tongue, and thought of the woman who had truly become a mother to her. Her mom had adopted her when she was in Junior High, but had been in her life since she left her biological mother's home. She was not a wealthy woman, but was truly one who worked hard for everything she had, and had the strength to pull herself up by the bootstraps so to speak. She often spoke of Corrine's childhood in a small community as a better quality of poverty. There had been a point though, that lacking proper legal rights, and afraid for Corrine's safety that her mom had begged her Grandmother to care for Corrine, even going so far as to offer to pay her monthly support. Her grandmother had refused. Now Corrine felt like shouting at her Grandmother during her lectures that if family and charities did so well at caring for the needy, then she would have been raised in her Grandmother's house, rather than by a woman who had no obligation to her beyond the sense of duty that called her not to abandon a child who'd already gone through hell and back. But because Corrine was the product of a marriage Grandmother had advised her son against, Corrine was a write-off... a cute child that came to visit briefly enough that she didn't have to be truly cared for, and could be bribed into feeling loved with new school clothes and a few new toys. Corrine didn't resent that. What she resented were the high and lofty lectures from someone who had failed to live up to what they were claiming as a blanket solution to all of the nation's problems. She resented the con, the need to keep up appearances. Her Grandmother didn't care about Corrine's pain because that was ugly. Words of remorse and claims of salvation and hope for parole, and promises to be a better person were much prettier to look at. Turning the prodigal son into a success was much easier to reconcile with than the hard work Corrine had been doing in life to make it without her Grandparent's help. She didn't fee entitled to their help, just maybe to the recognition of how much she'd overcome in life, and that she hadn't ended up in prison to find redemption. But that wasn't to be. Her Grandfather, whom she'd always felt accepted and loved by had passed away, and Corrine very much doubted that other than trying to be supportive during her Grandmother's loss, that she would have the need to interact with that side of the family much anymore.

She felt sad that she might find that those were relationships that might become write-offs of their own volition... just like her writing.

Word Count: 1,434
Running Total: 24,714
Remaining: 25,286

NaNo Snapshot: Wings and Dreams

2011-11-16T08:26:00.000-08:00

Miniscule pieces of Mica sparkled in the water as Corrine soaked in her bath. She'd added a large amount of her favorite bath salt. It felt special, because it was made with dead sea salt and essential oils by a local woman who believed in holistic healing techniques. Each little sparkling point looked like a star suspended in the liquid of the universe. It was calming to watch their motion and their flickering as they, and the water reflected the light back to her.

"You haven't been taking your salt baths, have you?" Nancy asked her on the phone. She was in the process of reading Tarot for Corrine, and Corrine had inquired about her health.

Well of course Corrine had not been taking salt baths. Who could be bothered to go get salt from the kitchen when they were out of their favorite bath salts? It was too much effort to do something like that. But salt was good for leeching away anxiety in the metaphyiscal world, and dead sea salt in particular pulled toxins from the skin, or so it was proclaimed. So Corrine, at the advice of her personal soothsayer, restocked her favorite bath salts. She wasn't sure if she believed the claims about breaking tension and leeching toxins from the skin, but it made her feel better. The essential oils left the pleasant aroma of lavender and roses on her skin, and it left her skin soft, making her feel wonderful when she swaddled herself in flannel sheets.

Brian was peacefully sleeping between those sheets, and the prospect of joining him there, to drift away on a cloud of his warmth and the smell of lavender and roses was a wondrous one. She drained the tub and decided not to towel dry, instead taking her time getting out of the bathtub after it drained, and finding little tasks in the bathroom to air dry. She wanted the Mica to stay on her skin. She wasn't sure about the claims when it came to a simple salt bath, beyond the knowledge that it just made her feel good and that was good enough for her, but she did believe in the metaphysical properties of crystals. How did that work... salt being a tension and toxin cleansing agent was too far of a stretch for her, but believing that Mica promoted the ability to see people as they were without compromising your affection for them was not? She smiled at the craziness of it.

She turned out the light and opened the bathroom door to make her way into the bedroom, feeling her way around, as a blind person in the dark. But she didn't fail to notice Gloria sitting at her desk. Her last meeting with Gloria had not gone well. Over a year ago Gloria had stopped in to confront Corrine about the use of mirrors in her stories, and the conversation ended with Gloria accusing Corrine of being a complete narcissist. Corrine not willing to be baited at the time, simply accepted the accusation and had not hear from Gloria since. Now the minstrel sat at her desk, guitar in hand.

Corrine ignored her. She needed to sleep, and she was not willing to let Gloria's impetuosity break her peaceful mood. She slid between the sheets and grabbed her smoky quartz crystal. Some called it a diamond, but it was only a name given to it because of where they were found, and their unusual double termination. One side of it was not completely terminated, instead being a little jagged where it was broken away from the host rock that it grew on. Corrine got the sense that left it open to draw energy in, and to focus energy outward through the completed termination. She'd bought it from a wonderful woman at the Holistic fair. That was another bit of craziness. She'd paid a hefty price for the crystal, when normally she would have been much more frugal, buying maybe five to ten dollars worth of smaller stones. After all, who spent their hard earned money on rocks? But when the woman who brought it to the show opened the case, it immediately caught Corrine's eye, and it had such a calming vibration when she picked it up, she knew it was coming home with her. She'd been using it ever since for divinations and rituals, but mostly every night it went to bed with her.

She would place it against her forehead where the third eye was located and leave it there until she felt she was on the verge of sleep. Then she would hold it in her left hand as she fell asleep. It always started out as a cold stone, but in her hand, it seemed to absorb her energy and heat and then to radiate it back to her in a calming pulsating rhythm. Whether it was her imagination or not, she didn't care. It was a soothing ritual to go through every night. Sometimes she forgot to bring the crystal to bed with her, and those were nights that she didn't seem to sleep as well.

She was close enough to sleep this time that she didn't take the step of placing the crystal against her third eye, instead feeling it warm within her hand, and radiating her energy back to her. The gentle strums of a guitar began playing, and Gloria began to sing a quiet and soothing song, telling Corrine a story written by another woman about Ravens in a library, reading other people's words, bidding Corrine to dream, so that she too could come and see the Ravens in the Library.

"Thanks, Glory," Corrine murmured as the minstrel continued to sing her writer into the arms of dreams, where black wings and pages of ancient wisdom fluttered about her.

Word Count: 973
Running Total: 23,280
Remaining: 26,720

NaNo Snapshot: Distractions

2011-11-15T15:17:00.001-08:00

"So many distractions," Rhian said over Corrine's shoulder.

Corrine startled out of her dissociative stare at the field of white on her computer screen. "Beg your pardon?"

"You have so many distrctions right now, and you're not being productive at anything."

Corrine shook her head wearily and sighed. "It's shutting me down. Between the demand for work on the house, trying to keep on top of small concerns in my relationship, falling further and furtherr behind at work..."

"You have a long weekend coming up," Rhian replied.

"If I make it until then," corrine murmured more to herself than to the character sitting in her cubicle. Corrine knew she should be completely ignoring Rhian and working. But even an attempt to do that had resulted in the blank stare at the screen. She wasn't sure where her mind had wandered off to.

"You can't let the stupid things your ex says get to you."

Corrine purse her lips. "It doesn't really. It's more of a minor annoyance at this point."

"But enough of one that it takes you some time to recover from it before you can get back to the task at hand."

Rhian was of course right. The fact that the school secretary called concerned about the message written in one of the birthday cards he'd sent to their oldest child spoke volumes about the inappropriate subtext in it. It was easy for Corrine to read things into what he said, simply because of how she felt about the situation, but when it threw up red flags for a completely uninvolved and objective party, it just reminded her how far off the deep end the man could be. Who told an 11 year that they had things they couldn't tell them, but that they were patiently waiting to fill them in when they were in a "better situation." Hell, the children's "situation" in life was the best that it had ever been, and they were doing so very well. They were strong, healthy, and over all content. They had what they needed and a little of what they wanted as far as creature comforts went. Corrine worked hard to make sure of that, and actively sought services where her work fell short.

But Corrine knew that he couldn't wrap his brain around that, because as far as he was concerned, life without him as their father in it had to be making them miserable. In his mind they were living with a horrible, unstable shrew of a woman who didn't care about them, and
was only using them as a weapon against him. She was sure he probably fantasized that they were living in some hovel, wearing raggedy clothes, and eating canned beans for dinner every night. It would be the kind of visualization that he would accept as a reality in his mind to villainize her as she had witnessed him villainize other people, assigning intentions and accusing them of things that he couldn't possibly know for sure that they were doing, yet spoke as if he had it on absolutely reliable authority that it was the gospel truth. She assumed that his pattern of behavior hadn't changed, but smirked at the irony that she was making those assumptions about him. At least she admitted that was all they were, speculations and assumptions. She wouldn't pass it off as gospel truth.

He failed to see the irony in his accusations of her. She wished he would realize that having a father (or mother for that matter) around was only beneficial when they were actually making the effort to parent, taking an active interest in the childrens' lives, instead of investing their time trying to tear down the other parent. Corrine spent more time biting her tongue in her children's presence than she cared to, sometimes wishing she could just lay the truth on the line
for them. Their dad was a liar and an asshole, and he spun his own truth, constantly playing the victim and believing the entire world was out to get him. But she was not supposed to do that, and she didn't relish the karmic returns that would come about as a result of coloring her children's image of their father based on her perspective of events. Besides, he discredited himself enough on his own every time he failed to follow through on what he said he would do for them, and by blaming his lack of communication or visitation on Corrine, saying she was keeping him from doing that. That one had pissed her off, so she pulled out the court order and read the pieces that pertained to them, and what both her and her ex were and were not
supposed to do in relation to the children word for word, and broke it down into simpler language they would understand. That included times he was allowed to call them, times he could visit them and how he was allowed to do that, that they were not supposed to say mean things about each other (or their families) to the children, etc. She explained that she could not keep him from seeing them, that he could choose to come visit them at the times the court specified. She could not stop him from doing that, and the same with the phone calls. She let the document speak for itself, and she hoped one day, when the ex did start truly trash-talking her to the kids, her actions, and her effort to follow the court order would speak for her. She hoped that when that day came, she wouldn't feel a need to defend herself. She also longed for and at the same time felt sad for the karma he was building up for himself. She longed for vindication on one hand, but would rather he pulled his act together and just focused on being a dad to the children. They deserved that.

"He doesn't deserve them," Rhian spat. "And they certainly deserve better than him."

"No, he doesn't deserve them. They see through many of the things he says, they don't like the way he behaves, or the broken promises, or hearing someone trash-talk their mother. But they still love him. He doesn't deserve it, and they give it anyway.They're good kids. They deserve better than him, but unfortunately, he is and will forever be their father."

"So you hope that he'll change?"

"I'm too jaded to believe that he ever will, but yes I hope, for their sake that maybe he'll find he loves them more than he wants to hurt me. I hope that he'll want to change."

"I don't know how you do it, Corrine."

"Do what?"

"Care more about people than you can hate them. After everything you've seen in life and the worst you will do to someone is write them out of your life and do your best to forget they even exist. But yet, I find it easy to hate people, to wish they'd die in the worst way possible. I would enjoy being able to see their anguish, and for them to realize that they were going though it because I wanted them to."

"It's the only way I can sleep at night. Hatred to me is about wanting the other person to hurt as much as I do, about believing that they deserve to. Hatred takes too much effort to feed. It requires reliving the hurt, and I just have other things to do in life."

"But they should be taught a lesson. They should know what it feels like to have done to them exactly what they've done to other people."

"Some of them do know," Corrine said absently, "And they feel exactly as you describe, and so they justify hurting other people, turning off their empathy... and then those other people go out and hurt someone else. For someone who's empathetic hurting others essentially amounts
to hurting yourself."

Rhian looked thoughtful. "But it's still distracting you."

"Everything is distracting me today." It was true, Corrine's brain felt like it was moving at the pace of frozen molasses, and she couldn't maintain her focus on anything. But that particular issue had enough residual emotion attached to it to be a particularly diverting distraction.
She needed to be distracted by her work, not everything else going on in life. "God, I need that time on the mountain."

"Provided it's not filled with maternal lectures."

"No kidding. I don't need anymore at this point."

"So what are you going to do if she starts lecturing you about Brian, and why she thinks you shouldn't marry him?"

Corrine stared at her computer screen and shook her head. "I don't even want to think of that right now. I'm going up there to relax, not to be lectured."

"You're going to have to set a firm boundary with her on the matter some time."

"Yes, probably so. I just don't know how to say it without it coming across as a great big kiss off."

"You've rehearsed it dozens of times."

"What I can't rehearse is her responses. And she always has a response."

Rhian laughed. "Have you ever known an attorney that didn't? Corrine, over all your content with this man. You have your reservations and that's a good thing. Her perspective on this relationship is limited, and it's not as if you're rushing in feet first. You're waiting. You're watching to see what surfaces, and for the most part you're tackling concerns pretty much right away."

"Is it your day to play cheerleader in my life, Rhian? Did you draw the short straw or something here?"

"No. You're overwhelmed and you're tired. A tired and overwhelmed writer doesn't write, at least not very well when they even make the effort to."

Corrine wondered how true that was. How many writers had completed their best work, brilliantly shining as it emerged from the crucible of their daily life? "Well I ask, because generally when you show up, you're all about giving me a kick in the ass."

"Well you know, I can only apply so much stick before a carrot is in order. You have one big dangling carrot of a long weekend, time unplugged from the internet and other distractions, and time to sit down and get some writing done. You're going to have some demands on your time from being with family for the Holiday, so don't kid yourself into thinking the whole weekend is going to be slow and relaxing. And don't keep letting yourself slip behind with the thought that weekend will afford you the time to do so. You need to protect a little time for writing, and a little time for you too. You're going to have to set some clear boundaries for everyone on this, including the kids, including Brian, including your mom. You're at your breaking point, lady, and you know it."

I'm open to suggestions," Corrine sighed.

"Let her know that lectures about Brian are off limits for this weekend. You don't need them and you can't deal with them. It's not telling her to shut up forever, just for this weekend, for your
sanity. And if Brian goes with you, and the two of them need to hash anything out, you're not a part of it. Period."

Corrine nodded. It sounded reasonable enough. The boundaries with the children were easy enough to set boundaries with. Adults, were another matter entirely, particularly someone she had always viewed as an authority figure. So figuring out how to communicate with both of them that she couldn't fight this fight with either one of them on this weekend was going to be intimidating and challenging for her. But Rhian was right. It needed to be done.

Word Count: 1,968
Running Total: 22,307
Remaining:27,693

Half Way Down the Rabbit Hole

2011-11-14T14:32:00.000-08:00

Anxiety attacks were not fun. Corrine took deep breaths and tried to focus on her work to no avail. There was nothing wrong, yet she felt crushed by the overwhelming sensation that there was, gripped by an inexplicable sadness. Where was it coming from?

She had wanted to write yesterday, but it seemed her characters were taking the day off. So what else was there to do, but laze around on the couch and watch movies? She'd finally kicked into gear on her weekly housekeeping around dinner time, and had finished around 10:00. Cleaning seemed a natural response to the fact that for once, her ex-husband had called and talked to the children at the court appointed time… or at least close enough that she wasn’t going to bitch about it. It was the first time since the divorce that Corrine had been placed in a position where she had to tell the children that they must speak with their father even if just briefly, because it was court ordered, and for better or worse, he was their father and that he was entitled to be able to talk to them. Any time outside of the court order, she left it up to them as to whether or not they would answer the phone. And most of the time he called outside of those times. This time however, he was within his boundaries, and she had to enforce the same boundaries with the children. She resented having to tell any of her children that they didn’t have a choice in the matter. But it was what it was.

The good news was that she was now dreaming again. New dreams seemed to be coming every morning, although this morning's were not terribly memorable. It seemed with the increased activity in life her brain had so much more to process outside of the waking world.

She'd spent four hours on Saturday working at the construction site for the house. She was there to help hang drywall for the ceiling, and found her out of shape body protesting. Her little cordless drill with it's waning charge seemed manageable, even while working over head. After it died and the site foreman gave her a large drill to sink drywall screws with, she despaired of being so horribly out of shape that she lacked any kind of upper body strength at all. The drill with it's high power and speed kept slipping off of the head of the screws and leaving small divots in the surface of the drywall. On one hand she wished that she were doing a better job, but another part of her shrugged, knowing that there would be other fractures around light fixtures, and around seems and corners that know one would ever be aware of once it was all taped, textured, and painted.

Her legs had begun to protest after only a couple of hours of climbing up and down the small metal bench with her steel-toed boots on, and the extra weight of a tool belt. She was a Wyoming woman, damn it! She could do this, no matter how out of shape her body whined it was from years of doing desk work. She had to do it. She was so close on fulfilling her hours, and had every hope that she would have the 500 hour requirements met before the structure was complete and they were ready to close on it with her. It had been such a long hard journey, taking almost two years to complete the process, and finally the end was in sight. It frightened her and excited her by turns. The house represented a whole new level of independence that she hadn't before dared to dream of. She'd wanted to buy a home not long after she married her ex-husband, but neither he nor she were credit worthy enough to do so. Looking back that was probably a good thing, considering the housing market crash. With as irresponsible as they had been together as a couple, they likely would have been hip deep in the whole thing had some lender finagled a deal for them. And with the divorce, it would have been just one more thing to have delayed the whole process. She would have left it behind anyway. She didn't believe that it had all happened for a reason, she was just glad that things worked out the way they had on the tail end of things.

Now with sore legs, back and shoulders she sat trying to recover from the labor intensive weekend, and to try not to remember she was slated to go back out on the coming weekend for 6 more hours of labor intensive drywall work. A large crew was coming to donate hours and she was depending on that to knock out a significant chunk of her remaining requirement. the last time they had come, they managed to knock out 70 hours total. She reserved hope that the crew would be as large, or that they would be able to contribute at least as much time this time. Wednesday she would get what some might call an easy hour when she went to pick out the appliances her allotted upgrade funds would purchase. She scoffed at that. Some didn't know what it was to go shopping with her three children in tow.

So she hadn't been too concerned that her characters seemed to have disappeared into parts unknown. She was sore and tired, and a bit stressed over the upcoming Holiday weekend. When she woke that morning the sun was shining and it promised to be a beautiful day. Now that she realized the month was almost half over with not single word written towards her goal, panic was beginning to set in. Panic also began to set in over her work load, there were only two weeks left in the month and she still had almost her entire aging report to complete. Everywhere she looked there was more work to be done than it felt like she could manage, although a part of her knew that she would get it done. Pressure was an intense and effective motivator for her, but she felt selfish and lazy for spending most of the previous day on the couch, wrapped up in watching shows on her computer.

At work she felt as if she had hit a wall. The schedule was all discombobulated, and she felt like she was running at 60 mph and not getting anywhere. Her characters were still quiet. It seemed she'd stopped half way through the rabbit hole, remaining suspended lie one of the many armoires or tables that she'd passed on the way down. No Cheshire cat was grinning and giving indistinguishably sage advice, but at the same time there was no Red Queen shouting, "Off with her head." either.

Corrine rubbed her temples as she tried to concentrate on the aging report, and stifled a yawn. The woman who regularly read her Tarot had advised her that she needed to slow down. How could she when life insistently kept demanding more of her and in less time. Brian had grown distant again, dealing with his own race to run in life, and so she found herself facing the onslaught alone... still. She wondered if this was what she had to look forward to after they were married. Would he disappear for days at a time right in front of her? She knew all too well that a person could disappear without ever actually physically leaving. There would be a garage to retreat to eventually, and there were always distractions like television, computers, and video games. She knew what it was like to be lonely within a relationship, and she didn’t care to live in that dynamic again. How could they be partners if she felt like she was being pushed to the edge while he tried to deal with things on his own? But then, didn't she do the same to him, thinking that her problems weren't his problems and that she needed to be the one to take care of them? It was frustrating. They'd both proffered the desire to be life partners, and yet they still continued to hack away at life as single individuals, rarely turning to each other for support. How was that supposed to work? Would she find that they both continued to live separate lives, simply run from the same household after they said, “I do?” And was there anything really wrong with that? She didn't know. How could she. She could only look through the lens of one very long and really lousy marriage. How would she even begin to know what a successful marriage was supposed to look like?

And then to write in the midst of all of it... what was she thinking? What were her characters thinking? How could she take on one more project when she already had so very many irons in the fire, melting away into useless lumps of metal. And why would they go silent? They wanted her to work, where were they? They had withdrawn from her the way Brian had. They had no idea how to partner with her to get a story written. They were too busy off doing whatever it was they were doing. Maybe she had no idea how to partner with them either. Maybe she was a fraud. Maybe she just wasn’t a writer at all, but some two-bit-fly-by-the-seat-of-her-pants story-teller who couldn’t commit to a story long enough to write it.

Maybe the characters were panicking too. Maybe they had transformed themselves into a chair or an armoire suspended somewhere along the way down the rabbit hole. Maybe they were weary of everything that appeared when they tried to transform themselves into a looking glass for Corrine. How deep of a rabbit hole was Corrine's life, and would they like Alice become lost in the strange and terrible Wonderland that Corrine navigated as a daily habit.

Word Count: 1,675
Running Total: 20,339
Remaining: 29,661

NaNo Snapshot: Villains and Mirrors

2011-11-11T09:04:00.000-08:00

The twittering of Corrine's alarm rousted her from her sleep, and she hit the snooze button in hopes of going back to her dream. It had elements of a movie she'd watched recently, but the plot was all her own. Ruminations about her villain must have knocked something loose, because in this one, the villain was a child, hiding out in a theme park, and seeking vengeance on a pedophilic park mogul. Perhaps she was not a villain, but an anti-hero, and the real villain was the monstrous mogul who appeared to be jovial and generous to all of those around him.

The dream completed with a climactic ending. Sometimes Corrine walked through it as the child, and sometimes as a woman who was an assistant to the mogul, but had no awareness of his diabolical proclivities. As the woman in the dream, Corrine found herself doing things that to her seemed suspicious, but somehow she knew she had to do them, with some awareness of the narrator putting those actions into play in an attempt to assist the child with her plot.

When the alarm went off again, Corrine groggily woke, wondering if she'd found the project she should begin to work on. The dream she'd slipped back into found her watching the outcome of the child's actions on all of the news channels and trying to comfort a man that looked strangely like Eddie Murphy by telling him that he had done his best. He had tried to warn people and they hadn't listened, while he sat watching the news with horror and shock.

If she began this project, what would the other characters say? The ones that had established plot lines and had been abandoned mid-way through their journeys. Would she be able to complete this girl's journey, or would she shy away from writing the mogul's character and therefor also abandon the girl before she exacted her revenge?

Corrine left the questions lie as she moved through her morning routine, showering, dressing, and yelling at children to finish getting ready for school so she wouldn't be late for work. She found herself regretting the night time cold medicine that she'd taken at 11, in hopes to fend of the last bits of congestion hanging on. It was so hard to sleep when she couldn't breathe. It still seemed to have her muddled even though logically she knew it should have already cleared her system. She would need to stop and get an energy shot to be even remotely useful at work, and god, she needed to be useful at work. She had yet to meet her quota on customer calls, and it seemed like a dozen projects to work on.

Her youngest daughter was resistant to getting dressed, and to brushing her hair. The battle that ensued over the hairbrush was of epic proportions that morning, and Corrine found herself unsympathetic to the whining and cries from her 9 year old. In the back of her mind logic shrilled about Sensory Integration issues that her child faced, and that the child was behaving typically for her particular challenges, but Corrine was behaving typically of a tired and over-burdened single mother, and dragged the brush through the child's hair as carfeully as the tempestuous temper tantrum would allow, yelling the whole time at the child to be still so that it would be over more quickly.

After the storm passed, she then had to hear grunts, watch her daughter cross her arms and stomp her foot, as a way to show her discontent with Corrine's directives, and only complied when Corrine began to threaten with more dire consequences. The whole trip to the car and to the daycare was a series of directives, protests, and threats. It was enough to exhaust her before she'd even begun her day. Fortunately for the child though, she recovered more quickly than Corrine knew how to anymore, and went quickly to remorse and affection as soon as they reached their destination. Corrine hugged her and told her to have a good day, and tossed up a silent prayer that she would not be getting any calls from the school due to behavior that day. Generally her Autistic daughter pulled it together well in the academic environment, so Corrine relied on that to head to work, confident that she was not abandoning her child in the midst of a distressed melt-down.

At work she caught her boss on the way into the office and immediately asked about a customer that she'd needed to talk to him about for days, and then worked on a credit application that came in first thing. She downed her energy shot and drank her coffee, knowing that the combination would leave her jittery, but at least able to draw a tunnel vision focus that might help her get her work for the day accomplished, despite still being weary.

Brian would be over with his son that evening, and she was in the back of her mind also trying to plot out dinner, while also wondering what work would be done on the house the following morning. And somewhere in the back of her head, some little voice tried to tally off how much money she'd spent, how much was still in the bank, and how much her hair appointment later that day would cost. She wasn't sure how her brain, in it's weary state, kept up with it all.

Now that she had a few moments to think, her mind kept traveling back to her dream, re-examining the elements that echoed the recently viewed movie to scan for anything that could be considered plagiarism, and in some ways satisfied that no, the story by itself did not resemble anything within the movie, the only thing that did was the setting in which it occurred, which reminded her that she'd also watched another show recently which involved children in an abandoned amusement park. It wasn't difficult to see at least where the theme park had come from.

"Not much room for a wild card in that particular scenario, Kitten." Xyllon yawned as if he too were as weary as Corrine felt.

"No, I suppose there's not, is there?" she replied.

"You know, the others aren't going to be happy to know that you're considering taking on a new set of characters and a new story."

"What about you, Xyllon?"

"Oh I'll pop in wherever you need me, Kitten. You know that. I'm flexible that way, and I happen to know that there are more stories to come from you, and that there'll be plenty of room in them for me, not matter what name or face you give me."

"I haven't finalized a decision yet, Xyllon. This one looks appealing of course..."

"But?"

"Well it's the whole damned villain."

"Ahhh yes, your Unicorn. You always have had trouble with that. Even in my original story the villain wasn't clearly defined as anything other than the infamous 'they.' You've seen the best and worst of people, Kitten. Writing it can't be any worse than having walked through it already."

"That's just it, Xyllon. Writing that character is like dragging myself through all of those horrible experiences again. Looking into that character makes me have to try to understand the way people who get off on other people’s pain think and work. I don’t want to understand that."

"You know, I think that's not what you're afraid of. You've survived actually living some of those things, and writing a fictional account you know is not going to kill you, nor is it going to hurt you beyond remembering things you already know. You're afraid of those mirrors everyone keeps trying to hold up to your face. You know, that on some level, you already understand the way the villain thinks and works, because there is a part of you that thinks and works the very same way."

Corrine cocked her head thoughtfully. Rhian advised her to look in the mirror for a passionate and wise young woman to find her creativity again. Curtis had advised her to look for the strength and resolve that he found in Martha. But what would the villain ask her to look in the mirror for? She shuddered to think of it. "What about you, Xyllon? What mirror would you hold up to me?"

"Not a mirror, Kitten." He stood up and walked in behind her chair, crouching down so that he leaned over her shoulder and put his face next to hers. He pulled a picture on her desk closer. It showed her and Brian at the last company Christmas party. She was dressed in a long bright red dress; a bold fashion move for her, as wearing red usually left her feeling self conscious. But it was Christmas, and red was Brian's favorite color. He was decked out in a suit, bolo, and wearing his black Stetson, looking every bit the handsome stoic cowboy. In the picture Corrine was smiling as if she were miles above the earth, and not even gravity could make her put her feet back on the ground. "That's the part of you I want you to see, Kitten. I want you to see yourself in love, scared, but hopeful. I want you to see the part of you that has faith, that even if you are making a mistake again, you are willing to try because you still believe that love is real, and you are willing to risk losing it all to find it. You're willing to risk being blind-sided because having something real and tangible is worth that gamble."

"You give me too much credit," Corrine mumbled, trying to hold back the tears in her eyes.

"No I don't, Kitten," he said softly. "I know it's there because you're the one that gave that to me. You can't give something to someone that you don't have. No matter what that villain tries to show you when you start to write them, you look at that picture and you remember that this is a part of you too."

"Xyllon, I..." Corrine turned around but her wild card was gone, and she looked at Brian standing there so tall and handsome in the picture, and hoped against all hope that he was the Ace in the hole that she was always looking to palm away.

Word Count: 1,736
Running Total: 18,664
Remaining: 31,336

NaNo Snapshot: The Villain as the Unicorn

2011-11-10T10:01:00.001-08:00

There wasn't enough coffee in the world to cover this morning. The wind was blowing, which made Corrine hope that a snowstorm was on the way. The snow from the first had already melted off, and it just didn’t feel like November without it. The Holidays were quickly approaching and not having snow felt too much like being in the past.

Corrine groaned as she looked at the clock and realized she had another half an hour to break time. She'd had a hard time getting to bed the night before. It seemed after two days of doing nothing but sleeping her body was ready to stay awake for days now, although she finally had managed to make herself crawl into bed, and to eventually fall asleep.

There dreams awaited her about her ex. Somehow they were still together, or had gotten back together in the dream. Corrine was madly dashing around throughout the dream trying to clean things, as if she had some horrible deadline to meet. Her younger sister-in-law was berating her for the way she perceived Corrine had treated her brother while Corrine was trying to accomplish the impossible list of tasks in the even more impossible amount of time. Corrine unleashed on her, and gave her what-for over it. The ex wrapped his arm around Corrine's shoulder and told his sister not to speak to his wife that way, which made Corrine shudder, even within the dream. It was then she turned on him and told him that the only reason her sister-in-law was giving her hell was because of the way he had behaved after the split, and the way that he had painted her to the rest of his family. All the while her mother-in-law, a woman that Corrine still missed in many ways, silently looked on.

Corrine supposed it was a good sign that she had the courage to stand up for herself within the dream. But all of the looking back on the past was making her weary, and it was not helping her creativity. Was it? In some ways she wondered if the fact that she was still not quite recovered from her cold, and engaged in so many of life's activities, trying to get them taken care of one by one, wasn't leaving her vulnerable to it. She'd thought it over in the shower that morning, and chances were her ex-in-laws did perceive her ex as the victim in it all, and that they probably did believe she was a lousy excuse for a human being. They probably believed him when he told them that she kept the children away from him, or that she was otherwise interfering with his ability to be a father to them. But what did it really matter? She didn't have to deal with any of those people ever again. However, eventually the children would, should any of that side of their family ever decide to make the effort. And it was the children who would hear how horrible their mother was for the way they thought she treated their father. It was like knowing there was a time-bomb waiting to go off, but not knowing when. It would eventually cause them pain, which would in turn hurt her. She wasn’t sure if it would cause a rift between her and them, or between them and that side of their family. However it panned out, it was still going to be painful. It was beyond her control though. She could not control their choices, any more than she could control how her children would respond to it. And so she had to let it go, and not worry about it. All she could do was her best, and to worry about taking care of right now.

Perhaps a new writing project was in order, but what in the hell would she write? As she tried to figure out how she would even begin to write again, and as she listened to her characters, she felt more and more like Alice tumbling down the Rabbit hole. Was she losing her grip on sanity? She wanted to be creative, but what could she or would she sacrifice to get that back? There was no telling what she was going to encounter along the way. For all she knew her childhood hero might come stepping around the corner, brandishing a bull-whip and donning a Fedora, or the Cheshire cat himself might appear to give her conflicting sets of directions to her destination. Her favorite comic book character might show up at her apartment with roses and a bottle of Chardonnay, seducing her into fantasies that would leave her cherishing her time to herself more than time with her real-life lover. She might lose herself completely until someone could shake her awake.

There was one character, however, who hadn't made an appearance yet. It was only a matter of time before that character slinked onto the scene, catching Corrine unawares, and looking to wreak havoc. Would that he/she/it were as sophisticated as Dr. Moriarty, but no, this one might be more equitable to Hannibal Lecter. The villain had not yet appeared to mock and taunt her. Kern was the closest character to resembling him/her/it. But she knew that she hadn't the courage to put the Villain on paper in it's truest form, and yet it lived and moved within her mind, tormenting her dreams and fantasies alike. How could she write true heroes when all she could offer was a pale shade of a villain?

The villain was the disease that slowly ate away at Gloria's character, killing her dreams before it killed her. It was the trauma that Rhian experienced before she was forced into Gareth's world. It was the dark wolf within Gareth as he reconciled religious ideals with realistic human needs. It was the treacherous court advisor that tried to devise a way to keep Ginivie from fulfilling the treaty she brought to Verin, with devices on making her his slave. It was the rapist, the wife beater, the control freak, the child predator, the shame bringer. It lurked in the shadows seeking to exploit vulnerabilities, to cause and delight in pain, to see and smell the blood of it's victims. It was the monster in the closet that made Corrine feel like she couldn't sleep if the doors were open, and the thing that made her only feel safe at night if all her extremities were soundly on the bed and covered up. It was the man in her life that lay in prison, his eligibility for parole and possibly plotted vengeance sneaking closer. It was the fear that her ex might be crazy enough to show up on her door-step with plans of severely hurting or killing her.

The villain lurked in the shadows of Corrine's mind waiting to toss acidic judgment on her just to watch her skin bubble and melt, smiling at the sweet screams of pain that resulted. The villain was the Unicorn... the unobtainable mythical creature that she didn't dare try to capture with her pen, for fear that some magic would make it materialize in her life. The villain was fearsome and it was painful to write. It smiled an insidious smile at the knowledge she was even allowing herself to entertain thoughts of it.

Putting the villain's insane brilliance into words made her afraid of what people would think of her. It came too close to unleashing a piece of her that she would rather the world would never see. She could hear it whispering in the back of her mind, taunting her, "Let me come out and play. The chaos and destruction will be beautiful." It was all the horrible things she had experienced in her life, and all of the horrible things that you heard about in the world, lurking in the depths of each human soul, simply waiting for the controls of the person it dwelt within to be removed so that it could run a free reign of terror. Writers who could bring the Hannibal Lecters of the world to print, and later to the silver screen had strong stomachs. Corrine found herself nauseous even over Kern's apathetic slayings of a certain group of individuals, when she brought it into the story. His intent was revenge, and all of the people he allowed to live were merely devices to be used to that end. It was as close as she could come to the tyrant that dwelt within her that needed to be cornered and taken down. But even for Kern, there was still a human element remaining, a hope for salvation. She couldn't bring herself to breathe into life the tyrant that had left behind all semblance of humanity and laughed at the idea that they even needed saving from themselves, or humanity.

And yet it sometimes slithered into the room with her at night when she turned to fantasies to keep her company, sliding between the sheets and pinning her with fear, whispering in her ear all of the things it wanted to do to her, all of the things she deserved to have done to her, mocking her that she didn't dare write any of it down. It crept around corners in day to day dealings, waiting to take possession of another person Corrine was interacting with, seizing them and spitting out acidic words and attacks that made her doubt everything. It fed on pain and fear, the more deeply rooted, the better.

The villain was her nemesis as a writer, and one day she knew, she would have to invite it in for tea and have a chat with it. She wasn't sure she could handle that.

“Of course you can’t,” it hissed at the back of her mind. “I’m always a risk, even if I am not invited. You can’t keep me locked up forever.” Horns and hooves were aflame, as the Unicorn waited for its unsuspecting prey.

Word Count: 1,669
Running Total: 16,928
Remaining: 33,072

NaNo Snapshot: Complimentary, My Dear

2011-11-09T19:53:00.000-08:00

"So Long, John," seemed an appropriate song to play. The children were in bed for the night and Corrine contemplated putting the kettle on for a cup of chamomile tea. She'd taken a bath and started the dishwasher, swept the floor, and had come back to her computer.

"So long, John," she thought as the acoustic guitar strummed a deep and throaty tune across her speakers. "So long, said so long ago." She was coming up on four years of freedom from her ex-husband physically, but in June it would only be two years since the divorce was final, and yet she felt in some ways as if it had been forty.

"I don't see a mirror, Miss Corrine."

Corrine gave a start. "Sorry, Curtis, what was that?"

"I believe I asked you to keep a mirror on your desk when you wrote. I think you'd see more of Miss Martha in you than you realize."

"I thought maybe I'd offended you and you wouldn't be back, Curtis."

"No ma'am," he replied taking off his Stetson and laying it in his lap. "I don't scare quite that easy." He grinned.

"Of course not." Corrine ran her fingers through her hair and straightened her bathrobe.

"Don't ignore that gentleman at the check out, ma'am."

"What?" Corrine looked puzzled.

"You know, the gentleman who said you look like those red haired ladies in the old paintings and advertisements, because of the way your hair was clipped back?"

"Oh," Corrine chuckled. Yes that one. It was exactly what he had said, and she had directed the comment to Anne Taintor's artwork, not sure how to take the comparison between her and the women in the old 50's style art pieces.

The man behind the register leaned in and lowered his voice, "It's meant as a compliment you know."

Corrine laughed. "I know," she replied even though she really didn't, and thanked the man. It was kind of nice to have a man randomly flirt with her. It didn't happen often.

"You shouldn't ignore a man who pays you compliments."

"I'm attached though, Curtis, and I wouldn't want him to get the wrong idea."

"You mean you're a bit afraid that Brian would be jealous."

"Maybe that too."

"He's not your ex-husband, Corrine. I'm sure the man would be flattered to know his lady is receiving such nice compliments. It makes you feel good, and it should make him feel good too."

"Is that how you'd respond if someone was paying similar compliments to Martha?"

Curtis nodded. "As long as they were being respectful about it, there's no harm in telling a woman she's pretty."

Corrine chuckled. "Curtis, how'd you get to be such a smart man?"

"Get that mirror like I told you and I'll show you." He winked, donned his Stetson and he was gone.

Word Count: 473

Running Total: 15,259

Remaining: 34,741

NaNo Snapshot: Delusion and Transcendence

2011-11-09T17:47:00.000-08:00

As Corrine listened to Kate Wolf singing about the wind blowing wild, she absently gazed at the crystal ball on her desk. She almost imagined it would give her the answer she sought on which story she should work on. It was a silly thought. It was a ball of quartz, pretty though it was, and even in all her attempts she’d only found she had no talent for scrying. Why in the world would it proffer fictional answers to the fictional question of which story was most workable at the moment? Still as the strains of music played it was soothing to study it’s internal fractures and inclusions, as if they told the story about the way the clear piece of stone had formed within the earth. She could imagine the earth giving birth to the stone, and being found by human hands that crafted it into a perfect sphere.

Perhaps Verin and Ginivie deserved another chance. They had made a good argument. The story was complete in Corrine’s mind, it just needed to be transcribed. After all, almost 10 years ago she'd begun their tale and had gotten nearly half way through it when their manuscript disappeared, and went forgotten as she tried to forget everything that reminded her of a job that she loved working... or rather what robbed her of that job.

"Talk about insanity," she commented to no one in particular. "I think insanity was what ensued after losing that job."

It didn't take much to remember the cheap motel she and her ex-husband lived in during that time, infested with roaches and the occasional mouse. Her young daughter slept in a port-a-crib, and Corrine cooked unhealthy t.v. dinners out of the microwave, washing plastic disposable plates and plastic cutlery to be used over again in a bathroom sink. She was pregnant... again. That had been an interesting revelation too. Her ex-husband was frequenting strip clubs and losing money as if his pockets were sieves, and Corrine was always livid with him. She hadn’t realized that the anger that was always at a ready boiling point, and the desire to stay in the chair rocking the baby all day rather than dress herself or tend to the house were signs of Postpartum Depression. She wasn’t depressed damn it! She was pissed! She felt no connection to her daughter. And she was afraid that meant she was broken somehow, as she had always felt she was somehow broken. Everyone said that breastfeeding was best, but no one had the decency to warn young women that breastfeeding hurt like hell. She didn’t recognize herself when she looked in the mirror, feeling as if she had turned 50 over night, and the weight and responsibility of motherhood had blindsided her despite 9 months of advanced warning. Her ex-husband had been ecstatic to find out she was pregnant again, and she was convinced he’d completely lost his marbles. How in the hell could another baby possibly be a good thing?

She'd thought about leaving him, until she'd found out she was pregnant again. She felt guilty at the thought of depriving one child of a two parent home. Two, in her mind, was abhorrently out of the question. So she stayed. Being evicted out of their home, to move into a weekly rate hotel, and then losing her job only insured that she had very little other choice but to stay. She stayed in bed for days, blaming the fatigue on her pregnancy, but she knew she was mourning, and what she mourned was the death of her dreams. She would end up being a stay at home mother, not the working mom she wanted to be, and she could kiss school goodbye for at least 18 more years. Dreams had no place left in her life, so what was left but to turn to insanity... fluffy insanity... delusion.

She grasped at straws and found a fundamentalist version of the faith she'd been raised with, and for a while it was enough to carry her through. It was a faith that made her laugh one day as she realized that she'd fussed over not having a matched set of dishes after she was married, and now she had exactly that with the re-usable plastic picnic ware. It carried her through flipping on the television on a bright September morning, taking a horrid amount of time to realize that 9/11 was happening on every channel, and that the world would never be the same for her again, and that her children would never know what that world had been like before it. It carried her through going into preterm labor, and moving into another weekly rate hotel because it was closer to the hospital she was going to deliver at. It carried her through almost 3 months of bed rest, of being away from her oldest daughter's smile because she was unable to lift her in and out of the port-a-crib to care for her. It carried her through the argument with the ex about whether or not she should induce labor after the exhaustion of being in preterm labor so long. And then it carried her into admitting her Postpartum Depression... finally a valid excuse to see a counselor and get some help. It made her blissfully sure that despite both her and her husband’s unemployment, that God would provide for a third child, the son she knew she was supposed to have. It carried her through her ex-husband’s depression as he dealt with the knee injury that left him unemployed. Delusions could be useful crutches, but thank goodness she'd been able to get rid of them when she no longer needed them.

Was it any wonder she'd completely abandoned Ginivie in her struggle to attain her throne and make peace with her neighboring kingdoms and had never looked back. Corrine saw the loss of that job as the start of a downward spiral that promised to take her across the event horizon, and never let her reach escape velocity ever again. How could she write about a woman who was competent and powerful when power and competency were the very things that had been sheered away from her by large gravity waves? Her ex-husband seemed so inescapable, a black hole of a man. Sometimes she imagined he died in a horrible accident. Some days she imagined she did. She couldn't escape him, so she did the only thing she knew how... she loved him, even when it hurt to do so. And she tried to change herself so that it wouldn't have to hurt.

Tears fell on her keyboard as she remembered it. How could she go back to that story? The gravity of it was too immense for her, even now. But she had eventually reached escape velocity, and she had regained her power, and was attaining her dreams one by one. She was building them a little bit at a time, and telling life, and in some ways love to go fuck itself. She could be herself now. Couldn't she?

"Why are you torturing yourself?" Rhian asked.

"Still trying to figure out which story I should be working on," Corrine brushed some tears away from her eyes, feigning fatigue.

"It looked to me more like you were taking a torturous trip through your past to me."

"I was considering Ginivie and Verin's story. They really did have a very good start, and they were not the only good characters within that story. It was cut and dried, easily concludable (if that’s even a word) within one volume..."

"And it makes you cry to re-live it."

"It reminds me of the person I almost became... that I did become for a while."

"And yet a lot of very good ideas came out of that person."

Corrine shot Rhian a disdainful look. "I can't go back to being that, Rhian."

"No one expects you to. But you still feel that pain, harness it and put it to use. Isn't that what you've made me do with mine?"

"It's easy to make an imaginary character do that within an imaginary setting, but quite another..."

"Really?! Because I was under the impression that you were making me wade through that awful history because it entails struggle, an important ingredient for character development, a catalyst for change... correct?"

"If you're implying that it all happened for a reason..."

"Oh no. I would never toss that fiery little dart at you. As has been so eloquently pointed out in other places, shit happens. It has no prejudices against who it will happen to either, whether real or imaginary. But as you pointed out, it's our ability to choose to transcend it that makes all the difference. So sit there and snivel about how much it hurts, lady, or fucking transcend already. And for fuck's sake, pick a damned story. You've got 20 more days to make that goal and knock a nice chunk out of whichever story you pick. You’ve gotten rest from your cold and from what I can tell you’re bouncing back nicely. So do what you always do, bounce back and transcend."

Corrine pulled the clips out of her hair, tossed them on her desk carelessly, and closed her eyes as the man on the radio sang, "I feel it's gonna rain like this for days. Let it rain down and wash everything away." Yes it was going to rain down, in torrents of tears if she had to go back to that place again. She'd already transcended damn it. But was this as far as her own character was set to develop? She certainly hoped not.

"The day you stop learning is the day you stop growing, and the day you stop growing is the day you start dying."

Corrine looked up at Rhian in surprise. "What was that?"

"It's something a passionate young woman struggling to do the best she could once told me. She fancied herself a writer, and could tell stories as if she'd lived them herself. You might watch the mirror every now and again. You might catch sight of her."

Word Count: 1,697

Running Total: 14,786

Remaining: 35,214

NaNo Snapshot: A Look Through the Looking Glass

2011-11-09T14:40:00.000-08:00

Corrine had no idea how she would manage to reconcile what Gareth had told her. How was she going to write his story now, after he revealed that he lived in a world in which, "Dragons were bad enough," and that she must be crazy for wishing they were Unicorns instead. What kind of world was it in which Unicorns were to be more feared than Dragons? Some kind of twisted fairytale that turned all the known fairytale rules on their head, that was for sure.

Wasn't that what life was though? It was some kind of twisted Fairytale in which Cinderella got caught cheating with the Pool-boy because Prince Charming was an alcoholic/work-a-holic/philanderer banging the secretary at the office. Wasn't it a world in which Rapunzel begged the witch to lock her away in a tower that had a sky-light instead of a window? Life was a story in which Snow White resented her Prince for the death of her beloved Step-Mother, and fed him the poisoned apple to become the sole Despot of the kingdom, telling her dwarf court advisors to let the impoverished people eat Apple Pie.

Life, and writing for that matter, were more like Alice's trip through the looking glass, in which everything that should be, was turned on it's head, and madness was normal because sanity simply didn't exist. Reality shrank and grew as if consuming drinks and treats tagged with the instructions, "Eat me' and "Drink Me," sometimes respectively and at others not. Perhaps that was why it had become increasingly difficult for her to write. She needed solid answers damn it! A world in which reality remained constant, and Sanity was in moderate supply, to be replaced with witticisms and sarcasm when it ran out.

She'd worked to bring some semblance of sanity into her life, to move away from chaos. What she feared is what she heard happened to people as they became adults... that she was becoming nuerologically hard-wired. That her voice would one day sound like Ben Stein's rattling off indisputable facts, with no room for possibilities to be introduced.

Children could believe anything. She remembered a time when she thought pieces of broken glass littering the ground were diamonds. She believed it whole heartedly because of their cubic shape. Glass didn't break like that. She'd seen glass break and it had always been in odd and irregular shapes. These seemed perfect. They had to be diamonds. It was the dreadful things that happened afterwards that shattered her youthful idealism. She'd been going around barefoot that day, and was so terribly excited that she was being taken to a movie... at a real live Movie theater! She was giddy with the excitment of it. She wore little sandals into town, and found herself limping as they got to the theater. Her feet were sore and she had no idea why. It was upon arriving home that the adults determined she had pieces of glass stuck under her skin that they had to dig out with a safety pin. She hated the cubic pieces of glass after that, and never again believed that they were diamonds.

Corrine wondered if adults really became hard-wired or if they simply became jaded. Life had a way of smacking idealism in the face with a brick in hand, and then brutalizing it as best as it knew how. Corrine was convincced that people didn't become hard-wired, they just became defensive. No one liked to be hurt again and again. Delusions were lovely... a fluffy sort of insanity. But life was full of harder realities and varying degrees of insanity that were all too happy to rare their ugly heads in the face of delusion. So it shouldn't have been surprising that Unicorns could in fact be more fearsome than dragons.

Corrine tried to imagine the light filled creatures using their beauty towards some insidious scheme of ensnaring unsuspecting innocents for diabolical purposes. Or perhaps they dropped the farse alltogether, hooves and horns aflame as they blood-thirstily gored their prey. She would have to ask Gareth for more detail, as it was quite likely that in the journey he and Rhian were set upon, they would encounter them.

For now Corrine was up to her ass in small dragons, otherwise known as alligators. Two days missed from work meant a short paycheck, and it also meant that she had to draw off of funds she didn't plan to pull until the following month for Christmas shopping. She also had credit applications to process at work, an aging report to work on, and errands and appointments to catch up on. When setting those appointments she had to account for the stupidity of her bank's fee structure in which they would automatically transfer funds from checking to savings on a particular date in order to save on said fees, no matter that she would come back the following day and transfer it back. She could practically hear the Cheshire cat in the back of her mind purring the words, "We're all mad here."

As she turned away from her computer she nearly jumped out of her skin to see Xyllon sitting there. His mischeivous smile made her believe, that like the Cheshire cat, he might also disappear and leave his grin hanging there.

"So today you're chasing Dragons and Unicorns. But which is which? Are the Unicorns the numbers and the Dragons the words, or do I have them reveresed?"

"Xyllon, I'm at work. Can't you bug me some other time?"

"Well it's not as if you are actually working now is it? Hardly seems to me that thinking about fearsome Dragons and even more fearsome Unicorns is helping you tally spreadsheets or complete aging reports."

"You have no idea what it looks like to go through my aging report. I think I'd sooner try to slay a Dragon."

Xyllon sat back langorously, looking every bit the Cheshire cat as his grin deepened. "Now you're getting it back, Kitten."

"Getting what back?"

"Just the right amount of insanity to start writing again."

"I think they call that eccentricity."

"Tomato.. To-mah-to. It's all a matter of semantics. So go for it. Slay your dragons at work, and then at the end of the day, go knock out some Unicorns. You might even find Alice strolling along on her way to defeat the Jabberwock while you're at it."

"I have enough trouble sticking to my own stories without involving classics along the way."

"There's something to be said for giving a reverential nod to the classics every now and again. After all, they've already been down the path of slaying Dragons and Unicorns, and a few other things that we needn't mention. They can sometimes remind you how it's done."

"I'm supposed to be writing, not reading right now, Xyllon. Ten days into the month and I still have yet to even land on which project I'm going to write."

"You're a romantic, Kitten, whether you care to admit that anymore or not, it's an undeniable part of you. So write romance."

"Romance is insanity."

"And I would say insanity is an essential ingredient to living and to writing. Look at that Fiance of yours."

Corrine chuckled. "He's not insane."

"Really? You yourself told him that you ought to get him a Psych Eval. as an engagement present given that he's been down this road a few times, has been burnt, and yet is willing to do it again. Why do you suppose that is? Why does he want to try it again? For that matter why do you suppose you want to try it again?"

"Because we're crazy?"

"Don't give me the answer you think I want to hear, Kitten. Give me your answer."

"For him, I think that finding that life-long love is important enough to him he's willing to take the risk every time, even if it means getting hurt."

Xyllon nodded. "And for you?"

"Well I fell in love with him..."

"And..."

"He seems like a pretty safe bet."

"Although it's still a gamble isn't it?"

"When it comes to other people, Xyllon, there's always a gamble involved, even when you think you've sufficiently hedged your bets."

He nodded. "And the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result isn't it?"

"Not according to Merriam Websters," Corrine muttered. "You're not doing anything to make me feel any more confident, Xyllon."

"I've played poker millions of times, Kitten, and the outcome is not always the same. Insanity sometimes does produce a different result. But you have to be clever enough to change a few of the ingredients around and dispense with a few cards you might think are trumps to come up with a winning hand. You've been dealt a lot of spades, and now you're playing for hearts and diamonds. You'll have a different result, Kitten. Just play your hand smart."

"Next thing you'll be doing is singing Kenny Rogers, 'The Gambler' to me."

"It's not bad advice."

Corrine chortled at that, which drew a few disdainful looks from her co-workers. She cleared her throat and pretended to go back to her spreadsheet. An e-mail came in from her friend across the wall, "What's so funny over there?"

"Nothing," Corrine typed back, "I'll talk to you at break."

"Maybe you need a little madness in your life, Kitten. A little managed risk."

"I thought I already had that with Brian."

"That may be a little too well managed. You need to shake things up a bit, catch yourself by surprise."

"You know it's impossible to surprise oneself right?"

"You used to surprise yourself all the time. How can you surprise a lover if you don't explore what surprises you? And what are readers but potential lovers to be wooed and surprised by your words, even though those words may be Unicorns that have to be wrestled to the ground one at a time, and set forth with the task to insidiously ensnare and entrance your unsuspecting reader with it's scheme?"

"And all the while I am supposed to maintain my poker face, appearing as surprised as the characters and the readers?"

"Of course, because you too are taking a gamble, at risk of being entranced and ensnared in the story as Alice found herself in the looking glass."

"And what if life holds no more surprises for me, or writing for that matter?"

"Come now, Kitten, do you really believe that you are beyond being blind-sided in love, life, or story?"

"I wish that I was, and I hope that I'm not."

"It's maddening place to be, isn't it?"

Word Count: 1,672
Running Total: 13,089
Remaining: 36,911

NaNo Snapshot: Here There Be Dragons

2011-11-07T17:20:00.000-08:00

Corrine sat and stared at the blinking cursor on the screen. It was not the first time that little line had maddeningly taunted her, daring her to start the first word, wagering that she would simply hit the backspace after the first couple of sentences were strung together. The rest of the screen was blank, begging to be filled. The cursor was challenging her, and at the moment she wasn't up to that challenge. She'd thought of a name for a blog long ago, "Breathing in Ink." It had never come to be. Writing was no longer like breathing. It wasn't that easy anymore.

She had a minor headache, and had gone home after only an hour of work. She'd done a few bite sized chores around the house before collapsing and falling asleep on the love seat for the rest of the day. She fared on soup and hot apple cider, hoping the whole apple concoction would have enough vitamin c in it to help her body fend off the microbes invading her body, and day time cold medicine was not enough to keep her functional. She had no doubt that she would sleep through the night despite the fact she'd slept all day. The children were doing homework and all was quiet... at least for the moment.

Now she rubbed her temples as soothing piano strains played on the speakers for her computer and she had no idea what to write. "If I could just figure out which story I should work on right now," she muttered. Curtis and Martha, Verin and Ginivie, Xyllon, Gareth and Rhian... How could she start a new project while all of those characters hung on, waiting for their conclusions? But which one should she run with?

She was nearly a week into November now, and had no idea what project she should work on. She had a word count to work towards for the month and so far had not written the first one. She just wanted to go back to bed, crawl beneath the blankets, and to slip back into warm comfortable oblivion. "Why am I doing this to myself? With everything else I am trying to deal with, why in the hell am I doing this to myself?" That was an easy answer though. She was afraid that what Rhian had said was right, even before the character showed up to lecture her. Writing had been like breathing to her at one point in life. Stories came to her as easily as walking and moving. She lived them and they had been more real to her than life was. Now her imagination seemed to be fading and she was afraid that she was letting some part of her die by not writing, by not living out those vibrant tales in her mind.

She looked up from her computer screen and her eye fell on a book. "Here There Be Unicorns." It was one of her daughter's books. She'd found it and secreted it away one night when she was cleaning after they'd gone to bed. For whatever reason the title had intrigued her and she had been intent on reading it. She thought perhaps she should give it back, but the title still held her. It seemed an utter turn around from the warnings on old maps, "Here there be Dragons." She still found she had a desire to read it. "I'm supposed to be writing this month, not reading." Although she almost thought that she could justify the time spent reading today with the way she was feeling.

She pulled her glasses from her face and rubbed her eyes and scoffed. Damn that cursor. Damn Chopin and his pleasantly rising and falling nocturnes. Damn intriguing titles that beckoned to be read, and damn colds that sapped a person of their concentration and energy. She couldn't think well enough to string an intelligible sentence together. She grimaced at the random thought of starting with, "Once upon a time..." Dragons and Unicorns had all the makings of a fairytale, but she'd given those up too. And some small part of her asked, "Why?" But she ignored that. Why wasn't important. It just was the way it was. She put her glasses back on, somehow hoping for a shift in vision... a shift in perspective.

Where were those characters? All of them seemed ready to beat her door down when November had begun, and now that she sat in front of a blank computer screen ready to do something all of them were off doing something else. Writing had become like the warnings on those maps. "Here there be dragons," with the unwritten subtext, "and they will eat you alive." Her characters lurked in the shadows, waiting to ambush her, breathing fire, and taunting her, telling her she was fighting a losing battle and being eaten alive. They waited to spill their guts to her when she was engaged in fighting off the dragons of every day life, and reprimanding her for not giving them their due attention.

Writing was not as easy as breathing, now when she started up her lap-top she felt she was gearing up to do battle. She knew her characters were unhappy with her, and if they had the ability to seek a new writer they would probably do so in a heartbeat, but how in the world was she supposed to span the chasm that divided her from them when they only seemed to want to come when she was unable to write, and then disappeared when she could? They acted like Prima-dona actors in a B list movie, and she was weary of trying to direct the scenes.

One of her favorite songs spooled up on her music program. As she listened to the sound of Clint Black's voice comparing his lover to the rain, her thoughts turned to Brian. She wished he was there. Of course she wouldn't be trying to write if he were there. Time with him was hard to come by these days, and cherished when it was come by. His quiet strength would be welcome tonight. She had a desire to be cared for instead of being the care-taker, at least for the moment. She worried of becoming too dependent on that.

When none of her characters would offer their company in his absence, she longed for his. Most days Corrine lived her life with a tempestuous spirit... like the rain she could be gentle and at the right moments she could turn into a force of nature. She could change her mind as quickly as the wind shifted, and would chase down her goals with as much bluster. Today however there was nothing forceful about her. She wanted to be wrapped in Brian's arms and rest. The tempest had blown itself out for the moment, and she had no strength to fend off ambushes or dragons. Instead she found herself lost in a fog, vulnerable and tired.

It took her a few moments to notice Gareth sitting on the edge of her bed. "Go to bed, Corrine," he commanded.

"You guys seem to be telling me that an awful lot lately," she responded wearily.

"Perhaps we keep telling you that because you don't listen very well."

"All of you are vying for my attention, Gareth, and now that you have it, I'm being told to go to bed. You can't even talk to me in my dreams anymore, because it seems I'm too tired for dreaming even."

"Listen to yourself. You're in no shape for telling stories today. You're lonely. You're tired. You're sick, and you're worried about what the missed day from work means for you financially."

"It seems being sick is the only time I really have to write."

"Much as I hate to say this, what we need from you right now is not for you to write, but for you to rest. Get better and then write."

"I miss him, Gareth."

Gareth looked slightly taken aback. "I know you do, Corrine. But you're strong, and this will not last forever. Brian will be by your side soon enough." The doubtful expression on Corrine's face told all. "Corrine, you're not feeling well. Get some rest."

"Gareth, what do you want from me?"

"Nothing at this moment, Corrine." He looked highly offended.

"No not right now, Gareth. Don't be so damned touchy. I mean in general."

He grimaced at the use of the curse word. "I want to live, Corrine. And I can only do that as long as you keep my story alive and write it down."

"Is that all?"

"It may not seem like much to you. But it's not exactly desirable to flit in and out of existence at the whim of someone like you." The last word contained a mild sneer.

"I'm only human, Gareth."

"Obviously."

"I would have thought you would have some input on how you wanted the story to go." Corrine blew her nose and stifled a cough.

"What does it matter what I want? It's not my job to dictate the story. I'm not the writer. Thank heavens for that."

"No, but it is your job to have an agenda beyond simple existence within the story."

"My agenda is keeping Rhian alive until we reach our destination."

"That's an objective, not an agenda. And you have that objective simply because I dictated it to you."

"You know my back story, Corrine. You know why I do what I do."

"The funny thing about people, Gareth, whether real or imagined, is that just when you think you know them they prove you wrong. I make it a point these days not to get too secure in thinking I know someone. Writing about people is like going off the edge of the known map."

"Here there be dragons," he replied thoughtfully.

"I'd much rather it were Unicorns."

Gareth stood up suddenly, appearing alarmed. "Why in God's name would you wish for Unicorns? Dragons are bad enough!"

Word Count: 1,675
Running Total: 11,417
Remaining: 38,583

NaNo Snapshot: The Wild Card

2011-11-06T21:09:00.000-08:00

Corrine was a little dismayed that she missed most of the football game. It was Baltimore vs. Pittsburgh. So she'd assumed it would not air on any of the local channels. Why in the hell would a local station in Wyoming carry it? Oh that's right, maybe because it was Wyoming, and Wyoming didn't have an NFL football team. So instead sports fans were left with choosing whoever they wanted to champion. Go Pokes!

As far as sports went Corrine was more of a do'er than a viewer. With her ex she had considered herself lucky that he wasn't a sports fan,. But with Brian, she found herself having fun watching games with him, while chatting on the phone, going to his Superbowl parties. In fact she found herself enjoying a number of things with him that she had never been able to with the ex. Brian had a passion for living that she hadn't seen in anyone else. From their first meeting she would have never guessed it. He seemed so very quiet, and he was. She'd never met anyone who could enjoy living so passionately and yet at the same time seemed to have such a quiet reserved strength about them. That piece alone kept her hopelessly intrigued by him, and the way he treated her and her children left her tumbling head over heels in love with him on a daily basis, even on the days she found herself frustrated.

She'd enjoyed going to Homecoming games in High School, understanding enough of the game to at least follow the plays. But it was something she could take or leave. She was grateful for that, as it appeared it would be something that she could enjoy with Brian on down the road. but in some ways she still equated watching sports to watching porn, she'd rather be participating than watching.

Oddly she'd been more of a baseball buff in her youth, favoring the Pittsburgh Pirates as her champion team. Now it didn't seem so odd to take up for the Steelers, being that they were Brian's team. She'd lamented all week that she wouldn't get to watch this game, knowing it would be as it turned out to be, a very close game. If she had to pick a second favorite team, it would have been the Ravens, by sheer virtue of having watched the movie "The Blind Side." They were both excellent teams, and she knew they would duke it out on the field to gain every yard. She groaned when the Ravens won it, but had to admit that the catch the Ravens receiver made at the end to win it, was beautifully done, after a couple of embarrassing incompleted ones.

Now, even though her cold was making her tired, and she hadn't had the energy to do any of the chores she wanted to absolutely complete for the day, she couldn't bring herself to go to bed. Everything felt incomplete. The Steelers lost. Brian was not there. The kids had been resistant to going to bed. The house was a mess. There was no snow on the ground. Thanksgiving was coming up, and close on it's heels would be Christmas. Then soon after that she was likely looking at the completion of construction and closing on the house. She'd put up her Christmas tree, fearing that with the onslaught of the next few weeks it would become a burdensome chore to have to do. She hated doing anything Christmas before Thanksgiving had actually arrived and she almost loathed the sight of it.

"Couldn't wait for Thanksgiving, eh Kitten?" Xyllon observed the 6 foot green monstrosity decked in gold ribbons and red and gold decorations.

"I usually do it the weekend before since we go up to the mountains for Thanksgiving," Corrine responded through a cough.

"So you did it this weekend because...?"

"Because the next two weeks I have to be out at the job-site for the house, I have eye appointments, doctor's appointments, bills to pay, and gifts to buy and wrap in the meantime, and god knows what else will crop up."

"And writing."

"Yes I have that to do this month as well."

"Are you taking your lap-top to the mountain with you?"

"Yes. Xyllon, how come I'm not hearing from Gammon or Nightshade or any of the others? Why is it just you?"

"Frankly they're a little pissed off at you."

"What?!"

Xyllon chuckled. "No, actually I haven't really heard from them either. It's almost as if they've blinked out of existence."

"So why are you here?"

"That story was not the only story a rogue like me can fit into, Kitten. You see you have everyone else coming to you, begging you to work on their stories. I know that story is dead. You grew out of it. Fair enough. I can't expect a smart woman like you to remain a star-struck teenager forever. But I will fit someplace else... anyplace else. Might even fit in with that stuffy Gareth Brave Wolf."

"You'd drive him insane. He already had a hard enough time warming up to Diarden."

"Ahh yes the old warrior. See, I think he could use a protege. Funny thing that he hasn't been here to plead the case for that project."

"Yeah. I've kind of wondered why I haven't heard from him or from Millicent either."

"It's all about agendas, Kitten. Curtis, Gareth, Rhian, Grant... listen closely when they come talk to you. They have an agenda, and it ain't necessarily about them... or it may be. But one thing I can tell you, for the majority of them, their agenda has nothing to do with you. Pay attention to that."

"So what's your agenda, Xyllon?"

"I'm your wild card, Kitten. I'll go wherever you want me to. You know that. But a wild card is only good in a game if you find a use for it. You leave it hanging out there, it's useless. I don't much care for being useless. Besides, I'm sure you've got some unattached female character out there that I could woo as a sideline."

"You're incorrigible, Xyllon."

"You say that like it's a bad thing."

"In your case, it's perfect."

"Aww shucks, Kitten. You're gonna make me blush. Now quit thinking about the football game, and the disrepair of your house. That latter can be addressed tomorrow evening, and the former, well, all I can say to that is Go Ravens!"

"If you weren't a character, Xyllon, I would have said you had a wager on them. But since you are a character, I'm going to assume you're saying that in an attempt to raise my ire."

"Is it working?" Xyllon grinned.

"Not even remotely."

"Damn. I knew I was out of practice."

"I suppose I'll have to see what I can do to remedy that."

"Promises. Promises."

Corrine grinned and shook her head. "Where the hell did you disappear to? I've missed writing your character."

"You broke my heart, Kitten. Why wouldn't I go quiet for a while.?

"I didn't break your heart, Xyllon."

"You gave my heart to an incredibly charming, and sexy character, made me work damned hard to attain her affection, and then you made her disappear. You broke my heart."

"O.k. fair enough. Which begs the question then, I guess, why would you risk me doing that to you again?"

"I don't mind working on my next broken heart. You demonstrated well that after all the hearts I've broken maybe I should be a little kinder. Now you need to get your ass to bed. You've got work in the morning."

"For the record, YOU are not allowed to make any references to my ass."

"Why not? It's a really nice one."

"Xyllon..."

"Well your fiance says it is anyway."

Corrine just shook her head. "Good night, Xyllon."

Xyllon winked at her. "Night, Kitten." And then he was gone.

Corrine sighed, shut down her laptop, dosed herself with night time cold medicine and went to bed.

Word Count: 1341

Running Total: 9742

Remaining: 40,258

NaNo Snapshot: Twenty-Four Days

2011-11-06T15:38:00.000-08:00

Rhian sat observing Corrine for a few moments. She wasn't sure she should bother her, considering the way the last two meetings had gone. "I should have brought Xyllandra with me," she thought to herself silently. The red-haired wise woman would probably handle the author of the story with more tact than Rhian was prone to. Even though technically Rhian wasn't supposed to have met Xyllandra yet.

Corrine was brewing another cup of Echinacea tea, this time with a few of her own added herbs, and honey added as a binding agent. It was no ordinary cup of tea the author was brewing for herself. This was a spell woven with the intention of rest and healing. Corrine had told her mother on the phone that the cold had been trying to catch up with her for four days, after listening to a lecture about getting her flu shot. Corrine had been able to reassure her mother that she indeed had gotten hers, since the company she worked for provided them for free.

Rhian pondered the potion that Corrine had completed for herself and smiled. She had very little idea that there were still practicing witches in the world, but then, Corrine had only just discovered that as well in the last year, about the time that she had discovered she came by a bit of the craft naturally. Rhian found it humorous in many ways that Gareth found himself subject to the whims of the very sort of person he spent most of his life despising. Rhian spent a great deal of time observing Corrine of late, and she was never sure if the author was aware that she was under her character's microscope. It seemed odd that she as the character spent time envying and examining the author's life.

Rhian was actually rather pleased with what she saw happening with Corrine's life. The woman's children were growing beautifully, despite a bit of a rough start. Corrine was working to obtain security and stability for them, and for herself. It was very healthy, and Rhian had great respect for the climb to independence, and the journey to self discovery that she'd spent the last few years on. Her ability to maintain a job, tend to the individual needs of her children, and to work on building a home made Rhian quite happy for Corrine. She'd witnessed the despondency and destitution from which Corrine had brought the children. Rhian viewed Corrine as the Phoenix, risen from the ashes.

Rhian vicariously enjoyed the author's life, although she was sure Corrine would find that a ludicrous concept. There was no doubt that Corrine's life was challenging, and a lot of hard work, but Rhian also knew that Corrine derived a sense of accomplishment from every obstacle she overcame, and that her growing ability to confidently self determine was something that she would be sure to instill in her characters going forward... provided she found the desire to write again.

But Rhian knew her job was not just observe the author. It was also to warn her that she was also in some ways neglecting a piece of herself that had helped her for so long to survive... the ability to become someone else and to tell their story. Rhian had no idea if that was a healthy sign for Corrine or not, but it was surely a sign that the characters that lived within the confines of the author's mind would be doomed to silence, and then eventually oblivion, unless they spoke up. Corrine still had stories to tell, whether she wanted to or not. And most of the ones she had to tell about herself she only wished to forget. But if her characters could help her give voice to those then why shouldn't they? Rhian wasn't sure the other characters had the same agenda as she. They as characters wouldn't exist without Corrine's creativity and her ability to manipulate their tales. It was Corrine that needed their help now though. Rhian wasn't sure that all of the characters would see it her way, but she had to try.

Rhian wished in some ways that she could write Corrine's story for her, however being that she was a figment of Corrine's creation, that was impossible. Instead, Rhian sat as a silent observer, waiting for an opportunity to slip stories about the author into the larger tales that the author deigned to write. She had watched all day as Corrine took a plodding pace at some of her chores, and combined different herbs and crystal pieces in sachets to promote a restful night. She'd poured a home blessing candle that she eventually lit with the ambition of dispelling negativity from the domicile. Rhian wondered if Corrine realized she was becoming the hero of her very own life story. "No," Rhian thought. "Corrine would never accept that. She would just shrug her shoulders and say she's just the same as any other person doing the very best she could with what she had. She would die of embarrassment at being called heroic."

"Any progress?" Gareth asked Rhian.

"I haven't spoken to her tonight. She's sick right now, Gareth. She needs a chance to rest."

"We haven't got forever you know. Ginivie and Verin made a very good case to her. They had a solid story going before their manuscript disappeared."

"She still has our manuscript though, and she has a number of scenes plotted out that she still has to incorporate."

"She's in a different place now than when she started our story, different values, different ideas different dreams."

"Corrine is still in many ways the same person, Gareth. The pieces that are truly her are what have survived that last several years. That's what's important. If our story was no longer relevant to her life we would be forgotten. In many ways, I think Ginivie and Verin have less of a chance because the relevance of their story originally hinged on a relationship that is now obsolete in her life."

"If that's the case then Curtis maybe a threat," Gareth said disdainfully.

"You act as if she only has the ability to write one story. Curtis isn't a threat either. Corrine still isn't sure of the relevancy of that story, or the authenticity. None of the other characters are a threat to our story, Gareth. It's Corrine that I worry about. She's had to become so grounded in practicality she hasn't much room to imagine a life for any of us anymore, and if we don't get her attention, we'll lose her."

Gareth remained quiet for a moment. On one hand he wanted to say good riddance to the witch, but the truth was he needed her as much as he needed Rhian. And admitting to needing either of them was not the easiest pill for him to swallow. "We can't be easy on her."

"She's fighting a cold, Gareth. Give her a couple of days to recover. "

"We've already lost two and our window of opportunity is closing. We have less than 24 more days to convince her to continue our story, otherwise she'll forget about writing all together and go back to actively ignoring us."

Rhian smiled. "She hasn't been completely actively ignoring us. True this is a month in which she has reason to actively listen to us, but we have other opportunities as well. We just have to be better about maximizing them."

Gareth shook his head. "I don't particularly relish the idea of oblivion. At least if she can get the story down, we have a chance at living forever. It's the only chance of survival we have as characters."

"And what of Corrine? If she doesn't publish her work, she will blink into oblivion and be forgotten by history, like so many other writers are. Even if she does publish some day she may still be forgotten."

"It's the path she chooses," Gareth responded. "I on the other hand would like the chance to continue to survive. If our story is written for others to read, then at least we will continue to exist in the minds of others."

Rhian was unconvinced. "Let her rest for now, Gareth. Twenty four days will be plenty of time for us."

"I hope you're right. After this her focus will go back to building the house, and then to planning her wedding. Once she achieves her happily ever after, Rhian, she may no longer have a need to tell stories."

"Happily ever after is a myth as much as we are, Gareth. You go on and on about how you wish she'd think of someone other than herself, did it ever occur to you that perhaps she created us because she needs us in some ways to keep existing as much as we need her to do the same?"

"That's a ludicrous idea. Of course she doesn't need us. She has a physical body in the world. We could be forgotten and disappear in her mind and she would go on living."

"She would be alive yes, but surely you've noticed there is a difference between being alive and living. Surely you've seen what we were born out of and what she has worked to become since then."

Gareth frowned and shook his head. "She doesn't need us, Rhian. It is we who are dependent on her, and she has no right to simply ignore what we need from her."

"Who are we to ignore what she needs from us?"

"You have this wrong, Rhian."

"What if we are what she needed to stay alive, Gareth? What if we still may be?"

Gareth was hesitant and troubled. "It can't be."

"But what if it is? Wouldn't that mean that we have as much of obligation to her as she has to us?"

"No. It's not possible."

"You mean you don't want to believe."

Gareth glared at Rhian in response. "No. I mean it's not possible. She created us and right now she's abandoning us. Characters don't abandon their writers."

"Don't they?"

Word Count: 1687

Running Total: 8,401

Remaining: 41,599

NaNo Snapshot: Out of Place

2011-11-04T21:55:00.000-07:00

Corrine sat in the living room with her lap-top. By all rights she should be in bed, snuggled comfortably with her fiance. They'd enjoyed a passionate reunion, and now he lay sleeping blissfully in her bed. Corrine's children were also asleep, and all she could hear was the ticking of the clock on the wall. She'd taken two night time analgesics, knowing that the "sleep aid" listed in them was also a decongestant. Damn that stupid head cold anyway. It hadn't quite taken hold yet, but it promised to be quite the nuisance when it finally did. She perused her Facebook, and halfheartedly glanced at some blogs. And the chest pain that sometimes gripped her started up, leaving her feeling short of breath. A faulty valve sometimes gave her grief and she did her best to ignore it when it did. All the doctors said they could do was to prescribe something for the pain, and she wasn't sure how constantly taking pain medications that made her sleepy and therefor completely non-functional was supposed to be at all helpful. Not to mention that with a family tree full of addicts and alcoholics she was always terrified that she would turn into a drug-seeking addict that neglected and/or abused her children. She'd rather hurt than to go down that road. She avoided prescription medications at almost any cost. Presently, she sipped her Echinacea tea, and tried to ignore it.

All in all it was a quiet peaceful evening, and everyone was happy and content... except Corrine. It wasn't that she was unhappy. It was just that she felt something was amiss, although she couldn't begin to guess what that might be. It occurred to her that it might simply be her that was out of place, considering that she wasn't feeling well and she should be in bed.

"Yes, you should be," Rhian said from the love seat.

"Really, Rhian, I don't think I can take another lecture from you tonight."

"You're getting sick. You have the morning to sleep in before you have to run the craze of dealing with a birthday party and date night. Even now your mind is ticking off the list of everything you have to do to make your daughter's party a success tomorrow afternoon, and then how you will spend a romantic evening with that rather charming cowboy asleep in your bed. Quit writing. Close the laptop, and go to bed."

"Funny," Corrine muttered. "Last night you were yelling at me to write. Tonight you're telling me to stop."

"I'm a writer. It's my prerogative to change my mind."

"Yeah, thanks for nothing," Corrine said wearily as she snapped the lap-top closed.

Total: 431

Running Total: 6,718

Remaining:43,282

NaNo Sanpshot: Beratement

2011-11-03T13:50:00.000-07:00

"I was going to come over tonight, but I'm almost out of gas. Mike was supposed to have some money for me but I can't get a hold of him or his wife. Sounds like they are moving from here and into her brother's house," Corrine's fiancé told her over the phone.

"Are you gonna make it to pay-day o.k.?" She asked stifling a yawn.

She'd moved away from her computer in her brightly lit bedroom and had settled herself on her love seat with the cell phone to her ear. It was more comfortable talking to him that way. The living room was only illuminated by a little bit of light coming from the bedroom doorway. It helped to ease the inertia that continued pulling her forward after the running of the day. She had to get away from her home-base work station so that she could relax. Trying to sit at her desk and talk to him often left her distracted as she tried to go over bank statements and bills she had to pay.

"Pay-day's on Friday. I think I can tough it out until then. You have volunteer work tomorrow evening right?"

"Yep. Which I guess means that I'll see you on Friday. Speaking of which, I juggled bills around a little and I should be able to afford a babysitter."

"Oh nice! I hope she shows up this time."

"Yeah me too."

"Well, hon, I think I'm going to be rude and go, so I can go to bed."

"I don't blame you," Corrine replied. "I'm ready to head that way myself. Have a good night."

"I wish I could be there to tell you good night in person," Brian replied in a mournful tone.

Corrine smiled. It had been a while since he'd proffered sentiments such as those. "I miss you too. I love you, Brian."

"I love you too, Corrine. Good night, honey."

Corrine let out sigh in a mixed expression of contentment and relief. There were, often times, more things going on in Brian's world than he thought to share with her, and in trying to deal with them he would periodically grow distant. This, in turn, left her taking her best guess as to what was wrong, if anything. Her best guess was always that there was something wrong between them, even when there was no indication that could at all be true. Lately she'd simply quit proffering invitations and had just withdrawn her willingness to offer romantic sentiments as often as she normally did. Each time they were overlooked or not returned it felt like a minor rejection, and her solution to keep from being rejected was to just stop putting herself out there as much. It was an odd parallel to her writing. She'd never suffered a rejection letter, because she had just never submitted anything for consideration.

"He does love you, you know," Curtis said from her bedroom doorway.

"Curtis, you're a character from one of my stories. How could you possibly know about Brian, what I don't even know about him?"

"Because on some level you do know it, Ma'am. You're just still a little gun-shy is all. After what you've been through it's to be expected. Give yourself a little time."

"I don't think you came here tonight to talk to me about my love life, Curtis."

"How are your young 'uns?" He asked changing the subject.

Corrine found the shift a bit suspect, but went with it anyway. "They're o.k. Running me ragged of course, but over all they're doing well."

"And the house that you're building, how many hours have you got left to put in on it before they will be satisfied you've earned it?"

"140 left out of the 500 total. They're starting the drywall work next week. Curtis, why are you asking me about these things?"

"Well, you had a right good point the other night. We expect you to take the time to come along for the ride and write down what happens in our lives, but none of us take the time to walk through yours. Sure we pop in for a visit every now and again, but it doesn't seem like a fair deal. I thought I'd check in and see how you're doing tonight."

"It's not in your job description to give a damn about my life, Curtis." Corrine sighed wearily. Really it wasn't. For all the fit she had thrown about none of them caring, it wasn't their job to. They were characters, she was the writer. They were supposed to be focused on the events in their own stories. Secretly some days she wondered if someone was out there writing her story, unaware that every crisis they wrote about was really happening to her, and not just some pretty words on a page.

"Even so, ma'am, perhaps a bit of understanding is in order. Stories are about living, and you're right, you do have a life."

"Curtis if you're just trying to get on my good side..." She cut herself off, immediately regretting her words. Injury was plain in his body language and facial expression. "I'm sorry Curtis, I didn't mean to imply that you were being disingenuous."

"Ma'am, that writer friend of yours is right about characters in stories. We all have agendas. I have my agenda too, but I also know that we will all be judged by those agendas."
She didn't miss his implications. "Curtis, I'm sorry. I know that... I know your agenda... well the hell with it. Just what is your agenda?"

"If you can't figure that out, Corrine, then you haven't been paying attention to me at all, and my story is doomed to fail even though you haven't even begun it." He donned his Stetson and tipped it to her. "Have a good evening, ma'am. Hope you get it all figured out soon. I'd hate for the stories that live within you to be lost to the world one day." And he was gone.

"Well that was well done." Corrine froze for a moment before she turned around to face the almost mirror image character standing before her. "Way to rub salt into the wound, eh?"

"Well it's about damned time you showed up, Rhian. What the hell?"

"I figured Gareth was being bloody loud enough for the both of us, you didn't need me nagging you too. But bravo! That was a wonderful way to handle your honorable cowboy. Nothing like calling a man a liar to get him to straighten up and ride right." The last sentence dripped with sarcasm.

"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Would you frickin' lay off?"

"Why should I? You've put me through hell, and at the moment you're leaving me there. Not that it matters to you, I’m just a character that has to be put through my paces by a dictatorial writer. I've never treated any of my characters so disreputably."

Corrine raised an eyebrow. "Your characters are nothing more than names on a page in your story. You're a writer in nothing more than title so far."

"At this point it seems so are you." Corrine stared down the character, who was also a writer, her, or another version of her contained within a story of her creation. Rhian knew what she knew about writing because it was what Corrine knew about writing. "You want me to write, Corrine, then make it happen. I only write when you do. I walk when you tell me to walk, and I put up with a pompous asshole because you put him in the story with me. What I do not put up with is bullshit. You can't make excuses forever, and you can't berate your characters for your lack of time and energy. You have a life to live. I get it. Hence the reason I haven't been bugging the shit out of you, but talking the way you just did to Curtis is absolutely unacceptable, and you know it."

Corrine pushed her glasses up off of the bridge of her nose and sighed. "I apologized twice."
"The apology shouldn't have been necessary. You know exactly what Curtis' agenda is, you know damn well that it involves the love of a strong young woman, and a desire to see her safe and happy. You know that he is a man of impeccable character. Don't you ever speak to him that way again."

"Are you quite done with your lecture?"

"No. You've committed yourself to get some writing done every day. So pick a project and get to work."

"You mean pick your project."

"Damn it, Corrine! If I had something to throw at your head I would be pitching it right now. You're being intentionally obtuse. I don't give a damn if you pick my project or not. Pick someone's! You're letting yourself die inside and you know it. If that piece of you dies, all of us do. Pick one and write. That is all I care about. If you keep that piece of you going then hope remains that maybe someday you'll finish. Without that piece though..."

"Wait a minute. I write every day, Rhian. You know this. What do you mean that I'm letting that piece of me die?"

Rhian shook her head. "Remember the state you started me in. On the outside I had everything going for me. You remember this. You've landed yourself there. After the house is done, noble goal though it is, there will be something else that fills your time, then another, and another... Ask yourself what keeps you running, Corrine. What are you afraid of finding when you sit down to write? Because you can lie to yourself and say that you're not afraid of anything, but you can't lie to me. I know the lie. You put me there."

"I'm going to bed," Corrine replied wearily walking passed Rhian's mocking smile.

"Sweet dreams," Rhian called after her. "I'll be waiting to talk to you there."

"Don't count on it," Corrine tossed back.

Word Count: 1,680
Running Total: 6,287
Remaining: 43,713

NaNo Snapshot: Morning Visitors

2011-11-02T15:59:00.000-07:00

The clock said 5:22 a.m. "Really?" Corrine groaned, as the snowplow drove down their street, scraping it's blade against the icy road and dropping salt and sand behind it. She knew in about an hour and a half she would appreciate that pass it was making despite the fact it rousted her from a dreamless sleep. It was not the Snowplow she was protesting however, as she noted the time on the clock. It was the presence of the two characters perched on the side of her bed. So long ago had they vanished from her radar, she couldn't even recall their names off hand. She remembered the woman's father was named Thurin. "What is this?" she asked, "Open season on the writer?"

"The writer of abandoned stories," the young auburn-haired woman smiled at her.

"I abandoned your manuscript because it blinked away into the void of cyberspace," Corrine complained. "It was completely beyond my control. I don't remember your names much less your story."

"It started at a waterfall," the young man said regally. "In fact you based me on that rather unsavory man you left some time ago, or a rather idealized version of him."

"The computer the manuscript was saved on was a work computer. I'm sure they deleted my profile after I left there."

"After you were fired you mean," the young woman corrected. "And before you start defending yourself, as I recall you were fired after discovering that your ex-husband was stealing money from your purse and you didn't have enough money to pay the childcare for your infant daughter. They fired you for missing too many days."

"Yes," Corrine grumbled. "Now that we've walked through that rather unpleasant memory, can I go back to sleep?"

"Well not quite," the young man replied. "We came to see if you would consider finishing the story."

"I told you the manuscript is gone. It doesn't exist anymore. Even the Critique circle I submitted it to wouldn't have a record of it anymore. I have no way to recover it."

"But you remember the story," the young man insisted.

Corrine rolled over towards her window, where city lights reflected off of the new fallen snow directly into the slats of her blinds. She didn't give a damn that the two characters were royalty. It didn't matter a whit in this world who they were. "Not really," she lied. "And besides even if I did, we're talking about 6 or 7 chapters that I would have to re-write. Re-writes never come out as well."

"So you don't remember the trade Caravan, or the treaty I was carrying, the fateful meeting at the waterfall or the treacherous Court Advisor?" the young woman asked. Corinne in her half sleep could remember clearly the string of events that the young woman described, even going beyond those events to the return journey and a funeral that left the young woman facing some difficult decisions about the well-being of her newly inherited kingdom.

"Like I said, 6 or 7 chapters," Corrine grumbled, refusing to look back at the two characters. "There's no way I can resurrect those in such a way as to maintain the integrity of the intended plot." Plot had nothing to do with intent. The only thing she was intent on sleep, wrapping her hand around a quartz crystal that she believed promoted lucid dreaming.

"So re-write them," the young man directed. "And this time you can write me for who I am, and not what you wanted HIM to be. The last time you wrote the story there were fallacies in it anyway. There were dishonesties that can now be corrected."

"Do you know how many other characters are vying for my attention right now?" Corrine rolled back over and regarded the king before her wearily. "Do you know how little time I have to offer?"

"I believe there were six that gathered last night to speak with you."

"Yes, and you two make 8."

"We have an advantage though," the young woman inserted. "You had a defined plot, beginning middle and end. It was a good solid story, with ample opportunity for twists and turns and a few surprises along the way. You had grounds for significant character development and an intriguing and dramatic tale."

"Gareth and Rhian have that as well, and at one point so did Xyllon's crew. Hell, Curtis has many of those elements going in his favor as well."

"Curtis' story is a love story that you shy away from because you don't think you are a romance writer. This is something I find amusing, considering how obsessed you are with inter-gender relationships. You're not sure where Gareth and Rhian ultimately end up at the end of the trilogy, so you're not sure how to finish the first book. Plus you are concerned that you have too many disparate elements to reconcile in that tale. You and I both know that Xyllon's tale began in the throws of hormone saturated pubescence. You view the plot as infantile and the scenes you penned make your more conservative leanings blush. Ours was one that you were solidly leading in a good direction. Do not let a silly thing like having to re-write let this story die a silent death." The king finished his diatribe elegantly.

"You have valid points about the others," Corrine muttered, "But you couldn't have come talk to me at a reasonable hour?" Corrine asked. “I have another hour of sleep before work.”

"What reasonable hour?" The young woman shot back. "You're always busy, except in these moments when you awake and can't sleep. You’re doing an admirable job of meeting life on life’s terms. When is it ever convenient for us to speak with you?"

"I can't sleep because the two of you won't shut up and let me. And sometime when I don’t have to sleep would be a fantastic time to talk to me."

The young woman raised her eyebrow with a quizzical air. "You do realize the irony of what you are saying, I hope."

"Please give it some thought," the King said rising. "Come, Ginivie, we've done all we can to plead our case. It's up to Corrine from here."

"I'll think about it," Corrine tossed at him." After I get some sleep," she added under her breath. What was it with these characters? They'd been silent for so long, and always seemed to choose times when they knew she was absolutely unable to write, stubbornly telling her that they'd already told her what she needed to know when she WAS able to, and reminding her sullenly that they didn't care for repeating themselves. They were like self-important actors that seemed to believe she couldn't write without them. Well perhaps that was true, she couldn't write without characters anymore than a movie could be filmed without actors. But without her to write there was no story for them in which to live. Why couldn't they appreciate that simple fact?

She sighed, finally convinced that the part of her brain in which her characters lived and moved and breathed had finally gone quiet. She closed her eyes, and her alarm clock rang.

Word Count: 1,202

Running Total: 4,607

Remaining: 45,393

Communists and Saints

2011-11-02T08:19:00.001-07:00

NaNo Snapshot: Meeting of the Men

2011-11-01T18:41:00.000-07:00

Her purse hit the floor with a loud thud as she entered her apartment. The children filed in behind her squabbling with each other over who was going to pick a movie that night. She reminded them that dinner, which constituted the three hot pizzas in her hands, as well as that terrible inconvenience of homework, came before anything else. The children walked through the living room shedding coats, back-packs, and snow duds, leaving a trail of destruction through her otherwise organized house to mark their passing. She sighed, despairing that they would ever learn to hang up their coats or to put everything else where it belonged.

She gazed around at the sofas and chair that she knew were empty, to find a small gathering of her characters. "Why is it always the men that want to fill my ear?" Corrine muttered under her breath. Where were those women? The women it seemed were more practical and polite than to drop in on her unannounced when they knew she was busy. Yet they were the ones that she needed a visit from. She knew what drove these men. She needed to know what discontent brooked the silence from the women in the stories.

She'd had plans to scarf some pizza, spool up her favorite television show, and to discipline herself into getting on her exercise bike. Damn that Biggest Loser competition at work. With 23 people in the running now, her $20 was as good as gone. But she reminded herself it wasn't about trying to win the money. It was about a wedding dress she was trying to fit into, and it was about recognizing herself when she looked in the mirror. She hated looking in the mirror these days. It would be nice to win the prize, but money had never been a great motivator for her.

Curtis sat on the love seat, his beat up Stetson sitting in his lap. His brown hair neatly combed, and his stoic strong face making him the handsomest character Corrine had encountered yet. He seemed at ease with the Southwestern decor. Gareth on the other hand scowled at the environment around him. His dark hair came down over his brilliant blue eyes. Corinne was surprised to note that Xyllon had also deigned to show his face at this meeting. That thief had stolen away somewhere in her sleep one night and had taken the entire story right along with him. She assumed it was some sort of punishment, for making his love interest take off on him. It only seemed a karmic turn of events in Corinne's mind. He lounged lazily against the door leading into the kitchen, the smile that said he knew something no one else did tugging at the corner of his lips. Nearby Grant was looking around for some place to put his focus on. His blond hair was carelessly tousled and he seemed eager to be going. The two rival spies from Corrine's dream that morning sat glaring at each other from across the coffee table.

Corrine's children maneuvered through their home, completely oblivious to the meeting that had gathered in the midst of their living area. Corrine shed her coat and hung it on the coat tree. She took the pizzas to the kitchen table; completely ignoring Xyllon. She got down plates proffered the evening's instructions to her children, and proceeded to grab her food. She went to her desk in her bedroom. The men followed. If anyone could actually see this, they would believe the most horrible things about Corrine, and all the men that were gathered there. They were not there as lovers, or admirers. They were there for battle, and the one they were there to do battle with was Corrine. They were there to battle for her time and her energy in the face of everything else she had to give time and attention to, and they would each be merciless about it. Fine. She could be merciless in her indifference. She'd managed it for a number of years, she could manage it now.Or so she tried to convince herself. Never once had a group of her characters decided to team up on her, certainly not a group from across various tales. This was going to be a grueling evening after an already grueling day.

"Evenin' ma'am," Curtis said first.

Corrine gave him a cursory nod in response. "Evening, Curtis."

"So, Kitten, seems life's got ya' runnin' pretty fast and furious now. I hear it's getting difficult to get your ear lately," Xyllon piped in.

Corrine rose from her desk and closed her door. It wouldn't do for the children to here her talking to air. It might frighten them. "That's rich coming from you, Xyllon, considering you've been off my radar for probably over a decade now, as have Gammon and the others from your crew."

"I don't much care for competition, and that asshole you were married to made everything a competition," Xyllon smiled. His nonchalant demeanor was always so maddening. He was a maddening character to write. No one had a right to be that damned smug. What the hell could Gammon possibly see in him anyway? "The guy you're seein' now though seems a fair man."

"I would say it's about time that Rhian and I should be moving on now," Gareth interrupted. "And next time you want to talk, you might try coming to me instead of bringing me to you. How else did you expect me to respond my first time in your world? I swear writers from your world can be so incredibly dense."

Corrine turned towards Grant. "I suppose you have something to add too?"

"I just want to know if Gloria will be all right. Don't you think it's a bit cruel to reveal to me that she's dying, and then to never progress any further than that?" Grant seemed to be almost pleading.

Corrine heaved a sigh. "I'm not trying to be cruel, Grant. I’m just trying to get the sequencing down."

"I just want to kick his ass, and tag yours, or the character's that you write in your place," the first spy said in reference to the second.

"Man if I don't fuck you up, she will, so you might want to rethink that," the second spy responded.

Curtis cleared his throat. "Ma'am I just want to know what becomes of Miss Martha and her family."

Corinne threw her hands up in the air. "So what? Do you think I can write all of your stories at the same time? You damned characters always come to me filling my head with your tales, demanding that I record them. When do I get to tell my story? Who the hell cares about my life? Do any of you even have any idea what I go through on a daily basis, where I have been, what I want, what I dream? Do any of you even give a damn what makes me tick and why I even WANT to write for any of you?" The entire congregation of characters looked dumbstruck. "No of course you don't. I'm the writer. I'm just the medium. I'm expendable to you. Forget it. I've got work to do tonight and all of you can just get over yourselves. Try again tomorrow when you have come to a decision on whose story takes priority and when any of you actually want to stick around and talk to me long enough to get it done. And, Xyllon, stay the hell out of my dreams. The last thing I need is some rogue giving me R-rated dreams in the middle of the night, proffering them as scenes for a story that otherwise has no plot to it. The same goes for you two damned spies. Give the female character a specific mission and a good reason why you want to kill each other, and then we might have something. Until then, the lot of you can fuck off!"

Their gazes dropped one by one, like chastised children... except Curtis. He gave a simple nod. "Good evening, Corrine," he said before he winked back to his home. The others one by one followed suit.

Gareth remained last. "Remember, Bard, you have an obligation to meet. You said it yourself."

"Then I suggest you start looking at how you plan to uphold your end of the bargain Gareth Brave Wolf, because I'm given out. You guys keep demanding writing from me and yet don't offer anything to work with. I have nothing left unless someone starts shedding some light on who they are and what they want to do with themselves."

"Who are you and what do you want to do with yourself, Bard? I didn't think a hypocrite would be something that you'd list." And then he was gone too.

"I'm working on it, Gareth. And it's making everyone unhappy," Corrine said to the empty room. The house was so much closer to being done than she'd allowed herself to believe before. It had always seemed such a far of goal that she would never reach, and now there was light at the end of the tunnel. She'd worked so hard for it she didn't know what to think about actually getting there. She was a single mom working full time, and had such high hopes for love, life, prosperity. These things only seemed possible in dreams, and yet here they were materializing, becoming real. Reality was taxing her ability to even think about engaging in a fantasy life. How could she write without it? It was frustrating that her creativity had been so high in periods of time that were unhealthy and detrimental to her well-being, and now that things were going relatively well, her characters acted like surly teenagers. "What about my story?" She asked the empty room. "Who am I and what do I want to do with myself?"

Tonight she wanted to watch a TV show and get on her exercise bike. Then she wanted to collapse in bed and hope that tomorrow wouldn't come any sooner than she was ready for it to. Tomorrow? Who would she be tomorrow? What did she want to do with herself tomorrow? Who knew?

Word Count: 1,717

Running Total: 3,405

Remaining: 46,595