New short short
Mood:  happy
Now Playing: I Fall in Love Too Easily by Curtis Stigers
Topic: Writing
I've posted the new short short temporarily on my website at [NOTE: this story is no longer available for viewing as of 6/20/05]

Just my way of reminding myself that I am writing again (and really, really happy about that!) :)

I'm moving next to another short story, but last night I was attacked by a line that may find its way into a poem soon:

I find poems and leave them
without explanation
or introduction

I don't know...it's kind of weak hanging out there all by itself! We'll see.

Captain Jack
Mood:  chillin'
Now Playing: Life's a Bitch by ShOOTER
Topic: Marathon
I woke up this morning dreaming that not only did I work for George W, but that I also lived in the same two-story house in the suburbs with him and Mrs. Bush and all their staffers. I had a meeting I thought Mr. Bush needed to take but he was refusing. I had been up all night working and there was an empty pizza box and wrappers from almost an entire bag of miniature chocolate candy bars spread all over the kitchen table with my papers. While I was upstairs trying to convince Mrs. Bush that the President needed to take this meeting, the other staffers were waking up and wandering downstairs and finding the remains of my late-night binge. What a horrible way to wake up!! Not only did I have a job that would no doubt frustrate me every minute of every day, but I was actually dealing with my dream frustration with dream binge eating! (When I told Scott, he made the comment that if I were going to binge, doing so in my dreams was probably healthier than doing it while I was awake.) On top of that, I had "Captain Jack" by Billy Joel playing in my head--a song about how alcohol/drugs can solve all your problems. Needless to say, I was in the pissiest mood this morning.

Scott brought me out of that with an encouraging email this morning, though, and the day improved.

I did my short run tonight, and while I didn't love it, I hung in there. My mind wanted to stop after 30 minutes, but because of the way the long run went on Sunday, I really want to hold myself to 45 minutes on the two short runs this week. So at the 30 minute mark, I started spontaneously making a list in my head of all the reasons why I was going to keep running tonight, and it turned out to be a really great tool. I'll have to remember that one. I finished in a good mood and had no problems with either my lungs or my left arch! In my book, that counts as a good session.

I feel like I'm going into June with some good momentum. I just have to keep building on that because things are going to get really crazy really quickly after June 7 when we hear definitively about Hans's new job. We will have only a few weeks to figure out whether we want to try to buy a house in Greensboro or go back to living in an apartment (we have been really spoiled by living in the townhouse here and the Queen Anne condo in Seattle, and really even by the townhouse apartment building we managed in Edmonds, and are having a difficult time thinking about high density apartment living again.), and what we're going to do about a second car. And packing. I escaped all the packing with the move from Seattle to Wake Forest because I was in Raleigh and the move was unexpected, so Hans took care of everything. This time, he may be in Seattle for training, which means the packing will fall to me. Hans is thinking this would be true justice and is hoping that if I have to pack everything, maybe I'll be inclined to throw or give away more things. Silly man.

I did a dumb, dumb thing
Mood:  not sure
Now Playing: Superior: The Inland Sea from the Great Lakes Suite by Dan Gibson
Topic: Marathon
In Pam Houston's Sight Hound, Rae's husband is always making up new lyrics for songs he already knows. If he were here, he would be singing, "Baby did a dumb, dumb thing" to the tune of Chris Isaak's "Baby Did a Bad, Bad Thing." I slept altogether too late today and by the time I had done yoga and got out to do my long run, it was hot. It was my first attempt at a long run with 2 minute run intervals, and, in spite of the heat, I thought I was going to be okay.

My lungs did great! I finally figured out how to get my heart rate monitor working again today and I watched it to see what my max looked like and to make sure I was recovering in a reasonable time on the walk breaks. On uphill runs, I maxed out at 172, mostly because I wouldn't let myself go any higher than that. After I hit it three times, I could tell by the way my body felt--slightly sick to my stomach--when I had reached it, and I would slow down to make sure I didn't exceed it. A long run in the heat isn't a time to push the heart rate.

Fifty-five minutes in, my mind was hating the whole experience. I was convinced that my body wasn't going to feel its usual relief at that point, but I made myself check in with my body anyway. I was amazed to discover that my body actually did seem to have reached the state of adjustment it typically finds several miles into my long sessions. My lungs were doing beautifully and the pain in my left arch seemed to have subsided. My legs felt strong, and I had found my rhythm. My mood started to pick up.

The next two run intervals were mostly downhill, but the third interval was all uphill. I hit 172, started feeling queasy, backed off, and then realized that I was also getting chills. Chills in that kind of heat are not a good thing. I walked another half mile to see if they subsided, but they didn't, and I decided to call it a day even though my heart rate was still recovering relatively quickly. Maybe I'm a wimp or just looking for an excuse to stop, but I couldn't see how heat stroke would benefit me.

No asthma attack when I finished--yay!--but the left arch started absolutely screaming the minute I stopped moving. Hans was worried I had a stress fracture, but finally, now, two hours later I can finally walk on it. When I stopped the run early this morning, I promised myself I would finish the last three miles tonight after the heat has passed. If the foot feels up to it, I will at least try to walk those three miles. And for next Sunday's ten-miler, I have to be up by 5:00 a.m. and out the door.

There are so many variables to try to manage and monitor without a coach....

Still Wheezing Along
Mood:  energetic
Now Playing: She's Got a Way by Billy Joel
Topic: Marathon
I've finally moved up from 20% running to 40%, meaning, I now run two minutes and then have a three minute walking recovery. What this often translates to, especially at the beginning of a session, is two minutes running, two minutes coughing, and one minute trying to catch my breath. It looks as though my lungs really are the limiting factor now, even though my left arch is still weak and giving me some pain. On this morning's short run, I had a mild asthma attack when I was finished. We're to the point in the season where it's hot in the middle of the day, but the pollen is very high in the mornings and evenings, so no matter what I do, my lungs are in trouble. Plus, on the short runs, which last from 30 to 45 minutes, I never get to the place where I'm really warmed up, which seems to take 50-60 minutes. My lungs loosened up pretty quickly this morning, though, and I have to believe it's better that I'm running and coughing than not running.

At any rate, I'm enjoying the running more this year than I have ever before, maybe because I'm taking it so slow and being careful not to overdo or burn out. I can almost see the day when I might feel as good about my running as I do about cycling or swimming.

Speaking of which, the neighborhood pool opened today for the season, so I'm thinking about trying to get in at least one early morning swim each week, maybe Saturday, and getting out for one early morning ride on the Rodriguez each week, maybe Friday. The cycling will help build my thigh muscles back up, which will be good for the running, without overtaxing the running muscles, and the swimming is good for my lungs and for keeping everything in alignment.

I can't believe it's nearly June! I'm so not ready for summer. But, ready or not....

!!!!
Mood:  on fire
Now Playing: You Inspire Me (album) by Curtis Stigers (yes, Keith, I'm in a jazz groove--I figure it'll take another week to recover!)
Topic: Writing
Okay, so I'm weak.

I sent the story by email to Scott and John last night before I finally dragged myself off to bed, but I haven't heard from either of them and I couldn't wait any longer. I asked Hans to read the story. He very sweetly agreed and promised that he would read it as the work of fiction it is intended to be (so as to avoid marital disharmony :) ).

Our ritual is that when we hand each other a manuscript to critique, we also hand over two pens--one with blue ink for comments in the margins, one with red ink for editor's marks (that is, one for big red slashes to show what absolutely MUST come out!). I set these things on the coffee table next to his place on the couch and went into the kitchen to give him space and to pretend that I don't get nervous any more when I've handed something off to him.

He spent so long with it--he's a very fast reader and it's only two and a half pages long--I was sure he was trying to find a nice way to tell me that after I bounced all day thinking I had broken new personal ground, I had in fact written a sucky piece of trite crap. But, at last, I heard him call out, "I think it's great. I think it might be the tightest, best thing you've ever shown me. You just need to get rid of the pinball reference because it doesn't work with all the gambling references." Then, after I silently shouted, "YES!!" he walked into the kitchen and started peeling a mango. He concluded, "I'll read it again, but at this point I can't even think of any places to make red marks."

His voice didn't have the same exuberance as it did when he told me my last story was the best I'd ever written, but that was ten years ago (GASP!!) and I'm sure the last ten years with me have beaten some of that exuberance out of him. This is still by far the highest praise I can get, from Hans or anyone, so I am majorly happy!!

I already had a question in my own mind about whether the pinball reference muddied the waters, so it won't be difficult to kill that darling. (I can save it for something else because Hans assures me it's not trite.) I need to rework that one image and find a title, and then it's time to move on to something else.

I can't believe it's been ten years since I finished a piece of short fiction! I've written a 420-page book manuscript in that time and a handful of essays and poems and trade journal articles and a bunch of newsletter copy, but I have a lot to learn about consistency. I've taken two solid years off since I moved to North Carolina and now it is time to finally get serious again.

But, for one more night, I will go to bed happy that I finished this particular story and that it doesn't suck! (In grad school, Michael and I agreed that if I ever went on tour, the posters would have to say, "and she doesn't suck.")

P.S. I got to see Curtis Stigers and Tri-Fi in concert last Thursday and again Saturday, and I can't get them out of my head! If you want to check them out, please do:

Curtis Stigers, www.curtisstigers.com,

Tri-Fi, www.tri-fi.com;

or you can check out the guys' music careers individually,

Matthew Fries, jazz pianist, www.matthewfries.com,

Phil Palombi, jazz bassist, www.philpalombi.com,

and the one closest to my heart, Keith Hall, jazz drummer, www.keithhallmusic.com.

These guys really swing!

Apparently, sublimation of sexual energy works, too
Mood:  incredulous
Topic: Writing
Wow! I had a really crazy day with unfocused energy spilling out of me in every direction. It was a struggle to focus at work at all, and I have to get that under control quick because, as always, there is a ton to do and, with the holiday coming, this week would be a good week to get caught up.

I came home tonight wanting to do something with all the energy, and since it was thundering and pouring down a really cold rain and I didn't have the fortitude to go for a run, I sat down at the computer and wrote for thirty minutes before going downstairs to make dinner. Then, after watching the season finale of The Medium on DVR, I came back upstairs and wrote for another two hours.

I went back to a short story I started on my trip to Mackinac last year after a discussion I had with Tad. I had written about a page and a half of it and was convinced that it was going to be a short-short, in part because at 700 words, I couldn't figure out how to move it forward any further. So the story (still untitled) has sat on my desktop for the past ten months without any work being done on it. Tonight, I tried to tell myself I only needed to write one paragraph. It didn't even need to be the next paragraph or a paragraph that stayed. I just needed to pursue an idea, any idea, to find movement again. Anne Lamott's encouragement in Bird by Bird to write shitty first drafts and to write small chunks just to keep writing came back to me over and over, and somehow my own words came.

I finished a first draft! It's only about 1,047 words right now after I managed to whittle about sixty words out of it. I know, it's weird for me to be worrying about taking words out rather than putting them in, but I really think this might be my first successful short-short, and I may need to find a way to carve away another 47 words.... It's another relationship story (surprise, surprise) told in second person present tense--again--but this time the "you" it addresses is male instead of female. I'm amazed and happy to say that I have a first draft of anything at this point, and I'm especially happy to have brought this idea around!

The next step is to figure out who I can show the draft to. Usually Hans sees everything first. This time, though, because of the subject matter--an adulterous kiss--it may be better if I save showing it to him until I have some idea of the story's merit. No need bringing up any unfounded worries about our relationship in his mind if the story sucks! I probably should show it to a woman first, but I don't really have any established reader/writer relationships with my few female friends. So it's just a matter of which male friend I'm going to stick with the task....

Random Craziness
Mood:  not sure
Now Playing: Footloose by Kenny Loggins
Topic: Daily Eruptions
Only I could go to a book fair and leave with the contact information for two therapists! One is a psychic, the other is a hypnotherapist. I'm considering seeing them both, the hypnotherapist first to work on my eating disorder, then the psychic therapist to work on long-term patterns, especially pertaining to relationships and perfectionism and my need to always be in control. I need to look into whether my health insurance would cover either of these, and, if not, I probably won't be able to make an appointment with either woman until the end of the summer after we move to Greensboro (it looks like this is going to happen in June or July) and we see what money looks like.

Saturday's book fair was weird in other ways, too. I may have made some good contacts for Sudie, and maybe one or two other good contacts for myself, but I didn't sell anything. I spent the whole eight hours trying to exude an air of approachability and friendliness to entice people standing in the middle of the room to actually come to the table. I couldn't even get people to take free postcards or sign up for a raffle of one of Sudie's prints. Very odd!

The coolest part was learning about the large number of small presses operating around the Triangle. Several of the other exhibiting presses were also home-based, and by comparison, we were large because, with two people, we were twice the size of the others! And I met a very inspiring twenty-two year old woman who is graduating from college this month and opening her own used bookstore next month!

Overall, though, a very draining experience. It probably didn't help that I'd thrown my body chemistry out of whack with a three day binge leading up to the event. I had been eating low-fat vegan brownies (made with white flour), pizza--with cheese, meat, and white flour--at Brendan's birthday party and again the next day when Sudie and I met Anna (my predecessor at Winged Willow Press) for lunch, and caffeinated Mountain Dew. There is some part of my brain that is truly defective--when I was thinking about the Mountain Dew, I looked first for caffeine-free, but when I didn't find it, I promised myself that I would drink the caffeinated stuff early enough in the day that it wouldn't interfere with my sleep. But, what I have proven to myself over and over again, and what I forget over and over again, is that caffeine is bad for me, not so much because it messes with my sleep, but because it messes with my emotions. It sounds insane, but when I have caffeine in my body, I am much more likely to have mood swings. Especially scary is that I am also more likely to get attacked by free-floating guilt. I suddenly start feeling like a total degenerate--like I've done something terrible to someone--but I have no idea what that something was.

The binge continued through the weekend, with more pizza, Mountain Dew, chocolate, ice cream, and donuts. Basically, I hit everything on my prohibited list. When I tried to join Overeaters Anonymous in Los Angeles, I couldn't take it. Going to meetings sent me into horrible binges and crying fits and amplified the behavior I was trying to stop. Plus, it made me angry to have to give control of what I put in my body to someone else. Reading Passing for Thin has helped me understand the OA process a little better, though, and helped me acknowledge the depth of my problem and that the behavior has reached a dangerous level. I have found two meetings in Raleigh, and I may have to break down and actually go. So much in my life is getting better right now, it's hard to think about putting myself through that level of pain. I do understand now, however, the necessity of creating that prohibited list, and I also understand that there is no room for flexibility where it is concerned. My plan to have one day a month where I could eat whatever I want won't work. The minute I make one exception, I've triggered the binge and it will be days before I get back on track. Somehow, I have to create a mental world in which I absolutely understand that Mountain Dew, chocolate, cheese, and white flour are absolutely toxic substances inside my body. It sounds so simple, yet it's so complicated. Following the diet controls the eating disorder but triggers other control and perfection issues--it's all such a mess!

Last night was a new moon, and I woke up this morning with no feelings of guilt over the binge and a renewed level of energy. It looks like maybe I haven't caught Hans's sinus infection afterall, and I'm feeling better physically than I have in a week. I've managed to reign in the food stuff, too. I printed out a blank page for my diet log this morning and have dutifully recorded every bite. So far, I've stuck to Dean Ornish's rules and avoided everything on my personal "prohibited" list--it helps that I don't have a car on Mondays. My next step is to make lunch for tomorrow so I don't find myself pulling into a drive-thru and figuring out whether I should go to the OA meeting tomorrow night. I really don't want to have to go the OA route, but it may be necesssary.

Procrastination Pays Off
Mood:  celebratory
Topic: Writing
I may have finally found the tool to get me writing every day! Typically, I have a feeling in my body that says I want to write, but that feeling gets drowned out by all the voices in my head that say I don't have anything to write about, and even if I did, nothing I wrote would be any good. So I find ways to procrastinate. I especially like it when Hans turns on a recorded episode of Charlie Rose just as I'm heading up the stairs to the computer and I hear a voice or a sentence that interests me and end up sitting on the couch for an hour watching the root-of-all-evil-machine that sits above our fireplace.

But, tonight, I need to be doing work to get ready for a book fair where I'm representing Winged Willow Press tomorrow, and, while I came home and marched right upstairs without even getting dinner first, it is now 9:10 p.m. and I have yet to do any real work.

First, I wrote an email to Kathy who sounded a little overwhelmed and depressed the last time she and I talked. In the email, I told her about a silly exercise I did once to make myself feel better when I was feeling depressed and had very low self-esteem. So I had to go find the journal in which I had written the exercise. Then, I got sucked into reading the journal, or at least the first half, which was about all of the events in my life that had led me to that particular dark place. Now, I was depressed. All the things that had made me feel small and sick to my stomach all those years ago, still made me feel small and sick tonight. I went downstairs in search of a man to hug me, and Hans, with no complaint, got up from his episode of Charlie Rose and indulged me, which made Kaija jealous. Hans picked her up and we made a Kaija sandwich, which made her happy and helped me, too.

When I came back upstairs to my office, my mind was still in procrastination mode, however, and I suddenly felt an urge to write down a scene I'd been imagining today. It is a very small scene that involves only about four lines of dialogue between two people who haven't seen each other in a long time and is something of a stereotype reversal. I gave myself 10 minutes to write down the bare bones skeleton of it, just so I wouldn't forget it, and told myself I would get to work immediately after.

I wrote for an hour and ten minutes.

So, the key to getting myself to write is to bring home work that I want to avoid doing!

The work isn't difficult or scary, but I put in a crazy day today chasing lots of details in lots of directions, and, as Chad insists, I probably have ADD anyway. (Go Bouncing Brains!)

Somehow, the scene actually became a story. It started out with me writing it as though it were stage direction, describing a man and a woman, without giving them names, and the scene in which they were meeting. But then I started going into backstory, filling in details that described their overall relationship and the last time they saw each other and hitting highlights that brought it to the present moment with the man standing outside the woman's hotel room door about to knock. It's a shitty first draft that jumps tense like crazy, but it's three pages and there are a few sentences and some images that are inspired. And, in my typical form, I had to go and make it difficult. At some point I realized I was writing a story. Then I realized that it was actually going to be possible to write the whole story referring to the characters as only the man and the woman and he and she. Then I realized it was going to be possible to write the whole story about the man and the woman in present tense. Sure, it's not my signature second person present tense, but it's difficult and crazy anyway.

And I'm very happy to be writing again! So far this week these are just little pieces here and there that may not go anywhere, but the writing muscles are being used! Life is being lived! I am being me.

Stray thought: Should I refer to my office as a studio, instead?

Done gone 'round the bend
Mood:  caffeinated
Now Playing: The Geeks Get the Girls by American Hi-Fi
Topic: Daily Eruptions
The lines may be clearly drawn between me and most of the rest of the world, but where they're drawn may be up for debate!

I commute by car more than 100 miles per day four days a week in the "country's worst non-urban traffic" (don't give me crap about the environmental impact of this because I hate it, I'm working on it, and if I could stop tomorrow I would, but so far, there's no way around it), and it is not a secret to anyone who knows me that I am prone to little fits of road rage. I've even taken a test put out by my car insurance company, and it's a good thing no one saw the results but me, because I think I answered "yes" to 7 out of 10 questions. I don't remember exactly what that means, just that I was in the serious road-rager category. Thankfully, in the last month, I've started using highways instead of the I-40 freeway, and my level of tension has eased up some, and my speed has backed down by about 10 miles per hour.

However, I am not completely cured because the same day I found myself singing outside the post office, I also caught myself yelling at a pigeon that wouldn't get out of the road. I was doing about 15 miles an hour on a little-used street in downtown Durham, and the pigeon was squarely in the middle of my lane pecking at something flat and yellow on the blacktop. I had to come to a complete stop about ten feet from it before the bird finally decided to slowly waddle out of my lane into the oncoming traffic lane. I watched my hands rise from the steering wheel, palms facing the heavens, as the words, "Come on, come on! Haven't you ever heard of flyin'?" escaped from my mouth.

Yeah, clearly drawn.

L-O-L-A, Lola
Mood:  happy
Topic: Daily Eruptions
I had a difficult time falling asleep last night for the first time in months, and just as I was getting drowsy I got a phone call from someone looking for Charles (a wrong number, for anyone who doesn't know).... I woke up this morning with a headache and still feeling exhausted. I skipped my morning weight routine (have to make that up tonight), and was worried that my day was getting off on the wrong foot, as it so often does.

After I dropped Hans off at work, I decided to stop at the Durham post office because they open at 7:30 and the one I use for work in Carrboro doesn't open until 8:30. Monica, the clerk--who even remembered my name (how's that for USPS customer service?!)--and I had a nice little chat about my new job, and I left feeling lighter and happy to have made that slight connection with someone.

Back outside on the sidewalk, however, I got the weirdest look from a man in a blue business suit who looked to be in his mid-thirties. It only took a second for me to realize that I, in my jeans and purple t-shirt (we're celebrating Brendan's fourth birthday tonight and purple is his favorite color), had just skipped down the ten steps leading out of the post office singing Lola, out loud. You know, "...can't understand why she walked like a woman and talked like a man; oh my Lola, L-O-L-A, Lola...." I started laughing, but the man just kept walking. I've been in the best mood ever since!

When I was 22 and working for U.S. PIRG in Washington, D.C., I used to love the mornings when I got to deliver information to the offices in the Dirksen Senate Building. I felt very powerful to be bouncing in and out of government buildings wearing my jeans with gaping holes in the knees and an Earth Day t-shirt while everyone else was wearing the Hill Uniform, a blue suit with a wide-striped tie. The lines were so clearly drawn. I realized this morning that they still are.