Is this the real life

22 05 2013

I’m so late.

With the edits on Home Away Home, that is. Some time ago K. had expressed interest in the manuscript—she’d liked  The Unexpected Neighbor*—and I said, Ah, yeah, okay, as soon as I give it one last go around.

And then I did nothing.

K. bugged me, and I said Yeah yeah—I know, how awful that someone wants to read your work!—and did nothing. Repeat. And then I thought, Huh, I should get this done.

I made it easier by editing it section by section and sending those off to K. Some sections required sanding, others, sawing, but edits for one through five went pretty well.

And then I got busy with ghosting and grading and in the meantime K. was reading what I’d sent and then she finished and said, Hey. . . and I said Two weeks. And then did nothing.

Well, not exactly nothing: I started with the edits and again with the sanding and sawing and then I hit a point at which I realized Oh, crap, I’m gonna need a bigger saw, and stepped off.

I’ve stepped back up, proceeding bit by bit, but MAN do I have to dial it back. Both The Unexpected Neighbor and Home Away Home are dialogue-heavy and both suffer from the same defect: my tendency to make the characters too knowing.

Actually, it’s not just that they’re too knowing; it’s that this knowingness gets in the way of realistic dialogue. Now, were I writing a mannered piece, this wouldn’t be an issue, but the characters of both of these novels inhabit worlds I’d like readers to recognize; thus, they have to sound like real people.

I don’t mind that I over-write on the first draft; what I do mind is that it’s not until many drafts later that I manage to pare it back. I don’t know what I’m doing on those other drafts—it’s not as if these two works are plot-heavy—but apparently I can’t see the over-knowing dialogue until after I’ve worked everything else out.

Presuming, that is, that I’ve worked everything else out. . . .

~~~

*Click on that link and it’ll take you to Smashwords, where you can buy the novel for the princely sum of 3 bucks! Half the cost of a pint of Guinness! Less than a latte! Totally worth it!


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Back to where you once belonged

20 05 2013

Caught spinning, once again.

I’m not sure why: the semester is ending and I’m scheduled to teach both summer sessions, but something feels. . . off. Unmoored.

This makes no sense. Yes, I’ll have a bit of time before classes begin, but I feel that same sense of drift I’ve had something has ended and there’s nothing else to begin. I hate this feeling; I dread this feeling.

It’s as if I’m cycling around and around, moving, but stuck all the same.

It’s about money. It’s about career. It’s about commitment. It’s about discipline. It’s about every god-damned thing it’s been about every god-damned previous cycle.

I wrote a piece a few weeks ago about my friend M. and her need to go back and around with her cruddy boyfriend again and again until she managed to set herself free.

At least she stretched herself with each go-around; at least she tried.

I’m tethered to nothing and no one and all I do is go around and around anyway.

I’m going to have to stick to something if I am to get unstuck.


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Lord, I was born a ramblin’ man

13 05 2013

So, shit happened and it wasn’t awful and it wasn’t unexpected but it’s still shit and I need to just deal with it but before I deal with it I need to breathe and say Yep, shit happened and it wasn’t awful and it wasn’t unexpected and it can in fact be dealt with and I will in fact deal with it but first I need to breathe.

Oh, and when NPR tells you that the story about rhinoceros horn smuggling includes audio that might upset some listeners TURN THAT SHIT OFF or you will end up listening to a rhino crying as it tries to escape poachers and goddammit a crying rhino will ruin your whole damned evening and make your anti-capital-punishment self want to kill every last poacher if that’s what needs to be done to save the rhinos and elephants and lions and tigers and bears.

Oh my.


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Ok computer

11 05 2013

You know how there are things you know you should do because if you don’t do them you’re fucked but you still don’t do them anyway?

Yeah, well, I have plenty o’ experience with that little run-in scenario.

This time around, it was backing up my computer hard drive.

I used to be a champion backer-upper: When I was writing my dissertation I heard a horror story of someone losing a chapter or half her dissertation or something similarly terrifying, so I had copies of copies of copies. I had those crappy little 3 1/2 inch disks in my office, my book bag, at home—and I made print copies (which I kept in various places), just in case.

It was fine.

My next computer had a zip drive (remember those?)—which did me no good when my computer was swiped, because I hadn’t backed up the hard drive between the August purchase and November burglary. I still had all of the disks from copying everything from my old computer, so it’s not like I lost all of my work, but I had done a fair amount of tedious database work which was lost.

Still, when I got the replacement computer, I remembered to back things up. And some time after I moved to Somerville I got an external hard drive and backed stuff on that fairly regularly.

Until it died. Then I putzed about getting another one. I did, finally, then putzed about actually using it, then actually used it. I kept it close so I’d remember to back stuff up regularly, but, you know, I. . . didn’t. Oh, I used it, but not nearly as often as I should have.

Well, I did a disk defrag recently and thought, huh, it’s been awhile since backed my shit up—I oughtta get on that.

And I didn’t.

Then a coupla’ weeks ago my computer began having issues with trying to install an update and thought, Huh, I oughtta back my shit up, just in case.

And I didn’t.

And then a coupla’ days I had that issue with transferring photos from my camera and. . . you know what happened: squat.

So, this afternoon I was on my computer and had a nice long chat with my friend L. on Skype, which meant I’d plugged in my nifty Logitech camera. No problems. I wasn’t feeling great afterwards, so decided to take a nap; when I awoke, I assembled some of my DELICIOUS mushroom-tofu burritos, lifted some weights, showered, then turned on the computer for a delightful evening of Hulu-watching.

You know what happens.

I will spare you all of the details, save the main one: the damned thing wouldn’t move beyond the “Welcome” screen. Repair, restart, stuck. Shut down, start, stuck. Repeat until you’re sick of it, then repeat some more.

Then I thought to get out my netbook and look up what might be the problem, found and tried this and that, then the other thing, then each and all of them again, then something else, then the things I’d done before, and at some point I thought, Hm, I should e-mail GeekHiker with an SOS.

I’m sure he wouldn’t have laughed—much—over the age and un-Apple-ness of my laptop before or while helping me. Still, I thought there was more I could try.

I got information like “memory .DMP in index $I30 of file 449 incorrect” and “The instruction at 0x773D1bcb referenced memory at 0x.00000000. The memory could not be read” and “Bad Image C:\Windows\System32\BCMLogon.dll not designed to run on computer or contains an error” and “System volume is corrupt file system repair completed successfully Error code =0x0 Time takes 271005 ms.”

I have no idea what this means except that it is not good that I am getting these messages.

Anyway, the Windows Support site was actually useful, cluing me into the secret that if you hit F8 just as the computer is booting up you get to these options which just might save you a trip to the computer repair store. More clicking around and trying this and that and nothing working and thinking, Shit, what about a Windows Restore and/or something about mirror imaging?

I was leery, however, because your disk wipes itself before recovering and replacing the wiped info. You do get walked through the steps and can say no before hitting Go, but, man, that seemed extreme.

So I thought I’d try System Restore again. I had tried it before, but thinking it wasn’t working I clicked on it again and it got huffy and “exited the program.” Well, what the hell: I did the same thing again (including clicking on it again), and while I got the exit message, the program nonetheless proceeded to run.

Yay!

I picked the earliest date I could (April 10) because, ah, shit, reasons, but it didn’t want to go back to April 10, so I tried April 24. And it ran. And it completed. And it restarted.

And it booted past the Welcome window! Whoo hoo!

The first thing I did?

Plugged in that hard drive and backed my shit up.

Happy ending, five hours later. I’ll take what I can get.


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Little boxes on the hillside

9 05 2013

Underground living is probably the way to go—environmentally speaking, that is.

The earth is a great insulator, the joint will be cooler in summer and if you install a decent heating system, you’ll probably do all right in the winter.

Well, you will. Not me.

I was checking out the houses here, and my first thought was. . . No.

The Cooper Point House might be livable, but those other underground joints? Nuh-uh: I’d be buggers before the week ended.

It’s silly, actually, not least because I live in an apartment with windows only on one side (again, one of my few good memories of Somerville was my apartment, which took up the entire second floor of a house and oh, glory had windows on all sides), so, really, what’s the difference between my third floor apartment and the same thing, below grade?

Um, that it’s below grade!

No, really, I don’t know why that bothers me so much, but I have it on good authority—past freakout—that it would, in fact, freak me out. My first apartment in Albuquerque was a newly-redecorated basement apartment (windows on two sides, even!) and I had to move out, losing my deposit and the rest of that month’s rent, less than two weeks later.

I felt like I was in a tomb.

Okay, the gigantic flying cockroaches didn’t help, but, hey, it was Albuquerque, and (as I discovered just a wee too late), those suckers were everywhere. No, it was living underground, and going to bed every night in a room with no fucking windows at all. (Yes, I kept the bedroom door open and no, it didn’t make a difference.) I decompensated.

Now, I can hang out in basements and have tipped a few pints at below-grade bars, but, as with SmallTown, I can handle that because I don’t have to live there.

If the post-apocalyptic world requires us all to live in caves, I am well and truly fucked.

Give me a treehouse any time.


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And the wheel goes round and round

27 04 2013

Long ago my friend M. loved a man well and a little too hard, and he loved her testily and made her think it was her own fault he loved her so meanly.

They dated, they broke up, they dated, they broke up, they dated, they broke up, until, finally, the break-up took. Each time around she thought it might be better and each time around she learned it would not; each time around she knew a little bit more and each time around it wasn’t enough; each time around the chances grew longer and the payoffs got smaller until, finally, she turned out her empty pockets and him along with them and walked away for good.

At the time, her friends and I despaired of this relationship, thinking M. was throwing herself at a man who would only catch her when it suited him, at a man who called this occasional attention “love”. She was caught in his inattention, tripping from hurt to hurt until he would remember and hold out his hand and that would be enough.

We thought she couldn’t see this, but, with each round, she saw more and more, and with each round, she moved the lack a little bit away from her and a little bit toward him until, finally, she could see he would never be enough.

We wanted each ending to be the last, but M. needed those beginnings until, finally, she needed the ending more.

I think now she had to go around and around, that instead of spiraling down and down she was gathering momentum with each widening turn, stretching out her need and her love until, finally, instead of snapping her back it snapped and she was free.

~~~

This post was originally headed in another direction, but I got caught up and decided to follow M. Oh, and while her ex was a jerk, he was never anything worse than that.


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A big hard sun

9 04 2013

April 9 in New York: 84 degrees.

God help me.

Could I hope for some kind of cataclysmic event which doesn’t kill or hurt anyone, doesn’t pollute the air, and otherwise does not interfere with air travel, transportation, or agriculture—and which just happens to cloud up the sky all summer long?

Too much?

Shit.


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Snap that thing thread, cont.

1 04 2013

There is one area in which I’ve never been good, will never be good, and. . . I don’t mind.

I’m talkin’ ’bout writing, specifically, deadline-oriented writing. I always wait until the latest possible moment to start something, and I always pull it off.

Always: there may have been times in which I didn’t, or turned out something so terrible that I might as well have burned past the due date, but excepting those few moments of freak out (paralysis in assembling an undergrad policy paper) or granted-ahead-of-time extension (grad human rights paper), I git ‘er done.

Now, latest possible moment doesn’t mean last possible minute. A research paper requires, duh, research, and the latest possible moment for a long and complicated piece might be, say, a week or two, while the lead time for a short and simple piece is a day or two. The point is that I’ll almost always have more time than a day or week or two, but will wait until I can feel the deadline before cracking open the word processor.

I have no control over when that feeling arrives. I’ve mentioned previously that I am not a particularly intuitive person and I don’t trust my gut, but this is not anything I’ve been to reason my way through. I can tell myself Get to work!, but unless that stress switch gets flipped by something beyond my comprehension, it ain’t happening.

And I’m fine with that.

That might be the one thing which distinguishes my writing procrastination from every other kind of procrastination: the stress is productive, creative, even. It’s not necessarily a pleasant experience—long days fixated on a required task are rarely pleasant—but I don’t hate it, either. Instead of anxiety scattering my mind, the pressure charges my concentration. I don’t lose focus—I gain it.

Like I said, I don’t know why or how this works for me, I just know that it does, and have been taking advantage of this. . . skill (?) for as long as I’ve had writing due.

~~~

. . . Which is another way of stating I’m up against a ghosting deadline, and may be a spectral presence on this blog for the next week.


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Snap that thin thread

29 03 2013

I used to be so good.

Not my character or morals, no: I used to be so good about staying on top of things.

“Things”, y’know, basic life-things. Bills, paperwork, returning calls—all of those miscellaneous and mostly mindless tasks which are a price of living in society.

Then, at some point, I wasn’t.

Don’t know exactly when it happened—I recall even well into my depressive cups I managed to deal with insurance and student loans and whatnot—but at some point I just gave up. It’s not that I suddenly stopped taking care of these tasks, but that I lost the sense that it made sense to stay ahead of them.

No, wait, that’s not right: I never lost the sense that it made sense. No, what I lost was. . . the will? the habit? of proper task management. It’s as if once that rubber band snapped, I no longer knew how to keep my shit together, and was reduced to denial, dread, and oh-shit last-minute scatter-shot toss-offs.

I get it done, but in the worst way possible.

This is no way to be an adult human being. It’d be one thing if the whirlwind approach didn’t bother me, but those small to-dos just grow and grow and grow in the middle of my chest* until they crack my ribs and leave me panting for air. I am so anxious about dealing with the things when they’re small that I can’t deal with them until they’re big, at which point my sleep is punctured and concentration swiss-cheesed.

You’d think that knowing how badly I react to stretching a task out I’d hop to it immediately, but it’s almost as if the anticipation of the late-anxiety rebounds backwards into a show-stopping early anxiety—which, because it’s early, I’m able to suppress, albeit with ever-decreasing success. By the end, the stress of the task is magnified by the looming deadline, and I’m left, well, sleep-deprived and wild-eyed.

No, it’s not everything: the more routine the task, the more habitual my response, but even there, I’m not as automatic as I used to be. I know what I have to do, but that knowledge is only sketchily linked to the doing.

And that, frankly, sucks. I know that there are things from the past which are gone, gone, gone daddy gone, but it would nice if I could get this particular mojo back.

~~~

*Yes, I finally did that thing. Not at the actual last-minute, but damned close.


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You’re going to carry that weight

15 03 2013

I dunnae understannit.

A month or so ago I was feeling fine—no anxiety, no dread—even though I knew I needed to pick up more work.

And then I picked up more work, so: mo’ better good!

But in the last coupla’ weeks, I’ve had this tight weight pressing down upon and squeezing my sternum.

That’s not what I don’t get: I know exactly why my torso is collapsing, as well as how to heave that ho offa me.

No, what I don’t get is why I don’t do what I need to do. It ain’t much—a bit of paperwork, an e-mail, maybe a phone call—but I don’t do it. Fifteen, thirty minutes, and I’m done. But I don’t do it.

I don’t do it.

Criminy.


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