Meanwhile, back on the ranch . . . .

So in addition to the muddle, muck and mire that makes up the end of the school year, I’m trying to see if I can write/create a new genre of fiction.

I have always been peripherally attracted to Southern Gothic {not in the Romantic Vein, (world’s worst adult toy shop.) Isn’t my use of internal bracketing amazing (speaking of bad adult toys)? }

I enjoy Faulkner and Flannery O’Connor; I realize that these two are more Southern Grim than Southern Gothic.  Still, both types make me think of Humidity and Bourbon (I think that’s a new drink at a Hipster bar)

At any rate, one of they key features of Southern Gothic is an element of the supernatural whilst the protagonist, antagonist and others languish in the heat and stupidity of the South.

My second novel (in process when I’m not shepherding sixth graders, apparently for the love of the game and not any fiduciary recompense. Don’t I have a great vocabulary?I’m ever so smart; still a chump, but smart.) The novel is told in bits and pieces from different, fictional secondary prose, such as police reports, recordings etc, is about the aftermath of four adult children of abusive parents wreaking their final revenge.

I’m considering turning it into Gothic via a Deus ex Machina in the guise of a Latina psychic. It’s just a thought. It’s probably transference of my hope for divine intervention to get out of my current set of trials and tribulations. (I wish I could sing the song from  Jesus Christ Superstar, but that musical gives Batman a pyschotic episode, which leads me to another tangent: Why I’m frustrated by the TV show, This is Us,

First and foremost is that fact that I have a blind spot of rage for actor Milo Ventimiglia. It’s because of his character in Gilmore Girls. He was the selfish, slightly oily, Jess, who Rory should never have picked over Dean.

I digress. (What shock!) While This is Us is a good series, it makes me flurb a bit because the whole show is all peaks; it’s all about Grand Gestures, there are precious few valleys and it’s hard to keep a pace like that. Or maybe it’s because I don’t think I will ever get a grand gesture for myself.

I’m not sure what kind of gesture that would be, exactly, but I do know that I may be at that age where most of the people I am close to are just exhausted by life and the grand gestures they performed have kind of fizzled away.

Unless, of course, BatCat, Frances in all of her relentless affection may wander in here to my classroom and throw herself at me; all of her ginger catly glory forcing me to the ground.

Of course how could a cat get 20 miles south, without a car or drivers license, not to mention open three sets of doors. Those are just details.

But wouldn’t it be grand?

Inspire to greatness

As I have mentioned, I usually suffer from Writer’s Balk, not Writer’s Block, meaning that I usually know what I want to write about, and usually have a project or three going, but can’t get moving.

It is rare that I can’t find something to I feel needs my personal brand of snark and emotion (World’s worst body splash, created by the maker’s of Love’s Baby soft, especially for teens.)

There is plenty going on around me. I just spent 244 dollars to get the shower in the front bathroom fixed so Big Kid doesn’t have to bathe on the lawn (Although the destroyed pool in the backyard could be converted into a cold, extremely cold mud bath, but then he would have to be hosed off on the lawn.)

I could write a running commentary on the dearth of destruction surrounding me, but really it’s too depressing and I can’t blaze out on Klonopin; I have things to do. My Amanda Friend, AOG, and Tall Boy are coming over to help organize things. I am going to try not to super stress about it.

I tried, and it sort of worked. I didn’t super stress, and things got done. I know I needed to have someone who wasn’t attached to the things and the level of stagnation that exists in various spots in my house. My office is now clean, and the only thing I really stressed about and continue to stress about is the pool. Every six minutes (I’m not kidding) I went outside and restarted the pool pump, because for some reason I don’t want to start my own strain of the West Nile virus in the back yard.

And then there’s the right now: I’m sitting in my really clean office listing to the Indigo Girls while scanning an article about TV reunion shows. Like how the cast of Gilligan’s Island got rescued and hated it. The only thing that makes me think of is how I was married for five years longer than the castaways were stranded.

I totally did not mean for that to be a metaphor or anything. (My Freudian slip is NOT showing!)

I think it best that I not let my casual observations inspire me. Except for characters. I have no idea where they come from.  The just appear.  Any other time I let the mood grab me, I write “Gate” instead if “Cat” Which of course makes me wonder if my cat, Samantha, is secretly a portkey into another dimension.  That would explains why she jumps and stares at shadows and is suspicious of everyone. Can you imagine? You are just hanging around living your catly life and someone scoops you up and suddenly they and you are somewhere else. HMMM Samantha does hate being picked up and it would explain how that obscene t-shirt got into my office. Along with the other random crap that populates my house causing me to need a while team of detached personages to help my tidy-up.

And we’re back.

Is Controlled Panic a thing?

I am lamentatious that my cat will never know the joy of reaching into a heap of clean laundry and pulling out a perfectly matched pair of socks. I sang about the socks while sprinting around the room in hopes of sharing the joy with her, but she did not appreciate it.

Thus the tone is set for the day.

I got up about two hours earlier than usual because I’m trying to get back on a regular schedule. (I still don’t have a job, but I am so mired in delusion that I want to make an active contribution.) I don’t know where to start or where to begin on today’s activities. I certainly have plenty to do. The house is still in it’s ususal state; I still don’t give a teeny tiny little rats behind. (Although I have put out strategically placed bowls of borax in hopes of killing all of my insects and other forms of pestilence.  I have no idea if rodentia are at all affected by borax, but at least they will leave little footprints so I will know where they have been.)

I know I need to wade through the crap in my office because I will probably need to print out some things, and if I don’t get a job, I will need to freelance in order to eke by, so I will definitely need to do some actual work in there.

I need to take some stuff back to the library, I also need to pick up the refills of my extra potent anti-freak meds, because I suspect this week will be primed for freaking. I also need to walk my 10,000 steps. (For me, it’s to rebuild my stamina for racing around all day like a fiend, becasue that’s how I teach. There I go, actively deluding again.)

I’m just trying to control the panic; I don’t want to use it all up this early in the week.

That’s still the problem

I’m mad at my cat. Samantha is a calico who is more meatloaf than cat.  She is about 12 years old.  I have no idea how old she is because, like everything else in my life, there is a long insane story about how she came to live with me.  She was spoiled before she got to me and I have done nothing to change her sense of entitlement. She was declawed, badly, so she sometimes minces around and I feel bad for her pain and lack of grace so I give her extra skritches.  Last year she got out of the house and had an altercation with some wild animal and had to have surgery. Twelve hundred dollars worth of surgery.  Yet I have deemed her worthy because she misses me when I’m gone and gives me kitty kisses and purrs charmingly and looks at me adoringly.

She also stands on my face in the morning when I want to sleep in and licks the wall behind me if I don’t get up when she wants me to feed her.

This is all par for the kitty course.

I am mad at her because she was about to relieve herself in the plants. Usually I can scream,”Samantha! Get out the plants!” and she will race off and ignore me for the rest of the day.  Yesterday she did not run off. She merely put her two front feet in the plants for balance, cast me a look of feline disdain and then proceeded to pee on the floor. Then she raced away.

I was not happy and let her know of my displeasure by ignoring her plaintive wails as she looked pointedly at her food dish. (She had food!)  Late last night, she crawled into bed with me and rested her head charmingly on my shoulder and purred.

I get it her logic; it’s a new day, I’m not mad at her yet.

I was trying to start out on a new paw (foot) and as I was struggling to find the right philips screwdriver. (Really, why don’t they tell you on the outside of the package that you will need a smaller than average screwdriver to get to the battery compartment which you also didn’t know you had to deal with, all to provide temporary lighting for the back bathroom because the whole back of the house needs to be rewired and you don’t happen to have a year’s salary just hanging around to deal with that, and if you did, you would maybe take a year to write. ) I found her favorite, mouse shaped laser pointer.  She usually loves this thing. I flashed the infuriating red dot on the floor in her line of vision.

She gave  me a look that clearly said, “Bitch Please.”

I took this as a sign to just flail around in the dim for another day.

Which also means I didn’t get much studying and only got as far in my purgatorial proof as heckling the things in the 500’s section of my branch library.

I also looked up extinction in the catalog. I was kind of zinging around on a chocolate covered espresso bean high.  Which did not kill the dinosaurs, or the plants.

And we’re back.

Foe-Cuss

I try to censor myself, I really do, but sometimes I just can’t help it. Fortunately for me, I spend a lot of time at home. (Not in a sad-someone-help-me-I’m-turning-into-a-hermit-please-intervene-so- I don’t-fuse-myself-to –the –couch-with-my-sadness kind of way, but in a work from home and I’m kind of broke right now because my husband’s affair has had a trickle-down effect on my personal economy and I can’t afford to do much kind of way.)

All of that means that I don’t have to censor myself a lot of the time so I just curse at will. This is coming in handy because current events certainly warrant streams, nay floods of profanity. I’m starting to run out of quality verbage. My favorite, “Bitch-cat, son of a whore!” is best used for a direct personal hit.

I am lucky that I have not personally been hit by the latest national cataclysmic catastrophe. I have limited amounts of cash-flow right now, but my mortgage is paid and there is food in my house. Today my biggest problem is that I stepped in cat barf with my bare foot.  (The cat looked at me as if to say, “hey, I didn’t yak on the carpet, what do you want from me?”)

There’s a lot of grim right now. Yesterday I went to a Substitute teacher hiring cattle call. This was to process the paperwork for a large number of applicants at a time.  I was shocked and amazed by the number of adults who can’t follow simple directions. Okay, not really amazed, but shocked that these people are going to be a direct link between education and student.   Later in the day, I had a job interview. This job will involve me working with autistic students one on one.  Both of these jobs address what I call (Actually Dr. Bailey on Grey’s Anatomy said it first.) The Right Now Plan. That means I will have the opportunity to have an immediate impact on a student’s life that day.   I really hope I get the non-substitute job.

The Right Now Plan resonates with me today as I scan the news hopefully, wanting to see that the government is no longer shut down and that someone has waved a magic wand and resolved the new problems and is now working on the old ones.

No such luck.

Today the news feeds have stories of people who are impacted Right Now by this shutdown.

Military families are facing a cost of living increase because the Military Base Commissaries are shut down. This may not seem like a big deal, but some furloughed workers are now having to face increased food costs while they try to handle life without a paycheck.

Food banks are faced with an increase in clients as more families will be relying on donations to try and feed everyone.

Right Now, there is no end in sight.

I can’t think of anything bad enough to say about that.

What do you think?

It’s going to be a strange day. I woke up with that damn Miley Cyrus song in my head and a cat standing on my face.  (Some people get to wake up with a song in their heart. I have to overachieve.) 

Later today I will be attending a memorial service for another of my far too young friends. She died in a car accident last week.

That’s plenty jarring on it’s own. 

The Daily Skimm (newsletter that gives you the basics of what’s going on with an easy to understand breakdown.) It is indeed possible that the federal government will shut down on October 1st. That’s Tuesday. It is indeed possible :

THE STORY: Congress has still not passed a budget. The government will still shut down on Oct. 1st if it does not reach an agreement. Still. No. Deal.

STOP EXAGGERATING, IT CAN’T JUST SHUT DOWN. Yes, it can. If you’re a federal worker, you may have time off but don’t bother going to a national park or landmark. Because they’ll be closed. And don’t plan on a fancy lunch, because you may not have a paycheck for a while.

http://theskimm.com/2013/09/26/skimm-for-september-27th-2/

So the people who are meant to be in charge are acting like brats and it may just send us all into a no-mail-having frenzy. 

Fortunately for me, I advance ordered the new Stephen King novel and it should be here tomorrow. 

But it still sucks. 

In the still suck category, today is my best good friend’s birthday.  It would have been his 63rd.  Everyone enjoy a quad espresso and something loaded with sugar and storm the racks at a thrift store. Mr. Steve would be honored. 

While scanning the news feeds this morning I ran across an article that asks, “Are you at risk for a stroke?” I said “Yes” then went on to another story. 

(If you have had a stroke, you are automatically at risk for another even if the stroke in question was the result of a burst blood vessel and those are pretty rare. You are still labeled at having a history of stroke.  I maintain that one event is not a history of stroke.  One is one. History is many. And other short stories by Benjamin Franklin.) 

And one other thing that’s making me a little wary of the day ahead.  Monkeys were seen whispering to each other at the NYC Zoo. A zoo worker entered their habitat and they commenced to whispering. This spawns a number of questions, not the least of which is, “Why do they feel they have to whisper? What have they seen this person doing?” You really have to be a nefarious creature if you are making monkeys whisper. 

And other short stories by Jane Goodall. 

Rest in Peace sweet Amy K. 

Please cut me some slack; I’m almost out.

What I want to do: Bash my head on my laptop in hopes that the blank screen will stop judging me.

What I won’t do: Bash head on laptop because I don’t have time for a head injury and there is no way I can afford a new laptop. I will be writing on this one until the squirrel on the treadmill inside of it gives up.

What I want to do: Lay on the floor and memorize the inside of my eyelids.

What I won’t do. Lay on the floor because I need to vacuum and rearrange the furniture and the cat would come stand on me and I would never be able to get back up because I don’t want to inconvenience the cat.

What I want to do: Get a massage and lie very still for the rest of the afternoon.

What I won’t do: Get a massage because I really can’t afford it and it’s cloudy outside and I don’t want to go back out in what will probably be a storm.

What I want to do: Gloat because it looks like heavy storms headed towards North Carolina where EH and AWT are vacationing with my sister-friends and nieces.

What I won’t do: Is gloat or even mention it again because I care that my nieces might not enjoy the last few days of their vacation at the beach and I don’t want to incur Bad Karma, because, seriously, if this is the kind of thing happens to me without the interference of Karma, I don’t want to know what the Universe will spring on me if I actively wish someone ill. (The Simpson’s effectively described a well-wisher as someone who doesn’t wish you any specific harm.)

What I want to do: So many, many things that do not involve me doing the very short list of what I have to do today.

What I won’t do: Anything except what absolutely have to.  (Take out the trash, work on a story so I can make money, rearrange the couches so the comfy couch is in perfect movie viewing position)

Even when I try not to slack,  I slack.