After deleting the twenty-plus spam comments I found on the website after this relatively lengthy absence, preceded by a few hours of smokin' and jokin' with my editor (can I say that? I mean, she's not solely my editor, and I don't want to sound selfish, but she is an editor, and she is editing my writing... how long does this dating period last before we can consider ourselves an item? does she really want to be in this relationship? questions...)...
...
Okay, let's start again. After doing a whole lot of work this week on non-blog-related writing, followed by the afore-mentioned spam removal, I think I'm just about plum outta creative writing juice. But I'll do my best. We're gonna do this Smartypants style, because, well, she's smart to do it this way.
NEWS
Maddie has left the building. Her father's parents came down yesterday to pick her up for a week of fishing, worm-eating, and dirt-playing in the waywaynorthern woods of Michigan's Upper Peninsula, a week-long vacation which I'm sure will bring, a) a horrible new yooper accent for Maddie, b) assloads of laundry, and c) at least one souvenir of an adventure in taxidermy. Her absence thus far has effected me only minimally, probably due to a disbelief that she's actually gone for an ENTIRE WEEK, coupled with a slight persistent headache that has followed me around all day after one too many last night, a ritual I plan to re-enact this evening, with TEQUILA! Because really, aren't all parents just closet alcoholics whose symptoms have only been suppressed over time - not eliminated - by the presence of innocent eyes? Aren't we all just waiting for the real party to start?
Yeah. Whatever.
I DID IT!
My very first published article, and the words "cock" and "hunt-and-pecker" have made it into the second draft! And she doesn't even mind starting a sentence with "so"!
THINGS I WILL DO WHILE THE KID IS UP NORT GETTIN' ALL SPOILED 'N SHIT:
1. Go through that suitcase over there against the wall, the one filled with angst demons and coffee stains from those years of teenage journal-writing fury, rip out all the whining, thereby eliminating all evidence that I have ever written anything that could be considered shit. In the event of my sudden and untimely death, it would be a god-awful shame if the not-so-famous author of one cover story of one issue of some local paper (oh, and she had some online diary thingy, too, one of those "b" word things) was discovered to possess a whole trunk of, not brilliant essays and tear-jerking love poems, but 3,000 pages of song lyrics from not-so-popular 80s and 90s bands squished between four-page rants about just how bad everyone else in the world truly sucks. And that time (okay, times) I tried to "kill myself" with aspirin and a few sips of Margit Anderson's mom's vodka.
2. Go grocery shopping, all by myself, 'cause I'm a big girl.
3. Shoe shopping, all by myself, because I'm a big girl whose hip and knee joints are going to explode if I don't get some orthopedics up in here.
4. Sleep. A lot. Sleep so much that the neighbors think I've died or moved away and left my belongings behind in a quest for enlightenment.
Over and out.
Posted by stephanie at July 2, 2005 08:47 PM