Writing Pain

This morning I stepped on a tack in the kitchen while feeding my cats. It hurt of course, but it also lead me to start a new short story after I had my wound properly disinfected and bandaged. I am a writer. That’s how things happen. I am also easily distracted which is how shortly after 300+ words on the new story I suddenly found myself sewing our shivering Chihuahua a shirt out of a bit of leftover fleece.

Anyway, I am now currently researching superstitions to help with the new story because stepping on a tack sounds like something that should be involved with a superstition. I don’t really know what the story is about completely. I have a general idea and it will have the feeling of cool October days to it, I hope. Sort of a seasonal type story or something. I’m still working on it.

 

I really should have a degree in folklore rather than science, with a focus on history and literature. I certainly research folklore enough.

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Taking Punches

Someone said something to me a few weeks ago and I haven’t been able to get it out of my mind. It just pops up every now and then. I can hear the voice and everything.

I was sitting at my desk at the beginning of a long shift at work when one of my co-workers, several desks down, looked up and said: “I want to be Tammi.” I remember my surprise and the way I replayed her words to make sure I heard what I thought I heard. My clever reply, of course, was “What?”

So she said it again. “I want to be Tammi. Nothing ever seems to bother you.”

I blinked for a moment as all of my current struggles flashed before my mind’s eye. “No, you don’t. You really really don’t.”

Looking back I am still surprised at her words. I don’t know if I will ever get over the surprise. It isn’t that I have a bad life. I am actually pretty blessed. However, it is not all roses and sunshine. This person knows this. She has been there to see when life sucker punched me over and over. It has taken a while but I think I understand what she meant now. I guess I have rolled with those punches and gotten back up. That is what she was expressing envy for.

I still don’t think it is that big of a deal. I think I do a crappy job at this whole existing as a responsible adult thing. It is hard. Every day is hard. It feels like life is just one big constant fight.

I fight to wake up in the morning. I fight to get Toby to school on time. I fight to get to work. I fight the school when they can’t understand Toby’s Autism. I fight to pay bills, to write, to have groceries, to walk the dog, to feed the cats, to wash the laundry and the dishes…every single day is pushing against the wind. It may not seem like it on the outside. Many of these are things everyone has to do.

Simple things take so much energy. I am tired all the time. Which is why I guess I don’t react as much as others when life throws me those sucker punches. I am already fighting. It doesn’t make sense to stop just because I got decked with a harder blow than normal. That doesn’t mean I like it and that doesn’t mean I don’t loudly express my exasperation and frustration. Sometimes I throw myself a toddler style fit until I cry and have to take a nap. I am not unaffected by life’s punches. I just don’t know how to stay down for the count. I don’t wish those punches on anyone else either, because I know how much they hurt. 

(I am honestly a little afraid to post this because the universe might see it as a challenge. Please Universe, don’t see my words as a challenge. Life punches hard enough already.)

A Wednesday Reminder

A friend and mentor posted this on Facebook and I really needed to see it. I am tired and both kids have appointments today. My awesome neighbors decorated their house for Halloween and gave me their left over spiderwebs so I kind of want to decorate too. Yesterday started out okay at work but ended rough. It was a real struggle to not just clock out and leave. I made it through though I am still exausted from the effort.

Last week we had a company picnic and our big boss kept getting interrupted by trains going by. Our office is near a railroad track but we usually only get maybe two trains a day. When she was giving her speech we had four in the space of fifteen minutes. No one really heard all the things she planned to say but we did catch “that damn train” along with her closing remarks. I think the laugh she gave us expressing her honest exasperation and her closing remarks were better than whatever she had prepared to say. She said, “If you are going through Hell, just keep walking…”

Meaning that if life isn’t going great, don’t just stop and wallow in the misery. It may be hard. You may want to give up but if you keep pressing forward you will find yourself in a better situation.

There are many days I just want to give up. Depression doesn’t help. I just have to remind myself to keep walking and when I want to give up, don’t.

Cookies, Coffee, and Contentment

There is something about baking cookies just because that brings me a sense of peace. It has been a tough week. My son has been sick since last Thursday. First, he had a stomach virus. That lasted Thursday and Friday. By Saturday he seemed to be over losing the contents of his stomach but he still wasn’t feeling well.

On Sunday he started running a fever. By the wee hours of Monday morning, the fever was up to 102 and he was laying in the floor crying because his ear hurt. He wouldn’t say much else. (Toby has ASD or Autism Spectrum Disorder.) Not sure what else to do and with hours until the doctor opened I took him down to the emergency room of the children’s hospital.

The doctors there were fantastic as always. They took their time with him and explained everything they were doing. He was diagnosed with an ear infection, we were given a prescription for antibiotics, and released. I continued to alternate ibuprofen and Tylenol to help with the pain and the fever.

Fast forward to this Thursday. The fever still hadn’t gone away and despite three days of antibiotics, his ear was still hurting. So we went to the doctor to follow up and found out he had both an outer and an inner ear infection. The Doc prescribed some ear drops to go along with the antibiotics. The fever is finally gone and my son is on the mend.

Friday a sweet friend gave me a tub of cookie dough he had bought to support a fundraiser. Today, with Toby feeling better and with the sun shining after a week of rain, it seemed like the perfect time to bake some cookies. I didn’t even have to tell my son I was baking. The cookies had been in the oven less than two minutes before he followed his nose into the kitchen. Now the discs of deliciousness are cooling and I have a fresh cup of coffee in hand. Soon Toby will have a glass of milk and we will sit down with a couple of chocolate chocolate-chip cookies. For this moment, life is good. 

My Dad

Happy Birthday today to my awesome father. The man who originally gave me the inspiration to write. Without his example, I wouldn’t have realized how amazing it is to create your own worlds and to put your thoughts down in words. I wouldn’t have known it was possible.

When I was a kid I always saw my father reading in his spare time. We had Fantasy & Science Fiction magazine, Popular Mechanics, and a variety of books scattered here and there. My mother would sometimes get the chance to read, she loved it too but was often too busy with the responsibilities of tending to our family. I watched my father read and knew this was a good thing. I watched my father write and I knew that this was also a good thing. I watched Doctor Who and NOVA late into the night with him and learned about science. I watched the Dark Crystal and The Last Star Fighter and learned about dreams and fiction and possibilities.

I may have been laughed at by my peers when I answered a question in class with outlandish answers, but that was because they hadn’t been taught to look beyond the now. (I still get a bit of satisfaction from the fact that we do sometimes use robots to help clear minefields now. They laughed at me then but I was right in the end.) My dad has been one of the greatest role models of my life. I wouldn’t be who I am without him.

Happy Birthday Daddy! I love you.

Days like this

I don’t want to write today. I’m tired. I was up at 4 A.M. giving the dog a bath. (Trust me, he needed it.) It is nice outside today temperature wise and there is a steady breeze blowing, even if the overcast sky promises rain.

I think I would rather read and ignored the rest of the world. I had to people yesterday. There were not many, but I still entertained three other adults at my house. (Okay, so one was my mom and another was my brother but they still count.) It was my son’s birthday party so there was decorating and cleaning to be done beforehand and clean up afterward.

I have yet to wake up fully today and it is almost 5 in the afternoon. Maybe I should just go take a nap. I needed to get at least a blog post done, though it was very tempting just to skip this week. You guys came very close to getting ten ways to kill or protect against Vampires, rather than this post of me whining. I’m trying to save that for the book I am working on. (Or at least October so that it can be a sort of Halloween post.)

Anyway, I showed up and put words down on the page. That is the important part. You guys keep doing what you do and I will keep plodding along too. Have a good week.

Allergies

I am not feeling too well today. It isn’t anything serious, just a savage allergy attack, but it has me keeping my asthma inhaler close and a hot cup of tea closer. My eyes are itchy and it is hard to breathe. Poor Molly, my dog, has had to stay outside in the backyard today because I can’t take the extra allergy irritant.

I’m not sure if I mentioned it before but we recently discovered that I am allergic to my dog. She is a mostly outside dog anyway so it isn’t too much of a problem. I let her in if it looks like rain or if it is too hot outside, of course.  She has plenty of shade and dry places to stay but she really doesn’t like water and her fur is so thick I worry if she stays out too long when it is hot. So despite me being allergic, she can often be found snoring in the floor behind my computer chair as I write. I just have an extra cup of tea and make sure I take my allergy meds. Today is just extra bad. I know it is supposed to rain tomorrow so she will probably be inside most of the day and it is just best to limit my exposure while I can.

Hopefully, Molly will be well behaved tomorrow because she will be home alone for a few hours. There is a fall festival at a nearby Native American site that we are planning on checking out. The web page says it will be going on rain or shine. Today would have been a better day to go weather wise but tomorrow is better schedule wise for all who are making the trip. I am sure my mom will check in on her too.