Here Goes Nothin'

November. The month of putting away Halloween and trying not to hear the Christmas music in the stores...
But what it really means to me is... National Novel Writing Month.




But this year something happened. I was so unaware that it was already a week into the month before I saw an e-mail about write-ins and realized that I had missed the starting gunshot (the starting paper-scratch?). I'd missed thousands of words already. How sad. How hopeless to catch up. How I longed for the days when I was a part of it.

But... so... now what? Now, I am forcing myself to blog. But see? Without the deadline, my word count flounders. I pause, I get up to do other things. I feel... useless. Wordless. Non-fiction.

Ahhh, I give up. Maybe there's a good movie playing somewhere.

Foe Toes

Weekend at the house:

I wanted to take pictures of the Perseids (meteor shower), but the moon is up full all night these days and there were clouds moving in. I settled for some long-exposure shots of the place.

The brighter reddish glow is from the unpredictable light on the garage. We thought it might be a motion sensor but it seems to just be random. I couldn't control whether it came on during a shot or not. The moon was up and partly behind trees for most of the time I was out, so it lent a less direct light.





The house.












A pump out by the irrigation ditch. It's dark, but I like the hard metals against the soft sky lit by the moon.













Weather vane - a few stars visible here.




















The tree when the garage light is on. The sky is not really blue here, it is just the moonlight and city lights over a long exposure.















Citronella candle: the flame is the only thing that was moving during the shot.












This one has an almost painting-like quality because of the saturation of the light.

One of my favorites: the Big Dipper just over the tree. The garage light was off for most of this one.

Me. Sitting very still.

Saddest Web Site Ever

I'm trying to remember how I got there from a job search, something about writing got me started on autobiography sites, a little of this, a little of that, and I find myself at imissmydad.com. Two minutes later, the Facebook link draws me in and the tears start falling. So many people grieving, so fresh the memories.

These people are writing about their dads who died three weeks ago, one year ago. How hard would it have been to write about it then? For me, I've passed the twenty-year mark. Passed the first birthday when I didn't think of him, passed the anniversary when I didn't need to talk to someone about it. I get so that I think it is so far in the past, that it doesn't affect me. I joke about not having to get Father's Day cards. And then...

Then someone talks about their father, about their loss. About how they don't keep pictures up because it is too hard to see them. And then I realize that I don't keep pictures around, that even thinking about that picture, that last one of him and mom, sends me to a crying place. My dorky-looking dad with the tri-focals who was my touchstone in a world of change.

Something like that. I could talk to him. He understood me. He was a geek like me. I felt very alone for the longest time after I lost him. When I have something to share, I think of him.

When I think I might not do something because it is inconvenient, I think of him. And then I try my best to be brave, to do it - because life really is short, and if you wait, you might not have time. And when someone tries to tell me that work is so important and being busy is good, I think of him. Of him being with us, not at work, when it came down to it. Of him being with us so many times throughout our lives, of feeling loved and special.

Do I make him sound perfect? He wasn't. He was an alcoholic who drank himself to sleep and felt awfully sorry for himself. Our home was on the stressed-out side of things, and I reacted by finding my quiet places to read and do puzzles. He was a great dad, a fun person, an easy-going dude, genuinely well-liked at work - with coping problems and an addiction he'd had since high school.

Yes, we had an intervention. No, it didn't last. Yes, we felt loved anyway.

Okay, enough of the sadness for today. I just wanted to say

I miss my dad, too.

Ask and you shall receive...

Remember that thing I said about extra time?

I was talking with my friend the other day about this Law of Attraction stuff: she said that part of it is journaling as if you are experiencing a positive outcome to whatever is going on. I found this very interesting, since my journaling usually consists of a long list of everything that is going wrong. My philosophy was that this way I was spilling it all out onto paper and I could then let it go and move on. Could the opposite really work?

So I gave it a shot, not so sure that I could keep the pen moving with positive things when it was so used to being powered by negative energy. I started slow, finding that the argument I had just had with my husband was the perfect test. The trickiest part of this is that you are really supposed to believe the positive stuff, so it can't be too crazy. I imagined a scene where our problems were resolved in a realistic way and I wrote it down. Then I wrote a clever inner dialogue where I argued the merits of this method - technically, this probably should cancel out the earnestness of my effort, but these things happen in my journal.

While it wasn't perfect and I can't say it followed my scene like a script, the reality of what happened with my husband later pretty much followed the spirit of the journaling. Is it coincidence? Is it the law of attraction? Is it the fact that I chose a pretty decent husband? Maybe all three. But one thing I know is that I was more open to a positive interaction and less defensive and argumentative, and that in itself will keep things from going bad. Take from it what you like.

So if this really works, and I was writing about wishing I had more time... did I Law of Attraction myself out of a job? Look, extra time I wasn't expecting.

Yes, I got the boot. The swift and sudden didn't-see-it-coming boot that escorts you out of the building and leaves you in shock. So I attracted myself into unemployment, scrambling to put together a description of what I had been working on over the last three and a half years. Feeling the lowest I have in a long long time. I would not wish this on anyone. I was in my supervisor's office with the HR lady and all I could think of was Up in the Air (- the movie. See it if you haven't.) She actually told me that this could be a good thing, a chance to move on to something else. Woohoo! Thanks for that.

By the way, you can't just get over the shock and awe by getting your resume together and starting to find job listings. Tried it. Pulled out the old job search stuff, updated online accounts, added my new skills to the resume... and found myself crying in the car on the way home from the store.

I found a little perspective when my sister called to say that her husband has a large mass growing on his kidney. Perspective, but not confidence.

Was it me? Was it the economy and a budget that wouldn't budge? Was it fate? Is it really an opportunity to make a change for the better? That would be nice. I honestly hope so. I feel like I'm living on a fine line - a couple of months will make or break us financially. I'd better get started on that journaling.

No Present Like Time

Wouldn't it be nice if we could get little Time presents for Christmas...

------------------------------------------------------------------------
=============== GIFT OF TIME ===============

This coupon good for two free hours of sleep time in the
morning after a crappy night of tossing and turning,
headaches, or feeling sick. Get to work on time!
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------------------------------------------------------------------------
=============== GIFT OF TIME ===============

This coupon good for six free hours of reading time to
catch up on a book club novel, read that business-related

non-fiction book, or read the entire Sunday paper.
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------------------------------------------------------------------------
=============== GIFT OF TIME ===============

This coupon good for three free hours of phone calls and

driving time to do business during business hours when

you would normally be busy at work yourself.
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I find that I get more things done in "extra time" that I wasn't planning on having. Something gets cancelled, someone gets delayed, and I find myself feeling free to do the things that I haven't had time for. I'm not saying I really truly actually don't have the time to do these things, I just don't do them in the normal course of things. Not until I get that magical "free" time.