Month: October 2005

It was good to go, and it is nearly as good to get home again. Non-stop writing for two and a half days, and almost more than I could stand. I come home with a greater understanding of the arc of this project I’ve been working on for so long. Most of what I actually wrote was incidental, or at least I’m assuming so, but I feel like I know and understand, like I’ve gone back into the world of my novel(s).

Oh, that’s the other thing. I’m considering going back to part 1 and editing it to stand alone, with then part 2, where I’ve been flailing the last couple of years, as a separate book.

I also wrote several poems, one or two worth keeping.

The company was excellent; Kat’s friends/co-critiquers are a good bunch, very welcoming and thoughtful. I really don’t care for the critique methodology, although I think I understand its purpose. Also, I definitely, absolutely, need to find a community of writing down here.

The house was beautiful. The food…oh, I ate so well! Made my curry the first night, and then Kat cooked a lamb roast on Saturday and spaghetti on Sunday. Everybody chipped in on cooking breakfasts; Kate’s secret to kick-ass home fries is to be very judicious with stirring: just dump the potatoes in and walk away!

Still, it’s good to be in my own space again, with my cats and the internets, and with new ideas and words bounding around in the back of my brain.

9 am on a beautiful Friday morning, and I’m sitting in Uptown Espresso, getting my caffeine fix and anticipating the writer’s retreat. (I’m somewhat boggled at the passage of time, realizing that the last time I went on a writer’s retreat, with the much-loved and dearly departed Q, I did not yet have a blog.)

Dunno if there will be internet, and I anticipate spending most of my time writing and/or critiquing, so probably not too much blogging until I get home on Monday.

And Kat’s here, so I will be social with real people instead of the internets. 🙂

Yesterday I had a therapy session after a break of a couple of months, and it just felt right. Again, independent verification that I’m doing better, and we worked on something that’s more of a next step, talking about anger and how I handle my anger.

A few points that I want to record/share for posterity…

* “lifehacking” works for me, being consious of myself as an experiment and tracking my patterns to divine opportunities for change. (trackslife has been an excellent tool in that effort, btw.)
* I want to be able to express what I feel and what I need, when I’m angry, in a way in which I’m likely to be heard.
* my temperment is such that I get the best results when I have time and space to consider before I respond. (knowing what I’m going into in a situation of potential conflict is particularly important)
* I need to practice working with people as they *are*.
* breathe: in 4, hold 2, out 8. also, better oxygenation is apparently one element in why smokers go for a cigarette under stress. this gives me some insight into both KC & my dad.
* the Jon Stewart technique: see something absurd in a situation to keep from screaming.

also, I am continuing my 10/15-minute writes (while the van is on the freeway), and the last two times I haven’t needed to find a prompt. and continuing my morning exercises and daily rides.

not that it’s a piece of cake. interestingly, I find I’m seeing not the “light at the end of the tunnel” but the end of life as a closed-off space: an “is” with up and down, good and bad, and a self that I can examine and mold. this feels completely and entirely new.

Today when I got into town on the van, my bike helmet and rear light had been stolen. Not totally surprising, as they were the two bits of bike least well attached. Frankly, it’s somewhat of a relief to have the helmet stolen, as it was cracked in a couple of places and I should’ve gotten a new one months ago.

But I had an odd reaction, or at least it seemed odd to me; I feel even more committed to my commute rides. Because I had this immense sense of sadness about not being able to ride tomorrow (even if I could wear C’s helmet, I won’t ride in near-dark without a rear light), and I realized that it’s become a habit, something I’m accustomed to doing and that I enjoy a great deal. Three weeks, I suppose, is just about the magic point.

So I’m not going to ride tomorrow, but I’m going to plan on what I really need to be a serious bike commuter, what kind of kit will get me through the winter, and I’m going to make sure that — somehow — I put it together.

Also, on a similar note, I made lasagna again tonight, and forgot an ingredient (hot water) and it still turned out pretty damn good. So failure is treating me well today.

This morning I did a timed writing exercise — writing about my first car — and when I finished, it occurred to me that the results would actually have made a pretty good blog entry.

And then it occurred to me that I’ve been waiting all my life for blogging to show up.

Last night in the van I was asked about my journaling, and I said I’ve been writing them since I was 9 years old, which is 22 years now. Whew. (Okay, it’s not like I’m an old lady, but that still feels like a really long time.) I’ve done more of this sort of writing — thinking aloud, freewriting, doodling with words — than any other kind of writing. Ever. Full stop. I started with poetry, because of school, before the journal, but I have nowhere near the volume. And fiction has always been a start-and-stop endeavor, even in the best of times.

But the journal is always there. In fact, I know that a depression is particularly bad when I can’t even write in my journal.

And somehow it’s always like I’m writing *to* somebody in my journal, even if it’s just some other segment of my own head, or the future. Which is why I loved Anais Nin’s diaries when I was in college.

*And* I kept an electronic journal, years ago, although it got stolen when that house was robbed. 🙁

So weblogging shows up, and it just meshes perfectly. Sort of like this whole web thing in general, for me. I honestly don’t know what the hell I’d be doing with my life if it weren’t for the internets.

Kat invited me to a writer’s retreat on Vashon weekend after next, which this time I can do. (she invited me out to the beach over the summer, but it was too short notice.) After last week’s writing workshop, I’m certain it’ll help me continue with my writing, esp. since she says one of the folks participating has been doing great stuff teaching a writing class this fall.

And I think we’ll probably have a game night on Halloween. The hyperviolent halfling Jayne died in Saturday’s game, trying to take on an iron golem. I’m sad, but it’s to be expected; she did something kinda foolish. 😉 I think I’m going to play a “hacker” gnome…never played a gnome before, and it could be fun.

Today was just a good day all the way around. I even had a quasi-brilliant idea for a work project…that astounds me that I didn’t think of it, oh, 6-9 months ago. But then I think about what 6-9 months ago felt like, and I’m a little easier on myself. Especially since I think I can get this running before that retreat, at least in a really skeletal form.

Right now, I’m sitting in my living room, and at the big table we put together, and looking out the window onto the fading garden, and waiting for lasagna to finish cooking. (And weirdly, listening to probably the same radio program as Elizabeth in CA, because of the wonders of the internets, and because the local stations are all on pledge week.)

The trillion things-to-do that always hover at the edge of my consiousness are still there, but they don’t quite induce the sense of panic that I so often feel. Instead, I feel cozy.

(Oh, but they need “more tents than exist in the world” in Pakistan & India. Ye gods.)

So, my long promised “odd review” program is essentially working, in its basic functions. It’s still very rough around the edges (and in the middle), but at least it works.

I have plans a-brewing for it, but for now I’m just happy that all the pieces run.

So I’ve been testing Drupal for a work project, and as happens from time to time, I’ve been testing it on this server. I’m pretty much done testing now (hooray!), and I actually got some good use out of the test version, because it seemed like a good idea to use real-ish data.

I’ve decided, then, to take the site out of the “junk drawer” and make it a real section of my site.

What is it? My life as a writer, or, morewords, is a place for me to put my “real” writing: drafts of poems, short stories, chunks of my novel. Also a listing of publications and ongoing thoughts about what writing means to me. It’s a little scary, putting this out there, more so than you’d think from a relatively prolific blogger. In particular, tossing up poem drafts, which are still relatively raw, and poetry has always been a raw format for me anyway.

But never mind that…enjoy it, if you like.

Don’t know quite yet how it’ll get integrated into the homepage, but it will, and hopefully soon. Which means that my site will be powered by 5 different web apps, one of which is my own creation (more about that soon, I think). Whew. (On that topic, is there any interest whatsoever in an integrated feed, or do y’all not care?)

Here’s an interesting tidbit that I’ll hide all the way down here, for what it’s worth. I participated in this survey today and was pleasantly surprised by the results. I remain neurotic; OTOH, the depression is falling below clinical levels, or at least to moderate ones (slightly contradictory results)…what I think I need to focus on is reducing my level of stress, given all the results together.

Which, as before, means that exercise + meds + being consious about my mental states == lifting of depression, and a return to myself.

The relationship of this last bit to the first? As I find myself in a more positive frame of mind, I’m more in the mood to write, to program, to want to do things in general. So yay, all the way around.

just wanted to note that I woke in the middle of the night with a headache that was still there when I got up. this one was very different, less severe pain, plus the pain was broadly distributed over the front & top of my head. definitely a dehydration headache, went away amazingly fast with grapefruit juice and a powerbar after my bike ride to the van this morning.

(I so didn’t feel like riding today, but I’m so very glad I did.)

also, I’m not going to be tracking these here anymore. I set up a TracksLife track for it (have been using for moods the last week or so with some effectiveness) instead.

In an unusual turn of events, C has asked me to post something for him here. He called while helping to clean fir needles off of an old lady’s roof in our neighborhood, for the neighborhood association. He was completely blown away by the experience of seeing an owl practically close enough to have a conversation with, and then later a raccoon family traipsing through the neighborhood. This is from his email to me and a couple of other association folks:

I also wanted to share that I saw a big tan colored owl while there (flew right up to me!), and also a mama raccoon and 4 kit-cubs. We are blessed to have such rich wildlife in our neighborhood, and I think that encouraging the preservation of natural niches in our backyards and alleys is important. Perhaps with attention and stewardship, these animals can coexist without becoming [a] problem.

If anybody knows about any efforts, anywhere, to look at preserving historic trees as a way of helping urban wildlife populations, or at any sort of urban/suburban wildlife habitat work, we’d both be thrilled to hear it.

(Also, I have to say that this beautiful enthusiasm & love for the critters — you should see him with the cats! — is one of the things that I love most and best about C.)