Thursday, November 8, 2012

My THIRD BOOK!

When I turned 30, I had a little freak-out. I always expected I would have written at least one book before I turned 30, and, well, I failed. So in November 2005, I wrote a little something called "Thirty." I wrote it in 30 days, when I was 30, and it was about the wacky world of pharmacy. It really isn't that boring - it was kind of fiction/nonfiction and focused on the types of crazy people who come into retail pharmacy every single day.
The next year, spurred by the recent death of my grandfather, I wrote "The Christmas Room." That one was a little too personal to share with anyone, but it was a labor of love for me, as well as being so cathartic.
After that, my passion for book-writing died. I tried another one the next year, but it was more of a collection of jumbled words and little coherence than anything else, so I quietly closed the door on that chapter of my life.
Until last night. I felt tired, and Bill had to get up early too, so we went to bed. Except, I couldn't sleep. A single line kept running through my head, and this urgent insistence from my inner voice telling me that it had to go in my book. What the hell, I thought. I am so not writing a book. I have plenty of other crap going on.
But, that voice. And it wouldn't stop. Then another thought, a plot point, popped into my head too, and stayed there, ringing like a bell every time I tried to find sleep.
Rolling over and grabbing my phone, I explained to Bill that I had to write this down or it would undoubtedly be lost in the morning.
I ended up writing a lot. I'm at 2400 words so far, and the story is spinning itself together in my mind and flowing out through my fingers in a way that I thought was lost to me forever.
Holy cow, I might be writing a book. This one is different in that it truly is fiction. I have no idea where the plot is coming from, or how it popped into my head. I only know I can't ignore it.
I will keep you posted on its progress.

Friday, November 2, 2012

At What Point Do You Surrender?

Being around myself more than anyone else, I feel fairly qualified to name both bad and good things about me. Because it's me, we're going to focus on the bad today, and how it is detrimental to my mental health.
I am a clean freak.
I don't mean a glove-wearing, masked, constantly-disinfecting mom like on Dexter's Laboratory.
I just like things to be clean. And that's the way it is.
My paternal grandparents were not concerned about having a spotless house, nor is my dad. My mom is, which makes this just one more thing I have to admit I have in common with her. My brother and sister are very particular about the order of things, but I don't know how fastidious they are.
I just want my space orderly. I want my tables and counters wiped down. I don't want clutter. I don't care about stuff being alphabetized or being correlated by color. I just want it clean.
This can be a problem when you live with guys.
In my case, I mean it IS a problem. I live with two who do not care at all about keeping anything clean, one who cares but not enough to help, and finally, my pleaser, who will help me whenever asked and will try to remember to help when not asked.
It's still overwhelming. To me, if each person cleans up his own personal mess, we have no problems.
If only we all felt that way.
I have two choices: clean it up myself or ask the offender to do it.
Both have pros and cons.
If I clean it up myself, I have the benefit of knowing it will be done to my often-unreasonable expectations (the way a towel is folded, the way a bed should be made, where the dishes are put away). I know that I will have the personal satisfaction of a job well done, and I will know exactly what I have done and what still needs to be done.
If I request that it be done by the offender, in an ideal world, that offender would do it. Instead, in the BEST-case scenario, it is put off to "later," a time that seems to be related to the word "never." If I request again, I am a nag and just being mean, because they SAID they'd do it later! GOD! If I then do it myself, I am being a total freak and wow, I SAID I would do it, what is WRONG with you!?
And I mean, let's face it. I am gone more than anyone else in the house, with the exception of my kid, who lives with his dad half the time. Do I enjoy coming home to a messy house? Uh, NO. Is it the quickest thing to put me in a horrible mood? You bet.
I KNOW, ladies, that I am not alone in this quandry. My question is, at what point do we give in? At what point do we try to change our very makeup, the stuff that makes us who we are, to save our own sanity?
I don't want to resort to drinking EVERY night. I mean, that's not good for you, right? Or is it now? I can't keep up.
I just know that, when I get home tonight at roughly 11:30 p.m., there will be a mess.
I can count on few things in this life, but by God, I know I can count on that.