"Her laugh [...] a briny, Old Gold cigarette-stained ripple that felt uncomfortably close."

A little over 34,000 words currently. I had an off couple of days. Thursday, I had to take Tyson to work so that I could have the car for Grace's doctor's appointment. Afterward, we had hamburgers at Zip's. Regular hamburgers, regular fries, things that I've eaten plenty of times before, but I got horrendously sick to my stomach after. Both kids were fine, but I felt horrible all night. Still plunked out a little bit of writing, maybe 1000 words. It's going okay, storywise, but I'm behind in word count. I should be at 36,000 and change by the end of the day, minimum.

At Grace's appointment, I had her doctor sign some forms so that Grace can have juice with hot lunch instead of milk, and also so she can keep a few Lactaid in the office in case they have treats she can't eat. They'd been giving the juice to her no problem for a few weeks, until all of the sudden someone told her she couldn't have it unless she had a note. So she didn't have anything to drink with lunch that day, which is a little above and beyond ridiculous. The juice is right there. They have it for the kids who eat breakfast at school in the morning.

Grace came home, almost in tears, "She said that if I have an allergy, I need a note, but's it's NOT an allergy! It's NOT the same thing!"

Her doctor filled out the forms, but the whole time, I got the impression she was thinking that I was overreacting a little bit, like maybe Grace wasn't as bad off as I said she was. And then she started saying things like, "Well, with things like mashed potatoes, she should be all right because the lactose is cooked. Yogurt is cooked, so it's the same thing."

NO. It's NOT the same thing. Yogurt has bacteria cultures that partially break down the lactose for you. If Grace and I could eat "cooked" lactose, we could eat all the macaroni and cheese and pizza and whatever we wanted, which is definitely not true. The two bites of cheesecake that tried to kill me and ruined Tyson and I's night out in Las Vegas would beg to differ.

Misconceptions about lactose intolerance are one of my huge pet peeves, but to come from a medical professional was even more baffling. I just ended up nodding non-commitedly, took the forms and we went on our way. To the hamburger of death...

Friday, more or less recovered, I had to run over to Auntie's and bought Citizen Vince by Jess Walter, since he and Sherman Alexie are doing a joint reading there on December 5th. To get a ticket, you had to buy one of their books. I've read a few things by both, but didn't own anything and the library almost always has a waiting list for their stuff, being local "stars" and whatnot. Luckily, Citizen Vince was the one I wanted to get, since pretty much all the other books were picked over.

After that, I drove in the rain, in 5 o'clock traffic, with my crappy windshield wipers and glasses that need replacing, from downtown to Hillyard. I'd been invited to a literary reading at the Olive It Cafe, and my friend Brooke was going to be reading some of her poetry. It's a nice little cafe, and I had a bowl of the vegetarian chili before everything got going ($4.80 with a dollar tip).

The whole thing was a mix of short story and poetry, with a little bit of music at the beginning and end. In general, all of it quite good. I could've signed up to read some myself, but I'd chickened out. Next time.

Towards the end of the night, I spoke to this guy Naaman, also one of the readers and quite funny, who had recently added me as a FB friend (ah, the weird magic of FB...) Sort of a friend of a friend situation. Apparently he's a fan of my writing. "And I was thinking the other day how cool it is that I'm a fan of someone in Spokane that I don't really know!"

Me: "It's a little bit surprising for me to think I have fans, but thank you."
N: "Well don't be surprised! Your stuff is good!"

So I have a(nother?) fan. And that's nice.

Oddly enough, he went to Gonzaga and hung out with Nate-now-Alyson, with whom I went to high school. Small world.

Yesterday, I felt pretty crappy. Little bit of a cold, my foot still hurts, still adjusting to the anti-depressants, AND crankiness as a precursor to girly business --- I wasn't in the best of moods. Still, I did read an entire book over the course of the day (review will be written and up later, possibly today).

I thought I was out of lactaid (sent most of what was left to Grace's school), so I couldn't just throw a frozen pizza in the oven for dinner. But with the mood I was in, if I didn't get some sort of carb covered in tomatoes and cheese, I was going to cut a bitch (ha). So I threw together some linguine, diced tomatoes, onion, half a bag of frozen peppers, Italian seasoning and garlic powder, then dumped in a whole 8 oz. bag of (blessedly lactose-free Kraft) mozzarella and put it in the oven. It would do.

Later though, I remembered I had some lactaid in my backpack, and cooked the pizza anyway, had a piece and a half. Told you I was serious.

Started writing way too late last night and only managed around 1000 words. I'll have to do much better today. Yes, I know, how many words was this whole thing? Have to get caught up and preferably ahead by the time we leave town on Thursday. I will still have to work on it while we're at my mom's, but in case I don't get a chance to work on it as much as I'd like, I don't want to be completely screwed when I come home.

Also have to get the house reasonably clean before we leave, do laundry, etc. Fingers crossed that the weather cooperates. Don't let me forget to buy new windshield wipers and to refill the washer fluid before we leave.

Holy Crap! (and etc.)

Link crazy time, my friends. I've already bothered most of you via FB and Twitter, but let's do it one more time... with feeling.

1. Issue #11 of SPOKE(a)N(e) Magazine is now out. Tyson tried not to get set on fire while taking photos of a welder. The least you can do is take a gander.

2. My book review of Devil in the Details by Jennifer Traig was today's featured Cannonball Read review over on Pajiba. And people liked it! *basks*

3. Read my creative kick in the ass over on the RiVerSpeAK blog.

4. Finished Book #3 for Cannonball (one with a very, very, very long title). Will write review this evening, after I do something about dinner.

5. 28,940 words out of 50k for NaNo. I'm still ahead! (She says now...)


Thus concludes Take #100000 of Shameless Self-Promotion.

Oh, no, I really AM this skilled.

Medications currently careening through my bloodstream:

-birth control
-40 mg. citalopram
-100 mg. macrobid (x2/day)
-200 mg. pyridium (x2/day)
-600 mg. ibuprofen (every 4 goddamn hours/oh my god has it only been 3? whywhywhy etc.)

And I could stand some decongestant, but I'm tempting stomach bleeding enough as it is.

So.
I was on my way to immediate care because I somehow managed to give myself a bladder infection, which is so. awesome. Getting into the car, parked uphill in front of the house, the door closed on its own before I had a chance to pull my leg in all the way. My foot got caught right in the corner of it, bending my foot from about the last three toes over.

I didn't know what I'd done to it, other than it hurt and it hurt a lot, so I decided to get it looked at while I was there. Better to do it then over waking up the next morning thinking it was broken, and end up paying another $20 co-pay.

Amusing (to me) sidebar: When they took my blood pressure, I was relieved to see it was 105/66 because before it had been 120/80, and while some people would kill for that kind of normalcy, I'd convinced myself that I was headed towards immanent blood pressure doom. DOOM! But then, I'm the sort of gal whose blood pressure actually went down while pregnant, and figures like 100/55 weren't out of the ordinary.

But because I'm out of shape and was in several varieties of pain, my pulse was still around 79 bpm. Tyson's one of those freaks of nature with the pulse of a marathon runner -- 55 bpm is quite common for him.

Post-sidebar: More than once I was asked, "And when did you hurt your foot?" Uhh... coming here. So, if I didn't have this bladder infection, I would be fine. *sigh*

After an X-Ray and whatnot, they determined that I just had a very bad sprain. With instructions to take advil and prescriptions for the other, I was sent on my way. I spent another $20 at the pharmacy, and tried not to think about how much money Rockwood Clinic has received from me since September.

($360)

Thank God for health insurance, even if they are a giant pain in the ass.

As a result of all this, my stomach's not feeling too hot right now. I had some trouble going to sleep last night because of the foot. I just took 4 regular advil before bed rather than 3 reg. and one Advil PM. We were watching Disc 4 of True Blood and I guess I wanted to stay awake. Tonight, I shall make no such mistake.

I hate to complain about money and, yet again, health issues, but Jesus. This is starting to get a bit ridiculous, not to mention annoying.

In other, more pleasant news:

I am nearly 2 days ahead of schedule with NaNo, as long as I write another day's worth today. Currently, I'm just shy of 23,000 words. The story is going all right. I went back and read a little, and it's not quite as dreadful as I thought it was. Any good? Nah, probably not, but there's potential. The way I've set up the story, I really do think this might be the first time 'The End' happens within the 50,000 word range. I have no idea how I'm going to wrap it all up, but the amount of story in my head feels that way, that I'm currently at about the halfway point in the plot.

And on that note, I should probably elevate my foot and get back to work.

If you didn't catch it already...

My second review for Cannonball Read is now up on Glorified Love Letters. This time around, I (re)read Devil in the Details: Scenes from an Obsessive Girlhood by Jennifer Traig.

Enjoy.

Oh, and PS: Both kids did well at the dentist. They were all impressed by how well Jack laid in the chair for the initial cleaning, but after the X-ray, he was over the whole process and a bit squirmy for the actual dentist. Still, no cavaties and free toothbrushes. Now, if only I could get my own receding gums into the chair sometime this century...

Adventures in Meandering, Loitering and Procrastination

This is the kind of shit I'm writing in NaNo this year: "Wearing someone else’s underwear, no matter the situation, felt a bit strange." Oh, it's a little funny as a stand-alone sentence, but I'm just wandering around right now. I've reached the neighborhood of a little over 14,000 words. 14,107, according to the WordPerfect counter, though the NaNo site counter is usually a touch higher than that, for whatever reason.

I'm not using Open Office for this one so I can open it on the other computer if I have to. I might need to copy/paste in the verify word counter at the end of the month. To download Open Office on dial-up would take roughly 4000 years and 40 more hours, give or take. I could order a software disc, but eh... It's not like this requires PDF making capabilities. No one will see this. Any future drafts will have to be frogged* beyond belief.

(*Knitting term I find incredibly useful. Thanks, Faythe!)

So yes, right now I'm typing this instead of getting up to the minimum 15,003 for the day. I'll get there, but I need to think aloud for a minute.

Last night, I had most everyone over for Supper Club. Sometime last month, Faythe, Karla and Jennifer got the idea in their head to have people bring different flavors of Rice-a-Roni and then try to guess what they were. Whoever hosted would make some sort of main dish. I hadn't hosted in a long, long time, but with my house still reasonably clean from my mom visiting, I threw a roast and carrots in the crock pot and called it good.

Rice-a-roni varieties (outside of some Spanish rice and wild rice, I imagine) pretty much taste the same. White and yellow. Dairy-rific. I had a little. Still it was nice, low-key and we watched SNL and 30 Rock while I tried to keep my children from flinging themselves all over everyone. (In this respect, it was a hard battle.)

And then there was the business of Jack trying to run off with people's wine glasses, and Grace saying, all horrified, "But Jack, that's for grown-ups! He's not supposed to have that!"

I told Jack he needed to at least be French drinking age, ha. And no, parenting police, my baby was not drinking wine. But clearly, he needs to be watched.

Meanwhile, Grace thinks soda is gross, says she shouldn't have her Halloween candy while she's sick because only healthy foods will get her better, and that's just fine with me.

I can only handle one child grabbing chocolate syrup from the fridge, throwing his sippy cup onto the counter and yelling, "CHOCCCCCCOHH! CHOCO! I LUFFF IT!"

Sorry, kid. Chocolate milk is an 'in case of emergency' food for you. I'd rather not encourage the broken arm from all the extra flinging yourself off furniture.

ANYWAY.
I think everyone enjoyed themselves at dinner. Since Tyson was working, I wouldn't have been able to go had it been at anyone else's house. Next time, Kate, I'll have salad dressing.

Mostly I've been distracting myself by compulsively checking my reader, FB, etc. Watching youtube videos of Noel. Somewhat aghast yet impressed that his other half is one of those freakish yet impossibly beautiful women whose legs do not touch. Real people aren't born like that, are they? And here some of us don't even get ankles out of the deal... Pffft... Silly DNA.

Told you I'd be thinking aloud. But she's lovely, it's true.

Grace stayed home from school today because she can't seem to go 10 minutes without needing to blow her nose. She woke up as a giant ball of snot again on Saturday, and sometime --- sometime--- she's bound to get over this kindergarten plague. Right?

The sad thing is that because of the Monday, Weds. and every/other Friday schedule, and because of no school on Veteran's Day, today was the only day she was scheduled to go. Attendance fail.

We don't avoid waking up early this week, however. Tomorrow, they both have dentist appointments at 8 am. When the woman from the office called me back, I just felt like I had to take the opening because I only know Tyson's schedule one week at a time. Getting two appointments together is probably more difficult. I don't envy whoever has to convince Jack it's a good idea to let them poke around in his mouth. It's one of those special kid-centered offices, however, and last time I took Grace, she watched Dora on a ceiling-mounted TV.

Grace didn't go to the dentist until she was 4. "They" recommend sending kids from their first birthday on, but I think unless you (or their doctor) notice a problem looking in their mouth, it seems a bit silly to go that young. Otherwise, my excuse was just procrastination. Jack's the nutty sugar-stealer though, who drinks umpteen gallons of milk in a week, so I don't want to put it off.

So for tonight, I need to make some dinner (pasta?) and get them off to bed at a reasonable hour. I shall wander around in my poorly developed written world and try and make everything a little more clear. People will be way too wordy in conversation, I'll suffer from both under and over description, but in the end, I'll be left with an interesting pile of words. If I squint just right, there may be a story in there. If I don't press on, I'll never find out.

You know it's time for bed when...

...Every song that pops up on shuffle makes you want to cry.

I'm riding a crazy wave of nostalgia, productivity and who knows what else.

I do this to myself, really, but maybe diving back into the world of lonely, lovelorn people means a plot is finally starting to shape up in my NaNo story. Maybe not, but after typing nearly 4,000 words today, it's clearly starting to affect my brain a bit.

The difference between now and few months ago is that now I want to hug you all (and only feel a little awkward about it!) and tell you why I love you rather than go hide under the covers and pretend you don't notice.

And on that note, I have a couple of pills to swallow and some sleep to catch before I have to get up and finish cleaning the living room before supper club comes over.

Hey, I may be a little bit nutty and am currently oversharing, but I'm fun. Right?

12,321 words and counting...

"She is Love" playing...

Time to go before I start getting mushy.

Misc. Notes before I fall into bed...

My mom came for the weekend. We went out to lunch and took the munchkins trick-or-treating at the Valley Mall later that evening. Jack seemed very confused by the whole process, as I think he just thought we were having him dress up as a skunk for our own amusement, in exchange for buying him candy. He didn't even seem to register that other kids were wearing costumes until he saw some boys in Batman and Spiderman outfits. Then he looked at me like, "Why am I not wearing THAT?" Pictures are on flickr as usual.

He has two sets of Spiderman PJs and thinks they're the most awesome things ever.

We got them home and off to bed at a reasonable hour, and then Tyson and I headed off to the Blvd. Luckily, we came in right before Hockey's set. They're really quite good, and you can tell they know what they're doing AND actually rehearse. The homemade CD Tyson bought from them way back when sounds just like the single that's on the radio now.

Whatever the band was called that performed Weezer songs was pretty good. The singer was Marty McFly and the bass player was Vince the Shamwow guy.

La Cha Cha played Radiohead songs. Mediocre at best, as usual. I still don't get why they're so popular. I don't know if they're talented and never practice, or they practice and have the inability to improve. They didn't even play "Creep" right. I'm no massive Radiohead fan, but still...

Mon Cheri played as zombiefied Beatles. They're great, but being the last band of the night, they must have been several drinks in, since the Beatles songs that are normally in their set sounded much better than the others.

A guy dressed as Billy Mays won the costume contest, as randomly judged as it was. I talked to a couple who went as Dexter and Dexter's sister. One girl had a great Prince costume, and some guy was Roger Federer and had the real tennis arms and everything. We saw a girl dressed as devil do a bump off her fake fingernail and then try to stand there all nonchalant while rubbing her nose. There were 2 other dead prom queens and one excellent Xena costume. We only saw a couple people we knew, felt very old for being tired at midnight, but we had a good time and got home (with the time change) about 1 am.

My brain is basically mush so far for NaNo. Inner editor still not quite put away from the editing of the last book. Plodding along anyway.

Also, my first review for Cannonball Read is up over on GLL.

And with that, I need sleep.

So this is what early morning looks like?

Had my last physical therapy appointment yesterday. With just a little bit of tightness left in my neck and shoulders, I'm 90% back to normal. They sent me home with some exercises and stretches to do, and I will try to do them regularly.

As far as the clogged lymphatic system, I had one more session with the massage therapist while I was there. He did some muscle release work on my shoulders, and then showed me how I can do some of the light massage work along my collarbone, neck and armpits that will keep my lymphatic system running like it should. I wish I know what had made it start acting up in the first place, but I still don't have any idea.

He said that it would also help me sleep, and if how I feel after my appointments is any indication, I believe him. Usually the morning after, I am just zombiefied-levels of sleepy. Coma sleepy. Yesterday, it hit me in the afternoon and fell asleep on the couch for a couple of hours, got almost zero cleaning done and went to bed at 11. Couldn't fall asleep until nearly midnight, but my right arm was a bit sore from doing a bunch of lifting (took the oodles of recycling in yesterday too).

Had to get up early again for my followup appointment for the anti-depressant. I'd say with the 20mg, I was feeling perhaps 75% back to whatever I believe "normal" to be (but when we're talking 10 years of symptoms, what exactly does that look like?)Doctor told me to up the dose to 40mg, and see how that goes. I'll go back in 2 months. If it's too much of a woozy pony ride for me, I can cut it back to 30mg, which means cutting one pill in half. So we'll try it. She also told me to use my own discretion as far as having a drink goes (hooray!), and that nighttime cold medicines are perfectly okay (good, since I was taking them anyway).

In other news... Grace had her Halloween party at school yesterday, since she doesn't go on Friday this week. She dressed up as a Jack-o-lantern. I was going to paint a face on an orange hoodie, but my mom happened to see a costume for her at Shopko and bought it for her. She also wore an orange knit cap with a piece green felt pinned to it for a stem. Parents were invited to the party, so I went for most of it before I had to leave for my p.t. appointment. I decided to help with the snack table so I could steer her away from the things she couldn't eat -- caramel apples, the cookies (which had butter). She still had candy, punch and half a donut. Oh the sugar... ;) Lunchtime was tomato soup and tuna sandwiches though, and she ate minestrone soup for dinner, so the day was not a nutritional loss.

Last night I had a scary dream in which I was pregnant, and my reaction was, "Dammit! I just gave away all the baby clothes too!" Luckily this is not a possibility for several reasons, but I did feel slightly weird about loading up bags of outgrown clothes into the car this morning.

I was planning on taking them to that Once Upon a Child store to see if they'd buy any of them, but they didn't open until 9am. I got out of of the doctor's at 8:25, still had to pick up my prescription, and then be home before 10 so that Tyson could be to work by 10:30. The pharmacy didn't open until 9 either, so I ended up wandering around Albertsons for a little while, talking myself into tortilla chips to go with guacamole. Guess I'll try and get those clothes to the store tomorrow. Whatever they don't buy, I'll take to Goodwill. Last time, they only took a laundry basket's worth out of the boxes and boxes of stuff, but still paid me $70.

All right, time to clean. If the weather's not horrible, my mom is coming this weekend. I will post pictures of the Halloween costumes.

Uninterrupted sleep was nice while it lasted.

Plugged up nose was causing me to sleep with my mouth open, so I'd wake up with a sore throat. I am almost better, so that's good.

Plus, the magic of my prescription has somewhat waned. Not sure I'm at the right dose. I'm still better off than I was, obviously, but I can tell that I'm not quite right either. I go back for my follow-up on Thursday, so we'll see what changes are made. Life is still better in general though, so no one need worry.

Not at all helping on the sleep front - Jack is waking up in a panic around 3 am. We've had 3 nights in a row of this. He seems so panicky and disoriented, and after a diaper change and maybe a little milk, he refuses to go back into his room.

Night #1, hesistant to make a habit of him coming into our bed, I tried to sleep next to him on the couch. I thought maybe after a little while, he would go back into his room. Uh... no. Then Grace woke up at 7 am, and they of course needed CEREAL! CARTOONS! MILK! TALKTALKTALKTALK! Ahhh, Mama's tired. *manages to toss breakfast at children* Mama's going back to sleep.

Night #2, not wanting to be uncomfortable and cold on the couch, I just brought him into bed. He made whimpering noises for a minute, then conked right out. Then wet OUR bed in the morning. Awesome. Thank you.

Night #3, back into our bed. He slept just fine, and even stayed asleep when I got up to see Grace off to school. I came back to bed and was able to sleep a little bit longer before he started saying to us, "Mama. Daddy. Get up! Getupgetupgetup. I... uh... poopy? Penny need out?"

"Just a minute, Jack."
"KITTY OUTSIDE! GET UP!"
"The kitty is not outside."
"Oh."

Leave it to the weekend where Tyson is instructed not to do any lifting whatsoever (Jack definitely being heavy lifting) where we start having this issue. Couldn't even trade off. Gah.

(Tyson's healing up just fine, btw. In case anyone was wondering. He was off all weekend and went back to work today.)

Me: "Jack, did you have a bad dream?"
J: "Yeah."
Me: "About what? Can you tell me?"
J: "I don't know. I as-sweep. I cry."

Poor kid. I put a night light in his room tonight, and guess we'll see if that makes any difference. I hope it's not an objection to being in a crib in general because I'm not ready for him to be in a regular bed. I don't know that he'll stay in it, and we'll wake up to him rearranging the recycling and tackling the cat at 3 am instead. I'm hoping to stretch out the crib maybe another year.

In other news...

Went to Grace's parent-teacher conference today. I don't know if the slip telling me what time it was had fallen out of her folder and I just didn't notice it in her backpack right away, or if she only brought it home today. She was done early, and I looked in her backpack at 1 pm and saw, "We look forward to seeing you Oct. 26th at 2 pm."

Good thing it only takes 10-15 minutes to get there. Made myself presentable, left Tyson to watch the munchkins and braved the downpour outside. Whole thing was pretty quick. Grace is reading way ahead of her grade level, enjoys everything that they do, and is still working on her handwriting. I picked up her lunchbox that she forgot.

Ehh... what else?

Still missing Hobo, of course. Jack has grasped it enough to say, "Kitty gone," in sort of a resigned way.

Grace: "It's cos she's dead."
Me: "He doesn't understand what that means."
Grace (to Jack): "It means Hobo's heart stopped working."
Me: "He doesn't know what that means either."
Grace sighs and shrugs. Jack goes back to playing.

Grace pretends to be tough about it, but she's still sleeping with a heavy stuffed animal over her legs to mimic Hobo being there. She helped Tyson bury her in the backyard, and put in a note that said, "I love you."

What more can I say?

Because I'm insane...

I will be doing NaNo (50k word novel in a month, for those of you just joining us) AND beginning Pajiba's Cannonball Read, where participants read 52 books in a year and write 3+ paragraph reviews on their blog. I'll be posting mine on Glorified Love Letters. Some reviews might be posted on Pajiba itself.

Yes, this is the same month where I plan on going to MT for 5 days. OH and copy edit 20+ pages of magazine. And, you know, still parent. Unpaid ambition, that's my crazy game.

So there's a fair chance I might not have a column next month. We'll find out.

(My friend Karo is also doing both. You should go read her blog. Also, she read MY book and very much liked it, so you know she has excellent tastes, ha.)