I have insomnia which has been treated with various zonk-out meds for about 15 years. But the pharmacy screwed up my prescription without telling me, and then closed at 5pm yesterday, instead of its usual 7. Thus, when I strolled in at 5:20, no luck for me. (This is what one gets for procrastination.)

I sleep with my laptop. Seeing as it’s a double bed and a single me, this is no real problem. (I did lightly touch the lid when getting back into bed just now, but panic saved the day. Singe had scooted down a foot or so, undoubtedly a little cool from the A/C.) I’ve done this ever since part of my ceiling caved in about a foot away from it in my last apartment. (I figure that in my bedroom, I might have a heads-up.)

Mind, this whole rationalization is a lie: My bedroom ceiling had already caved in the week before–a gallon of cold water is one hell of an alarm, and being (unusually) under the covers was the only thing that saved Julian (St. John’s dad and loyal backup laptop in case Bad Things happen to Singe or my daughter’s Aurelian). The truth is, St. John is my lovey. (Him and Max the cheetah.) But having a 250 GB boyfriend is lame.

Anyway, when I woke up half an hour ago and realized a) the massive overdose of ice cream for dinner was gonna get me in the morning and b) after 3 hours sleep I wouldn’t be good for much, I realized that choir wasn’t happening. So instead of waking up the desktop (Polycarp) and climbing into my chair, or stumbling out to the living room to whinge at Julian (out there facing potential flooded ceilings on his own; see italics above), I triumphantly just reached over to the honey. And here I am. Run-on sentences provided at no extra cost.

Wrote my choir director a brief note re the sickness that will make me fairly unhappy in the morning part of this morning, and took the back-up med with little hope. Oh well.

I used to refer to this phenomenon as the “3 a.m. squirrel,” a descriptive term which might have originated elsewhere–it’s common enough, God knows. It used to make me get up and write, but the novel is on Poly, and . . . no, wait. Never mind. So much for not writing. Hmm.

But the nice thing about the laptop era is that here I am with a large chunk of the planet. I can blog, I can play World of Warcraft, I can Facebook (that new verb). That said, it occurs to me that what I am doing is talking to my boyfriend, who at least is no longer grumpy about being woken up.

Another nice thing about laptops is that when St.John–whom loyal readers will recall had a recent trip to the vet–had his hard drive replaced last month, all I lost were a few small apps and a very little data. Can you replace your boyfriend’s brain? Can you? Nyah-nyah.

OK, I made up the part about the guy helping me off the train, but that was it.

I could do this all day. Sad, huh?

Stephanie alighted from her car of the underground train with some difficulty, but she smiled gratefully as a helpful gentleman offered her his arm. He guided to her to a bench, where she sank down.

“Are you sure you’re quite all right, madam?”

“Oh, yes–it is only that I was so foolish as to injure myself while walking,” she confessed. She gestured toward the heavy cloth and iron boot encasing her left foot. It reached up almost to her knee, where it was met by her tidily rolled denim trousers. The gentleman expressed his solicitude, and remarked briefly that his grandmama had once experienced a similar malady.

“Take care, miss! Be sure you do precisely as your physician advises!”

Stephanie replied with a blush that she would, although in simple fact the reader should be told that her past compliance with the decrees uttered by that good disciple of Aesculapius was none too exact. As her briefly-employed knight in shining khaki departed, she remained for a bit on the bench, engaged in rummaging through her bag, looking for the keys to her house. She was practical, and well knew that neglecting to search for them until at her very door would be difficult under her present misfortune.

Upon locating what was desired, she arose from her seat with a small and quickly stifled moan. She reflected to herself that it really would be beneficial if she indeed followed the directions of the eccentric and crusty Mr. Neal. As she exited the station, heading toward home, she was all too aware that she had been very tired from her morning.

Stephanie Howells was a short, sturdy, bright-eyed woman of some middle years. Plainly dressed and well spoken, she was that sort of decent matron who, finding herself bereft of her mate by way of life’s vicissitudes, was been long accustomed to finding her own way in the world. She sighed to herself, and determinedly popped in to see the apothecary.

After requesting three prescriptions (three!), she purchased two packets of tea biscuits, although not without a guilty self-adumbration. “After all, it’s not as if you can go to the gymnasium with your foot all encased like a seaman’s locker,” she scolded herself. She surreptitiously gave her reflection in the shop window a quick glance, but was not too displeased with what she saw, although she did adjust a curl escaping its ribbon.

After traversing the several blocks to her home, she was about to turn into the pleasant alley which she shared with a number of other tenants of the surrounding flats, when she espied a cheerfully raucous gathering in the nearby park. Her curiosity overcame her fatigue, and soon she found herself chatting amiably with a number of vendors dispensing information ranging from the sitting governor’s desire to retain his office, to providing her with a handy card enumerating the periodical table of elements. (This last she tucked carefully away, as one really never knew when such might be useful. If she had only paid more attention to benzene rings when in school! Then perhaps she might be farther up in the world!)

After sitting down carefully on a low wrought iron bench, she enjoyed a somewhat blackened Frankfurt sausage; she did not, however, enjoy the entirety of its lackluster bun as thoroughly, and somewhat distastefully placed it in the bin along with her plate. She then decided that she had had enough of this unexpected little frolic, pleasant as it had been, and determined to continue on to her flat.

However, she started a moment as her arm was affectionately clasped by an unexpected hand as she passed its owner by. To her delight, said owner was none other than the genial former mayor of her town, who attended her church. She cheerfully twitted him about his absence at that house of worship that very morning, but his honest confusion reminded her in a twinkling that in fact, today was Saturday, and that she herself had been to the church only because she needed to attend a special rehearsal for the choir. But His Honor, who was very fond of our heroine, laughed at her quite cheerfully, and after some banter, she continued on her way.

She reached her flat with no further event, other than assuring her choleric neighbor that her well-mannered little lad had held the door–and thus should not be chided for his failure to immediately appear upon his large and self-important mother’s heels. She set down her parcel of biscuits, small objects dispensed by the fair’s informational vendors–and as well a container of orange juice, left unconsumed by the choir’s breakfasting–and gratefully released herself from the boot, which was not absolutely necessary whilst in the house.

She then repaired to her closet, whereupon she sank down upon her bed with a sigh and opened the slim white writing desk which had lain by her pillow, awaiting her return. She sorted quickly through her correspondence, and, dispatching a few pithy notes directed at various friends’ communications, settled herself down to the afternoon’s work; for Mrs. Stephanie Howells was a writer.

It was an occasional habit of hers to apply her clever mind to the invitations proffered by a group of similar writers, who called themselves “Plinky,” for some reason or another. As she set herself down to answer yet another challenge, at first she tsk’ed, as its main question merely addressed a question of *style,* but its enlargement then enjoined the hapless writer to describe a scene of some years past.

Stephanie considered herself quite the literary maverick, and opted to follow the first recommendation, eschewing the second. “After all,” she mused to herself, “that blasted boot indeed made the morning seem quite lengthy.” She set about her task with cheer; however, she soon noticed to her chagrin that indeed, her usual daily style, both fictional and mundane, held something of a resemblance to that style which she had been exhorted to attempt.

It was indeed educational, as she realized that the ornately constructed Latinate sentences which were her natural wont had been distinctly inspired by the works of such masters as Henry James and Anthony Trollope; indeed, by her beloved Herman Melville himself; and she wondered sadly at the general failure of the modern world to properly read and understand sentences which were only ten or so words long; vocabulary which was intended for those no more than ten or so years old; but she knew very well that such were now sadly out of fashion–indeed, were now termed “run on”–(she shuddered in embarrassment), and adjudged inappropriate in an age where semicolons, colons, dashes, full stops, and all their fellows could be tossed away with the sneering acronym, “TLDR;” that is to say, the audience found such Too Long, and thus Didn’t Read it.

She concluded her penultimate paragraph–which indeed contained but a single sentence–and posted it, so that her fellow writers might indeed consider it too long, and would thus not read such, which would be a pity and most unfair, as such had been the very prompt assigned for the day.

<Plinky Prompt:Write a scene in the style of a historical fiction novel.>

I now only own two physical objects bearing the name I changed because I loathed it. I kept the two because they illuminated the Sign-for-Me in ways that were tremendously useful and important. The other one is my Harvard AM diploma.

A bored little boy goes on an adventure through the living people and places of knowledge itself, and he stops being bored.

Well gosh. Who'd want to read that? (For what it's worth, I also really liked the book about the guy who slept with a cannibal and then went looking for a whale.)

And now that I think of it, they have some stuff in common–or maybe all they have in common is me. Both took me to very special places; both fed my innermost desire for an accelerative infosuck.

It's just What One Does to mock Moby Dick; and everybody loves Phantom Tollbooth . . . but canons are canons; fame is fame–and altars are altars.

That portrait of Melville on the cover of the Penguin edition hangs in the Houghton Library at Harvard. I've stood before it and silently . . . what? Communed? No; I've been saying thank you. A whole lot.

Several years ago, I was visiting the Museum of Children's Art. (I think. I'm not going to Google. Indulge yourself.) Anyway, they had Norton Juster speaking.

Afterwards, as almost everybody had filed out, I gathered every nerve I had, and I went up to him, and trying more or less successfully not to cry, I said:

"Mr. Juster, Phantom Tollbooth is probably the most important book I ever read. It taught me to look at learning things, and knowing things, and it encouraged me that it was fun. I'm getting my PhD in English at Harvard right now, and it's partly because of your book."

Sappy. Yeah. But I meant it, every word, and he knew it. He said something gracious–and his eyes got just a little bit teary. I knew that he had heard me say thank you.

I just got up and went to look for the copy he signed for me–and at first I couldn't find it. The book on Tarot I hunted for two days ago–sure. (Thanks, gremlins.) The copy of The Dot and the Line similarly signed for my son (and unmailed for five years or so now)–yep.

When I found it, I realized why it had been so difficult. For one thing, my Scholastic paperback copy had had the cover blue on its spine.

And for the other, I was looking for a book about twice as thick as it actually is.

When I was very little, I thought the twelve-year-old upstairs was an adult. It's like that when you're small: Everything is bigger.

I've stopped hugging the knees of giants–but Phantom Tollbooth will always be really, really thick. My bookshelf groans beneath it; it and Narnia and Oz and Lord of the Rings. But only Phantom Tollbooth is signed to *me*–

and it's the only one for which I got to say, "Thank you."

You know what I mean.

Yeah, I have ADHD, which stands for Another “Duh, Honey!” Day.  And admittedly, a common ADHD diagnostic question is “How often have you had to hunt for your wallet, keys, or similar item this week?” (And I must admit that as I write, I can’t find either my phone or my keys. That’s not what inspired this little essay, but I’m getting ahead of myself.)

But that’s not quite it. There’s a pattern to this phenomenon, and I think everybody is familiar with it. After all, everybody (well, most normalish people) misplaces things–and  you have looked at the header for this post, and by now, you indeed know perfectly well what I mean.

The first time this happened, I was 18 years old, and on a late date with the love of my life. He was a student at Kings Point, the US Merchant Marine Academy; and he had to be back by a certain hour or he’d be sent to the stockade or something. So a friend offered to drive him. It was a longish drive, and it would be extra time to pet him and stare into–yeah, whatever. Of course, I wanted to go–but I couldn’t find my keys, which meant I was screwed in terms of getting back into my building. Looked all over. Finally, they couldn’t wait another minute.  I cried. (I was 18. Cut me some slack.)

So, the very next morning–or when I got up, more to the point, having petulantly gone to bed at 0-dawn:30–there were my keys, sitting on a shelf. I had searched there several times. I couldn’t figure it out. I later told a wiser friend about this; and she nodded sagely, and said, “Mm, yes. You sent them into the future. It happens sometimes. Chances are you shouldn’t have gone on that trip.” I pointed out that they hadn’t crashed into a ditch, but she argued that my presence would have changed the situation–and as modern physics tells us, this is true.

But as my life continued, so did my apparent desire to similarly save myself from all manner of badness. I’m no longer sure about Abby’s hypothesis re any positive effect or reason; unless it was imperative to the economy that I go out and buy a new one. But I kept sending stuff into the future anyway.

Other wiser souls have opined that it’s not actually us, or anything human at all, but gremlins. That’s what I’m going with now. (After all, there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of by those who notice that they have lost half of them.)  These minor demons have an uncanny sense of what’s  going to screw us up when–and then sadistically rub our noses in our own failure to control our lives. But something recently happened that gave me hope for beleaguered humanity:

St.John–which, by the way, is pronounced SIN jun, if you care, which you probably don’t–is my MacBook, and over the past month, he got sicker and sicker. I hadn’t shelled out the $250 for AppleCare, but hardware was still under warranty, and so I called them.

The nice guy told me that it wasn’t likely to be my hard drive, and then suggested anyway that I re-install my system from the disk that came with my computer, in a packet entitled “Everything Else.”

This conversation was a blasphemy against the Lord God Steve, as it did actually concern software; but he said “I’m going to walk you through out of the goodness of my heart.”  But . . . I couldn’t find it–I will say that I did move this summer.  He gave me the basic two step instructions, saying that if I knew how to reset my PRAM, I could do this. (Thanks.) He said that absent the disk, I would have to go out and buy Snow Leopard all over again.

“You know that if I buy the disks, I’m going to find them immediately afterwards, right?”

“Yep.” He knew what I meant.

So after we hung up, I searched everywhere. Looked in all the random unpacked-ish boxes in the house. (And you know what I mean there, too.) But I couldn’t find them. I might have thrown them out in a fit of packing idiocy, but I’m not quite that much of an idiot. I knew damned well that they were lurking out there in the future, taunting me.

I went to the pathetic trouble of calling my alma mater’s tech support, and begging  to borrow them, as I had been told that Snow Leopard would run me $30 that I just don’t have. It would have taken ten minutes; I would be right there at the counter. . . but he really couldn’t do that. School would send him to the stockade with my teen boyfriend. (Although classier than Kings Point’s.)

But geeks are the salt of the earth, and he warned me that in fact the Snow Leopard disk probably wouldn’t do what I wanted.

“You know that if I do buy the disks, I’m going to find them immediately afterwards, right?”

“Yep.” He also knew what I meant.

He recommended that I schlep off to the Genius Bar at my Apple store, and I morosely made the call, figuring that anything was going to be a lot cheaper than the thousand+ bucks I had shelled out when I bought Singe. To my amazement and joy, they cheerfully said that minor software things like that they did for free.

So in didst I shlep. Found out that the well-meaning AppleCare guy was running 0 for 2, as Mr. Hard Drive, she was no longer mounting. (*boom chick*, no matter what you thought there.) So I did the I’m-still-under-warranty booty dance, and left the baby behind.

Now,  while I had been waiting for my turn at the Bar, I had been working on a piece of cross-stitch for a present. I was under a deadline, and so that next morning came the usual slide-to-home-plate of getting the damned thing finished. I needed some fabric to back it; went to its location in the linen closet–and . . .

. . . out slid “Everything Else.”

I knew without a shadow of the faintest of doubts that the gremlins had sent it into the future–because who in their wildest imaginings would have packed it in there?

But the little bastards screwed up!!!! Booyah!!!! Although it turned up right on schedule–on the very morning after it had been desired–

–I hadn’t actually needed it. And for once, the economy had not been enriched by any of my gremlin tribute.

The damned little sheeping bastards aren’t omniscient after all. There is a new dawn of hope for the human race.

And you know exactly what I mean.

Plinky prompt:
If you could be any book character, who would it be?

This was the first thing that popped into my head. I tried to think of others, but I came up blank. For what it’s worth, I have a doctorate in English. From Harvard. I’ve read a whole lot of books. In other words, I’m a *highly educated* fangirl. An obviously defensive fangirl. Moving right along.

Pyanfar Chanur is a hani (those big dangerous-looking kitties). She captains her own small (meant for five-ish crew) starship ( Pride of Chanur) and comes from a society where the women kick butt and the men sit around and mostly look ornamental.

Pyanfar’s universe consists of several different space-faring species, all of whom have . . . challenges in getting along with each other. In this first book, they make contact with a new bunch–those funny naked monkeys, one of whom ends up on their ship. Much of the plot comes from trying to keep the poor bastard from being made into sushi, as his species are newbies and a commodity.

Pyanfar just keeps rolling with it. OK, got a human. Whatever. She later ends up with a kif (think the Empire) as well as her own big fluffy husband, all of whom manage to find places on her ship. She is brave, smart, incredibly loyal, thinks on her feet, handles the insane diplomacy with aplomb–and doesn’t take any crap from anybody. She’s the captain; this is her crew, and by God, stay out of her way.

(Yeah, okay, the retractable claws. Confession: While writing my dissertation, I got a cartilage piercing so I could have an earring at the top like the hani do. It wouldn’t heal over a whole year. 😦 I was really bummed. Maybe I should try it again. And . . . *mumble* golden red *mumble* fur.)

BUT I’M NOT A FURRY!!!!!

Poor stupid bastard. That sucky spike through the wrist thing was apparently a waste of time. The crown of thorns is still an asshat.

The gay people I know best have wedding bands, and I found it eminently endearing to hear a man refer to his husband.  That said . . . I live in Massachusetts.

The bottom line is that the denial of literal gay marriage is solidly based on the palpitations of the bewildered masses, who are claiming that God Himself finds this problematic. Thus, the whole thing  is really a matter of church and state. However, the problem with that appealing notion is the irony that it can be argued that that isn’t in literal fact the case.

I’ve been stunned that I’ve heard NOBODY aggressively ask–and catechize–the people audaciously calling themselves Christ-ians about what Jesus said about it. He was only around for 30 years and apparently was well aware of the time crunch–I’m not sure why this wasn’t covered, seeing as He knew He was under a deadline. He was undoubtedly distracted by all those tiresome people He rather disgustingly claimed to love. I mean, God the Father actually spelled out the adultery thing in an actual Commandment–and what does Jesus do in John 8: 3-11?

Thank Heaven that He realized the breadth and depth of His screw-up and zapped Paul so as to provide editorial footnotes, before even bothering to nudge the writers of the Gospels. It’s obvious that the Evangelists were too hung up about this idea of  trying to talk about the actual Jesus guy. Maybe they figured that Paul beat them to the press on a lot of stuff (Paul and Peter had themselves a bitchout, which Paul lost)–or maybe they were just working on spin. Maybe they were queer themselves–although there is certainly no real indication of this, as opposed to the substantial evidence that James I was at least bisexual.  (But Jimbo was inspired by God to produce the only Bible that really matters, so I guess that evidence goes the way of the dinosaurs.)

Yes, it’s really too bad that He overlooked this vital issue, but there it is; and we should pick up the ball and run with it, especially since He was also ignorantly nattering on about “judge not” and whatnot. As Luther said, “In Christ’s realm no punishment is to be found.”

These modern counterparts to Jesus’ cranky Pharisees are the ones who are controverting the will of the person they call their God.  But that’s OK.  The Constitution they’re also controverting gives them the privilege to plop this thing of theirs in to rock’em sock’em with the Flying Spaghetti Monster–it’s all good. But they’re metaphorically infringing on an a copyright upon which they themselves insist; and by gosh, they’re getting away with it, because the average leftist is apparently better equipped to talk math with Stephen Hawking.

I’ve capitalized His pronoun deliberately here to make my point–anybody stop really paying attention to anything I’ve said as soon as they hit it? Tsk. Those black eyes from the knee jerk can be the dickens.

( Helpful hint: The traditional heretical beefsteak should be acquired from the supermarket in the tonier areas–it’ll be substantially cheaper than the one sold in de ghetto.)

I recommend that liberals see that their political stances will be far better informed when they stop sneering at the “fucking holy book”–a phrase with 2,420 hits–and study it thoroughly, despite the stomach-clenching prospect of laboriously acquiring their own data. (Got some links over there to the right for ya.) It’s a pity, since the left has made a few laudatory efforts to blunder about trying to stick up for people following a holy book for a few years now.

In fact, it is abundantly clear that nobody on the left can afford not to understand the central text underlying Western culture. Read the thing; read it again; then read the exegesis. Several of them. (Who was Paul? Who was Moses? What does “synoptic” mean? What’s a canon and who says so? Why do those questions matter?)

In any event, ignorance of Biblical history is sadly understandable in a country that reads at a 7th grade level; but surely we can work on the last fifty years, where we have pictures.

Remember the firehoses? They were only hung up when those pictures hit the nightly news and thus became real. Queers are invisible, and there is no clear line of demarcation to pacify the haters.

Just as the Tea Parties are really modeled on the Civil War, instead of the Revolutionary, protecting the rights of gay marriage isn’t akin to the Civil Rights Act per se–it’s all about context, kiddies.  The Act itself has changed the world, which now only vaguely understands its deconstructive implications. The modern but-it’s-all-those-bad-guys’-fault fingerpointers lack the backbone and the stamina of their recent Democratic forebears. I’d like to see them filibuster as did the Democratic 18 out of 19 Senators  who opposed the Act!

But we’re all kind of dumb, and Obama ain’t Kennedy, or even Johnson. He–and the concept of gay marriage–both lack a sufficiently broad base of at least grudging tolerance.

I’m not surprised by Obama’s decision. What did y’all expect, people? For over a year he scampered away from the far less controversial “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” issue–which he *did* campaign on, if memory serves, which can’t be said about gay marriage. Yes, he’s an accommodationist–but maybe that’s not a bad thing, all considered.

Honestly, at this point the Teabaggers would have overloaded into public actual physical violence. So far, queer people have been gradually gaining acceptance, and so far, the Teabaggers have refrained from openly attacking–yet. (Um, while you’re going over that Wikipedia article–use your finger, it’s okay–do a little crayoned collage on why it actually-in-fact-sorry-you-don’t-like-it-really-indicates-change that they haven’t definitively and unashamedly outright called the POTUS a jigaboo. We have also made an important linguistic victory by the substitution of “entitlement people” for “nigger,” as it focuses on a behavior instead of a “race.”)

But junkyard dogs bite when cornered; and as we have let them steal the rope for nooses instead of ourselves commandeering it for leashes, it’s presently good tactics to duck and cover until we really get our shit together–or the Mexicans will just have to make room on the wall.

Or maybe they’ll just drag out the crosses. It’s been done before;  marshmallows optional.

Who knew?

“You’re a finisher!”

I was recently talking to my friend Annaliese, whom I haven’t seen for a while, and sharing some of the things that have happened to me since we last really caught up. (The time spread of this list whapped me upside the head. Sorry, Annaliese. I’ll pick up my end of the stay-in-touch thing and wave it like a happy flag.)

Anyway, I talked a little bit about the process of completing my dissertation. (English and American  Literature and Language,  Harvard, 2006.) I entered my graduate program back in 1992, but ended up taking a seven year hiatus to do things like get divorced and Have Adventures.

During said Adventures, I managed to hang on to my AM diploma–which, ironically, I only picked up because I filled out a form to officially get the degree; I needed to teach. It hung on my wall as a reminder that once upon a time, I had belonged somewhere. Harvard had been wonderful to me, and I looked at it as a sort of heaven from which I had cast myself. I never really thought I’d go back. I was, after all, a loser babe; see “Adventures,” above.

Then a number of self-perceived and inflicted obstacles vanished; and there I was, back in Cambridge. I was getting financial aid, which I needed to feed myself and my kid, as said Adventures had included  making a really bad job decision which bit me on the ass. (Short moral: Academics teaching high school should be aware that “career changers” are often viewed with extreme hostility.) Thus, I viewed making sufficient progress on the diss as my job. I knew I’d eventually fail; but one of my self-imposed obstacles back then was a sense that things happened to me, and that I was powerless to push these looming bad things away. (Loser babe.)

But . . . I have an endocrine disorder, called hyperparathyroidism, which is four feet of trochees and a serious nasty pain in the ass–or in my case, bones. (Short moral: Take your vitamin D, kiddies.) I wasn’t able to hike the mile or so to the library, but Harvard has a short bus. So every morning at 10 am, I would drag my crippled ass out and get on the short bus, which would dump me out at Widener, and collect me again at 4:30.

And if it hadn’t been for that bus, I’d probably still be looking at my AM diploma and whimpering, instead of looking at it and grumping that its pal is missing because I owe Harvard a whole lot of money, and it’s held hostage. So–250 pages later–I completed the yah-da yah-da requirements so on and so forth, got to wear the big pink dress in an inevitably raining Tercentenary Theatre, and ensure that regardless of term bill, a phone call to my department will affirm that yes, I are a PhD.

I finished.

But it was a fluke, brought on by the short bus–no, actually, by not wanting to make Bonnie unhappy. (Bonnie is the incredibly nice lady who runs the short bus, and we had a number of lovely conversations.)

Meanwhile back at the notebook: As I hope all writers know, the best way to start to write is to start to write. And so, while sitting in Child Library on Widener’s third floor, I would somewhat guiltily spend my first hour or so noodling about, writing fake email between me and my imaginary friends. (Oh, yeah. Like most writers don’t have them. Pull the other one.) This correspondence got somewhat involved; and unbeknown to me, the friends were gathering depth. Slowly, imperceptibly; like that small-flake cold snow which whispers into many-inch drifts, and stays there.

And meanwhile back at the TV, Angel was being canceled. This was upsetting. Mr. Boreanaz is lovely to the eye, and other viewers will recall that they were plotting themselves into a corner; and I wanted more. Well, no. But over one weekend, I found myself thinking about vampires, and what if they were or could be real, and how would that work in terms of biology–and within the space of a very few days, my friends were all alien vampires.

I kept poking around at the biology part and reading up on things like transient amnesia and hematopoiesis. And then I wrote a short story, and looked at it for a while. I’d never actually finished a short story that was worthy of the name. It felt weird. So I posted it on deviantArt, and sort of looked at it, wondering if I could write another. But I knew I couldn’t. I was a loser babe who’d tried to write fiction before and failed. So it was a fluke.

Poor vampires. But they wouldn’t get out of my head, and pieces of their culture joined the snow.

Then, out of the blue, one of these guys poked me hard in the ribs; and I started telling his story, and I told it for five years. I carried a notebook with me wherever I went: On the T; to set painting for MIT’s Gilbert & Sullivan group; to and from a really good contract job. Terry talked and talked and talked. I became aware that I was writing a book, and he became my anchor.

And then I got sicker, and had more Adventures. Being a loser babe, you know. So Terry, the notebook, and I went to various poverty offices; and then to a homeless shelter. (Can’t work=no money=can’t pay rent=get evicted=that’s the way it goes if you don’t have family.) I was a loser babe, and I knew it. For three months or so the third or fourth filled notebook sat in a little pile. But I knew Terry was still there, and that somehow he thought I was still the person who told his story, and the story of all the rest of his fang-pumping pals. So I wrote one of the climaxes of his narrative on a little couch outside of our room in the shelter, and every week I would haul down to Harvard and work for the afternoon. (Choir practice took the place of the short bus.)

And then we got an apartment, where my perceptive friend Preston (who was graciously reading the damned thing) pointed out that there was stuff Terry really didn’t know–so I spent months turning half of his narrative into third-person. By this time I had realized that my role in this movie was to be the writer, and that a goal here was actually publishing the damn thing and making money. Then I started worrying about the fact that it was a little more novel-y than the genre novels its likely readers enjoy, and that it needed pizzazz. So I thought that vampires needed slayers; and hey, how about a serial killer?

Poor Damascus started out as something of a sleazeball, and I began wondering how he ended up that way. So just for my own edification, I started telling his story off to the side. When I was finished, Damascus was more than a plot device, and I started thinking that I really was writing one damn fine book.

Which would never happen, because I’m a loser babe. I knew I’d never finish, and my daughter and Preston would be disappointed in me, but that’s just how my life was.

We all moved back to Cambridge, where I’m currently on disability. Terry went off and sulked for a while–but by then a whole lot more people were telling me about what was happening in the third person part; so screw Terry anyway.

About a month ago, I found out exactly how it was going to turn out, and stared at the chapter outline in the table of contents. And I realized that some unseen and unknowable force inside of me was going to bail; because for the entire five years, I knew at bottom that I’d never actually finish it. I finally winced through a word count, and discovered that I had somehow managed to spend five years writing *two* books. But on I went down the home stretch; Terry and I had a come-to-Jesus;  and in two manic RSI-risking days . . .

. . . I was finished.

Well, the first draft, anyway; but that for me was the hard part; and now I get to do the fun part of transcribing it into an automatic second draft. But–it’s finished.

All that said, the reader by now has picked up the rhetorical emphasis on my essential core self-concept being that I’m a loser babe, and so when Annaliese said proudly, “You’re a finisher!” it hadn’t occurred to me that I was.

I have ADHD, and I do the usual thing of starting a lot of little projects and wandering off; and, being after all a loser babe, that was just the way it went.

But by golly, it turns out that I’m a finisher. So I went back and read my own resume, as it were–and I’m a finisher. Not a loser babe. Heh. Who’da thunk?

I am fighting off a migraine. Took Imitrex, which should work soon. Meanwhile, of the best things to do is to lie down in a quiet place and wait. Unfortunately, the quiet hasn’t been cooperating.

I was awakened about 45 minutes ago by meowing. VERY LOUD meowing. It didn’t sound like Ripley, but ya never know. Cats are creative. Pad-pad-pad. Nope, asleep on the couch. Pad-pad-pad. Maybe it’s stopped. (Five seconds later:) Nope.

wait-wait-wait *call Animal Control?* wait-wait-MEOWWWWW *alarm clock a lá Tom & Jerry* MEOWWWWW!!!!

jammies(no, don’t sleep in ’em)-pad-pad-open balcony door

Mr. Cat is on a windowsill two buildings down. He is patting and meowing at the closed window. Poor kitty!! What bastards! How dare they rent some other cat to violently tear out the screen and leave its shreds open to taunt you?

I know how destructive cats roll, and I can just picture the day-in, day-out scratching and pushing at that screen. My God, there’s a whole world out there! The damn thing’s just nylon! I have claws! I have beaten my owners into submission! Mwah-ha-ha-meow!!!

ME-OOWWWWWWW! MEOW! MEOWW! (lather-rinse-repeat at regular 2 second intervals)

Perseverance got him out; he is convinced it will get him back in.

Meanwhile, back at my ranch: Unfortunately and unfairly, the lady upstairs is très ghetto. MEOWW!!/I’ma fuck yo fuck-ass up!!/MEOWWWW!!!

This woman really does have the limited vocabulary our teachers told us about. I’m fuckin’ serious. That fuckin’ woman says “fuckin'” every other fuckin’ word. Fuckin’ drives me fuckin’ crazy! And she is fuckin’ loud. I’m serious. I can fuckin’ hear her fuckin’ screaming from her own fuckin’ apartment; outside on the fuckin’ stoop (where she is joined by people who mercifully listened to their teachers). She fuckin’ yells at her fuckin’ kids; she fuckin’ yells at the fuckin’ neighbors–

You get the point. I have never put “fuckin'” into command-V before. She is also audible through the bathroom vent. She does not just use the “f” word. She uses four f’s: fuckin’ forte forte fortissimo. She just doesn’t quit. She perseveres in her attempt to subdue her surroundings and make herself known and heard.

MEOWWWWW!!!!/(unintelligible and peppered with “fuckin'”/MEEOOOOOWWWWWW!

So much for retreating to the living room. No quiet choices here.

MEEOOWWWWW/Go get yo’ fuckin’ cat!!!! Fuckin’ asshole!!!!

*Eh?*

MEEOO-

*hmm*

quiet/quiet/fuckin’/quiet/quiet/quiet

Fuckin’ awesome.

The nice thing about the Plinky prompts is that they’re at the very least a workout to keep muscles limber–and it really does nudge me further along the path of what I actually more or less planned to write about. Although it still is tumbling on the dryer, pretty much. I’m sort of on Damascus’ heels, but now that Terry’s narrative is going to go back to being more than just a frame for the Damascus backstory, I must check in with my 6’7″ pain in the ass and see where he’s at. I realize that I’m ducking Terry. I strongly suspect that’s because he has Something To Say to me.

I’m a tad less depressed today. At least, I think I am, considering that today I found out that my therapy time is going to be cut to a standard hour at the end of the summer, because I’m getting transferred to a staff person when my fellow leaves.  So I was bummed. Change, grr. It doesn’t help that the prescriber I picked because she actually laughed at my jokes is also leaving. I feel therapeutically Unloved.

On the other hand, I was wearing my 360 achievement shirt “Left the House,” and so this nice fanboy and fangirl started talking to me at the bus stop. “Ooh, story!” she caroled, when she saw the manuscript in my paw. I felt simultaneously shy and gratified. Well, yes, it is a story. It most certainly is.

. . . My mother used to say to me . . . "In this world, Elwood, you must be oh, so smart or oh, so pleasant." For years I was smart. I recommend pleasant. You may quote me.

–Elwood P. Dowd, Harvey (Mary Chase)

I couldn't think of an answer off the top of my head, so I (duh!) went to my Facebook info page. I have a bunch, but *wham*–this one was it. And it's surprisingly hard to talk about.

The first time I heard this as a kid, I felt sad and hurt. "Smart" was once again being dissed. It was made really clear to me that I was a freak in grade school, and it took a long time for me to stop resenting that But when I ran across it again, I finally understood what Mrs. Dowd was saying.

I'm wickid smaht–oh-please-*yawn*-oh-go-away-you-Mensa-asshole smaht. It's screwed with my life substantially, because it intimidates people.

"You sound like you think you're smarter than everybody else." Well, um, ah, if you really want to go there, for the 99% majority of "everybody else," I *am* by some common standards. But I never, ever mean to sound like that. It's just that there's nothing I can do about it–except be pleasant. I have agency there; I can choose to be pleasant; and I do.

Fortunately, I am also wickid nice by nature. Sweet, cheerful, funny, you name it. I *like* being pleasant. It's easy for me; it's my default. Mind you, my default is also to talk in complete paragraphs, or so I've been told; but what really matters is what one says and why one says it.

I tend to meet people where they're at, if at all possible. It's kind of a sociolinguistic thing, in a way. It drives my daughter insane that I pick up a "fake" Boston accent when I talk to blue-collar Bostonians. (Bear in mind, by the way, that my daughter calls me Mawm, and frequently pronounces 25-cent pieces as quotas.) But it's not fake.

I do it automatically–and I do it in a number of different regional places. Its jargon term is codeswitching–and what it means is that people are happier when you speak their language; and your life is easier as a result. The Hahvahd PhD language is swell–but I can speak many others.

I like people a whole lot. As Ruth Gordon says in Harold and Maude, they're my species. Being pleasant encourages people to let you in, not keep you out. And I've found that to be a wickid good thing.