One of the many cool things I learned in AA is the Gratitude Game. You make a list of ten things you’re grateful for–even if they’re kind of dumb. And then you make ten more.

One of the riffs running through my head permanently are a couple of lines from a pot song. I have no idea who did this, and I’m too lazy to message the person who introduced them to me. They go (sorta maybe): “I had a real good day; I didn’t throw up; I didn’t get run over by a bus.” So that’s usually on my list, at least in my imagination; particularly since I had hyperemesis with my daughter and am thus a bronze medalist in one, and have way too nearly experienced the other.

Anyway, I have to go to court tomorrow morning on the supposed eviction charge, and I was in an incredibly bad mood this evening, compounded by missing choir rehearsal due to insufficient planning and awareness of the blizzard. I needed to bitch, so here I was.

Now, I have a lot to be grateful for, especially regarding this whole stupidity:

1) I have a lawyer, pro bono from Greater Boston Legal Services.

2) I’m not anywhere near in danger of actual eviction, particularly as I’m moving soon anyway (for happifying and unrelated reasons of ghetto escapage).

3) I have a prescription for some mighty fine tranquilizers.

4) The courthouse is really pretty. I like skylights.

5) Did I mention that I’m not in any danger of actual eviction, at least partially because I’m able to dredge up the back rent?

6) And here I’m starting to stall when regarding the court thing. But . . .nobody I love is sick or dead, including cat and weasels; I don’t have to clear off my car tomorrow morning because I don’t have one; I have enough food and clothes and heat and a bathtub and not one but TWO comfy couches and electricity and Internet–all of which I’ve lacked at some time in my life.

7) And nobody is mean to me, aided chiefly by my being divorced.

8) [which previewing shows is apparently what netspeak turns Number Eight into; I’m also too lazy to go into HTML and re-list this] I was able to replace my laptop before it got really really scary sick on me as did its predecessor.

9) I have a new game for my DS.

10)AND . . .

. . . there is the miracle of the free associative experience that is the Internet, at least for anybody with a shred of curiosity.

I Googled that quotation above, looking vainly for its author, and discovered it on a lyrics site, but without any lyrics. It attributed it to a Robbie Fulks. Well, off I went. I quickly realized that this wouldn’t be the song I was looking for, unless perhaps he was precocious; I’ll get around to getting more info from the above-mentioned friend; more as this develops.

But anyway, I browsed around Mr. Fulks’ site, if only for my being immediately taken with his prose style. I listened to some of his music, and now I am grateful for Mr. Fulks.

I have always had a sneaking delight in some country music, although completely on the downlow for a couple of reasons. For one, black folks/country has the same general popular connection as kitchen plunger/iPhone, and before I discovered people like the toothsome Darius Rucker (formerly lead of Hootie and the Blowfish), I would feel as though somebody would break into my house and plant one of those Confederate flags you see on some pickup trucks. For another, my being above That Line (which, by the way, is in Maryland, for those of you who thought it was in Georgia or something), it is SO unkewl.

That said, the delight is there, and Mr. Fulks is quite good at it. He is funny and talented, and he really sings, meaning he MEANS it: structure, as opposed to surface. (Urge to link that to Beyoncé suppressed. She’s quite good at what she is, even if I did have to surf up the HTML for her fricking e grave.) So not only am I grateful for Robbie Fulks, I am grateful for the other fine artists I browsed into tonight.

11) (Ha! You forgot this was a list!) I am also grateful for the stuff in my head that trots me along these random passageways in what is only the beginning of most likely the coolest toy in history. Who knows? Maybe someday somebody will chance upon this very post by the same process of random curious enjoyment.

12) And I’m grateful that I don’t have to be in court until 9:30, ‘coz it’s late, and I really need to go to bed now. Wish me luck.

. . . as now I have an arena in which to confess the following horrible sin: I only remembered my daughter’s birthday when I happened (oh thank God) to see her post on Facebook.

Probably a ” ’nuff said!” there, but really–really really really–I saw it click at midnight, but didn’t want to risk waking her up. But . . . I overslept, which always screws with my day, and . . . since I couldn’t reach Party Girl on the phone–wished her a happy birthday on her wall.

Oh well. You’ll never see it, honey, but  . . . happy birthday. Words just can’t express it. Twenty-one years ago tonight, I remember holding you with the feeling–the knowledge–that you were Special; that you were going to be Important; that you would Make History; that you would Save the World. You’re still that person; you are special and important; you make history every day, and you have already saved my world more times than you know, by restoring my faith if nothing else.

I love you, sweetie. Twenty-one years ago you turned me into a Mommy, and although it’s been one tough gig, it’s the one that matters most.

I have had this long bizarre excruciating experience with Verizon for something like most of 2009. Last week, they sent me a bill which still reflected their assertion (admittedly partially reasonable) that I lived where the sub-town boundaries of the City of Boston thinks I do: In Jamaica Plain.

Unfortunately, for some unknowable reason, the United States government disagrees with this, and although they haven’t yet beaten down my door and hurt me, they have decreed that my mail at least is delivered to an entirely different place, with an entirely different ZIP Code: Roxbury, which technically begins across the street. In the olde dayes, the clever mailman/woman/dachshund would realize exactly what was going on, and delivered it to me at the address indicating the actual building in which I live, regardless of “where” it was supposed to be.

Well, we all know times are different now. This bill had unhappy governmental remarks all over it to the effect that the people at Verizon were ignoramuses, which of course I knew; and it had taken several weeks for that canny dachshund in his natty blue-grey dark-striped shorts to get the damn thing in my mailbox.

It claimed that I owed them the couple of months I had spent waiting fruitlessly for the dachshund; and that was only fair. It also hinted that that credit Tawara-in-New York had insisted on a couple of months ago was “disputed.”

The very next day Mr. Internet was bye-bye. I had the first salvo of The Usual, and curled up to be sick. As in, I think I actually had to take a PRN. I braced myself for several more hours of hell that coming Monday.  In a state of misery, I looked at the Comcast website. It looked complicated and expensive, and I was pretty sure I owed them money anyway. But seeing as Verizon was now hinting that they wanted over $300, what the heck. So I called them.

To my overwhelming joy, it turned out that I don’t in fact owe them money (how often do we hear that?) and that when all the dust settled, my installation would be less than the two month bill of a hundred-some dollars that I agree I owe Verizon, Tawara’s credit besides the point. Even after the year of cheap newness, they work out to be about $15 more than The People Of Corporate Evil—no, wait; that’s Bank of America. Um, The People Of Corporate Incompetence? No, that’s still Bank of America. Let’s just pretend I was clever, and forget we ever, ever, ever heard the word “Verizon.”

And you’d better believe I’m skating on the fucking Verizon bill. Sometimes honor lies in the civil disobedience of refusing to pay any more money to the charming people who ate eleven hours of my life. (And also charged me the minutes for it on their wireless phone.) Ten bucks an hour? Cheap at twice the price.

And cable is faster, too!!!

A couple of years ago I was physically dependent on oxycontin because of pain issues. Besides all the psychological stuff of feeling like a junkie (crash of self-absorbed over-thinking music), I learned what it feels like to need a fix. Well, fortunately, on a mild level, but still.

Because of the nice people at Verizon, I don’t currently have the Web at home. It was a peaceful and annoying weekend; I can blather later on the non-line thing.

But here’s the deal: I’m logged on at ye alma mater right now, and, after whinging to my Facebook friends, found myself relaxing. I still have to spend tomorrow fighting with Verizon, but I don’t feel as bad about it anymore. Something in my brain whimpered and felt better. I got a fix.

I’ve noticed this phenomenon before, back when I had similar issues while in the shelter. It’s not just that I’ve got the ambience of dozens of baby lawyers cramming for exams; it’s the net that makes this all of a sudden feel safe. That home is scary–a place where Somebody Mean is cutting me off from the outside world. Keeping me from my friends. From information.

The Harvard Law School feels safer and more embracing than my own room and kitty cat and teddy bear. How sick is that?

This started as a comment on Facebook that just got out of hand. It was a response to a friend who was expressing her annoyance with people on TV saying “lay” for “lie.”

Grammar and usage are fluid and complicated things. There is often a structure underneath what we say. For example, this page elegantly explains the lie/lay confusion.

My number one peeve in this area is a homophonic transfer: it’s/its  EVERYBODY does it. All groups of people, I mean. Harvard to high school. Twitch, twitch.

Number two is a mispronunciation:  noo-cue-ler

That said–

‘k; weighing in here with my stupid: I was raised speaking Standard with such fluency that I just blew off the grammar lessons in grade school bc I A’d the tests anyway. Grew up; had husband whack with dead fish re comma splices. Only really learned formal grammar in Latin. (Oh brave new world!!!) I still have to look it up when I have to explain to somebody just why it’s so. (Did you know that there’s an order to adjectives? And it’s close to the pentatonic scale in intuitiveness for native speakers? I digress.) Every once in a while grammatical uh, um, creativity was nabbed in the dissertation. Sigh.

Anyway, part of the problem with TV is the increasing acceptance of colloquial regionalisms. “Lay” and “lie” just work that way for some people.  Proper English? meh. It comes from the same area of the country clever enough to realize we need a second person plural. Proper English? meh. But a syntactical line drive down center.

And as for those of us above DC: Quick! When there’s a queue at the bank, you stand . . . . Everybody but NY says *in* line. Where we shut the lights, get on the train with carfare, and pronounce it RADiator. (Not RAYdiator. Ayyy!) Where we give ya a little whack on the arm with the back of one hand to get your attention.

And my God, how do other areas of the country convey “schmuck,” “tsuris,” “agita,” and all the other bits New Yorkese (yes!) borrows? We have more ways of communicating with bad drivers in sign than anywhere else in the universe.

I realized two things while in college: One, that non-New Yorkers were like, “what’s up with the schmuck thing?” and two, that I had to dumb down my spoken English, because it was perceived as intimidating/snobbish. I even picked up Urban as a second language. To my surprise, I’m still perceived as intimidating. 😦

Start observing how awkward it can sound when you stop dangling prepositions in speech. Know why sometimes “the” is “thee” and sometimes it’s “thuh?” Dialect/creole/language? ooh it’s so-oo-oo much fun!

But enough of that, because now I have to go make some written English of my own. (No, not this blog, silly. This continues under the head of “stalling.”)

And that’s part of why this topic kindled such an interest for me–I had put all my novel in the 1st person of a fairly colloquial narrator, who alternates between past/present chapters. When deservedly biffed by my main reader, I realized I had to put the present chapters in 3d person, so as to convey info that Terry just doesn’t know. You’d think (well, I’d think. Thought. Whadevah.) that the pronoun change was the most of it–but no.

There are so many other changes. 3d person is much more formal, simply because you’re generally not having a conversation with the reader. (Break that barrier very gingerly, friends.) Also, even when you’re talking about an ongoing condition for a fictional people, using the present tense immediately brings you back to a more conversational mode, instead of the past tense, which is more . . . what? There are terms for this; always terms and words. But how to find them? Aphasia or a lexical lacuna?

I was amused to find that there’s even a label for the English I speak now: It’s called “rich” English. I suppose that’s accurate–it’s a semi-deliberate fusion of academic with urban, with splashes of gamer-geek and phrases from a number of professional mini-expressions: Fuck to the no. (Uh, “fuck ^no,” if that weren’t obvious. ) pwned. Made my saving throw. Non-trivial. And then there’s “lexical lacuna” and its like. Heh.

(Fuck ^no! I am not either pwned by my own sniping unconscious! After this was posted, I made my saving throw and fixed the if-were above back from *shudder* if-was. An error I usually consider non-trivial (because I’m a schmuck who has too much agita about stuff like that). Clearly, I myself have fallen into my self-created lexical lacuna.)

I talk this way because it amuses me. I write this way because it amuses me; and it gets the job done: Trying to communicate the best way I possibly can. I mean, when it’s not just devolving into self-referential gibberish. But that’s what readers are for: to show we writers to ourselves.

(Didja twitch there? Huh? Huh? bwah ha ha)

I’ve known for a while now that I need deadlines, and that I respond to them intuitively. After many, many years of sliding for home so far that the grass stains dissolve my uniform like acid, I’ve gotten it down. Partly due to hitting the plate pretty dead square on–and lots of caffeine–I now make most of my deadlines, by the simple psychic technique of somehow counting backwards.

My last achievement was in making a piece of beadwork for my last session with my awesome therapist, whose fellowship had ended. It was a fairly complex project, requiring a long time (and some eyestrain). I worked on it over a couple of weeks, pulling the obligatory just-barely-enough-sleep bit–and triumphantly zapped the last beads into place in her waiting area JUST in time for the session to start.

I’ve been dawdling over a grant I’m writing for a small non-profit I volunteer with–and finally begged for a deadline. I feel much better now. Now I can procrastinate with a purpose.

And now, I’m feeling the gotta-do-this-now urge with the novel. Maybe it’s just the feeling that the vampire obsession can’t last forever. (OK, that’s a completely terrifying concept.) I set myself a somewhat arbitrary deadline of first draft by Thanksgiving–let’s see how we do.

I lose things. I have no real idea where my wallet is right now, other than “somewhere in the house.” A recent high point was when I was concentrating on an announcement I had to make at church one Sunday morning. I got on the train, still thinking about it–and left my purse on the bench at the platform.

Due to the miracle of it being early Sunday morning, and thus a low traffic period, it was found by a substantially honest person, who turned it in to the transit guys, who gave it to the next conductor, who brought to where I was quite anxiously waiting at my destination.

I say substantially honest, because nothing was missing–except my transit pass. It was only a few days until the end of the month anyway; as I reapplied the next day I thought it was rather a shame that Substantially Honest would miss out on the finder’s tip.

Anyway, right now I can’t find my wallet. Which was very likely disappeared by my evil executive function, which took it to a neurological creek and applied cement overshoes.  I lost it while looking for my grad school ring, which was the first item to disappear this morning. (It had fallen off the shelf where I absent-mindedly placed it as a (wait for it!) mnemonic. The ring thus made a serious saving throw against being used as a pet toy.) My ring is one of my most favoritest possessions, so I kind of freaked out and did the burrowing about thing. Thus, undoubtedly burying the wallet.

I am almost completely positive my wallet didn’t fall out of something or other between my house and the bus stop where I noticed its absence. Almost.

At this point, I have taken my happy-calm-down pill, looked everywhere likely, and some unlikely. ADHD means looking inside the tea box,  just because it was beside the Important Things drawer which is my last clear snapshot of the wallet’s existence. (My class ring wasn’t there.) I have also cancelled the appointment I was trying to get to before a) losing the ring in the first place and b) losing the pass/carfare to get me there.

This is me, taking out the trash and then having lunch. I am sure better blood sugar can only aid in the search.

Part of what made yesterday so particularly sucky is that I was having a bout of Mysterious Pain.

For years now, I’ve had these recurring episodes of nasty gnawing pain in the lower left quadrant of my belly. It’s this dull pervasive burning thing that fits right between “being able to function normally,” and “Barbie and Skipper Go To the ER.” When I was diagnosed with kidney stones, it became apparent that much of this was a low-grade renal colic, caused by something smallish trying to escape. That said, there have been a time or two when I’ve gone in and a film says there’s nothing there. So I dunno.

It’s mostly better today. Sometimes they can last for a week. 😦 I need to have a determined come-to-Jesus with my PCP about acute pain meds. He thought it would be a good idea to put me on maintenance morphine instead if I really wanted it. Hulk smash.

Well, the flashdrive was actually on my bedside table. Oh well. Meanwhile back at the ranch, yr obedient servant survived the rain and the various goings on of the day, and the next day, only to end up on this day, where absolutely nothing has been done, at least by me. Except go to Walgreens, where I got eggs, aspirin, and a pack of highlighters.

I have emerged from this to find that my little virtual pets all ran away from starvation, and my crops have undoubtedly withered.  I’m (understandably, I think) mildly depressed.

Thus, the usual free associative random Web crawl unearthed a couple of ye old and ye good, posted in the links section for your similar amusement. I’m still kind of bummed, but maybe I’ll actually do something constructive. Or at least get more virtual pets.

(Neopets don’t run away. They just perpetually die. Which, come to think of it, is really horrible.)

So. I had a five-hour window between Saturday events 1 & 2, and, being a schlub, I don’t readily go home and then go out again. Particularly during the onset of the fall monsoon season. (We got a break this summer, so Gaia is catching up on her aquifers.) Accordingly, I put the lappie in a garbage bag (hmm, dorkiness/wet laptop, dorkiness/wet laptop. hmmmm), swapped my current novel folder from the desktop to my flash drive (triumphantly unearthed from the pits of the desk), and found the serial killer’s manuscript.

I dug out the fall clothes box (noticing that half the clothes had gone on summer adventures). I remembered my umbrella, the naproxen, my hairbrush and the second elastic needed after braiding at the T (preferred grooming place of the tardy). Lip balm, wallet, watch, phone, and keys. I remembered to grab my earphones, and–to my own amazement–the actual materials needed to find appointment #2. Put it all into my preferred laptop bag, i.e., the bright orange one with Son Goku in Super-Saiyan mode. Despite the complexity of this assemblage, plus washing my hair, I made appointment #1 in time to enjoy the breakfast beforehand.

Unfortunately, the flash drive with the four hours of work planned is still on my desk. I think the moment I realized this on the T was the first time I actually did that thing where you smack yourself on the forehead.

I consoled myself with my serial killer, and reminded myself that I was behind on my other blog. But I’m still less than pleased.

However, under the heading of my favorite German word, schadenfreude, I saw that apparently the suffering was going around. On the way over to my writing nook on the Law School campus, I saw several groups of cheerfully painted chairs in the Yard. At first I thought they had been set up for some al fresco catering thing (you can eat free several times a week at Harvard if you scout around)–but no tables. Instead, they were all circled around facing each other in the manner that screams, “This is the way we will force total strangers to make self-conscious small talk with others, in some fantasy that they will Get Acquainted, especially as we don’t know what else to do with them.”

When I got closer, I saw that the chairs were all locked together with a cable, presumably to keep their occupants from escap–whoops, no; I mean “from theft.” One group had all tipped over onto their backs: Their invisible captives had scampered off into the freedom of the rain. Bravo, I said. May we all similarly escape those damned socializing cables.