blogging

Memories


Light the corners of my mind is I think how it goes, but there are spaces I would just as soon leave dark. But I live in the world and I roam far and wide, both in real time and on the blogosphere, and I run across people and situations that cause lights to go on in rooms I never purposely visit anymore.

I was reading a blog, as is my wont, and the blogger mentioned that a remarried friend’s husband is very ill. This friend is pregnant and, coincidentally, about as far along as I was with BabyD when I realized that Will was sick.  I didn’t know how sick or what was wrong, and it would take well over a year to convince doctors that I was right and they were wrong, but that’s when it all began. And I remembered how it felt to be pregnant and know that your husband was very sick, and I felt terribly for this woman whom I don’t even know.

And it plays too into my worst fears of “what if?” because this woman has been down the road before and like me, and Rob, took a chance when she fell in love again and embarked on a new life. We do this knowingly, but with our fingers crossed behind our backs and buoyed by the odds that most couples do not experience the death of a partner young and that our first experiences bucked that trend and the odds of it happening again are very low.

But it isn’t impossible.

Bad things happen. Sometimes over and over and to people who are wonderful and undeserving in every way imaginable.

This just highlights a nagging fear that I never quite manage to lock the closet door on.

A Short One


I had planned to blog a bit last night, but I had a board meeting for the writer’s foundation and didn’t get back until well after nine. The downside of living outside established urban areas is that anywhere I need to be is a drive.

There were a lot of issues to address and it reminded me a bit of the old days when I was a teacher, but in a good way.

I spent yesterday morning commenting on blogs, and it generated quite a bit of traffic here, but it is time consuming. The afternoon was the short story, which isn’t all that short anymore. And this morning? Well, the Internet was down. At least in our little hamlet.

We awoke to a cold snap which had frosted the known world and hidden the rest in a thick white soupy mist. Fog and wireless internet are oil and water.

And I had stuff to do anyway. Grocery shopping now involves three different markets to visit due to availability of goods and prices. There was yoga. And then there was the short story – no longer short at all at 13,006 words.

One thing of interest to relate however; I heard from the writer who interviewed me for her book in 2007. She’d found me via my blog. I had written about using a problem solving technique she’s written about in Oprah. It was something she came up with for herself and she wrote about how she’d used it in her own life. I stumbled across it in 2006 and used it with my students and applied it to dating, when I first got back into it and it wasn’t going well at all. So, her book is done. She is sending me the “galley” to read. She gave me a fake name in the chapter I am in and disguised my story. I didn’t have to be incognito, but at the time of the interview I was a bit freaked out with someone tracking me down for my “story” on the Internet – even if she did know Oprah.

If she will let me, I will read it and review it here for all of you after it’s released. Otherwise, once it’s out, I’ll give you the title and you can hunt my pseudo-self down in it if you have nothing better to do. If you figure out who is me, let me know. Rob laughed when I told him my doppleganger’s name, so it apparently doesn’t fit me at all. But really, does a name fit? Or do we mold it to us over time?

Supper is calling. The preparation of it that is.

I’m Busy and Didn’t Blog


Remember that story I started last week? The one that was going to be about 8,000 words or so and done on Friday?

Yeah, it’s not done, and at 11,200ish words I am only about half-way. It will be done this week but not much else will be done. Including blogging. I am feeling dry where opining is concerned and that is so unlike me, but I just feel fictionish right now.

And a publicist at Random House sent me a book out of the blue hoping I would “read it and share my thoughts with my readers”. I have no clue how she got my mailing address or if brand spanking hot off the presses hardcover books from publishing heaven are going to be a regular occurrence from now on. But now I have another book on the “have to” read and review list.*

And that’s it. Nothing more to blog about today. Life is writing and husband and child and doing dishes by hand. There’s spin and yoga and MidKid’s cat puking in the garage because it may be bulimic. And it’s still winter.

Later.

*Yeah, I know the woman took a chance when sending it and I owe her nothing but  – did I mention it’s a hardcover? – I feel for the author. Someday I will want bloggers to read and write (favorably with luck) about me and I don’t want to spoil any future karma.