itesser ink: progress, uncensored

I miss the floating stasis of night time. I miss staying up late and feeling cooperation and harmony among my motivation, my emotions, and my mental state. I miss how productive I used to be during the midnight hours when I was blinded to the impatient dimensions like sun and supper.

These days time passes before my eyes, not beneath my feet, and I seldom feel my consciousness relax enough to fill the vacant sky. I think it's a lack of solitude.

Don't get me wrong, I have plenty of alone time during the day, at least a solid six hours of idle time while Reagan's gone, then another, scattered three when he's home in the evenings. But during daylight, no matter the weather, I feel the presence of the rest of the world. I feel the trees and the birds, the neighbors and their pets. I feel the cars and the kids and the noise and the work; the huge, lit reality out there is oppressive. I see it, I hear it, I feel it, and I can't shut it out.

But the shadow blacks of nighttime are a blank canvas to me and for me. Silence pulls me out of my head and belittles my inhibitions. At night I find my focus better than I ever feel it during the day; it's just my nature.

I've taken decently well to daytime living, though. I wake up before six and fix Reagan some breakfast. I clean the kitchen and pass my day, watching the sun so I can move my flowers, watching the clock so I can time my shower, errands, or at the very least plan dinner. Structure is good. Going to bed at the same time my husband does is good. Those last minutes of shared awareness are treasured every day.

Tonight, however, I left him upstairs to sleep alone.

I'm down here missing the darkness.

A day off in the middle of the week is like an extra long autumn daylight savings day. A holiday without the obligations of a weekend. A snow day without snow.

But that was yesterday. Today is still rainy and delightfully overcast, and I'm determined to get things done (even though I slept in again).

Actually, all I want to do right now is play Andy Goldsworthy in our little backyard, with its drooping grass and purple-gray leaves

My old everywhere-sketchbook is full, and in it's place I've taken to carrying around a Memoranda book Reagan was issued sometime during his training. (Firefox doesn't recognize "Memoranda" as a word, but it's clearly printed on the front of this federally supplied notebook.)

In any case, I ripped out parts of the first 5 pages that R had written on. Nothing interesting was lost or remains, but it's a way to keep the source intact and still be able to find the beginning of my own scrawlings.

It's mostly lines of poetry and story ideas based on things I read. None of that is fit for public consumption, but there is something I'm willing to share. In one of my writing magazines there was a short humor article about the two sentence biographies that follow articles in most publications. I started writing some of my own to have on hand in case I forget how to blurb myself between now and becoming a real published writer.

Annie Rush...
... (assuming that is her real name) hails from next door (as long as you live in a suburb), but spends all her time writing in a moving car. Her husband does the driving, of course.

... is a pseudonym adopted from her cats. They dictate her short stories and articles, but she's on her own for the poetry.

... started writing at age six, stopped at age nine, and has been rehashing those ideas ever since. She has no sense of humor.

... and her self description will never fit into this space, much as her feet will never fit into that perfect pair of Mary Janes she had in the third grade.

... mixes metaphors for your enjoyment every Tuesday at her basement comedy club. Please tip your waitresses and mail carriers.

... would like to level with you. She's only good at writing, so take a look at her novel: Spreading It Out in a Nutcase.

... was born a girl, grew up a bear, grew into a jackal. She is now a young adult author.

... is the real-life inspiration for Nancy Drew. She gave up detecting adventures to sit at home, chew pens, and, occasionally, write.

.... can't decide if she would rather read everything or write everything. People keep sneaking off with her ideas, so it will likely be the former.

What's your blurb?

I finished the first draft of this about 11 hours ago, so unlike many of my postings, it's been proofed and lightly edited!

((Reagan's going over it. While he does, I'll report that dinner was excellent and I got my google wave invite today. Not sure what I'm going to do with it, but I'm an early-ish adopter!

R's laughing. I think that's good. It's meant to be comedy.

I'm suddenly craving lebni cheese.))

Mom pulls the cover off the serving platter with triumph glistening on her face. We all hunch forward for the reveal, then turn to Mom and watch the triumph run from her face like watered down mascara, to be smoothly replaced by mortification. Taking our cue from her, the rest of us are horrified by the dinner we are being served.

This side of the apocalypse, pink and gray are not appropriate colors for food. I cover my mouth with my napkin, just in case.


° ° ° ° °

I won't lie about this. The smell coming from under the lid is gross. It smells like something died, in the wrong way. I want to leave, but "dinner" has me locked in its tractor beams, and Dad would holler if I left without permission. No way I'm taking the first bite, though. Or the second or the third. Not even on a dare.

Jessie looks like she's gonna puke.


= = = = =

I know the kids are looking to me to be the brave one and throw myself in front of the gelatinous horror that looms in front of us, but Sandi's counting on me, too. I can read those eyebrows clear as semaphores, and she couldn't stand it if I rejected this meal she spent all day on.

Everyone's waiting on me, but I can't bring myself to say a word, so the silence has a field day in our midst. Sometimes it's a layered tension binding us in our seats, sometimes it's a thin wind whipping around the room, both obvious and invisible. At some point it shifts from anticipation to quiet, dumbfounded curiosity.


~ ~ ~ ~ ~

They're all waiting for what's next. Clearly, nobody has any intention of eating what I cooked, or rather ruined. I can't say I blame them. The kids looked from me, goddess of the kitchen who betrayed them, to their father, hero of evenings, fixer of things, but this culinary disaster is beyond his powers.

I cover the dish again. "Kids, go back to your homework. Dinner is postponed."

"Can we have pizza?" Of course Colin is leveraging my misfortune for his greasy gain.

"No, Mom, order Thai."

Jessie's never had Thai food; the odd request just prolongs the silence which hasn't completely left the room.

"Go... do... your homework. Your father and I will figure something out."


= = = = =

As the kids scatter, I go to my wife and kiss her cheek tenderly, in case whatever happened to dinner is contagious.

"Thai food?" she asks me, query punctuated with an incredulous eyebrow.
"She's seen it on TV. People are always having it delivered."
"I guess."
"Is there anything I can do?"
"No, no." Sandi is resigned to launching a second attack on hunger with one of her plan B contingencies. "You can go back to whatever. I'll make something quick."
"Mac and cheese?"
"If you're lucky."

I give her another kiss and follow the kids upstairs.


* * * * *

But we can't stay away. I am the first to arrive by mere seconds, but dinner#1 is laid bare again, its shroud nowhere in sight. I stand in the doorway held in thrall by the slick rosy slopes. Dad appears in the opposite doorway, serving the food a hard stare with a side of frown.

Colin joins us, almost as though the casserole of crap had summoned us to the table side to gaze upon its splendor again. "What _is_ it?" he breathes.

I don't even notice he is gone until he returns. The squirt climbs up to stand on Mom's chair. I don't pay much attention to him, preferring to watch how the light wraps itself around the gray lumps on the table. A white flash interrupts the warm light on our cooling dinner.

Colin brought back a camera. My camera!


° ° ° ° °

I'm focused on the rubbery mass centered on the table. Focused and capturing its horror to warn my friends and any future dinner guests... but not to focused to notice Jessie's face tighten when she sees what I'm doing. Mom senses danger--or returns to collect the leftovers... leftunders... whatever you call untouched food--or maybe she, too is beckoned by the mystery.

Mom comes in from the kitchen and hollers, "Back to your rooms! Let it rest in peace."

Jessie launches an attack at me, saying I took her things, but Mom pulls me off her chair and deflects Jessie. Much like an eagle snatches a squirrel from a wolf... then eats it. I'm hauled into the kitchen and set on a counter while Mom shuffles around, opening jars, boiling cans, and however else she cooks.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Nothing seems to be quite normal tonight, so I prefer to corral my space alien when I can keep an eye on him, often two. His heels kick the lower cabinets, but today I don't care. I'm simply happy the boy still behaves like a boy, even if chicken doesn't behave like chicken or potatoes like potatoes. And the boy is also behaving like not-boy, seeming to nibble at something square and shiny in his hands.

"Jessie's camera?" I hold out my hand rescue the gadget.
"Pepperoni?" Colin does a keen imitation of me, seeking a bribe for his compliance.

"Clear the.., uh-humm... off the table." I say, dropping a couple over-crisped slices in his hand.
"Okay, Mom."

I check on the pizza in the oven, then sweep up the meat crumbs in Colin's wake. Before the door to the dining room has stopped swinging, he's in the gap again. "It's not there."

I try to take the news in stride.

"Tell your sister to wash again, we'll eat soon." Colin stops abruptly as I grab his shirt. "And return this."

He takes the camera and I call my husband.

= = = = =

Sandi yells for me when I'm right around the corner. She doesn't know I'm heading for a third examination of the dinner that was not food.

"I'm here, I'm here".

"Did you do something with the--" She coughs and glances significantly at the white expanse of our dining room table.

"No, why would I..?" I notice then that it is gone.

"Why would you throw out inedible food?"

"Well, that's the logical thing to do with it, but I haven't yet. Didn't you?"

"Would I be asking if I did? If I didn't chuck it, and you didn't, and Colin didn't...."

I say "Dingoes?" the same moment she says "Jessie?"

But neither of us are confident.

"Then where is the dish? The lid, even? Your mother gave those to me for our wedding."

My wife is troubled, but there's nothing to do now, when none of us have eaten supper. And a timer is ringing in the kitchen.

* * * * *

Mom and Dad both glare at me when I come down for dinner take two.

"What?" I give them my best impression of an annoyed teenager.

Mom starts "Did you---" But Dad steps on her line.

"Help your mother get supper on the table."

There's nothing to do but follow Mom into the kitchen and stand next to her at the oven.

I can tell she's still nervous, hoping her kitchen magic didn't fail a second time. Her knuckles are white on the heavy door's handle.

"Courage, Mom"

She takes a deep breath and opens the oven. The pizza inside looks marvelous. The edges are black and crispy, and the toppings are a bit past well done, but the smell makes my mouth water. Her triumph is shy--but pure--as she carries the steaming pie to the table. I grab the cheese and pepper in her wake.

We sit down again, usual places, usual faces, and dig in.

I think I fulfilled the exercise's demands, even though I neatly exceeded the word count by half. Without Mr Brian Kiteley here to check my work, though, I'll never know for sure.

The voices for the four characters aren't as differentiated as I'd like. Each section is preceded by a special header which indicates the next narrator, though, if you want to mental-map out that kind of thing.

Other themes for today:
- apartment vs. house, both in terms of our current living space and my various pursuits... am I renting or buying the mantles of writer and artist?
- binging on writing magazines. I dropped some cash on three different writing magazines, and unsurprisingly, they are both inspiring and demoralizing.

Labels: 3am, cooking, fiction, writing

I counted the words I wrote in this exercise. 707. "Dead on!" I thought to myself. But when I checked the book, the "Royal We" prompt was only for 600. Unedited story text follows. Blah blah blah at the end.

We escaped the night they forgot to put a guard on duty. Normally one of them hassled Paul when he went out to take a piss around three, but that last time no rifle nudged him harshly in the gut. No thick-gloved hand shoved him in the direction of the piss-pit, and no gravely voice made rude remarks about his bodily functions or about his wife. We took advantage of the oversight and escaped.

Susannna was skeptical, saying first that it was a trick, then later that we shouldn't leave the others behind. The crowing of a cock awoke her instincts, though, and our four feet shuffled cautiously over the dirt threshold. Her conscience struck again halfway between the cover of the bunkhouse and the freedom of the back fence and we had to spend a few seconds arguing in harsh whispers. Paul threatened to go alone, saying he would go back for no man and would wait for no woman.

For the next fifty meters, all we heard was the crunch of our own footsteps on the crust of snow littering the yard. Tears fall lightly and make no sound.

We'd never discussed escape, alone or with others. Paul seemed to know what he was doing, though, when we reached the fence. Before the night's chill could fully seep through our worn out sweaters, the wire curtain parted for us, and swept closed again in our wake.

Freed from the oppressing depravity of the camp, Susanna releases the chokehold that had clamped down her emotions for the past several months. Without even moving into the trees, beyond the sight of the tilting buildings of the camp, she breaks down crippling the momentum of our escape.

We are lucky that the snow swallowed the sound of her sobs, but the cold was little encouragement to move farther towards safety. Paul tried coaxing in soft words, but his voice was too comforting. Movement on the barren side of the wire fence forced his hand.

We both reeled from the pain of the slap. The shock of violence was sharpened by the cold, then dulled by adrenaline. Susanna found her feet as the torrent of emotion shifted abruptly from exhausted relief to indignation and anger. Progress came swiftly then and we were beyond earshot then eyesight of the camp within minutes. Susanna was chasing revenge, but we were both leaving the bellows that fueled that fire far behind.

The anger died out as quickly as it had leaped up; our concentration shifted from the quarrel to the struggle across rocky ground in the darkness. Paul led the way over ravine filled with sticks, across broad slippery boulders, and skirting the frequent patches of snow. We labored silently in the moonlight for a thousand frosty breaths before the pace relaxed.

At the top of an embankment Susanna hesitated. Paul already slipped over the side onto a ledge several feet below. We looked at each other for a moment, struggling to climb out of the too-familiar mode of survival and return to a mindset of interaction and humanity. Paul reached it first, lifting his arms to assist his wife.

Susanna reached the same awareness after our feet were once again planted side by side. Our eyes locked, each reading the whirl of thoughts and emotions in the other, waiting to fall into the right gear for our predicament.

Susanna's emotions picked up where they had been left, furious about the violence inflicted by the person most precious to her. We struggled as she tried to pull away. Paul tightened his grip and murmured the sounds of our private language, hoping to cut through the confusion. We argued in short, wordless bursts, exchanging glimpses of fear, worry, and protection.

Paul was watchful. Paul was brave. Paul rescued.
Susanna was caring. Susanna was devoted. Susanna supported.

We gave up our tension a fraction at a time, forgiving each other, reminding each other of the love that had brought us together and kept us together.

After one final squeeze in the embrace we had worked ourselves into, we shared a level, sober gaze. Danger was behind us. The frosty dawn was around us. We could see nothing before us on the path we traveled but black, wet trees.

Hand in hand, we walked forward.

This was hard. And awkward. The idea was the easy part, even though I knew I had to write in the odd "we" point of view. I even have a list of three other ways I want to use the format, though I doubt any of them will be easier to implement.

I picked this version of the prompt to write out first because it's most true to the exercise description in the book. Some of the feeling might've been different if I had re-read the prompt at any time during the writing process (it was several hours, if not a full day, between reading the assignment and starting to write).

Something I avoided in this was using both names in one sentence. Whoever wrote the two line example use both names; had I re-read that bit, I might've done the same. In general, though, I think it's a practice that weakens the "royal we". Unless I weakened it by allowing each sentence to legitimately be able to come out of one mouth or the other.

Maybe I should try again with a duo and permit both names in one sentence (all my other ideas involve large, shifting groups as the "we"), but I don't think those tries will be worthy story attempts. This style falls into an uncanny valley of writing. I think it's a legitimate style to refer to oneself in the third person, or to use the royal "we" as an individual, but using "we" for a finite people and never using "I"... is just uncomfortable. (An exception to this would be someone on the sidelines in a group, where the narrator never does anything alone, but others do.)

Anyhow, the attempt above is very loosely inspired by a scene in the movie Katyn. Despite going 107 words over wordcount, I left out a lot of description and detail in the action covered above, plus have a second act I could add to it. We'll see.



I had a cool title for this post that covered both today's writing and today's dinner, but I can't remember what it was.

Dinner was late and in a hurry. I dumped white rice and a few roughly smashed cloves of garlic in the rice cooker to be our starch/side. We don't have a meat mallet, so I filled an empty salsa jar with water and used it to pound a chicken breast flat. It was a pretty messy way to go. Flat chicken breast was wrapped around some diced onion and fresh rosemary, then the whole thing wrapped in bacon (4 slices). Popped it in the oven. Boiled then cooled some fresh green beans, tossed them in a skillet with sauteed red bell peppers to keep warm. Salt and pepper.

The bacon was slightly under cooked (for how we like it), but the chicken was perfect. All plated up, dinner looked wonderful. Tasted good, too.

These days I usually prefer to use a recipe than just cook on the fly like this (not because I screw up regular food, but because I want to try more different things and expand my skill set), but it's nice to know I can make a good dinner out of fresh ingredients, even if I'm clueless 20 minutes before I start.

Thinking out loud. No pictures here. And the thinking isn't even original.

I'm suffering from information overload again, caught between the desire to cast a wide net and the desire to actually catch anything in the net. I'm starving for my inability to eat fish for need of sorting fish. (I love my convoluted metaphors.)

I finally connected my consumption compulsion (with regards to media/information) with the handful of posts about Barry Schwartz'sParadox of Choice a few minutes ago. I nearly bought the book (yay kindle!), but read the reviews and decided there wouldn't be enough "help" for me in there.

It's a struggle to grok that I won't become who I want to be overnight.

At "lunch" today I said that I don't think in the long term, and that's true. Despite my "complaint" that one of our democracy's difficulties is its inability to make long term plans and decisions, I realize I don't do that on my own either. Perhaps it's a byproduct of moving an average of once a year for the past 8 years, but I can't really map out my future more than a little bit at a time. Gannon (more than a decade older than I) mentioned things he wants to do with his art over the next ten years, and that kind of foresight, that distance of vision, was outside my zone of familiarity.

It shouldn't be, but I won't change this overnight.

As part of that lunchtime discussion I brought up cultural pressure to be an instant success, or at least one that reaches viability and maturity within a couple years. Even though I can't think of life without my creativity, I also can't think of what my creativity will be in ten years. How will it change? Where will I go? What will I reach?

Ach, mea culpa. It's about the journey, not the destination. Even if there is a "there", I won't reach it overnight.

Nothing happens overnight. Even if I can sculpt a reasonable 25.5 year old version of myself in the next few hours or days, I won't make the habits I want to have as soon as I imagine them.

But what are those little change I need to make? How will I find the quiet time for rejuvenating and the spare time for stretching? How will I exchange breadth for depth? How will I always remember that I can't read everything, so it's better read and grok a few things than skim and bookmark many things?

Limit your choices. Limit your choices. Limit your choices.
Good is good enough. Good is good enough.
Output is more importance than input.
Perfect is the enemy.

Pardon my overstating mantras.

It's not a joke that I need to let go of the road not traveled, though, and stop fretting over missed opportunities. (Heehee, there's a story in this somewhere.) Even if I have benefited from obsessive skimming and gleaning, I don't think it's going to bring me a cure from obsessive skimming and gleaning.

Where's my f$*%&($#*&in discipline?!

Another small thing from lunch that I think will help in some way: I had an opportunity to explain, to other and to myself, why I don't do more inked/colored/finished drawings. I like the quantity and physical progress of drawing in a sketchbook and working my way through photo books, a certain satisfaction that doesn't come from digital work, even if I post it online. I need to work out quantities to be printed and posted in my room... or in a dark dark folder never to be seen... to give myself the same feeling of accomplishment and progress. Maybe I can apply that to this other messy instream of info somehow that will maximize my productivity.

Good thing tomorrow's a Monday. The beginning of a workweek is a great time to experiment on myself!

Reagan found this at Goodwill. It cost us 25 cents.

It has basic things like "time" and "alarm", but also has buttons for divide, multiply, plus, and minus, leading me to believe it's a large precursor to the digital watch. It also has stopwatch buttons.

There are probably many clever things to say about this, but I'm distracted by listening to Randy Pausch's Last Lecture again. Every time I find the link to send to someone, I end up watching it again.

This time the someone is Gannon Beck*! Reagan's known him online for a while, and I've followed his blog. He was in the area to see some people at Quantico today, so we met him at a local Vietnamese restaurant. I think we all showed up a little after two... and didn't leave for more than four hours. It was a great, engaging afternoon of talking about art, writing, philosophy, history, storytelling, and politics.


Behind the Casio gadget in the above photo is something that was not thrifted (came from an antique store for not-chump-change), but is definitely a score: a soft vintage rug of kangaroo fur. It's rectangular, not animal-shaped, and will be our new snuggling spot in front of the fire... as soon as we get the wood to build one.


Nice day. Yeah. Hot buttered rum for sipping, and doodles galore. :)


----
*Note to Gannon: Blogs are better to link to than profiles on Facebook!

Home is a little more homey, now. I hung our first bit of decor.



Plastic squirrel "feeders" by our front door, to be used as key-holders.



Reagan and I found them in a cool antique store on Route 1, and couldn't resist the hilarity. Or at least I couldn't.

Now we get to always come home to this:



:D

Actually, today was anything but. Except for the candied pummelo peel which just ended up soggy and sweet. I think the heat was too low.

But dinner was a smashing success, though even if I use the recipe again, it won't be the same. Even if I make the same corn-for-half-the-beans substitution, it won't be the same. Since I was doing a double-layer of enchiladas in a loaf pan, I needed a sauce, and used some leftover sauce/liquid from stuffed peppers earlier in the week, mixed with a packet of taco seasoning. Curse my ingenuity, and using available resources!

Dinner has been great all week. Stuffed peppers, food-loaf, meat loaf... plus banana bread. I love my loaf pan, don't I? (note: meat loaf was made with a pie plate) Until tonight, everything was decided by the seat of my pants, using what was available and needed to be cooked.

Now I have a new method: Google calendar as meal planning.
In general, I stay on the lookout for good potential recipes. If it's in a book, I'll fold the corner. If it's on the internet, I'll tag it on a favorites site. Don't know what I'll do with a recipe from another source.
Keeping in mind the rhythm of our schedule, what we have on hand, what needs to be used, and frequency of different starches and proteins, I skim folded corners and saved links until I see something that sounds promising, then add it to my calendar. Internet recipes have their full text pasted as the event details, with the recipe's URL in the "where" field. This way, when I need to make a shopping list, I have an easy place to look for what we need for the next few days.

I'm on day 2 of this method. So far so good.

But after nearly a week of our new normal, I'm foreseeing one major problem: I'm cooking too much food.

Four dinners and one loaf of banana bread into the week, plus soup planned tomorrow, our fridge stocked with fresh food is becoming a fridge stocked with leftovers, with no sign of letting up. Tomorrow's dinner is soup, thankfully, which freezes well, but I had to revoke Reagan's authorization to make curry over the weekend so we could have time to deplete the surplus of leftovers and reclaim some of the tupperware that's tied up in the icebox.

My life is so hard. :P

Really. I had to forcibly detain myself from starting scones for breakfast tomorrow (in order to use up some berries before they go bad.


Other notes that don't fit the rest of this post:

+ Pummelos are dangerously good. They're the pomegranate of the citrus family.
+ I managed to cook, draw, and write today, plus a pinch of yoga AND got out of the house. I rock.
+ Tomorrow I'm going to leave the house and take my car with me to run errands!