NaNoCryMo
So, here it is November 22. You may remember that I threw my lot in with the crazies who try to write a 50,000 word novel during the month of November for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). I’ve accomplished this feat twice before, and since I had a wonderful novel idea outlined and ready to go, I figured November was a great time to make some fantastic headway. My experience with my own personal 50,000-word novels in a month is that they are truly horrible, so I did not intend to shoot for that particular goal. Instead, I figured ending the month of November with a respectable 20,000 words that didn’t need to be rewritten from now till Kingdom come would work

Predictability? Don’t Count On It
I’ve never placed a high value on predictability, and it’s a good thing, too. Sure, I like my husband to be the dependable type who shows up when he says he’s going to or calls to let me know he’s okay. I love it that, as a self-employed creative guy, he doesn’t decide to blow off work because he can or shirk his responsibilities to his clients or forget to bill them, hahaha. He knows he can count on me to handle the bookkeeping for our business, to arrange get-togethers with our kids and our friends, to make sure our house, cars, and bodies are maintained on a regular basis, and to watch out for The Moms. In those ways, our lives are

It’s That Time Again!
In November of 2001, I did NaNoWriMo for the first time. For any of you who don’t know about National Novel Writing Month, it’s a recurring adventure in which participants attempt to write a 50,000 word novel in a one-month period. I’ll tell you what: I wrote the World’s Crummiest Novel that month, but I kept my BIC (Butt In Chair) and got the words down, even managing to come up for air long enough to do a turkey and all the trimmings for the fam. Plus I was going to school full time. And my mother’s health was beginning its precipitous decline, demanding a ton of my attention. But I did it. The next year, I did it again. And then I

Losing It
Far be it from me to brag, but boasting’s okay, right? I’m here to tell you that I am the proud loser of 8.5 pounds, in about as many weeks. Now, that may not sound like much to you, especially if you watch The Biggest Loser and see people routinely drop 10 pounds PER WEEK, and in the case of that one guy this week, 15 pounds! I’m not the biggest loser, and I’m certainly not the fastest. But I may one day win a prize for being the one who most often gains and then loses the very same pounds. It’s like when a certain bulge starts to lessen and then disappear, I remember the last time (and the time before that…) when I felt this exact sen

Acutely Not That Funny
I used to write funny stories about my mother in this space. Even though she’s had—-steadily these past eight years—-more health problems than fifty mamas put together, I was somehow always able to pull out the goofy stuff and make it fallible fodder. I haven’t been so good at the pulling-out part recently. Maybe I’m just pooped. I hope to recover my sense of humor soon! Mom’s been through a phase of breaking lots of bones these past few months. She’ll be walking just the few steps from her bathroom back to bed and two bones in her foot will snap. She doesn’t have to fall or crash into anything for this to happen—-it’s s