Frat Squirl Beauregard

green cage I’m approaching burnout quickly. Going straight from Harmony into Afterwar was perhaps not my best choice, but I don’t want to slow down, either. Part of me thinks that if I just work hard enough, I can stave off disaster of any stripe. Also, if I’m writing instead of filing stuff or cleaning my office, I can eventually be barricaded behind piles of papers and books, and end up mummified.

I’m not saying it’s rational, I’m just saying it’s a coping mechanism, and not a very good one at that. Certainly it vexes Odd Trundles, whose turning radius is such that he can’t schnorgle my feet without knocking something over. He is, I have to admit, the only reason my office gets cleaned at all.

The espresso machine is making funny groaning noises, but on the bright side, the Princess brought home some Pop Tarts. As far as I am concerned, there is only one kind of Pop Tart that counts, and that’s the brown sugar cinnamon kind. She’s partial to the frosted fudge, which sends me into paroxysms of ugh, to which she gleefully remarks that it means they are hers, all hers. The Little Prince is neutral on the subject of Pop Tarts, but he is gaga for shrimp chips, which neither the Princess or I would touch if you paid us.

This convinces me the secret to domestic harmony is different tastes in junk food. That, and uniting against a common enemy. Like, say, squirrels.

The tree rats have grown exceeding fat during this warm autumn and uncharacteristically mild November. As in, so rotund I’ve seen a few dragging their bellies as they hop across the road. Beauregard has returned, but he seems to have forgotten his chivalry in favor of reeling from one nut cache to the next. He’s become that most hideous of beings, an arboreal frat boy.

…I should explain, right?

So the Princess and I were at the table, sharing a lunch before she had to leave for work. (The Prince was at school, begrudgingly–his fondest wish now is to graduate and get a job like his sister, who can BUY HER OWN POKEMON GAMES.) As is the habit with lunches, we each had something to occupy us while eating, enjoying the time together in silence. I think I had a book on Reconstruction, and she had a walkthrough of a particular dungeon playing softly on her phone. I caught a flicker of motion in my peripheral vision just before the Princess glanced up and said, in the mildest of tones, “Squirrel.”

My head snapped to the side, my heart giving a terrified leap rivaled only by the time I almost got hit with a pool cue during a barfight (but that’s, say it with me, another blog post) and I saw Beauregard, almost as round as Napoleon!Squirl but considerably taller, hopping around on the table. “Jesus Christ don’t do that!” I snapped, shoving my chair back while the Princess laughed.

She has no mercy, this daughter of mine. If I hadn’t been conscious when she was born, I STILL wouldn’t doubt she is completely, genetically, absolutely the product of my womb.

“I’m wearing shoes,” she informed me, as I peered under the table to verify we were both shod. Now, there was a closed patio door between us and the erstwhile Knight of the Nut Table, but it pays to be certain.

Go ahead, laugh. You’ll sing a different tune if the filthy little nut-munchers ever take a liking to your yard, I’ll tell you that.

Anyway. Beauregard did a complete circuit of the table, which rocked under his squirrely weight. The two flowerpots I haven’t cleaned out yet stand sentinel there too, and he stood on tiptoe to look in the smaller one. I know someone–I suspect Josephine!Squirl–buried an unshelled peanut there. That may or may not be why I haven’t moved it yet.

Look, I’ve got a kind heart, okay? Well, mostly.

Anyway, Beauregard circled the much larger flowerpot. It’s a sizable one, and I haven’t emptied it because it’s heavy ceramic and I thought well, there might be a cache in there too, how would I feel if someone moved my to-be-read pile? Although that’s not really a fair comparison, it’s the closest I could get, not being in the habit of burying comestibles in my backyard, even in the rose garden. (There’s no room between the roadkill corpses among the roses, anyway.)

“Mom…” The Princess looked puzzled. “Is that normal?”

“It’s a squirrel. Nothing about it is normal.” But I knew what she meant. Beauregard was…well, kind of dancing. You know, like when you’re are the airport and your bladder is full but there’s a line in the loo and you’re going to miss your flight but you don’t care because when Mother Nature calls, you can’t put that bitch on hold for too long?

Yeah. Like that.

So Beauregard, who once was a lithe and doughty knight, hefted himself up onto the rim of the flowerpot. He hopped down into the pot itself, and…

“OH HELL NO,” I yelled, startling Miss B, who was under the table hoping to catch a bit of dropped human lunch. “OH, HELL NOOOOOOO.”

“Mom…” The Princess stared. “Did he…just…”

“DID HE JUST PISS IN MY FLOWERPOT?” I rocketed to my feet, hitting my hip on the table and almost spilling my coffee and her orange juice. “OH HELL NO HE DID!”

Beauregard, so fat he can barely climb a tree, defecated in my flowerpot.

The Princess began to laugh, helplessly, and I almost ran into the patio door before realizing discretion was probably the better part of valor and opening said door was, as Vizzini might have said, a Classic Blunder. It took a good five minutes of cursing before I recollected myself, during which Miss B began dancing on the rug before the door, hoping that this meant a ramble outside. (I believe the term “nutsucking son of a flying donkey” may have had a starring role.) The Princess was damn near purple with merriment, and Sir Frat Boy Beauregard twitched his tail, wallowed over the edge of the flowerpot, and minced off up the fir right next to the deck.

Yes, friends and neighbors, he came down out of the treetops to shit in my flowerpot. Now I’m going to have to wear gloves and a hazmat mask to empty that fucker out.

It’s gonna be a long winter.

Official Old Lady

I resurrected later than usual this morning, and am still exhausted. I love meeting readers and signing for them, it was just so busy. The time passed in a blur of old friends, new faces, books I’d almost forgotten I wrote, and my hands shaking just a little with the fear that I was going to mess up and say something strange or dissolve into a puddle of nerves.

Social anxiety is a bitch.

I met Annie Bellet, and Curtis Chen who I believe I already knew slightly from Cover to Cover’s old Writer’s Mixers. My fellow Dame Devon Monk was in attendance, as well as the lovely and gracious Diana Pharaoh Francis. There were many others, but it was so busy I didn’t get much of a chance to say hello. Thank you to everyone who came out (especially Mecca of the lovely hair and the Armadillo, who is three weeks away from finishing her own personal marathon) and, as well, a gigantic thanks to the Powell’s employees who made everything go so smoothly, especially Peter H.

There was bad traffic on the way home–two accidents, and many snarls. Consequently, I arrived chez Saintcrow utterly exhausted, and could barely drag myself out of bed this morning. Coffee is helping, but not nearly as much as I’d like. I’m hoping the deep, chesty coughs I’m having occasionally are just bodily housekeeping instead of incipient trouble.

And that is it for today’s post, my friends. I’ve some administrivia to get through, wordcount on Afterwar, some posting for my Patreon peeps, and perhaps, if I get really wild and crazy this afternoon, a nap!

…that’s it, you know, I have officially become an old lady. It’s about damn time.

Not Too Wild-Eyed

That moment, after a super intense period of stress, where your body takes revenge for the emotions, whatever repression you’ve done to manage the worst of them, and the nail-biting anxiety? That’s where I am. The Princess brought home a cold from work, and I put off getting sick until the gauntlet was finally run. I knew I was storing up trouble, but in classic Lili fashion, didn’t care.

*sigh* I give myself very good advice, sometimes don’t follow it, and often decide to just run the fuck through at full speed and worry about the bruises later.

The good news is…the stressful events are done. I am once again producing paid work for a publisher. Someone I love very much has passed on while in hospice care; he is in no more pain and I was able to see him before he went on that greatest of journeys. I am over the worst of the cold and can get back to running next week. The meds mean I’ve been sleeping, at least.

Now it’s just fallout to deal with. I retreated into a good 200 pages of the third volume in Shelby Foote’s Civil War narrative yesterday. A good fifty of those pages were lit with sunlight coming in the front window, so there was probably a little vitamin D in there. The cold is retreating, and I think I’ve probably cried all I’m going to for a little while. I’ve turned my email autoresponders on; whatever business is left over for the rest of this week can wait.

The kids are healthy, my sisters are in contact, the dogs are content, the cats are their usual selves and the cavy is monstrously fat and extremely active. Agent and editors seem to be happy enough with me, though I’ve been somewhat of a trial to them in the last month, I’m sure. The people I rely on to keep me on the straight and narrow tell me it’s fine, I’m not too wild-eyed.

I had to make an emergency trip to the PO box recently, and buy stamps from the automated kiosk there as well. It was after hours, and a woman who spoke little English was in distress, with something she had to mail. My fierce maternal instincts took over, and I went to work–grabbing an envelope, addressing it, putting her return address on it, popping enough stamps on it to cover the cost of the envelope AND the postage. We both had Google translate on our phones, and between that and gestures and babble, we solved the problem and got the thing into the mail for her.

I tell this story because I realized, when I got into my car–still in my pyjamas, having driven all the way over muttering to myself over having to leave the house at all when I felt like warmed-over crap–that I felt…better. Helping someone else is an anodyne, especially when one’s own life holds some unpleasantness. It feels good to pitch in, to help solve someone else’s problems or to simply listen to them and share the weight, knowing you’re relieving some of the pressure inside someone else just by being there.

It almost makes me pity people who lack empathy, because the dopamine hit from helping someone else out is so nice. I wonder if they just don’t feel that, and it baffles me. Doing the Right Thing, pitching in, helping where one can is one of the few surefire ways to ameliorate the black hole, at least for me.

All the way home from the post office, the sun peeked through clouds as it sank, and the light was golden. The crows were out, and they help too. They’re smart, strong survivors. I know the recent stress won’t break me, that the overwhelming feelings will pass, and that even the runny nose and annoying body aches will pass as well. It’s not comfortable, but I can get through it. That’s what forty has become for me: the consciousness that I’ve made it this far, that the feelings will pass through and away, and I’ll still be here when the wave is spent.

It’s enough.

Joy in Candy

I was going to write a long post about this past weekend, but…no. I just can’t.

Instead I will wish you a happy Samhain, a fruitful New Year, and much joy in candy and delight tonight. Thank God I have the kids and the dogs to keep me busy. I don’t want to brood tonight. I mean, a little bit of brooding is good for the soul and necessary as a mirror to judge one’s reflection in, but I’m afraid I’d fall down the well and have to climb out without even a Lassie to bark for me.

Anyway. Happy Samhain. 2016 can be done anytime now. ANY GODDAMN TIME NOW.

Electronic Mishaps

as is electrical So, after having to restart my desktop three times this morning, I think everything is all right. What was the problem? Who the hell knows, really. I can tell you I’m holding a chunk of bloodstone in my lap while I type, just in case it’s me.

For years, when stress hits, electronics around me have acted up. Lightbulbs blow up or out. Sockets spark. Watch batteries stop working when a watch rests against my skin; other stuff get drained and requires charging every hour. For years I used hematite to try and ameliorate it, but once I found large chunks of bloodstone worked better I went on a mad quest to find all the bloodstone I could bloody well find. Getting my hands on said chunks was a bit tricky, but once I had a few–especially the semi-boulder that sat under my papasan’s footrest while my laptop rested above–the problem went way down in scope and severity. Which is a damn good thing, because laptops and smartphones are expensive, and I worry each time an energy-efficient bulb starts making that high-pitched noise that happens right before a shatter. The mercury in those bad boys is not a healthy thing to have raining down upon one.

Perhaps it’s all psychological, and I just notice electronic mishaps more when I’m stressed. I don’t think so, but it’s possible. Just in case, though, a few hunks of rock are an easy fix.

This morning is damp, and dark, and full of deep choral music. Apparently I need a whole choir behind me as I push harder on Harmony. The book is spiking, and I’m kind of glad, since it means I don’t have to think about other things. On the other hand, finishing the birth of a mondo giganto word-baby on the eve of NaNoWriMo is probably not my best move.

But I never did play it all the way safe. If I can just keep from melting my desktop, everything will be all right.

A Path to Hope Again

burns01 So, 67K into Harmony, I understand that what the book needs is for me to rip out a lot of the unnecessary byroads and tighten up the timeline. This book has been an education in writing around the problem and finding out what the whole damn thing is about eighty percent of the way through, and I am so goddamn glad I’m not sending it in for publication. It’s a hot mess, and I’m going to spend this morning’s run deciding whether to go back and rip everything out OR finish it and another book during NaNo. Or, just finish it and use NaNo for half the first draft of Afterwar.

Choices, choices.

I’m pretty sure that the Harmony realization has a component of procrastination in it, too. Several factors are combining to give me a crushing crisis of confidence (try saying that ten times in a row) and last week was a blur of forcing myself to get out of bed, forcing myself to eat, forcing myself to shower daily. My normal response to debilitating depression and overwhelming anxiety is normally to work harder, to exhaust myself so I can finally sleep. It’s kind of a change to exhibit some of the more classic symptoms, and if not for the meds I suspect things would get much more dire. It’s so goddamn strange to know one is exhibiting the symptoms, to know that it’s dangerous, and to at the same time be so occupied with the simple work of breathing one does not care and cannot reliably summon the energy to do what one must.

Fortunately, the meds blunted the edge, and the habit of having no-one else to rely on prodded and forced me up and moving. I’m also aware that a relapse can happen just when one starts feeling the worst is over. Part of me speaking publicly about these struggles is demystification, normalization, and the plain acknowledgement that having a brain that tries to do you in with uneven chemical responses is not a personal failing. (It also helps for me to say it out loud, so to speak.) It is a Thing That Happens, no more and no less, and you are not weak or broken or stupid because it happens to you. You are struggling to survive in the face of a Thing That Happens, and that is a very human act.

So that’s my handing out sticks for the day. I’ll take one for myself, thank you. Next I have to let Miss B prod me out the door for a short run–my ankle is still tender, and she’s still trying to break the other one to make me lame on both sides, being a great fan of symmetry. But the exercise will do me good, it will take the edge off her fidgets, and I might find a path to hope again out there in the windy day that is making the trees dance.

Over and out.