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October 15th, 2005

Add

• TGI Friday’s

to the chain ribs list. It was supposed to be my last blow out, so to speak. Anytime you need a last big blowout, you’re probably not ready, and I’m not feeling that ready. But it’s time.

From this morning’s email to my mother:

Thanks for keeping the prayer fires stoked for me, Mom. I even tried it myself yesterday. I’m trying to make changes on a lot of levels in my life right now and they all seem interconnected and dependent to some degree. The income and kudos that come from publishing are nothing compared to living healthy and happily, but it’s hard to live healthy and happy when your attempts to do something that’s meaningful to you are met with frustration. That’s why I’ve gone back and forth with this writing business for so many years. It’s hard, and at times it has felt like the right decision was to find another challenging but less stressful and frustrating way to make money, and then with that money, do other things, like traveling or skydiving, that I found fulfilling. But then I’ll get an idea for a book or an article and I get sucked back up into it, as if I can’t escape it. If writing is the thing I should be devoting my time, energy and talents to, I want to be successful at it. If writing is not what I should be devoting my time, energy and talents to, I want to know so that I can quit wasting my time. If God knows the answer to that question and could tip me off one way or the other, I could move forward with confidence rather than the uncertainty that I’ve enjoyed for ten years or so, but as far as I can tell, he hasn’t yet weighed in on the issue on way or the other.

From an email to my sister:

For me, neither rainy days nor the ocean–as one woman here suggested–are particularly inspirational. They can be nicely moody, though, and since I don’t have a car, a rainy day can keep me from being distracted by anything that’s outside the house, but when it comes time to actually sit down and do the work, everything that shouldn’t be on the page has to go away.

From an email to FK:

I love that your father is living for the computer. I guess he’s in his digital age. The old man downstairs wants to learn eBay, too. What is it with old folks and online autioning? Suddenly, the church rummage sale is always available. It’s a wonderful life.

From a different email to FK:

Finally sent that thing off yesterday, but only with the line edits. Wednesday after we talked I went to see a movie. Maybe because I was frustrated or irritated by the floor fiasco or things in general. Or maybe because I’m lazy. Who can tell? I didn’t ride my bike though because it was a little chilly. When I came out I called a taxi driver I like. He was busy but said he’d send somebody. After twenty minutes I called a different taxi company and they couldn’t send anybody for 25 minutes so I said nevermind. The between-fares taxis congregate in the parking lot between one of the bigger bars and the titty bar, so I figured I’d start walking, wait for one there. I got there and waited a while but the taxis were out. I went in the bar to see if I knew anybody. No. I milled. Eventually I broke down, of course, and got myself a beer. Then bummed a smoke from the pardner next to me. Pretty soon I was ready to buy coke too, but luckily it wasn’t convenient enough. (That slippery slope fallacy is no fallacy in my case.) I managed to keep the drink number to 3 or 4, which isn’t too bad, but some people dragged me off to Denny’s, I didn’t get home until well into daylight, and, of course, slept most of Thursday away, feeling sad and guilty and depressed and sore, oddly, when I was conscious. I thought about how you said you saw your last episode coming 1.3 miles away and how the same was true for me and I wondered if there was some weird sick need for me to be like you. Yesterday I got back on track. I couldn’t see any way to really bring the owlies back into the last half of the piece any more than they were. There were Hootin’ references in each paragraph. I don’t know if I’d done the best I could or was giving up, sick of futzing with it. I sent it off. I’ve already thought of tweaks I should have made to improve it but they’re mostly in the first part. Streamlining the anecdote a little. Minor stuff. I guess that’s normal.

Entry Filed under: Lifin