It’s hard to blog when you have nothing to blog about but your readers are outside, aggressively demanding posts. I love you guys, but seriously, stop showing up on my front lawn!
I did have a gloomy post drafted about how depressed I was, but I was too depressed to publish it. It’s the novel. I’ve come so far. So far. Like 85 to 90% far. I’m so close to finishing…and yet I’ve never felt farther from the finish. I don’t have anything huge at the end; the novel just kind of fizzles out. I keep throwing things at it—unicycles, meerkats, rabid donkeys, rabid grandmothers…but nothing sticks. (Maybe I should throw a bucket of glue at it!) I dread opening up my computer every day, but I remind myself that it’s nothing compared to the dread of the past two years where I felt physically ill when I woke up in the mornings, thinking of writing. I know I can’t quit the novel now. I just have to accept the fact that ten years from now when you ask how I’m doing, I’ll answer, “Good. Still working on the novel.”
Some days are hard.
The boys? They’re good. Vincenzo is acting in a play this weekend that the director wrote. It’s set in the 70s and is about a boy at the beginning stages of schitzophrenia. It’s also a musical and a comedy. I have no idea what to expect., except that Vincenzo will be rocking a fabulous pair of bell bottoms.
Rocco is still a nonstop river of words and ideas. I’m typing this at the dentist now and he’s getting his teeth worked on and hasn’t stopped talking to the hygenist. His projects this week include: learning to braid, learning to sew, designing and printing 3-D Jell-mold place card holders, teaching himself Spanish, and trying to build a working fan out of Legos. The only one not exhausted by all this is Rocco.
Leo is still all fight and snuggle. He’ll wrestle Kevin to the ground and dance on top of his dad’s defeated body, then hop onto the couch to snuggle with me–though admittedly the snuggling is tapering off the bigger the books he is reading. He keeps making up games involving balloons and balls that have more rules than a game of cricket. If you look through our basement windows at any given moment you’ll see us kicking balloons around with our arms pinned behind our backs or crouched down, loping around like gorillas, hitting the balloons with only our arms.
Kevin is still Googling away. I don’t understand a word he says when he tells me about his day, except when I ask him what he ate for lunch (and even then I sometimes don’t understand all the words). He’s also PTSA president this year and when he’s not working or PTSAing or getting danced upon or playing chess with Rocco or practicing lines with Vincenzo, he sits down and helps me figure out what I’m going to write tomorrow. I don’t know how he does it all!
In house news, we got some electrical work done!
Now we’re going to have some drywall work done. (Fortunately the guy didn’t fall all the way through the ceiling.)
(And yes, I have tried having someone fall through the ceiling for a novel ending, and honestly it’s my best bet right now.)
As for me, I’m still writing, obviously, and working out a lot and subbing a little. I’m getting better at subbing. This week no one pulled their pants down or threw chairs or cried under their desks or started a book-throwing war. I’m not exaggerating. All those things have happened. This week the worst thing that happened was one kid making periodic farting noises and another kid standing in front of the “erfly” part of the word “butterfly” to the hilarious amusement of his classmates. A couple times I’ve landed the dream job of subbing in the library for Friday afternoon and last time, the fifth graders applauded me. Twice!
So as you can see, some days are awesome.
Okay, I posted for you. Now WILL SOMEONE PLEASE WRITE THE END OF MY NOVEL FOR ME??!
WHAT’S COOKIN’ 2NITE:
Enchiladas
Rice
Roasted asparagus
Magic 7-layer bars
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