National Novel Writing Month - November

A friend posted about NaNoWriMo on FaceBook, and I kind of blew it off... I even told my mom the other day, "I don't have a novel in me; I have nothing to say." She disagreed. Good for her (and me).

I used to wake up and know poems. Or paintings. And I had to get them on paper, or risk losing them. But if it was something good, I knew I had a little time because it would stick with me.

On April 23rd 2011, I woke up knowing the back cover of a book.

Some random internet dragon, not MY dragon

"Tell me you did not just do that." 
"What?" Mike sounded oblivious, as usual. 
"You really can't ask the world's leading physician and philosopher about his debilitating eye injury. Especially not when it has to do with dragons." 
"It was just a question. It's not like he could know." 
"He probably doesn't know. But now he might guess." Mike's seeming blind trust in his it'll-all-be-ok strategy was starting to grate. I tried to keep my cool and also not roll my eyes. I don't think I was being very successful at either one. "The whole world heard those rumors - that it was a dragon gone wrong that took his eye - and everyone on this continent knows he's sensitive about it."

When I woke up, I had the feeling I had already said lines one and two, and I was in the middle of line three. I woke up enough to register the look on DH's face and why he was looking at me like that, and giggled. It was ok to be interrupted by the giggle; I knew I had time.

Now, I have to go find the rest of this story.

Who am "I" and who is Mike? Are we an "us"?
What could the world's leading physician and philosopher possibly "guess"? What really happened to his eye?
What is this place? What's its history?

Ooof. November's going to be a long month.

My Dream Is Not A Poem

We were on a barge in the bay on a gray day.

I looked out at the deck of the barge, through the window in the cabin, and sipped my tea.

My son was reading a book on the wrap-around white leather sofa, the sun breaking through the clouds.

A lion got up on the sofa and laid with his head in his lap. My daughter came in (out?) and sat next to my son at a right-angle to him, where the sofa turned a corner. She had my son's Ginger kitty on her lap.

Ginger and the lion shared a slow blink, and a female Cardinal landed on the lion. Her mate wasn't far away.

And they just sat.

For the record, I know that what I saw in my dream was a yacht, not a barge. I don't think barges come with the leather package, or go out in the sea, for that matter (but maybe they do?). But the word my head used in the dream was "barge," hence it was a luxury barge we were on. On the seas. In my dream.

My Dream Is a Poem

Saturday morning, I woke up and said most of this to my son, who woke me up. I was thinking it needed to be drawings or paintings, but then I thought about all those stripes and oddly-shaped legs and got discouraged.

The Zebras were doing Yoga
Their matching stripes in matching poses
With matching pink Yoga mats
In the down-dog position

There was a singular Hippopotamus
Taking a deep-water aerobics class
From an absent instructor
Madly waving her Styrofoam dumb-bells

The snakes were practicing gymnastics
Threading themselves through the rings
Hanging out on the un-parallel bars
Springing from the trampoline

There were Leopards on the indoor track
and Sharks spinning in the bicycle room
The Dogs didn't show up,
The lazy things

Labor Day Weekend - Saturday Driving

So, as far as the trip goes, it was, by some definitions, a bust. We were going to go to a water park, but as we pulled into the parking-lot, some jack-leg tried to use my car to kill his child and then blame me for it, and it looked for a while like there'd be a fight. We were prepared to overcome this, but then when we got to the park itself, it was jam-packed. Like, crazy jam-packed, with twice as many people as inflatable tubes and twice as many people as lawn chairs and huge lines at the slides. 

So, we decided to find a beach, where you don't have to wait in line to get in the water. We checked out some North Beach at Chesapeake Beach, but it wasn't looking good - not much sand, no waves, lots of people, and a stupid net to keep you from going out too far, and it was right by a pier that people were fishing off of. 

So we decided to go back to Dewey beach, since we already knew we like that one. We got there in time for about an hour of beach time. Then we hit one of the outlet stores Thing 2 wanted to hit the last time we went, and then we hit some dinner at a Chinese buffet. So, like, 7 hours of driving for about 2 hours of fun, not including dinner... But we had some high hilarity, between threats tossed between the back seats and between the front seat and the back seat, of course. It's the journey, not the destination.

----

Thing2, singing: ...waddle-waddle-waddle...

Me: So a duck walks up to a lemonade stand, and he said to the man running the stand

T1, T2, and me: HEY! Bum-bum-bum Got any... grapes??

T2: bum-bum-bum bum-ba-ba-dum

DH, to passing car: HELP ME...

Me: No, see, it's like these three songs and they're all based on the duck-walks-into-a-bar joke... You know... haha... okay, so a duck walks into a bar, and says to the bartender... (hours go by) ... and then the duck gets the guy to ask the girl for the ducktape! AHAHAHHAHA 

T2: the girl was going to ducktape the duck!! hahahahahahah!

DH, looking at us like we've lost our minds: So... I guess you had to be there?

---

DH: Ah, yes. And now, from the state that brought you Tuckahoe state park, Assawoman Bay.

---

Me: Slips?? What is that?

DH: I think it's a place to put a boat in the water.

Me: Oh, I was thinking, like, "Slips and breaks leg"

Thing 1: I was thinking, like, "Slip that you wear under your dress."

Me, giggling: If we ever get a piece of property with a little creek on it, and the creek has anything remotely like rapids, I'll name it "Slips Falls"

Thing 2: Like, Slips Falls Broke Leg?

T1: Yeah! And we can call the creek Brokeleg Creek!

(For whatever reason, this totally cracked the three of us up)

DH, looking at us like we've lost our minds: Yeah, and if there's a hill, we'll name it, Brokeass Outlook
---
T1: Ow! Stop!
T2: Well, you stop! Hey! Ow!!!
Me: OMG if you two don't stop hitting each other right now, I'll hit you both!

Backseat: .... hehe Ouch! hehehe ... ... Ouch! hehehe
Me: ???

Yeah... they were smacking themselves and the other one was saying ouch. So, they weren't breaking the rule, exactly.

Aftermath

Melted ice cream;
Warm beer;
A broiling bedroom;
Ice-cold showers
do nothing to mitigate 
these circumstances

The Scene At Noon

This is in response to another blogger's post. I'm tempted to offer a trade.

Thing Two: Can I eat some sugary crap?
Parental Unit: No.
T2: Can I eat this other sugary crap?
PU: No.
T2: What about the sugary crap we bought Dad weeks and weeks ago. Is he ever going to eat that? Can I?
PU: No.
T2: Well, what about the sugary crap that has auspices of substance?
PU: Yes.
T2: Really?
PU: No! Go make a sandwich or something.

The Letter I Just Wrote to Performance Today

Dear PT,

I want to tell you that I love you guys - I always think I don't like classical music, and then I hear your show and you put the lie to that concept.

It seems that every time I hear your letters read aloud, at least one of them is, "I love that song! Where can I get a recording?" To which the answer is invariably some version of, "Well, you can't."

Well, why not? Surely there must be some really smart lawyers out there who also love Performance Today and would be willing to help you all out with some deals with the performers, managers, composers, artists, etc. and a service like Amazon... or maybe they could team with some really brilliant programmers to provide in-house software... And you already have good-enough recording capability... And a web-site...

I'm rambling and sounding nuts, I know, but point is - you could charge a good bit more than what Amazon and iTunes and whatever else charges for each track, people would pay it, and the money could help support PT or Public Radio or feed hungry musicians in Berkely or something.

Don't get me wrong - I know it wouldn't be easy (or probably cheap, even if the lawyers worked pro bono), but surely not impossible. And there is a market. I promise.

What do you say? Or has all this already been examined to death?

Cautiously, hopefully, and perhaps naively yours,
-Jenn