so i'm writing this . . . novel. yeah, it will probably never see the light of day, but it's nanowrimo and it's what a writer's supposed to do. oh, that's right, i was going to be one of those. day three. i met day one's goal yesterday afternoon (yes, day two) just before i went to work. just sitting down to do more today and i'm realizing that i'm over 3,000 words behind and that every day adds another 1,700 or so. not looking good. it gets worse: i have no plan. well, i had this idea for this story, and have had it for quite some time, but it wasn't very solid yet -- still quite vaporous, actually. it was to be a fantasy based on historical events, namely the salem witch trials. i've been doing half-assed research for about a year but have made quite an impressive effort over the last three days, amassing quite a few bookmarks in various books and browsers. but i'm starting to get stuck in all the non-fiction. i have some pretty amazing characters, some my own and some provided by history, but i'm starting to find the true events far too limiting. as the story develops it becomes more difficult to fit it within the confines of salem village, massachusetts in the late 17th century and now i'm considering moving the whole dang thing over to some fictitious town in germany where the witch hunts were arguably the worst -- entire towns of women were convicted and one town had something like 19 priests and 49 children executed for witchcraft, but that's entirely beside the point because i'm pulling what little hair i have left out by the roots! the dang story keeps changing too much and i have 27 days left to write 48,000 words! i don't think it will happen. =( i so wanted to do it, too.

       deep breaths.

       i need an outline. and a pomegranate martini.

       i hate non-fiction. is it wrong to shape history in ways that suit your needs?

       ok, get this. not only is history limiting, it's too big. ha. that's another problem i'm facing -- how to angle it. and how to join the angle of my fantasy story with the angle on the historical. i swear, after this i'm never working with history again.

       can i get an extension on my nanowrimo? i know it's only day three... but my grandma died and my cat ate my homework and aliens ate my babysitter and eric northman . . . sorry, got sidetracked there.

       why couldn't i have wanted to be a computer programmer?

       feeling a little bit like an asshole at the moment. i can't really talk to anyone about it (or don't feel like it), so, sure, i'll tell a bunch of strangers. i got a kitten last night. yeah, that should be a really happy thing. and it is. i love him to pieces. he's super cute, and i've never really met a cat like him. all my cats in the past have been either extremely playful or extremely cuddly, and this one is the best of both worlds, hilariously playful, and heart-breakingly cuddly. i've been wanting a cat for a very long time, and i was amazed when my house director said that i could have one. and he can't get enough of me. so why am i depressed? it's pathetic. i went into it in part hoping that little hermes would fill a rather painful void. he did fill a void, but not the void--the one that's raw at the edges and gaping in all the wrong places. somehow, having him here has only served to magnify the other. heh. he just jumped into my lap. he's so tiny he can fit in one hand. and it strikes me that i can love and be loved so easily and so quickly by this tiny little furball when all i do is give him food and shelter and attention, but it's seemingly impossible to get another person to love me when i work infinitely harder for it.

       and don't be so vain to think this song's about you.

       a lot has happened. i've been changing the ol' life around. it has its moments. more later. i never disappear entirely from this place.

 
      i've become addicted to the podcast "this american life," thanks to this guy. the host is the cousin of one of my favorite modern composers, which only furthered the addiction in a weird sort of way. hmm. kinda funny, actually. i used to listen to his music to fall asleep. his score to "the hours" remains my favorite soundtrack of all time. anyway, one episode grabbed my attention: titled "fear of sleep," which you can find here (i hope). got me thinking. not about anything intelligent, because we all know i never have anything to do with that sort of nonsense, but it made me think of all of us that have issues in the slumber department. made me think of the friends i've made over midnight chats. reminded me how much i miss the ones i don't/can't talk to. it made me realize that there are a lot of us, even a high concentration here on xanga. and it made me think of some of the things that keep me up and some of the things that made me want to stay asleep.

       it's funny how being stripped of something as simple as an illusion can still leave you feeling like you've lost a part of yourself. i suppose when you've held it for so long, willing the vapors to become substantial, you begin to trick yourself into thinking they are. but eventually you have to wake up. sometimes i try not to. sometimes i try to go back to sleep and linger in the dream a little longer. sometimes that works. other times i don't wake up properly, and i'm stuck halfway between the two, paralyzed, with the "devil on my chest," as they described it in that podcast. most of the time it just slips away, gossamer threads in the breeze--the insubstantial fibers that, for a moment, i thought i could build a happy life with.

       sometimes i wake up in the middle of the night, or rather i just don't go to sleep in the first place, because i feel like i've wasted another day. it's like i'm suddenly acutely aware of the passage of time, and by refusing to sleep i'll somehow stem the flow--a finger in a leaky dam. i'll have more time to accomplish something, more time to make something of myself, more time to wait for someone to come over and fall asleep with me. so i sit there and wait for things to happen. it doesn't work that way, i know. god knows how many of you have told me that i have to try at life for anything to happen, that i have to work for it. but i'm a coward. i'm afraid of failure. i'm intensely horrified by it. paralyzed. so i don't try. right now, as i type this, i'm thinking about how i have to go to work tonight--a rather meaningless job--and all i want to do is to go back to sleep. i shouldn't be tired. i had my eight hours last night. but part of me doesn't even want to try, not even at that.

       i'm rediscovering that life is trial and error. it's not a story that you can organize and outline and turn the numbered pages and read it like a novel with an inevitably happy ending. it's more like a choose your own adventure book. you jump around. you make wrong decisions, you say the wrong things. those have consequences. sometimes you can go back, most of the time you can't. you live with it. you keep going. somehow. and somewhere in all the screw ups you're supposed to learn how to do it right. but what i do, this doing nothing, is still a choice. saying "fuck it" and turning to my books or movies or cooking or cross-stitching or whatever other satin bed sheets i escape in is still a choice to avoid the adventure, or whatever the heck it is. it's about time for me to get into a normal sleep schedule. wake up in the morning. be awake through the day. do things. write. fucking write. go to bed at night. sleep.

       it's about time i take some responsibility for my life. i'm going to be twenty-six in a month. little less. time to grow up.

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