Plenty Well Enough

Sometimes a phrase just strikes me as mysterious and this is the one for today: plenty well enough. It's got to be colloquial, right? Like "anyways" and "anymore" and "down cellar"? But from what region?

The line I was using was "I know him plenty well enough" and after I wrote it, I wondered -- southern? New England? Rural upstate New York? Unfortunately, google hasn't helped me out. I might be the first person to have written this question on the internet, which actually would be kind of cool. I like the idea of wondering something that no one else has wondered. But that still leaves me wondering.

Writing fan fiction

Or maybe this post is really about publishing fan fiction? I should write about writing fan fiction, too, and maybe I will at some point, but this post is really about publishing it, and maybe about publishing in general. Ever since I got obsessed with Eureka last fall, I've been writing and posting stories at Fanfiction.net, along with thousands of other people.

Not thousands of people for Eureka, alas -- the most popular fandoms (<--ooh, look, new vocabulary) are Supernatural, Glee, Harry Potter, Twilight. (Momentary digression, Supernatural? I think I saw that show once. But it turns out that its fan-community is obsessed. They've written something like 49,000 stories about their beloved show. I have wondered if they're cheating and writing a lot of one-shot super-short stories just to get their numbers up, but I haven't wondered enough to read a lot of them and find out.)

And back to my point. I've written 9 real stories, ie long stories, and a couple of shorts that are just scenes. It has been really fun. The writing has been amazing -- more on that later,  probably -- but the posting has been scarily validating.

Wow, do I have an external locus of validation problem or what? Getting a nice review can make me happy for hours. It's the best drug ever. In the abstract, I shouldn't care. I shouldn't need other people's approval to enjoy writing. And I don't really -- the writing part is fun no matter what. But the approval is so satisfying. Knowing that someone enjoyed what I wrote makes the writing even better. And it isn't that it makes me feel like a better person or that it is validating in the sense that it changes my self-image, but there's something about knowing that I made someone laugh or squeee (<--also new vocab, but I'm pretty sure it's an onomatopoeia) that just brings me joy. It makes me want to write more and more and more. I could use the joy.

(Endoscopy for mom today; colonoscopy on Tuesday. Liver cancer and pancreatic cancer are words that are being bandied about. I like those words even less than suspicious nodule.)

Suspicious nodule

I have decided that the phrase "suspicious nodule" is high on my list of life's least favorite phrases. Obviously, it's not as bad as "it's malignant" which has to be one of the worst, but in terms of creating tension and anxiety, it's probably pretty close.

Chances are, of course, that it will turn out to be nothing serious -- so many times medical worries wind up forgotten in a few months. But I spent a lot of time today thinking about tears, because they kept running down my face and falling off my chin. I wasn't crying in the way I think of crying, no gulping sobs, no struggle to catch my breath, no snot-filled nose embarrassingly dripping. It wasn't even really weeping. It was just...tears. Overflowing. Steadily. Like a gentle summer rain of crying instead of the thunderstorms and downpours that have been my more typical (albeit rare) cries.

Anyway, my mom will have a CAT scan on Monday and I'll know more then.

Celebration of dirty laundry

Today should have been a celebration -- I am 99.9% of the way done with the work project that has consumed so much of my energy and brain for the last few months. But it was more like waking up from an obsessed dream and discovering that the laundry was piled high, the dishes filled the sink, the dust bunnies had become more like dust wolves, and things were in a general state of chaos. I didn't feel happy, I felt overwhelmed.

I watched the dog rolling in the grass and tried to remind myself that life is about the small pleasures. Then, when I put my head back down to the computer, she went and rolled in the wet sandy dirt. Her white coat turned gray and black, and I had to laugh. I swear she smiled at me. There's meaning there somewhere -- be happy with the dirt, too? But I'm not sure what it was except that in that moment, we both felt happy despite the messy house and work to do.

I'm going to aspire to a better balance as my life changes. A little house effort every day to avoid the misery of chaos. Tomorrow I think I'll try to balance studying for summer midterms with cleaning the house. A little of each, and a little writing. Could be a good day!

Saying goodbye to 2010

2010 was a shitty year. There's just no way around it. It wasn't anything dramatic -- well, except for that miserable Alzheimer's diagnosis, which, come to think of it, was pretty dramatic. But just in general, it was a miserable year. I'm wanting better things for 2011, but so far...yeah, not so much. First two days of the year, and I'm kind of ready to give up on it already.

The one good thing--of both 2010 and 2011--is that I have rediscovered the joys of writing fiction. The stories I wrote this fall, largely spontaneous and pulled out of me at the speed of light (65,000 words of intricate plotlines and no character development whatsoever, woo-hoo) made my weeks, my months, my year. I know in a way it's denial -- I'm finding happiness in living in the world of my imagination because the world of my reality just sucks. But hey, that's what imagination is good for. And it's lovely to have it to fall back on in times like these.

If I don't manage to make up with R in the next twelve hours, I will go away for a four day business trip still thinking that he is just a jerk. Usually, I can wrap my head around what I've contributed to a situation, but this time, not so much. Maybe sometime soon. Or maybe I'm right and he's just a jerk.

Angel Puppy

I hope that Jack Johnson won't think this is copyright infringement. I definitely had no evil intent but every time I hear that song, it makes me think of this angel. Until I get to the last line about sharing souls, that is, and then I just think, no, how weird would that be, to share souls with my dog. Not that hers isn't a perfect soul, but if we shared it there would be too much thinking about squirrels and basketballs and naps.

It's black or white

I just realized--belatedly, I'm sure--that one of the reasons I'm having a complete nervous breakdown/midlife crisis is my sense that switching careers is an entirely global switch. In other words, if I follow this deviant path I'm on, trailing me off into an entirely new direction, everything from my past path is lost. So of course that's insanely anxiety-provoking. It's scary to give up everything. But also, it's probably impossible. And/or there's no reason to do so. At least not dramatically. I can make a much slower move, gently exploring a new career direction without letting go of everything I know from the old. Specifically, I guess, hanging on to the friends and the memories. If I become a counselor, it doesn't mean I can never go camping again. This, despite the fact that I haven't gone camping in years.