Instead

Instead of writing, really writing, I mean, I'm doing what I think is the literary equivalent of moving the deck chairs on the Titanic. That is, so far I've deleted one word, I've put "placemarkers" at the beginning where I think I'm going to add at least two chapters, one for each of Gordon's first two wives--but I have no idea if that will work or not, but I can't say until I've actually written them--and I've emailed a friend to find out the name of her ex-employer's rival 20 years ago, so I don't accidentally use their name for Gordon's employer.

I suppose this is better than nothing. How's that for a pat on the back?

I did some writing earlier, though. I wrote a letter to my brother, Robert, who is in jail in Wisconsin. But I only did this because he wrote me a letter that I got a week ago. It's very hard to know what to say. He's in there for a particularly awful crime (which he swears he didn't do), so you know he can't be having an easy time of it. The other part that's difficult is that I hardly know the guy. He's really my half-brother and I didn't grow up with him. As a child, I spent the equivalent of about 5 or 6 weeks, total, with my father and his second family. At least his letter seemed fairly literate--it's possible that he's been getting classes or something while he's been in there. Anyway, it'd been years since I'd heard from him and years since I'd sent him a letter myself, of which I am decidedly not proud.

Man, my family. There's so much that goes on and I hear little bits and pieces of it. I feel rather impotent to do much, but then there's my--well, I'll say "natural" tendency to avoid getting involved in things, I'm so very, very good at denial and detachment. I found myself thinking about a couple of ex-lovers today and wondering if I ran into them again, or (gasp!) if I were to meet somebody new to try to love, would I be any better at being a good partner/lover? I wonder how good a friend I am.

I guess what led me to that train of thought was noticing once again that I seem to have two copies of Ann Patchett's "Truth and Beauty" and I'm pretty sure I only need one. I can't seem to get past the way in which this talented, but flawed woman who was incredibly self-destructive and needy still managed to find and hold such close and devoted friends. And I can't help feeling they were just enablers, even though I'm pretty sure that's not all they were and that that certainly wasn't Patchett's intent in writing the book. It's probably not even the message that most people get from it, either. But maybe it's all right for me to question these things, they're important things to think about and there's probably not just one answer to them and even more probably not just one right answer.

I've also been thinking about all the things I want and need to do with my money over the next few months. I think I am being, once again, overly ambitious. There's two things I must do:
buy a new computer and redo/update my website. I also want to go to California in December and Florida and South Carolina in January. I have been fantasizing about how I could arrange these things and at this point, I think I need to sit down and be realistic about it all.

Yeah, okay, I've just run out of steam. I'm going to go take another look at the novel, which is still open, see if there's anything I could take a stab at writing. Even if it's just fleshing out a scene that I refer to in a flashback, take it out of flashback.

I wish to hell I knew what the fuck I was doing.

Another One Bites the Dust

Literally. I just don't seem to have any luck with getting new assistants. They come once or twice and that's it. I realize that working here and working with me presents certain challenges, but this is getting ridiculous. The latest excuse/reason is that there's too much dust/cat hair/etc. and it's hurting her lungs. At least she had the courtesy to let me know. The last two just disappeared.

And I'm grateful for the work she put in while she was here, but I'm still left with an awful mess and I'm running out of time to get it all taken care of. And I can't deal with it right now, either. I'm too busy, too exhausted, too, too, too.

I also don't know what to say to her, what to reply to her email. I feel let down and sad and a little angry and a little untrusting--like, what if this is just an excuse and she just can't stand to work with me? True, she was sneezing a lot while she was here. Of course, that's what the dust mask was for, but she didn't keep it on much. Neither did I, for that matter, but more than her. I think people who don't live with as much dust as is lying around here don't really "get" that, if you move it, it will go up into the air and you will get sick from it, one way or another. If/when (oh, really, it has to be "when") I find another assistant, I will simply have to enforce the proper wearing of the dust mask, at least until we get the place in order and the cleaning woman comes and takes the rest of the dust away.

I would love to have both a cleaner and an assistant come in once a month--at different times, of course--to keep the place in reasonably good order. Every other week would be better, of course, but I can't afford that.

Anyway, I guess I'm in a woe-is-me mode. I'm going to let myself feel that for the rest of the night (it's just about midnight, after all) and then get over it. And I'll answer her email tomorrow, somehow.

I'm too tired now to even write about what's going on with my family. Suffice it to say, if it's not one thing, it's another.

While the apartment is being cleaned

So there's a woman here cleaning. Yes, I admit it, I'm one of Those People who pays someone else to do the dirty work for her. Mind you, I'm sitting here with a dust mask on, because the reason I don't clean myself is that I'm dreadfully allergic to dust (if it's just sitting there, it doesn't bother me, but cleaning it makes it move and then I'm toast) and it kicks up my chronic fatigue syndrome. It took me a long time to realize, but back in my 30s, when I started to clean and had to lie down after 5 minutes and I thought that was weird, I shouldn't be getting tired at such a young age--well, I was right, that was probably the beginnings of my life with CFS.

Anyway, I've got jazz playing and I've been doing other things, but there's one big thing I'm waiting to do for when the jazz stops, because I think it'll make funny noises and since I'm using Windows Media Player to play the CD (Duke Ellington and Johnny Hodges, Back To Back), I don't want to mess with it right now.

It's been a rough few days/week with CFS, though. In fact, I spent most of the past weekend in bed, that's how bad it's been. I took some extra Allegra and that seems to have helped. And I'm continuing to eat better. Smaller portions, more fruits and veggies. I've managed to resist the urge to have even one day of sugar lately, though it's been touch-and-go at times. One day at a time is really helping. And, when my resistance was really low, e.g. this weekend, I reminded myself that all that sugar would just make me feel worse and I surely didn't need that. At some point I'll let myself have something sugary and chocolate-y and scrumptious, but, well, not today.

I'm also thinking these days about the new role I find myself in--manager. Really, this is what I've been doing for the last year and a half at least, where I spend just about as much time managing other people and the business as a whole as I do actual transcribing. But it's just been brought home to me more in the last few months, possibly/probably because I'm about to start up a new, sideline business. Hmm. I guess that's something else I could be working on now--my business plans, one for each business.

Okay, I'm off to do that.