Category: Writing

Marching Band ended in mid-October with competition, though we would still continue to play the football games through the end of their season in late October or early November, depending on how many games the football team won.  There was one last march in the holiday parade, which happened the Saturday before Thanksgiving.  But after Mid-October we entered Concert Band Season.

The first part of Concert Band season was without competition. We had to prep songs to play for the holiday concert that would happen in December, not long before Christmas break.  We still called it Christmas break then.  The transition from Marching Band to Concert Band happened on the same day when we passed in our Marching Band music, which we hadn’t really needed for several weeks now, because we had it memorized. Passing in music involved JP telling us the name of the piece he was collecting, then we rummaged through our music folders, recovered the piece of music and passed it down to the first chair person who sorted it neatly and walked it up to whoever was serving as JP’s assistant.  As with everything that involves large groups, there were multiple pleas for quiet, because the thing to do after you’ve handed over a sheet of music is to continue the conversation that you were having before you were asked to locate and turn in that sheet of music. Or noodle around on your instrument. There were also multiple people who couldn’t find their piece of music and usually one or two people who weren’t paying attention and turned in the wrong piece of music.

Passing out the Concert Band music worked the same, but in reverse.  The plus of passing out music is we usually got one new piece at a time, then played it, before the next came out.  It was a lot easier to stay focused.

Our music came from some central place at the district office.  Every band director I ever had referenced going to that place and picking things out, but I never saw the room.  The music arrived in generally fairly good shape, with all the parts present and usually with enough copies for each part so photocopies did not have to be made.  A full accounting of pieces we performed has been lost to time passing, but I do recall a performance of “Colonel Bogey March” that infamous song that is whistled in the movie Bridge on the River Kwai.  I remember this piece in particular, because during one part of the performance, JP encouraged the audience to whistle, and the sight of all the parents whistling happily along had me laughing so hard I couldn’t actually play.  I also remember a performance of “Thus Spake Zarathusa,” which was just fun to play.  I’m sure we tackled things that had nothing to do with movies too.

The first semester of the year, band never had drummers present, because they had their own sixth period class so as to practice all their Marching Band drum corps stuff.  Drummers usually dropped in for fourth period band practice the two days before the band concert, but they were otherwise absent.  It was rather nice as drummers are worse than brass players for repeatedly playing past the cutoff point and noodling around.  It was such a shock my first year when the semester turned and suddenly the drummers were suddenly present; taking up space in the percussion area, being the loud and fairly obnoxious ego-driven quasi-jerks I was perpetually attracted to.

So we played a Christmas Concert (we still called it that) and we had at least one competition in winter and perhaps one in the spring.  Competition involved getting out of part or all of the school day, traveling by bus to where the competition was held and playing in front of judges, who gave us scores from one to five (they may have been in Roman Numerals: I to V) with one (I) being the highest score.  I don’t think we were a stellar Concert Band, though the stakes were lower.  It wasn’t a competition like Marching Band Competition, with all the bands in a stadium and lined up on the field together afterwards to hear the results.  We went, we played, we went home and somewhere along the line someone told us our score.

The last thing Concert Band we had to do every year was play for graduation, an activity that has made me loathe “Pomp and Circumstance” as well as graduation ceremonies in general.  Graduation took place at the Boise State University Pavilion, where the basketball team played all their games.  There was a stage constructed at one end of the court. Each graduate walked across to receive their diploma and we sat below the stage on the same level as the 500 people who needed to be announced and graduated.  Before we played our piece (sophomore year it was “The Impossible Dream” from Man of La Mancha) and other things happened during the ceremony, and every single person was announced and clapped for, JP would raise his baton and we would put our instruments to our lips and play Pomp and Circumstance, repeating all but the beginning and end over and over again while the teeming mass of graduates shuffled in and took their seats.  The song would be stuck in my head for days after the ceremony.  Strangely, we played something else for the exit, and repeated it just as many times, but it was not nearly as memorable.  Maybe it was the Triumphant March from Aida?

For me, Concert Band was just the thing you did because you were in band.  It wasn’t the fun of Marching Band, and it wasn’t the endless obligation of Pep Band, but just the class we went to every day and theoretically (at least on my part) practiced for.  It was the same kind of band I’d been doing since seventh grade.  It was fun when a piece came together and it was a good place to go in the middle of my day, but I don’t miss it as much as I miss Marching Band.

Marching band was a temperature slide—unbearably hot at the beginning and freezing cold by the end.  It was a lot of standing around quietly to learn something that was all sound and music.  Marching band was a dusty field, hideous unflattering uniforms and free admission (but sadly for me, mandatory attendance) at all the football games.

The first two weeks of practice we cranked things out.  To begin, JP would show us a diagram of what we were going to do.  He hand wrote our marching patterns on gridded paper shaped like the football field.  I figured out later he also hand-wrote arrangements of our music.  JP was one of those teachers who rankled me—his use of “gals” paired with “guys” came off as sexist and he was old and had that slightly jokey authority figure nature that was kind of hard to buy.  There was also a lot of imploring.  But when I think of the logistics of setting a hoard of musicians and dancers marching around a 100-yard field, my mind boggles.

With the day’s pattern in mind we would run through the music—we were supposed to be memorizing it, and ideally have it pretty much down by this point—and then head out to the field.  As with all large groups, this took forever, and thanks to the fact we all had instruments, it came to pass with a lot more noise than necessary.  The band room was separate from the school, tucked off the back of the gym.  Our practice field was across the loop of road that circled the school.  The football team’s field was further—they took up the middle of the track, and maybe another field off the side.  Sometimes they would cut through our field on the way back in from their own practice.  The band ignored them, though the drill teamers chattered with them.  In my school, football and band did not cross paths, except for the one guy who did both.

Once we straggled out and into position, we would make some attempt at pulling ourselves together.  Various attempts by various people were made to be more military and attentive in our practices, but they lasted a day at most before we devolved into talking and “horsing around” while JP used his megaphone to grab our attention long enough to get us started.

What I remember most about marching band practice was standing around.  We’d run a bit of the show, then screech to a halt—though there were always one or two in the bass section that just had to keep playing.  Then, most of us would stand at attention, while JP fixed something on some other part of the field.  “Attention” often had a half-life of three minutes before we would start to murmur to the person next to us, to quietly play a few measures, or start to spin or sway in our spot.  When the pause was very long we would resort to gymnastics—one guy could do a front flip with no hands and a lot of us did cartwheels, or pushups (meted out as punishment, but actually fun).  We also burst into song at regular intervals.  For decades now, I’ve been singing the line“the check’s in the mail, you’re beautiful” at appropriate moments, because that was in regular rotation for a time on the marching band field.  The boyfriend pointed out it was a line from a Werid Al song.

All that standing around must have led to something, because eventually, we had the entire program running.  I didn’t know it at the time, but there’s something magical about creating both music and patterns on a football field. And I had no idea of the incredibly brief lifespan of that magic.  After high school, I never marched again.  It’s not really an activity that lends itself to the adult world.

Last weekend, someone referred to me (and Matt too) as “perpetual adolescents.”  The description didn’t seem to faze Matt, but for me it was an arrow that shot through me and sunk the rest of my weekend, leaving me alternatingly angry and upset.  I’m not sure what aspect of my life they were referring to, but there are many things they could hang that comment on.  I chalked it up to not having any children, but it might be that I haven’t married my boyfriend or that I work 32 hours per week instead of 40, or that I invested a master’s degree worth of tuition and living expenses in a job I haven’t been able to be hired for.  Or perhaps the fact that I refuse to buckle down and do what needs to be done to get said job, because I can’t imagine anything more lothesome.

So yeah, there’s a lot about me that could be construed as adolescent. Including the fact that I haven’t gotten around to saying to the person in question, “hey, what did you mean by that?” and “You know, you really hurt my feelings.”

But here’s the thing about my life.  I chose every single bit of it.  I don’t have children because I have never wanted them and I have a feeling that lack of wanting would make me a less-than-adequate mother.  It’s possible I would rally and be outstanding, but I’d rather not stake someone else’s life on it. I’ve known people raised by disinterested parents and it’s not a good situation for any of them.  I’m not married because I don’t see the point.  I’m committed, he’s committed and the social structure allows us to be together without signing papers, so for now, no marriage.

I work 32 hours per week because my job allows me that freedom and I would rather have the eight hours to do other things.  I take a hit financially, which means not really ever having a vacation, but aside from the mortgage and student loans, I can work 32 hours, live debt free and spend more time doing things I enjoy.  The fact I’m not a teacher rankles me, but again, I’ve chosen there too.  I could move away to a city or town with more teaching opportunities, but I love Portland and would rather be here and not be a teacher than to be a teacher any other place.  I don’t work as a substitute because it’s a job that calls on things I don’t really like to do, and has nothing of the teaching things I do like to do.  I make my choice every year.  I’m not going to sub.  If that means not getting a teaching job, then so be it.

Though there are aspects of my life that I don’t like, I’m thrilled I got to have a say in how my life is lived. That hasn’t always been the case for women, and it’s not the case for women in some parts of the world today.  A generation ago, I wouldn’t have been able to live with my boyfriend, would have had trouble getting credit in my own name and (depending on how you define generations—my family tends to reproduce rather slowly) had trouble getting birth control.  Before that, I probably would have married and married early, even before I finished college as my father’s sisters did.  Before that I wouldn’t have been able to own property, or vote, or live on my own.

In the movie Pleasantville, two 90s-era teenagers are transported to the bucolic TV town of Pleasantville where they both go about wreaking havoc on the ideal setting.  There’s an exchange of dialogue I love.  It takes place after things are starting to change in the town.   The basketball team doesn’t always win their games, the books actually have words in them and people have started thinking about places other than Pleasantville.  Margaret, the girl from Pleasantville, asked David, the boy from the future a question.  From the script:

Margaret’s longing for that other place, where things aren’t safe and easy, resonates with me.  I could have gone down the path that was clearly marked for me:  college, marriage, job, children, etc.  But some of those choices didn’t click with me so I went in another direction.  It’s possible to construe my life choices as adolescent, but I see myself as fully adult.  I’ve supported myself since leaving college, I save for the future. I stay informed of issues, vote, pay my taxes and volunteer in my community.  And what I want for people in this world is the ability to be able to make their own choices about what is right for them, just as I have.

It was in high school that band changed.  Before it had always been an elective, as in: “Are you taking band next year?”  At the high school level it became, “Are you in band?”  In junior high band, we were segregated by grade, travelling through seventh grade band, to eighth and then ninth grade band.  Eighth and ninth grade band got to practice marching by appearing in the holiday parade the week before Thanksgiving, but otherwise didn’t interact with the other kids in band.  In high school there was just one class with all three grades.  We were an activity, like student council in that we had a class all to ourselves during the school day.  We were also a group, like the sports teams, in that for part of the year we had practice outside of school hours.

Marching Band started off the high school band calendar.  Our practices began the same time the football, volleyball and soccer teams started their practice, about two weeks before school started.  I remember them being incredibly early in the morning, although I think we started at eight or nine o’clock.  Unless it was insanely hot, eight to ten in the morning was a great time of day, before the heat really kicked in.  The football players had two-a-days the first week of practice, so they were there with us and then came back in the afternoon for a second practice.  I always admired the cheerleaders, who started early and were finishing up by the time we rolled into the parking lot.

The first day was usually all about logistics: getting the sophomores oriented, passing out the music, sketching out the plan for the season.  We had not very much time to learn music for both parade marching and at the same time start to work on the halftime show. We would begin to build the piece and have the first song done in time for the first game, and then build more onto the show as the season went on.  Mid-October was the competition, so that was our big date on the fall calendar.

As a sophomore, starting marching band was fairly overwhelming.  There was a lot of music to memorize right off including at least three songs to know for parades, plus the pieces for the show.  I wasn’t very good at memorizing and mostly floundered at this part of band.  Avoiding memorizing music—and the drummer boyfriend—were the main reasons I played cymbals the last two years of high school marching band. 

We also had to learn to properly march.  Our band director was nearing retirement, having been at my high school since the early 1960s.  By the early 1990s he was still a fairly cheerful guy, although a bit stooped in the shoulders, and he was happy to shepherd us through the high school band experience.  We called him by his initials, JP, rather than Mr. Perkins. 

JP had done his military service in the Army band and would now and again encourage us to go in as a musician if we were joining the services.  The reason being, according to him: “while the other guys are doing pushups, you will be doing this” he would say, wiggling his fingers to mime playing the trumpet.  An aside: I told that story to a friend who had gone into the army as a musician, and his reply was.  “Yeah. Unless there’s a war.”  So beware.

JP loved to teach us to march, especially the “roll step” that was necessary to carry out the smooth maneuvers on field and parade route.  A good Roll Step involves placing your heel down and then rolling to your toes which minimizes upper body movement.  He also liked to drill us on marching, especially at the beginning of the season when there was more time in practice.  We would begin in a big block of people and started off in step while a drummer beat a steady beat.  Then JP, or the drum major would call out the changes, “forward march” “right face” “left face,” “mark time” “halt” while we attempted to follow them as an entire group.  People who messed up stepped off the field and watched while the group got smaller and smaller until there were only a few.  

“Spill it.” Marie plopped down on the empty seat next to Irene for the ride back.  The tournament was a bust.  The basketball team had headed immediately for the losers bracket, and then to the bottom of the losers bracket, making each game a bit more doleful than the last.  Even the presence of the pep band could not pep the team—or its crowds—to much in the way of enthusiasm, much less winning a game. 

Marie was the only other female saxophone and normally would have been her partner in crime for the trip, but she was preoccupied with brokering a peace accord between Karen and her now ex-Jason and she herself had recently taken up with different Jason, this one a tuba player, so had been running with the brass crowd.  With Irene hanging out with the drummers, they hadn’t crossed paths much during the trip, but Marie had a keen eye and a good ear for gossip and Eddie’s constant hovering near Irene had not gone unnoted.

“What do you know?” Irene asked her, searching for dirt.

“Do you want to know the wild, unsubstantiated rumor; the one I heard and believe, or the facts I, myself have observed.” She spoke in a low voice, conscious of the people around them.  Marie could ferret out the secrets, but she also knew how to keep them to herself.

“Must I choose?” Irene grinned.  The two of them had been friends since junior high and knew each other’s ways.

“Good point.” Marie agreed.  “Let’s start with the wild rumor. You, Irene Johansen, snuck into Alex’s room and engaged in various forms of congress with all four drummers staying there.”

“Ugh.” Irene protested.  “Not Alex’s room.  Stefan ended up in Alex’s room, no way would there be congress of any kind happening there. Not even general passage of legislation.” Stefan was the lumpy and slow male cymbal player.

“Ah, so there would be with Alex.” Marie pushed a bit, curious.  She didn’t really understand Irene and Alex.  They always seemed like friends who were on the verge of fighting.  But something also seemed to indicate they were on the verge of—well not love, exactly.  Maybe a physical consummation of some sort?  Both kept their feelings confined, so even Marie’s best reconnaissance had left her with confusing data.

Irene made a face, thinking of Alex and various forms congress. “Not going to happen.  Who starts those rumors, anyway?  Let’s move on to what you do believe.”

“I heard that Eddie has a thing for you.”

“And?”

“And that’s what I heard.” Marie said.

Irene sighed.  Marie was holding out.

“Let’s move on to what you’ve observed.” Irene said, deflecting the request.

Marie gave her a look. “I’ve noticed that Eddie has never been more than 10 feet from you this entire trip.” she counted one on her finger. “I’ve noticed that even right now he is not more than 10 feet from you.” She counted two while Irene leaned past Marie to scan the bus. Eddie was sitting one seat behind and across the aisle.  He and Alex were working out a complex rhythm, softly beating their drumsticks on their legs.”

“I’m willing to bet,” Marie continued, counting off another finger, “that he looks over to check on you before I hit one.” She began counting down,  ”Five.  Four, Three, Two.”

Dammit.  Right as Marie hit the number two, Eddie looked up, caught Irene looking at him and smiled at her. Irene smiled back and ducked down again.

“Furthermore,” Marie counted off her last finger “I’ve noticed how much you’ve been flirting with him this weekend.”

“I have not.” Irene protested.  She had hardly talked to him, since they had the conversation on the way there about joining drum corps for marching band.

Marie fixed her best stare on Irene. “Please, lady.  I know you.  The hair flipping has amped up, plus, I haven’t been too far away to see the sideways glances you favor and the cheery waves you’ve been dispersing all weekend.”

Irene rolled her eyes, caught.

“What I want to know,” Marie leaned closer. “is do you like him?”

Irene sighed, and kicked the back of her seat a few times, thinking. “Maybe?”

“He’s a drummer,” Marie countered “You have to give me more than a maybe.”  Marie and Irene had fought back against the drummers through most of the marching band season.  They didn’t like the drummers’ attitudes, their inflated egos and their bossiness.  The two of them had done a pretty good job making themselves pains in the asses of the entire percussion section.  Irene’s feelings had changed a bit as the months had passed, mostly paved by Alex.  Marie wasn’t really convinced drummers were okay.  Her head had been turned by the shiny volume of the brass section, working her way from trumpet to trombone to now tuba.

Irene thought a bit.  “I don’t not like him.” she said slowly, “but I’m not sure if I like him because he likes me, or because I like him.  I don’t really know him very well.”

Marie squinted one eye and observed her.  “So we need to shrink the group a bit, I think.”

“What do you mean?

“I mean, your group is too big, he can’t get a word in edgewise.  You should have a few people, like no more than five, over to your house and see what he does.”

“I don’t know,” Irene hedged.  “Maybe I want to find out if he likes me.”

“Oh he likes you.” Marie said, glancing over her shoulder and catching Eddie peering past Alex again.

It was spring of 2003 and I was in the incredibly boring “observation” phase of my teacher education career.  While other of my classmates were making deeper connections with the teachers they were observing and even getting to teach something now and then, my mentor teacher didn’t really seem to want me around, and encouraged me to observe other teachers on the staff.  They didn’t want me around either, so I floated from period to period, class to class like the perpetual new girl who didn’t fit in.  In hindsight, I can’t believe I was paying PSU for this experience.

So it was that I was sitting in the classroom of a rather absent-minded teacher nearing retirement. It was during the passing period so the kids were doing things kids do before they get to class early:  check their phones, wander around and talking to people, engaging in shenanigans.  The building itself was soul-killing.  It had been built in the 1970s and had no windows for energy efficiency.  Many classrooms were divided by folding walls, so that classes could come together and teachers could co-teach.  That practice had been abandoned, but the flimsy partitions still remained.  It just meant that you could hear what was going on in the other classes, if the teacher or class was too loud.  Sometimes I wonder if there are things more depressing in the US than educational policy through the years.  I mean, when you really think about it?

I had perched in an empty desk in the back of the room and was watching the students, which was the best part of the experience.  One girl had gone to Disneyland over Spring Break and had some pictures to show her friends.  A few of them looked over her shoulder. 

“And I met Paul Walker,” she said, shyly.  And there she was in the photo, standing with a smiling blue-eyed blond.

“He was just there?  At Disneyland?” one of her friends asked her.

“Yes.” The girl smiled, “And I asked him if I could take his picture and he said yes.”

“That’s amazing.”

Who was Paul Walker? I wondered.

Another girl, not part of the friend group, perked up.  “What was that?” she asked, bustling over.  She was one of those big girls: tall, big boned, big hair, big voice, big personality.  “Oh my god, that’s PAUL WALKER!” she exclaimed.  “HOW DID YOU GET THIS PICTURE OF PAUL WALKER!?!”  She squinted at the photo, not listening for the answer.  “IT’S REALLY PAUL WALKER!  SHE HAS A PICTURE OF PAUL WALKER!  I CAN’T BELIVE THIS IS YOU WITH PAUL WALKER!”  Her voice took on that pitch and decibel level that only teenage girls and annoying radio contest winners can reach.

The classroom teacher looked on her shrieking in a nonplussed manner.  The bell hadn’t rung yet, so no need to reign her in yet.  But her shrieking didn’t go unnoticed by the others in the class. “Who the hell is Paul Walker” I heard muttered from different areas.  The partition was even pried open and a much younger, less absent minded teacher poked her head in.

“Everything okay in here?” she asked, scanning the room.

“SHE HAS A PICTURE OF PAUL WALKER!” the girl shrieked to the teacher, who was not at all interested.

“Maybe you could keep it down.” the teacher suggested, and closed the partition as the bell rang.

The picture was returned, the girl settled down and I made a mental note to check who Paul Walker was.

It turned out I knew who he was.  He was the guy in the Fast and the Furious.  The same sort of blonde blue-eyed leading man Hollywood pops out by the hundreds and throws against the wall of audience enjoyment to see who sticks.  He’s the kind of guy I think of as a working man actor.  Good enough (or good looking enough) to get major parts in minor films, but never considered a serious actor, either because he didn’t have the acting chops or because the path to serious acting is a difficult and treacherous one only achieved by a few.  And why not sit back and rake in the money making movies that the masses love?

And now he’s gone.

I’ve never not paired Paul Walker’s name with that girl shrieking in that classroom long ago.  She’s probably moved on, I’m guessing Paul Walker was a passing adolescent infatuation, but I also can picture her hearing the news early on a Sunday morning and shrieking “PAUL WALKER IS DEAD!” loud enough to bring her husband and children from their beds, blearly-eyed and wondering,  “Who the hell is Paul Walker?”

May he rest in peace, and may his friends and family have an easy transition to a world without him.

I’m in college and sitting around with my boyfriend John, his brother Mike and their friend Jeff.  John and I haven’t been together long and this may be the first time I’ve met the brother and also the friend.  The TV is on and the boys are talking, seeming to mostly ignore me, but also checking me out as the new girlfriend.  Eventually conversation turns to Mike saying:  “I swear on the the three women I’ve had sex with..”

“There is no way you’ve had sex with three women.” John interrupts.

“Yes I have.”

“Bullshit.” Jeff retorts.  “Amy Lawrence, one.”

“And Jennifer Farnsworth, two.” John picks up the list.  “There isn’t anyone else.”

“Yes there is.”  Mike turned a shade of pink and was pursing his lips at their doubt.

“Who?”  both John and Jeff insist.

“Ellen Chadwick.” Mike nods, a small smile on his face.

“With the huge calves?” John asked.

“Her calves aren’t huge” Mike protests.

“Oh my god, they are!  They’re tremendous.” Jeff interjects.  “Very intimidating.”

“Her calves are very large.” John loops me in with an aside.

“I got that.”

The conversation goes on, establishing time and place (last summer, after work) and ends with John still skeptical that Mike actually slept with Ellen of the huge calves.  But I was frozen from the moment her calf size was brought up.  It had never occurred to me before, but did people identify me by the size of my calves?  I was wearing shorts and it took all my willpower not to look down at my own legs, or shift in my chair, for fear the boys would realize that Mike was not the only one of the brothers who had slept with someone with large calves.

So my calves.  Not very small.  And they are larger now than they were then. This has become a problem of late, because I would love a comfortable pair of boots and very few boots are to be found that fit me.  When I mentioned this conundrum to my brother he observed, “Yeah, you totally got Dad’s calves.  I wish I had your calves.”

That comment had nearly the same effect on me as the long-ago calf assessment of poor Ellen Chadwick.  I had never stopped to contemplate my brother’s calves, but his assessment of mine was spot-on.  My father’s calves are also huge, very manly and DNA has bequeathed them to me.  Now that I’ve looked, I wouldn’t mind trading calves with my brother, his are a bit less robust, more likely to fit into some cute boots.

But something else has made that conversation above stick in my heard all these years.  It was the simple pulling apart of a woman and classifying her.  Someone recently pointed out to me that we fixate on “parts” in our culture.  How it’s kind of odd to see just an arm, or just some abs, but that we have broken down the body into pieces so of course we just display bits and pieces of the body.

I’ve put in my time around guy talk.  Hanging out with boyfriends, drummers, chefs and drivers at Pizza Hut, Park Rangers, coworkers at Whole Foods.  I’ve head versions of the above conversation over and over again.  And, you know what?  That conversation bugs me.

Women talk about the men they sleep with, don’t get me wrong.  But there isn’t that level of parsing and partitioning of the person they shared a bed with.  I feel like this is one of the ways men and women aren’t equal.  Men still have the power, by and large, so they can feel free to divide women into bits and pieces and classify them.  Whereas women just don’t.

I’m about to embark on yet another project.  For those of you who know me, this isn’t much of a surprise.  I’m very project-focused.  In fact, were my blog a drinking game, most of the regular readers would be half-soused if the drinking word was “project.”  It’s not surprising that the universe found me a job at a school that uses the Project Approach to educate its children.  I’m all about the focused effort toward a goal that is the project.

I’m a bit at an ebb tide right now.  In fact, last night I started to write an essay about my ebb tide, but found I didn’t have enough energy to parse out what exactly that means and then format those thoughts into legible sentences, let alone paragraphs.  I can tell you that I don’t have a lot of extra oomph right now.  And that I don’t want to be a lot of things I usually am happy to be.  Farmer for one, that’s currently on hold.  The yard is a mess.  Enthusiastic athlete, that’s another one.  Running (jogging, really) has been on hold, because every time I do it, I hurt my foot.  I’m just doing a bit of walking in the mornings for now. Homemaker, there’s another thing I’m not really interested in right now.  I’m cooking at a minimal level to feed myself and doing just a bit of cleaning to keep the house in barely contained order.  But that’s it.

I think this feeling will pass. It feels temporary.  I might just be overly tired—I haven’t really been sleeping very well the past few weeks—or hunkering down for the cold winter.  Maybe my ancient farmer within wants me to rest after the harvest, despite the fact I never really got around to harvesting this year.

So while I’m waiting for the flood tide to return, here’s what I’m doing:  I’m writing 500 words a day from tomorrow until the end of the year.  That’s 500 words times 61 days.  I’ll have 30,500 words come December 31.  30,500 words of what, you ask?  Well, that would be the new novel I started in July and wrote daily until school started to ramp up again.  My plan is to get a first draft (hence the project) and then do something I’ve never actually done:  revise that first draft into something actually good.

I’ve written about 17,000 words already, mostly in chunks larger than 500 words.  That plus my 30,500 to come will have me ending up short of the NaNoWriMo goal of 50,000, (and with two months instead of one) but that’s fine.  Ebb tide is saying NaNoWriMo isn’t really doable this year.  So I’ll adapt.  I know I can write 500 words in about 20 minutes and I feel like I can find 20 minutes per day from now until the end of the year.  And I know that I feel better having written.  And I know I just want the thing to get written.  And then I want it to be better.

I might have time to throw in an essay for the blog now and then, but if I don’t, maybe I’ll post a bit or piece of what I’m working on.  But perhaps not.  We shall see.  At any rate, I’m off on another adventure.  Wish me luck.