Partly Sunny, 81 Degrees

Via.

Oh! Ten weeks and one day of not smoking.

Cloudy, 73 Degrees

Today was probably the worst day I've had in all of 2010. There are a couple contributors to this but most of it was a mystery to me. Yesterday wasn't any good either, come to think of it.

Time for 5HTP again.

Barry said I should go for a walk and reset my perspective. So I'm gonna do that after work.

Sunny, 89 Degrees

By: PNTS, via.

Sunny, 84 Degrees

Via.

Tonight I set out for a big lake. Two nights of camping. This wasn't the case when I was younger, even five years younger, but being out among the trees and things really fortifies me. It's so quiet. I need that.

Clouds Giving Way to Sun, 83 Degrees

By: Andrew B. Myers, via.

I had an unexpected four-day weekend. There's got to be something wrong with me that sometimes on Monday mornings I wake up and the most perfect, believable excuse not to come into the office occurs to me. I come awake seven or so minutes before my alarm is set to go off and in it rolls, tra la la, ain't no thing. I need to stop doing that. I've used up all my sick hours but I just keep putting them on my timesheet. Wondering if my boss will say I'm over the limit. Hoooo.

Mostly Sunny, 87 Degrees

By: Helen Korpak.



Both by: Sam Weber.

Mostly Sunny, 85 Degrees

Oh me. By: Erik Marinovich.

I am trying to glean motivation to continue the wallpaper removal in my bedroom tonight. Yes, I have my own bedroom in the Dear Boy's house. Cuz the two of us have more clothing and shoes than will fit in one bedroom. Plus, it's nice to have your own little bird's nest to retreat to when the winds start howling, you know? We sleep in the same bed every night, of course, because who can resist the snuggle? I also don't think he'd be keen on all the gauzy scarves and crocheted doilies that decorate a girl's room.

Anyway...

Isn't it weird when your friends start having babies? You're like, "Wait. What? I remember when you and I had milk chugging contests. Things are that much different now?" Naw. I refuse to believe it. I'll chug milk with my kids 'til they puke all the dang time, believe it.

HEY! GUESS WHAT! SEVEN WEEKS AND SIX DAYS OF NO CIGARETTES! NOT EVEN ONE DRAG! And my nicotine patch came off while floating down the river during camping and I STILL did not smoke :D

Sunny, 95 Degrees

Twins win. By: Elena Tarchi.

Sunny, 95 Degrees

Have I told you about how my dad lived in a trailer in a junk-yard when I was young? A real junk-yard, acres wide. Refrigerators, RVs, and bath-tubs. TVs, bowling balls, and pachinko machines. School desks, dart boards, and diner stools. There was a team of wild cats and kittens, always, their little gold eyes in all the shadows. The edges of the junk-yard turned into a farmer's fields, filled up with fast, green snakes.

I have distinct memories of standing in the middle of it all, balancing on the edge of some broken down car's front bumper, thinking, "Remember this." The pathways and hiding spots I spent years making were mapped out carefully in my mind.

In the middle, up-front, was Larry's little retail shop. He'd gather the more monetarily-promising items and line them up in the old cracked display cases, sometimes setting something aside for me. A money-clip shaped like a dog, maybe, or a tennis ball, fuzzy and new.

Folks would come out, looking for a carburetor or an air conditioning window unit. They'd pick their way through my pathways, unsteady on their feet in the mud. The wives, frowning, arms across their chests, would ask, "Why can't we just buy a new one?" I'd watch, hidden, from an empty trailer window or under awnings ripped from store-fronts and thrown in the dirt for the spiders. Larry would haul out the wheel-barrow and drag their find back to their shiny new station wagon. He'd pocket their folded cash, readjust his hat, and disappear back into the store with the ting-ting of the metal bells on the door.

The city eventually condemned the entire thing for being unsafe. They ruled it toxic and wiped the land clean. We moved away, into a regular trailer park, and I grew-up. I miss it. It was just me and the sky and all those secrets and treasures.

Sunny, 91 Degrees

You used to save people from drowning and now you're just gone, below the surface, never comin' up.

SUNNY, 70 Degrees

Making lists. I love it. Camping this weekend for two nights in the nether reaches of Washington. Bring, Buy, and Pack. If I could pack for the Dear Boy, I would, just to make sure he doesn't forget anything. Like PJ pants, which are easily forgettable.

Cloudy, 60 Degrees

Well, I have 7,500 words of a book that needs 15,000. It's July now. It's over, I think. I'll write it anyway, I guess. But the point is I failed. Well-placed priorities have never been my strong suit.


Via.

UPDATE :D

Talked to my publisher again. He says no rush. Things came up and his time-line is stretched now a bit too. So, onward, Little Emma!

To let you know, so a little seed of anticipation can sprout in your mind, the novella is about a boy growing up on a Christmas tree farm in rural Oregon. His father is a drunk. His mother is an agoraphobic who decorates everything like Christmas all-year-round, treating the farm like a roadside attraction she can never leave. Boy meets girl. Sadness and awkwardness prevent a happy ending between the two (just like life). Highlights include an accidental rape (just trust on this one), a suicide discovery, and, of course, lots of those moments that humans can't usually seem to put into words.