Antsy

Not sure what the deal is. Maybe a slight case of cabin fever. ? Unsure. Just know that I'm feeling eminently distracted by life in general right now. No focus tonight.

Here I was all excited yesterday about having passed a Big Milestone in my writing life: I got past the 100 page mark. Yay. However, the story is losing interest for me. I don't want to have to wrap up all my loose ends, and I have no idea of what I'm going to do with it next. It reminds me of my first afghan knitting experience. Halfway through stitch number 900, Serena asked me what I was making, and I was like, I have noooooooooooo idea. No pattern, no reason to it--just this giant jumble of stitches and yarns and voila! It's a something.

And that's how my story is panning out. I am finally understanding why people outline before they write. But I have a difficult time doing so. When I was in college, or maybe it was high school...dunno. Anyway back in the day when I had to write essays and they had to have an outline, I'd write the essay and THEN write up the outline of what I'd written, rather than have to stick to any sort of planned out ending.

However, as I told Dan yesterday, I am now comprehending the beauty of an outline. Things might actually get finished in my book as opposed to getting to the end and then just running into a giant wall, one that I actually built in the beginning of the story. I'm also having a hard time maintaining the same voice.

I think I need to find an outside writing group. Someone who will read this and give me feedback. It's just odd to think that I'm out of college and NOW am needing an objective and very critical opinion of something long, unweildy, and never before attempted by This Chick.

I mean, honestly. In college and out, the longest thing I've contrived before was like 60 some pages, and I had the same problem eventually with that one--the creative grant that funded the pages ran out, and my inner author was like, Well, screw that shit, let's do something else.

*sigh*

So tonight I sat down, on page 104, with every intention of doing some serious typing, and everything but everything is distracting me.

Maybe I should run to the grocery store, just real quick, and pick up another jug of milk.

Maybe I should find a book to read. Maybe go to the bookstore to do so.

Maybe play with the cat, who's been woefully lonely from the looks of it?

Maybe think about something for dinner tomorrow?

Maybe check email?

Too much, too many things. Everything in my world is bright and shiny and windchime in nature--look, over there! It's noisy!

Earlier today I had the beginnings of a migraine. Those usually signal to me that I'm either overtired or stressed--either way, I need to slow down and nap, or rest, or meditate, something that will bring relaxation to my shoulder region. I get this flashing light thing in one eyeball, and it moves like an oilslick on pavement, and I can't tear my eyes away from it. Often it's triggered by bright lights, glare on something, aggravated by the earlier mentioned lack of sleep, etc. If I take ibuprofen it goes away; if I don't, it makes me queasy and eventually leads to a killer headache as I can't walk properly, get dizzy, the whole nine yards.

I think my job is a contributing factor to this.

Anyway the ibuprofen cleared things up and I was able to actually look at my computer screen and not see a giant flickering rainbow amoeba. At the end of the day, as I was leaving, my mgr approached me about my friend S who moved inter-company to CO. He was all concerned about if she liked ADP, etc. I wanted to tell the truth and say, well, who does like it right now? But I just stuck with the obvious and it sounds like if they can, they'll remote her in as another CSR.

Which is fine, in the long run. The bummer is that he's so concerned with someone who lives out of state, who left the region, and has no idea of the stress level of the people in our region--people are verging on dropping like flies, with all the calls, all the newbies, and year end approaching. It's nice that he's worried, it'd be GREAT!!! to work with S again and even better to have another rep helping out, but at the same time, I wish he'd walk around and get a feel for what is going on daily in our region.

Tomorrow I do get to take a longer lunch and test drive a car over lunch. Dan's going to meet me and we'll drive over from there. And then on Thursday it's D Fong's night, in addition to having dinner with my good friend Rene, who's down from the Vortex for a few days on work related stuff. And Burt's back from Nepal, too.

Can you hear the ants? Dear god, I'm just tired. Maybe that's the problem. I think I need a day or two just to unwind and not think about work and how terrible it's been lately, focus on something less complex than a banana.

Slightly off topic but I did get to tromp through the woods on Sunday and it felt ever so nice. A little nervous because I'm paranoid, but it was nice to just have me and my boots and camera, out in the snow. The only crappy pants part about it was I could still hear planes. Poopy.

Also: a new favorite cuss word: Pumpkinfucker. It's just so...wholesome.