Flooding in the Rogue Valley. I widened a ditch a little this morning, curing the problem as far as I’m concerned. The rest of the world can take care of whatever pooling & rising waters are left; I know I did my part.

Brain is crumbly. Overcooked, maybe. I should probably melt some cheese over it so that it looks better on the plate and is easier to eat. Or finish my coffee. Or something.

*gapes, uncomprehending, at the computer screen*

*waits*

Nope. That’s all I can squeeze out of my skull. My brain feels like an old person in a bathrobe and carpet slippers shuffling aimlessly through a cluttered room, muttering to himself.

I feel like a part of me has gone missing, that I don’t need to express the same preferences as my spouse/offspring.

It’s as if I’ve had an ungainly extra limb growing from my side, useless and always present, and had it amputated. My life is better for it, but I feel … phantom dysfunction. Or something. I feel like I should scratch the itch on my neurosis’ wrist, but it’s gone and I can’t, and the loss is overwhelming.

Like that. Or in the ball park. My psychopathology taxonomy functions are all off-line tonight.

…I don’t know quite what it means.

I noticed tonight. Uhm.

Back up.

We are spending the holiday at parents homes, not ours. This isn’t all bad, as Cinderella & Othello & I will share a Christmas morning for the first time in years — Othello is excited about Christmas morning crepes, and crowed to Bridgette about my crepe-making skills. After Christmas Othello will go busabout until the new year, and we will be working. Bridgette had little or no need for a tree. She wasn’t opposed, just wasn’t enthused.

A small thing. I’ve been treeless other years. Doesn’t bother me. If I need a tree, I get one.

Othello has been brutally uprooted this year; I felt he would probably want defining touches of “I’m home”, and predicted (correctly, it turns out) that a tree would be one of those things.

A small thing to grant him. I’ve gotten trees. Doesn’t bother me.

Othello’s default state is nonaction. Having expressed his wish for a tree and a chance to decorate it (I had asked him what told him it was Christmas, and that was his answer), he would contentedly fall into torpor, slaying aliens on the computer and living a treeless life.

I’ve been swamped by a variety of things; Bridgette has been ill (torn rotator cuff) and I have been sole adult, work has up-tempoed, I am writing more or less diligently…Christmas started its preparations this last weekend. Shopping and preparing to leave this weekend has taken all our time. Tonight, I realized we were yet treeless. It is Tuesday. We could have a tree tonight, enjoy it for two nights, and then leave it to a cold and empty house.

I resented Othello’s need for a tree, when there would be so little gotten from it and they so hard to come by here (true, if astonishing. No tree lots with trees for two weeks now.). I resented Bridgette for correctly saying that there isn’t much point in having one at this stage. I resented how difficult it is to get a tree around here (the pines that grow around here resemble Charlie Brown’s tree).

Bridgette suggested a potted tree from Walmart, an Alberta Spruce that is 18″ tall and four wide. I didn’t snarl. I could picture the half-yard tree, barely taller than the cats, loomed over by the dogs, occasionally kicked over and pathetic looking even when upright. The sheer wistful impotence of the hypothetical tree made me want to purchase it and then hurl it across the room, just to take out the agression.

There were others, thrice the height for thrice the price. That, I decided, was what we should get. I pointed and said so, prepared to defend the bare adequacy of the larger shrub to my wife, who had no problem with it and thought it was lovely. I took it home to Othello, prepared to explain to him why it was the best we could manage, but he had no issues with it and decorated it with energy and initiative.

It’s a silvery green needled shrub, and, festooned with white lights and silver-toned balls, it was very pale. I broke out the box of wrapping bows, and we tarted it up a bit, and a shimmery opalescent bow as large as my fist made the star at the top, our first tree-top ornament.

They are abed, now, but I’ve been restless and reading. I just turned out the lights and was preparing to unplug the tree.

It’s beautiful.

I want to cry, I am so pleased to have it.

I don’t know what I wanted, but I got it.

I’m not sure what I noticed. Something in there about having wishes that are different from spouse’s and offsprings, and having them anyway. Maybe that’s it. I don’t know.

I wonder what sorts of fillings I’ll get for the crepes this weekend.

I’m going to get a Kleenex and watch my tree.

demands, and I accede.

List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they’re any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now. Post these instructions in
your Livejournal along with your seven songs. Then tag seven other people to see what they’re listening to.

1. Slow Like Honey — Fiona Apple
2. Cup Of Coffee — Garbage
3. Winter — Tori Amos
4. As The World Falls Down — David Bowie
5. Romeo & Juliet — Dire Straits
6. Both Hands — Ani DiFranco
7. Gimme What You Got — Keb Mo’

My tags are not binding; they are, like ’s, merely for curiosity-scratching.

Tag! –, , , , , , & .

I wrote this today in response to a writer’s challenge; pick a random entry in Wikipedia and write a story from the results as a comment to the challenge…which means one draft, for me. Narcissus Trod The Boards is the resulting rough copy.

Where the hell do I send a 430-word story? And what genre does this fall into, anyway?

When time & creativity are both at low ebb —
Go to your Calendar and find the first entry for each month of 2005. Post the first line of it in your journal, and that’s your “Year In Review.”

January: Bridgette has begun the Master Gardener’s class at the OSU extension center.

February: Sunday I wrote 650 words on my short story, knew what came next, but chose, instead, to work on various necessary things around the house.

March: The waters are still stormy-bearded and froward, but my head is well above them, now.

April: I came to Corvallis to go to court with Othello.

May: The aftermath of Pop-pops being very quiet, burning up, and spreading over the Pacific bore a benefit; I was elected to call my godfather, Doug, and tell him the news.

June: Peak is doing something odd, and I can’t get my email from that account

July: Words to date: 8228

August: The morning’s words were more than they seem; there was much rewriting, and the new coherency to the work should ease adding words tomorrow.

September: Words to agent: 14,133

October: Meme picked up from mizkit: Post the first few sentences of various things I intend to finish someday.

November: There is a luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves, we feel that no one else has a right to blame us.

December: I am pleased to note that I am becoming less properly constituted, more unhealthy and indecent, and am profiting in the expected fashion thereby.

2005: I am pleased to see writing crop up as much as it did. I am unsurprised to see the amount of self-mulling. And, I am in moderate awe at how much has happened this year. Custody, deaths, weddings, agents, classes, promotions…progress.

I feel that there has been a change begun from why to do something (and why I don’t) to how to do something, in spite of the why. Good. I’ve a notebook in my backpack calling out to me to go work on that change some more.