It's pretty great, when your body is acting just slightly mysterious, to go to the doctor's office and get an answer within an hour. The fatigue and confusion? The oh-damn-I-forgot-to-eat business?
Apparently, not merely attributable to stress.
Apparently, there's this virus called Infectious Mononucleosis that I dodged no fewer than three times in college that just hit me like a damn bat.
That is not pretty great at all.
Universe, you probably think you're funny but you're so, so, so not.
This spring I created a ritual of setting aside every Tuesday night for a Solo Happy Hour Writing Date. I'd find a quiet spot (preferably one not frequented by any of my friends), take the laptop or a notebook, buy an appetizer or two (enough that I would not be hungry anymore, but not enough that I'd feel sleepy), buy a drink or two (enough to loosen the tongue, hopefully not so much as to compromise my typing or handwriting irreparably) and write, write, write. Generally the project is the fabled Novel in Progress; there are a million smaller projects I've been kicking around that I'd love to get to, but I gotta keep my eyes on the prize.
But I haven't done it for at least a month. Now, I've been spending Tuesday nights in a class for the last few weeks, but when that started I rolled the night over to Wednesdays and kept that appointment somewhat faithfully. Then, yours truly -- who spent her last post belaboring her exceptional memory -- spaced it. Just completely forgot about it. And it was in my damn Google calendar.
There are Reasons, of course. I'm in the middle of moving, and the logistics and anxiety involved in finding a new place, and a roommate, and timing the move -- these have crowded out just about everything in my brain. In mid-June I took a short business trip that sent my sense of Weekly Routine straight to hell. Another reason has to do with some family matters which I'm going to be a big girl about and not discuss out here in public.
Suffice it to say my head is so full of Other Stuff that I barely even think about non-work-related writing these days, not even to tell myself It's OK to Take a Break To Deal With Real Life. Then again, for several mornings last week I woke up with atrocious headaches which took hours to shake. I considered all the awful stuff I do to my spinal column (the reclining position from which I write this is gonna put my LMT's kids through Harvard), the ongoing stressors, etc. but realized that all of that is relatively old news, but this feeling that I was walking around inside a giant vise -- that was new. And then I remembered that back in my old life, when I wasn't preoccupied with the contents of liquor store recycling bins, I was the kind of person who had to eat every three hours lest she become stupid or insufferable and on a good day, both. (I've never been checked for hypoglycemia, but I describe myself that way because it's a reasonable hypothesis and most people understand what that means -- unless they're idiots, or assholes, or otherwise dated me in college.) And I inventoried how well I was eating in the evenings and, uh, hey, I'd been having light, early-evening meals with no pre-bedtime chaser. So if my typically-diligent body just failed to send me Time to Eat reminders, can I believe my brain when it tells me it doesn't even miss writing, or the characters from the novel, not even a little bit?
Probably not. So I suppose I should do what I was doing the last time Real Life threatened to lock me out of my precious, fictional world (I realize most writers of fiction sound creepy and delusional when they talk about their work, and I sort of wish I were podcasting this so you could get the full benefit of my sarcasm speech impediment, so you know I'm META and not just creepy, delusional and self-absorbed), and start taking a few minutes here and there to make notes until I finally feel I have time to take back my Tuesdays.
I know that's what you all came here for. A discussion of my PROCESS. I suspect that not as many readers are as fascinated by discussions of PROCESS as many writers imagine them to be, and I assure you, I am quite deeply ashamed of myself. I promise to post something much less disgusting next time. Like pictures of my cellulite.
