I'm Slipping Down the Rabbit Hole

There have been things going on with me I'm barely aware of. But yesterday when I had to get up at 7:30 AM (a reasonable hour to most of you, but the middle of the night for me} and forego coffee to have an ultrasound of my liver and spleen it hit me that my low platelet count is a potentially serious problem.

A big storm is blowing in and I've been running around putting cushions and dog beds, rugs and baskets and garden tools in the shed. I still need to pick pears, cut my Pucchinis or Zumpkins, toss the vine. I have to pick a few more plums, put the ladder away, bag the debris and toss it in the garbage.

I grocery shopped earlier today and now need to reorganize my cupboards, clean the fridge. Anything to keep from thinking. I've cancelled scheduled dental work because I don't know how I'll afford it now that this diagnostic process goes forward. What looms on the near horizon is a bone marrow test. I've just had a couple of routine tests that are considered preventive and will be paid by Medicare which might be of interest in the search for solving the low platelet mystery. But none of the possibilities (and there are many) sound good to me.

I called my therapist to let him know that this morning it was clear to me I'm teetering on the abyss that is depression. I had no desire to get up today. I might have slept till noon or later, if Nick hadn't called and told me he was coming over in a half hour to pick plums. He's offered to be my medical trustee, to be he one with power of attorney to make sure my wishes are honored.

Ms M is talking about moving. This afternoon she's looking at a job as the maintenance person for an apartment building. There would be housing, but she has big Roscoe, a yellow lab who has spent most of his life here with a pack of dogs and a permanent baby sitter. He'll miss us and we'll miss him. And she won't have benefits. I hope she doesn't do this, but a landmark birthday looms and she's lived here a long time. Boredom is driving her now. Maybe a bit of fear as well.

I have no apatite for twitter now. I'm starting to look inward again. There's work to do. I am half way through a difficult rewrite on the novel. It is becoming a complex jigsaw puzzle. All the pieces are here, what is missing is a frame to hold them in tight frightening suspension. I need to finish, give it my best shot and then move on. When you think you see the end looming you want to tidy up all the lose ends finding that one tiny missing piece.

Then again, when it's cold and raining hard, I may feel smug, snug and peachy. You never know.

I've Gone Missing

In many respects I've been absent lately. Missing from my own blog, off tweeting or rewriting and otherwise tinkering with the first chapter of the novel and giving it a new title. It feels so familiar that I keep searching Wiki looking for it already taken by a better writer and published long ago. The Narcissist's Daughter is what I call it, but I'm haunted by the feeling that I didn't get it first. I have read so many novels over my amazingly long reading life that I often buy or check books out of the library that look interesting only to find, about a quarter of the way in, that I have read the book before. I've heard others of you say the same thing. I'm glad I'm not alone is this forgetfulness. Finally I Google it and what do you know, there it is, on sale at Amazon.com. I don't think I've read it because the author's name isn't familiar. Maybe one of you has posted it on Good Reads or Book Blogging. I get updates in my email. I go and look and I'm overwhelmed by the little bit I've put into Good Reads. I probably haven't updated it in a year or more.

I've stopped visiting most of you or only spottily, now and then. So obsessed with the news, that I tape all my favorite news shows so I can watch them without the commercials. Yet most of the day I'm tweeting with the news playing in the background. I'd be better served by listening to NPR or AirAmerica, rather than listening to what I'll watch later.

There is a bit of method in the madness to my obsessive tweeting. There are so many literary agents and publishers on twitter. They tweet tips for first time novelists. It's due to these tips that I decided to rewrite the first chapter of the the novel, The Narcissist.

I know, it was Maggy, but I like the ambiguity of The Narcissist. Who is the narcissist in this book? Judy, Maggy, or is it Chuck or Brent? Is Gramps the first and most important of the men, or is it Brent, probably the most damaged of the very damaged men who populate this novel? Men like those who, sadly, have populated my rather emotionally barren life. I say barren because sadness and failure do not make for a rich and happy emotional life nor do these emotions feel like healthy children. Fearing and eventually disliking the men you live with does not make for a happy life, and no matter what the other successes or adventures I've had, it's those failed relationships with men that have been most painful. But trapped like a bug in pine pitch my relationship with my interesting and difficult mother sent me on the search for men as damaged as the men in her life, the men who fathered me and later in her life, the men who tried to get between us. Families are sure full of good material.

If you have time and the inclination, take a look at the newley edited first chapter and tell me what you think. Is it better or worse for my tinkering? Leave bread crumbs.