You’re all talk, Naptime, about how much work you have and the things you need to accomplish on the weekend when Spouse, the only child care option you have, is available to weather the 4-year-old storm for a bit. So what’d you accomplish, punk?
Finish your articles?
Not really. One is 98% there and if I’d only proofread and double check my sources I’d be done. But then there’s the submission process and that seems daunting enough to put the thing off another year. The other, half-done article, is such a mess on paper and so freaking genius in my head that I just don’t know if I can reconcile the two before baby brain takes over. Again, I just need a solid weekend. But my sitting and thinking skills ain’t what they used to be.
Did you revise your book?
Yup. Last weekend. Total overhaul. Need a new title, though, so the new and improved version can go out to agents who might notice it’s just rearranged. Any suggestions are welcome, even though you haven’t read the danged thing. Seems that’s the way they name most novels, anyway.
Well, okay. Did you finish Peanut’s art project that you started a year ago?
Nope.
Edit any of the 34 hours of Peanut footage you keep swearing to send grandparents?
Nope.
Did you do anything of use, now that you mention it?
Well, snarky-pants, it just so happens I did. You read about the nightmare with the cat worms that included a day of steam cleaning the house in scratch-the-skin-off-my-body-and-buy-all-new-furniture horror. Well this weekend was two hours at the incompetent vet (yes, again) for a condescending variety of friendly ramblings, concluded by her asking whether, if we have a boy, we will circumscribe him. I guess she meant drawing the circle around him in the co-sleeper, so I said no. I might write circles around him in the crib when he or she moves to Peanut’s room, but I left it at “no; there’s no reason to.” Didn’t see the need to draw out a discussion about circumscription, since it’s so fraught with emotion.
Spouse and I also made huge headway on our organic garden by building a raised bed—6×6 extravaganza of…well, for now just wood and protective mesh screening. Soon it will have dirt and our awesome compost. Then it will have spinach and basil and carrots and strawberries and squash and cukes and such things. But for now it’s prepped. The best part was building in the rain, while Peanut played in the huge teepee we just built him. (Building semi-permanent forts sounds really good but takes way more time and energy that I believe my child is worth, but really tall bamboo teepees are freaking easy enough to finish in about 20 minutes. 8′ diameter, 6′ tall. $20. 20 minutes. My kind of building.)
I also read 2666 (next post) for the bolanobolano.com group read and got frighteningly far ahead. Must go write my assessment of The Part about Fate, which I freaking loathed. Suffice it to say that even brilliant writers need to know their limits, and Chilean/Mexican/Spaniard novelists need not try to capture the creakily-aged Black Panther movement in Detroit. Even if they succeed in making some of it funny, relevant, and thoughtful. It was like reading from inside a cubist painting. A very well done cubist painting. But still.
I wiped the hard drive of the computer that crashed AGAIN (shakes fist and grouses incoherently at Microsoft, the voodoo doll for which is coming soon) and have almost got all the backup docs and software restored. Once my software finishes updating I will have all the preschool fundraiser stuff for this week done.
Got a haircut. Completed several towers and puzzles with Peanut. Cleaned out the freezer. Wrote another novel. (Kidding. I rearranged the freezer. Big difference.)
So. I made inroads on changing the world by growing food at home, and am done preparing the house for babe. I just didn’t make any progress on the stuff that will win me fortune and fame. And that reminds me, I need to submit my game show application soon so I can win and actually afford to live here. Unless people figure out there’s as much profit in killing game show winners as there is in killing lottery winners.
NaptimeWriting 
Wow. So…many…things wrong with that vet. First of all, the whole “circumscribe” thing reminds me of my dad’s former co-worker, who, while working late one night, told my dad that he expected to be “fully confiscated” for his time. Secondly, WHY THE HELL would your vet be asking about this very personal decision about your unborn child? I mean, I’d think it was forward if my vet, who I like very much, asked for my chicken soup recipe.
Also, I think “Total Overhaul” is a great title for the book.
Yay, Falling! Thanks for the title suggestion. You get the honored space at the top of the blank page I should be filling with names. While you’re at it, will you name the kid?
And I agree on the vet. She was a Freak with a capital Y. We’re so done with that clinic. I’m sending my cats to Dr. Dan from now on.
We no longer perform circumscriptions in our office. It’s very difficult to get the kids to lie still, and we kept poking them with the sharp end of the compass.
However, I do think “The Circumscribed Child” would be a great title for your novel.
I do think chalk outlines around children can be cathartic, so I guess I should consider it. Too bad you’re not performing circumscription any more. What about circumlocution?
Haha – just more proof that that vet sucks. (For the record, we have two boys, and neither has been circumscribed, circumvented, or circumcised.)
You revised your novel? I want to read it! Didn’t even know you were a novelist.
Give yourself a break. You deserve it. Besides – I can tell you that I feel 99% competent, brain-wise, and I’m 9 weeks postpartum. Baby brain doesn’t quite hit you the same way the second time around. At least, that’s my experience.
Oh, Fie, that’s fabulous news that baby brain doesn’t hit as hard the second time. I won’t hold you to it, of course. But it does feel a bit better to put off the articles, which will boost my CV but not my bank account, if I feel like it.
I love the line “is such a mess on paper and so freaking genius in my head” — that line speaks to just about every post I create. Too funny!
I think you need to come and nest at my house. My freezer just offered to pay for your ticket.
Jane, I hear ya. I don’t bother to make the posts any good, but the stuff for publication makes me self conscious…
ck, most of my freezer rearranging entails eating anything in the freezer that has sugar, so if you’re willing to part with all your frozen sweets, I’m on the way.
I’m just impressed that you HAVE footage of Peanut. I’m just a bad mom. And I’m also impressed you have a finished novel. That’s the hard part, right?
Fae, I wish the hard part were writing the book. Finding the agent and getting it sold, then edited, then on shelves, then maneuvering through the undermanaged publicity phase are the tough parts. Finishing is (for me) easy. *That* only took 13 years.