Rachael

Isn’t that amazing? Riona, in my comments, said that Our Lady of Venice, my new yarn lady shown there on the left, is named Beatrice! She met her a couple of weeks ago while she was there (hold on. Must shake off my jealousy. Okay. One more sec. All right, back to the blog). I swear, it’s the perfect name (and a variant of alison’s new pal’s name, which just makes it all that much better). I knew you could get a LOT out of this blogging thing, but the very name of the yarn lady in the most beautiful city in the world? In less than a day? Yowzer.

Killed ants yesterday. I actually became Very Lazy right after I wrote the post about having a busy day planned. Isn’t that the way? The second you admit you’ve got a ton of crap to do is the second you realize you’ll die if you don’t take a nap on the couch. And I don’t even nap. So I went in the kitchen and just peeked at the sugar bowl. Just took a quick look, to see if I could just chuck a few dry goods and get rid of their food source, sending them on their way kindly and gently.

THIS is what I saw. Don’t click if you’re squeamish. Theresa in SC, don’t. You can’t handle it.

So I cleaned. Damn it. They’re still around today, but in fewer numbers and I’m hoping for the best.

And I wrote, too! I haven’t been talking about it, don’t want to jinx myself, but I think I’m back in the saddle. I took a break over the holidays that I felt terribly guilty about, but did it anyway. I lost all motivation and lost some belief in the book, too.

But I know by now that confidence in your own writing is completely situational and subjective. If I wake up and my hair looks great and my cheeks are naturally pink and the sun is shining and Digit is purring and my coffee turns out perfectly, then the novel is a sterling example of the creative originality of the Great First Novel. If I stub my toe on the way to the bathroom and ants are marching and I can’t find the phone and I’m sneezing from allergies, then the novel is a blithering, self-indulgent collection of silly, trite, overused words, strung together like a candy necklace from the dime-store. Cheap, ready to break, and attractive only to six-legged pests and already grubby hands.

Slight exaggeration, perhaps. But know what? I just need to finish it. And then start really writing/revising it. You’ve heard that before. I’m 490 pages in and I feel the end coming. No, I mean it this time. I have no idea what’s going to happen, exactly, but I’m confident my characters are going to take me there. They’ve brought me this far. Just have to write. Every day. And I have been.

So has Bethany! Tell me it’s not just me – her posts slay me. Especially this one. If you have any Robert Earl Keen or Steve Earle CDs, put one on before you read her. They’re her soundtrack.

And lastly, gratuitous cute kitty shot. Adah, sleeping:

Yay! I swear to God, I don’t know what my problem was in making a banner. I understand how to do so, I understand quite a bit of Photoshop, I get the pixel widths and what’s necessary to make a banner fit and for the LIFE of me, I’ve never been able to do it. I just get too frustrated and give up. But with Max’s patient help, I did it. And now it’s centered. (That was the hardest bit, actually. But Max kept encouraging me. Seriously, I didn’t think I’d be able to sleep at night if it remained off center.)

Wasn’t I the luckiest girl to catch this shot? It was one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen: I’d already been to (and held a PACE flag in) a peace march in the Lido (this was just days after Shrub declared the war in March), and that evening, as dusk was damply falling, I leaned over the side of the vaporetto to see THIS. Venetians, out for the purpose of peace. You don’t march in Venice, you row. I couldn’t scramble off the boat fast enough to stand and drink it in. I wore my PACE pin wherever I went.

And for the occasion of my new banner, a new Venice Lady! This is the woman who runs the only yarn shop I’ve ever stumbled into in Italy. She knew a kindred spirit when she saw one, and we spent a happy half-hour talking about yarn. Well, that’s pushing it, perhaps. I spoke my crappy barely intelligible wrong-tensed Italian, and she pretended to know what I meant. In yarn, though, you only really need one word: Seta. Silk. Oh, yes. After that, every time I tramped past her door, I grinned and did a little skip and she waved back wildly. At night, I sat in my rented flat (a lovely two weeks in Venice….) and knitted, watching Italian game shows and drinking hardy local red.

I wish I knew her name. I forgot to ask.

Had a lovely big breakfast with a friend this morning that has prepared me for the rest of my day: Ant killing. I’ve decided not to bomb the place. I hate poison. Makes me feel itchy and mean and like I’m a step away from growing a third ear. I’m just going to throw out all my dry goods (the ants are in everything), clean with 409, and start over. Everything in Tupperware this time. The only thing I’m dreading is that moment that the ants clamber up my arms. You know the moment. Moving the peanut butter jar, only touching it with two fingers, you still manage to get eighty-seven ants up to your elbow. I’ve already got the tricks lined up: cucumber rinds, orange oil, cinnamon…. My house’ll smell like a fancy organic restaurant.

Urgh. And then a nap, and then a ten hour midnight overtime shift tonight.

(And for those keeping track, Mom’s got a thyroid scan this afternoon (she’s taken that radioactive pill and no one can hug her for a day – SO much worse than Raid) and hopefully she’ll be on real meds soon. She’s feeling a wee bit better today, thanks in NO small part to our angel Mariko, who asked another angel doctor friend for advice. Mom’s just reassured to know that YES, she IS in the middle of a medical emergency, no WONDER she feels so horrid. Mariko can never know the depth of our gratitude. She gave us the key phrases, the words to use, the things to ask for, what to insist upon. I tear up a leetle just thinking about it. And the rest of you? Those prayers are good stuff, the real thing. We love and thank you.)

If I get rid of all the ants, can I knit a while? Please? And I will write, too. Okay, I think it’s now officially a Busy Day.

What do you think? Too busy? Nice rainbows? (Those are Italian Pace flags — I was lucky enough to catch a Venetian peace march last March.)

I can’t decide. Too sleepy to do so. You tell me what your opinion is. Pah-leez?

Here’s what I’ve been working on lately. But Bethany, if you click, you’ll immediately lose the entire hard-drive on your computer, with all the stuff you’ve listed on it, all the roadside attractions you must see on your trip. Even if you ain’t using right now. I’ve cursed it. Don’t click. (Those of you who can click, everyone else, that is, I’m doing this in a funky order, you think? Attaching things that aren’t usually attached till later. Just felt like it.)

Beth! Don’t!

No more time now: Off to work for my last day before my weekend. My weekend, however will be taken up by one midnight overtime shift and killing ants. They’ve invaded and they’re working on carrying out my new couch. I can hardly stand to go to work right now…. I’ll have nothing left…..

Oh! The L Word rocks. Season premiere last night, and WOW! Could be because there’s such a dearth of lesbian anything on television, but I was impressed. Rather true to life, with its Dating Flowcharts and scamming on the same people, night after night, and Baby Making (except it’s Hollywood and every lesbian bordered on Too Beautiful. Eh. I suppose I can take it).

make THIS.

Wowzer. She rocks.

And go see my pal Joanna who has two new FOs. And Bethany has a 100 Things list that rocks so hard I decided that yes, she is just too cool to be related to me and/or Christy.

You all rock, in a big way. (And the one knitting a prayer? You know who you are. You are a blessing.) And a whole bunch of you expressed indignance and/or shock that Mom’s still with this particular doctor. The best I can do is directly quote Em’s comment, who was spot-on:

“I have no idea what’s wrong with you”? “I can’t help you”? Are you sure she’s a doctor? Is there a place to register some sort of legal complaint against this woman? Because I assume that the reason little mama hasn’t switched doctors is due to the way our nation’s health care is set up, and this is all entangled with insurance, which then means maybe that complaints won’t do anything. Still, it’s bullshit. Bullshit. Thank god the ER people know their jobs and helped her.

That’s exactly it. The way she’s locked into this particular health plan means she HAS to see this terror of a doctor. It’s a small area, and the only other doctor that’s possibly available to her apparently works in a migrant-health clinic, and Mom hasn’t had any luck tracking him down. But I’m pleased to say that she saw the nurse yesterday, who was great and helpful and smart. The little mama swears she’ll never see That Doctor again, not if she can help it. She’s going with the nurse, all the way. Yeah.

I know I had more things to write about but now I can’t think of them. This is why you shouldn’t put off blogging because you’re comfy on the couch and don’t want to reach for the computer. And damn it, I’m just now remembering that I left some feta/spinach pizza in my fridge that was supposed to be lunch. What that means is I’m fishing in my brain for the Forgotten Things and coming up with the wrong ones. Shoot.

One thing I remember. Go see Marcia. She summed it all up in her Wednesday post.

And I’m going to write today. Really write. Okay? Hold me to it. I’m back in the saddle.