Echoes in a Hollow Space

I had to run home to take care of something at lunch. On my way back to work driving through Venice, I saw a young woman walking down the street headed in the direction of the Boardwalk. She wore mid-calf fringed boots of brick red, long black gypsy hair, and a black micro-mini dress that seriously clung to her seriously nice curves. Over her arm she twirled a sparkly blue hula hoop.

Headed down to the beachfront to show off some moves, I thought. A lot of people head down to the Boardwalk to show off moves. It’s kind of the expected thing. And I thought, “Yeah, I could seriously get into watching her twirl that hoop around her small waist and curvy hips.”

I’m a content non-practicing heterosexual, but I would have really appreciated that show. So much youth and beauty and lovely curves—and youth and beauty and lovely curves should definitely work it while they have it. They ain’t nuthin’ wrong with that, sugar. It’ll be gone in a heartbeat. That life and exquisite energy needs to be celebrated in full while it is present.

I ain’t so young no more and the curves I have now are not like that. Never were, truth be told. I am not un-beautiful, but I don’t have the vigor right now to do much with it. Other truth be told, I don’t have a lot of energy at all these days. I still feel exhausted most of the time, even after getting a good night’s sleep or a full weekend of lounging. I’m in a post-stress phase, a grieving phase, and that eats at my vitality.

I would never cheapen PTSD by even implying I have anything remotely like it, but there is all kinds of post-ness on the stress spectrum. I spent the last five years, particularly the last two, dealing with a high degree of tension most days as my mother progressively failed. It takes a while to get over the ashen burn out of that kind of situation. Anti-parenting, a caregiver I know calls it, where you’re burning up all your time easing those you love towards death. Where there is no happy ending, as another caregiver I know says. The ease-up from that daily grind has a pretty powerful rebound. So I’m trying to let gravity slow me down and steady me out from the bungee jump I’ve just been forced to make.

I do hope to get some of my energy back with time, but it’s way too early to tell if I’ll ever return to where I was before I became a full-time caregiver. I suspect I might not, but it’s way too early to say, one way or another. I can say that if fate is kind, if I do get that energy back—even if I only get part way there—watch out, baby. I will work it, work it hard, work it for all it’s worth, in my non-youthful, unconventionally curvy way. You will definitely enjoy that show. It will make your wild gypsy hair blow right on back from your face.

Okay, so I'll probably natter on about Shivery Bones again sometime, but this is my final report on: The Rewrite That Would Not Die 2: The Winnowing.

Chapters completed: All of them!

Revised page count: 586

Revised manual word count: 144,058 (net words cut 983)

Revised Word line count with a zero stuck on the end word count: 143,590 (net words cut 1170)


So, I don't recommend doing two intense rewrites in less than three months, but I kind of wanted to prove to myself I could do it. So I did it. I'm happy I was able to cut 12,000 words. The first draft came in at around 156k, the second around 153k. 144k is still too long but I am done for the moment. Yay for me!

As often happens with me when I've been stressing for a long time (and it wasn't the ms. so much as many other factors in my life right now), I got nailed by a nasty virus last night and am currently dealing with the flu. That sort of scotches my plan to work on the synopsis and first 60 today, but it's probably just my body saying, "It's time to take a break." So I'm going to do a serious veg thing for a couple of days at least.

I'm leaving for England two weeks from today and fatalistic chick that I am I've been convinced for months that something's going to come up at the last minute and either ruin the trip or cause me to have to cancel. Why look on the bright side when you can be pessimistic as hell, right? Part of it stems from this crazy little kid who shares my skull, the one who thinks that nothing good is allowed to happen to me. Or, conversely, if something good happens then I'm going to have to pay for it down the line. It ain't logical, it's not the way that 75% of me thinks, but it is a mutant strain in my thinking and just another indicator that I'm neurotic as hell. (Which should not surprise anyway with even a passing acquaintance with moi.)

I'm good at planning, though, so my two traveling companions have given me the go ahead to get the trip all sorted out. And I've proceeded with neurotic vim and vigor. So, anyway, I get a note Friday night from the guy in England who we're renting a cottage from for the last week we're there. The note is nice and chatty (he's a charmingly chatty guy), telling me where to call for the key, etc., and then he says, "Perhaps you could arrange now to send me the balance of the rental fee?"

My stomach hit the floor with a loud iron clang. I'd sent the entire fee in January, registered mail, gotten the signed receipt back in early February. I hadn't bothered to call and verify that it really was him who'd signed it and he really had gotten the check because I feared that might be something a pest would do—but the mutant strain in my brain was telling me in retrospect that this was a shocking failure on my part.

It was too late to call him by the time I read the note as I didn't think my prospective landlord would be thrilled by a call at 3 a.m. British time. So I continued kicking myself up one side and down the other for not calling incessantly and making a pest of myself or sending it FedEx instead of registered mail—for a thousand and one things. See, another mutant strain in my thinking is that because I'm planning this, if the trip isn't picture perfect it's ruined and all my fault. My companions tell me I'm nuts, not to worry, but...

I blame it on the DNA I got from my mother. Moms are convenient to blame, but in this case I think I'm right. If I'm the Queen of Worry, my mom is the Empress. In fact, she was a gold medalist in Worry at the Tokyo Olympics of 1960. It was a proud day for the United States: Old Glory waving in the background, the Star Spangled Banner playing, my mom bowing her head to receive the medal and coming back up with the most fretful expression on her face, worried that she'd bowed too far, see, and the Japanese Olympic official putting the medal around her neck would have to bow even deeper in return, over-balance and fall off the podium...

But I digress. By the time I'd called England the next morning, I had spun so many scenarios about what had gone wrong with the check—I was up to an organized trip check theft ring by that time, I believe—that I'd gone into a full belly attack. That's one of the symptoms of my neurosis: when under stress, my belly explodes on me and I have all sorts of fearful stomach aches. Can't eat without nausea and achy stuff and it's really unpleasant. Usually this situation would not be enough to set me off, but since I'd preworried everything, was convinced the trip would be somehow ruined, and it would be all my fault, it didn't take much to trigger this. The situation was exacerbated by the fact that when I called, his daughter informed me that my landlord was away from home and wouldn't be returning until Sunday afternoon (Brit time). So I had another full 24 hours to fret.

My stomach was in triple knots by the time I talked to him Sunday. When I told him that I was quite concerned about his comment regarding the money because I'd sent the check in January and had his signed receipt in hand, he said, "Oh, perhaps I've gotten you confused with someone else. Yes, I'm sure I have. Oh well, not to worry, never mind. You're clear on how to get the key?" Etc. Very charming man, very charming family. Impossible to stay mad at him when talking to him, but I am wondering if they're at all sticky about strangulation in England?

Oh well, not to worry. In our chat Sunday he managed to work in weather reports, traffic reports in and out of Cornwall, what a chatterbox his aunt is, and the fact that Terry Pratchett used to live just up the road from the cottage. Had I heard of Terry Pratchett? Oh, brilliant.

I thought I'd take Good Omens along to read on the trip and as a kind of talisman that all goes well. Because, God knows, if it doesn't all go well it will be all my fault.