womens lit – freckled crab

Bad Internet Led To No Point

While we were eating dinner last night, I was watching my puppy in his pen. We have his old crate in there that we started keeping his toys in, and he was fussing with that. In the end, he realized he could get on the crate and that would make him higher up, and possibly closer to us, so he tried, and he did it, and it was a mess.

Much like that first paragraph.

But he did it.

So of course I turn it into something about ME and a life lesson that you’re supposed to learn in your adolescence. That’s why I’m here with you now, at 5:18 am, with only one cup of coffee in me, and fingers that are swollen from a salty dinner, still trying to get into practice of writing and not being afraid of an IMPERFECT MESS. A mess, I tell you.

///so I started this and my internet was lame and now it’s 8 pm and I’m watching Fargo by the fireplace. Hopefully tomorrow I will remember what point I was trying to make///

Late in the Covid game.

I’m gonna just post real quick. I think this is how it has to be. I don’t have the patience to carefully craft prose with perfect links and images, which gets kind of boring, don’t you think?

Anyway, anyone else getting Covid for the first time besides me and my husband?

I’m the culprit. My boss brought it into work and I got it and then it was a week until my husband got it. I’ve been testing positive for 7 days now and it’s annoying. However, I am lucky because it’s not that severe of a case. I’ve still walked my dogs twice a day (sometimes very short walks), and have been able to eat (a little).

It’s given me an opportunity to hang out with the dogs and kinda see life from their POV. I’ve learned that walks are great, but being in the house 90% of the time with the same companions can get boring AF.

The reason this is important is because our pack has doubled in size. We adopted a dog in August and got a puppy in October. More on this later.

Point is – I’ve got a heeler that is policing the new dogs and it’s causing issues. Her bossiness didn’t bother us before because it was fine with our lifestyle, so now we’ve changed the rules and want to curb some of her lifelong behaviors, but ideally do it in an organic way so that it’s not a punishing, stressful training. And also do it quickly.

Don’t laugh at me.

But for realz if you have experience with this type of situation let me know.

Anyone Got A Marker?

I live sandwiched between a two-lane highway and a national park. That kinda makes it sound cramped and compressed but it’s not. Hmm. It’s more of a relaxed, meatball sub instead of a smooshed grilled cheese. You know what I mean.

Anyway, there are deer and chipmunks and coyotes and EVIDENTLY A COUGAR.

Can you read that? The notice about how there is an apex predator in the neighborhood that someone wanted to warn us about by putting pencil to freaking yellow paper?

PENCIL!
YELLOW PAPER!

Seems like whoever wrote this isn’t going to be that sad that someone and/or their pet goes missing. Oh wait! What if this is the murderer’s preamble? Plausible deniability? Ooohhhhh. What if it’s for ME?!?!?

Also, those e’s kinda bother me. They look like part of the Michelin Man, all wayward and round.

So that’s my news.

Maybe we’ll be friends.

So I wrote a book. (Collective groan.) I know, I know. But it had been floating around in my head for a while, and with the dark Dakota winters, what else is there to do? Besides knit. Which I’ve tried. Being left-handed, which means one becomes semi-ambidextrous, means that knitting and crocheting instructions can completely freeze my brain up.

Anyway, so I would get up at 4:30 am to write, and about 6 am carry on with my day. As you writers know, however, revisions and ideas would run through my brain all day. Less like run, more like those annoying “just married” cars with cans clattering behind it.

But I finished it, huzzah, after six drafts, and am now onto Phase 2: rejection. I’ve sent it out to three agents, and in two weeks, will send it out to more, and so on, until it is fully rejected from everyone and I list it on kindle.

What this means for Right Now, though, until I get my next story together, is that I still have to get up at 4:30 am and write something. I learned this because somewhere in my second draft I got off schedule, and it was painful to right the course. Don’t want to do that again.

So you might be seeing more of me.

Shut Up, Pants!

Did I quit running? I’m not sure if I did. I ran and ran for four years, and now? Meh.

It started with a Super Spartan, then Disney Princess runs and Star Wars runs – half marathons, 10ks, a couple of 5ks in there to keep me honest. But now….

I know I need something to train for. I can’t just run to run. With my impending move to a much higher altitude, I’m also intimidated. I have low blood pressure and heartbeat already – I’m afraid I’ll pass out somewhere along the road in a new town.

I can see it now, me laying on the side of a country road, slightly concussed, calling my husband.

“Come get me. I’m concussed.”

“Where are you?” He would say, already in the car.

“I don’t know.”

And woe is me if I had our cattle dog with me, his baby.

Excuses, you say? I agree. There is nothing easier than being middle-aged and lazy.

I have started to stalk online a running club in my new town, thinking it will get me running and social (I am terribly introverted and so is my husband. Peas in a pod!).

However, I have noticed that my excess chub isn’t melting away like it used to. Before I could just use the power of thought, but now, post 40, it seems things have changed. At least that’s what my pants keep saying, and boy are they vocal!

“Lunges. Remember lunges?”

“When’s the last time you did a sit up?”

“A lap around the block wouldn’t hurt ‘ya. Take the cattle dog.”

Pants are nags. Not like tops.

The tight armholes in my blouses are more like “Well, this is interesting”, and my jersey tees just talk behind my back with my bra, something about doing push-ups and maybe dips. Jersey tees are kind of passive-aggressive come to think of it.

The bra? She’s just doing her best. Definitely not an instigator.

Maybe I will. Maybe I will start running again, just to shut them up. Stupid clothes. At least my leggings and tech tees are supportive. They’ve been clamoring to get out of the drawer anyway.

Aforementioned baby.