Generation Exhausted

Showing up, the Sequel

Does it count as blogging two days in a row if I technically blogged less than 24 hours ago? Why yes, yes it does. Blogging Statute Number 23,468, Article 93, Subsection (iii). Look it up.

I'm running out of room on my walls. It may be time to do some sorting soon.

When the basement office was built, I specifically asked that the drywall not be finished. That smooth expanse was a ready-made bulletin board, and I didn't want to be consumed with guilt every time I jammed a thumbtack into a taped, sanded, primed and painted wall. So, bare walls, as bare as you can get and still have a wall. And I promptly commenced tacking.

So now, 7 years and a bit later, I've given whole new meaning to the term wall-paper. I have deadline sheets, important letters that I would have lost if they hadn't been posted right in front of my face, drawings that the little one made for me, certificates, accolades, a four-year-old one-line fax praising my efforts on a particular issue of the magazine. I have jury-rigged inboxes made from file folders that I stuffed to the point of falling off the wall and then found somewhere else to stuff my stuff. Special copies of the magazine.

I have a few squares of corkboard, which are rather redundant, as they too are tacked to the wall. A white board, a calendar, thumbtacks posing as hooks from which hang lanyards with ID cards and conference passes. My "I'm Going To Write If It Kills Me And It Probably Will" award from Momwriters in 2001.

And in January, I bought a whiteboard/calendar/corkboard combo to hang on the wall. I finally got around to putting it up last week.

Darn thing wouldn't be thumbtacked or push-pinned At. All. I had to use screws and anchors. And couldn't find a screwdriver, or a drill.

But, like all women know, a good nail, a butter knife and a decent hammer (or heavy shoe) are all the tools a girl really needs. Hubby came down to see what the noise was about, shook his head and went back upstairs. Drywall abuse disturbs him.

But it hasn't fallen down yet. So there.

Jericho finale tonight, as it has in fact been cancelled once and for all. The show might have had a chance if they hadn't gone with the stupidest time slot known to man - 10 p.m. on a Tuesday. I mean, 10 p.m. is the time when us creative types are usually gearing up to rearrange the stuff on the wall.

What, you mean I have to show up once in a while?

I celebrated Easter weekend by re-reading Lamb, The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal. Sadly, since reading it the first two times, I have been unable to sit through a church service without recalling certain passages from the book. Who knew my spiritual state was so susceptible to influences like these?

It occurred to me that it must be hard to be Christopher Moore. Or any incredibly talented author who is so obviously smart and wise at the same time. To be able to - or perhaps unable to avoid - seperating yourself from your surroundings enough to indulge your imagination and create such fanatastic, entertaining stories. Am I in awe, or am I envious?

It's hard to tell. Maybe a bit of both. Finishing the book, I'm struck, like I so often am, by the thought, "How does he DO that?"

Maybe a little less Facebook time and a little more keyboard time? Maybe a committed effort to put butt-in-chair, hands-on-keyboard, Word-document-open-on-the-screen?

Or maybe it's the indulgence of an unavoidable need to just write-the-damn-thing-before-it-drives-him-crazy.

Note to self: A serious point to ponder.

I know I've got it, I'm just not sure where I put it

I've managed to adopt a mostly Zen attitude toward Emergency Room waiting, I think. As we sat and sat, I observed humanity at its best and worst, but more than anything, I saw humanity at its most impatient.

I can empathize with people who are worried about themselves and their loved ones, particularly children. But to start complaining loudly at the 90 minute mark, I think, is unrealistic. I resisted the urge to share that "This is nothing, there are times we've sat here, the person in pain barely conscious, for 7 hours plus. Really, two hours is an improvement."

Does that make me stoic, or cynical? I don't know. But the wait is what it is, and I tried to perform my own Random Act of Kindness by fetching an unasked-for coffee for a mom who was there alone with her two-year-old. It lessened her stress not one whit, but maybe it reminded her to have faith in humanity? Who knows.

Anyway, in between waiting and waiting some more, I immersed myself in the talented creations of others this weekend.

The first thing I did was read Lani Diane Rich's new "A Little Ray Of Sunshine." It was very, very well done, and reminded me of vintage Lani. Heroine that's not easy to like at first. Nice twist at the end. Overall, written in a way that makes the sentences sing.

I get so jealous when I read good writing. Not just good writing, but smart writing.

Last night, spur of the moment, I went to see Juno. There's something about pregnant teen movies when you were once a pregnant teen - you go prepared to criticize the unreality, you anticipate the cliche, you know that on some level you'll like the movie, but you doubt you'll like like it, you know?

Juno was simply fantastic. Again, smart, smart writing. While Juno does not reflect, on almost any level, what MY reality was way back when, it still feels real. Not cliched. Other than the giving-up-the-baby part, I wished that I'd been a little bit more like Juno. You know, hanging onto a little bit of the "teen" in "teen mom" instead of being so quick to trade my t-shirts for maternity smocks. (ugh, yes really)

I like liked it. Stranger still, I fell in love with the soundtrack. Normally, I don't get excited about movie music, but Oldest gifted me with an iPod shuffle a couple of months ago, and I've been re-examining how music fits into my life, what it's meant to me in the past and what it means now. It's one of the areas where I shed the "teen" in "teen mom" all those years ago, and now I'm trying to find it again.

The Juno soundtrack, completely different from almost anything I've ever listened to, speaks to me. It's definitely on my shopping list.

I like the story behind Juno too, mostly for its Cinderella-story quality. According to Wikipedia, Juno was made for about 6.5 million dollars and to date has grossed over 130 million. Plus an Academy award. That's the fairy tale that almost every writer/creator dreams about. Most writers I know believe their work is good. But when you get a result like that, essentially other people saying, "This is good," it means something different. Something more.

So, I find that once again, I'm where I always am after being immersed in smart writing. Feeling satisfied, even stmiulated by it, but at the same a little bit frustrated. I can write smart, or at least I could once. But lately - and the lately grows longer with every day that passes - I just can't seem to tap into it. Is it trying too hard? Was I cosmically allocated a finite amount of talent and used it up without knowing the beginning balance was so low in the first place?

And if that was the case, and I'd known, would I have done anything different?

It's one of the reasons I don't show up here very often anymore. The quality of my writing here - to me - is not what it once was, and it feels uncomfortable to try to replace quality with quantity. And yet, part of me wonders if I'm caught in a chicken/egg nightmare - do I not write more because the writing sucks, or does the writing suck because I don't write more?

Littlest started learning to pitch in Little League last year. She had a very dedicated pitching coach, who focused first on the way the girls rotated their arm. His mantra was "Don't worry about aim, don't worry about speed, that will come together once you have the rotation down to a science." I believe his recommendation for practicing at home was 30-50 rotations a day. So this little girl, walking to school, watching TV, just hanging out, would randomly give her arm a spin, over and over again.

And you know, by the end of the season, her speed was improving, and the ball was crossing the plate.

I think the talent is still there, in me. I'm just not sure how to access it. But I'm willing to consider that maybe I need to focus on the wind-up for a while, and not worry about aim and speed. It might make for some pretty crappy, disjointed material here, but I'm willing to give it a shot.

Who's with me?