I Don't Really Know Why

Fall makes me restless.

Perhaps it's all about the dying of summer--that shifting, that evolving, or more likely, that sense of waning manifested in every spent leaf. At the unstoppable cruelty of the cool weather creeping in, snuffing out summer's heat. Maybe it is this which makes me dissatisfied with my life. My fears becoming physical.

It's just a guess, though. I don't really know why.

I do know it makes me do bad things like pack up my house and pick fights with Hubby. It makes me want to run away and leave everything behind, to flee to places south, where things stay perpetually green and in bloom. Places where I can wear my flip flops in peace and less is always more when it comes to one's outfit.

It's not that I don't love Fall. It's bewitching, this time of year-the kaleidoscope of colors, that satisfying crunch of leaves under my feet. (When else are you allowed to tromp on the past so gleefully?) The orchards bursting with apples so plump and ripe they just fall off the branches into your palm. Or the trees ornamented with dented buckets,hanging heavily from taps, dripping with maple syrup. The familiarity and traditional, this rightness of time passing, that is Fall. It just, it makes me restless.

It's an important time of year for me, when everything important has ever happened to me. It is when Hubby and I married. It is when both my sons were born. Everything in my life, that has defined my life, has happened in the Fall.

But I am digressing; this is all beside the point. What I mean to say is a few more weeks and enough leaves will fall, the canopy will disappear, and I will be able to stand on my front lawn and see the powder blue sky which has been hidden from me for months. (I use the term front lawn loosely, however. As grass refuses to grow in so much shade, in reality it is more a patch of mossy, heinous-looking dirt. But I'm digressing again.)

I am restless. And I feel impatient, I want more important things to happen. I itch for them, waiting for my life to turn all scarlet and yellow and cinnamon brown like the leaves out front. Waiting for things to fall to the ground and reveal something above me.

It's this that makes me restless.

The innate knowledge that things are changing. Down to the bottom of my toes, I can feel it, almost tangible and throbbing and perhaps real. I can feel it. Things are about to change.

Consider this a warning, and a wishful promise.

:)


Happy Fall, everyone.

(a shout out to Miss F-I'm bouncing important emails...)

Poor Big Foot...He Has Stench

I know, I know.

Some of you out there are groaning.

I'll be brief, I promise. I won't go on and on about tranquilizer guns again, I swear.

For the rest of you, the problem is I might be a squidge obsessed with Big Foot. The Yeti. Sasquatch. Or as they call them in Australia, the Yowie.

(Oh come on, how cool is that name? Yowie. Please. The Aussie's win, hands down. Mostly because they got Cadbury to manufacture and sell them chocolate Yowies. Now that's genius.)

But anyway, Bob and I were under the weather so we spent some time curled up in bed and watching documentaries.

Okay, fine. They were Big Foot documentaries, but whatever. It was educational t.v. The thing is, we learned something new. In Florida, they have what is called the Stink Ape. Also called the Skunk Ape. But the worst part?

Ew. He has stench.

They say it's because he's so damn hairy and spends all that time in the humid, mucky swamps, so he gets mange and has nasty skin issues.

I don't know how they know this. Or why the poor things just wouldn't move. But you have to admit...stinky Big Feet.

AHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

Sorry.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have packing to finish and furniture to throw out onto the lawn.
:)

May She Rest In Peace

(sniff...she was so beautiful, wasn't she?)

This is why I love Hubby:

My Exploder-she did everything she could to sabotage her sale. In just the last two weeks, she blew a headlight AND a brake line (and let us not forget her starter issues). And me? I was relieved. No way could Hubby try to sell her now.

"She'll make a great planter," I told Hubby.

"Ah-huh."

"You'll never be able to sell her now, right?"

"Right," he said.

I was happy. My Exploder, she would be mine forever. He'd promised. Or, okay. He'd said right. Which was close enough.

So, of course, when he started taking clandestine phone calls, I figured it was nothing. Work, perhaps. And when some strange guy showed up and started poking around the car, I figured it was a hallucination.

And when Hubby walked in with some cash and what appeared to be a bill of sale, he confirmed this for me.

"You're delusional," he said. Then he started counting the cash he said wasn't there. I could swear he cackled too, but you know. I was delusional, so I let it go.

But then Saturday morning I woke up to find my Exploder was gone.

"Where is she?" I yelled frantically. "Someone has stolen her!"

Hubby sent me back to bed. "It's okay," he said, tucking me in. "But I do have some sad news."

"What? What is it?"

"Your Exploder passed away last night. So the car angels came with their tow truck this morning and took her away to Auto Heaven."

I eyed him suspiciously. "When this morning?"

"Six o'clock this morning," he said. "When I was sure you were passed out cold, and after I'd rolled it down the street so the noise wouldn't wake you."

I stared at him, speechless.

"I knew you'd get upset," he paused. "Or, okay, fine. I knew you'd probably streak outside in your underwear and throw yourself across her hood to stop them, so I made sure to do it in a way that was less painful for you."

Then he patted my shoulder. "She's in a good place. Trust me."

I do, trust him. That's part of the reason I love him so. The other, main reason is because he's so damn devious. Even if it was in the name of protecting me. Frankly, he acted practically evil-which was totally something I would do. You just have to respect that.

:)

I Take It All Back

I do not love him quite so much anymore.

Hubby came home with a new old car.

"What's that?" I asked, pointing to the Saab.

"My new car."

"Where did you get the money for that?"

"From selling the cop car."

I circled the car, kicked at the tire. "No. You didn't get enough money from the cop car. This car is decent. It's nice, even."

Hubby shrugged. "I came into some extra money."

I eyed him suspiciously. "Extra money from where?"

He ignored me.

I looked back at the car and couldn't help feeling shocked. I spent the rest of the day trying to make sense of it all.

"What's wrong," Hubby asked me finally.

"You. I don't get it. The car is nice. It's a normal color. Hell, it runs. It doesn't explode, smoke, or make strange noises. The doors all open, and as far as I can tell, everything seems to work." I stared at him. "There's not a single mockworthy thing wrong with it." I stared harder at him. "Where is my husband and what have you done with him?"

"I'm right here."

I shook my head. "No. You are not my husband. My husband would never buy a decent car like this. Never."

I still have no idea what happened to the man. And I still wonder where that "extra cash" came from...I have my suspicions however-which makes me want to take back all the nice stuff I said about him....

sniff...

First He Steals My Twinkies, Now He's Gunning For My Dreams...

It was because Hubby tripped over the mountains of liquor boxes. Had he managed to stay on two feet, I'm positive he wouldn't have said a thing. But of course, he landed on his butt and decided to squash my dreams.

"We need to talk," he said, glowering at me from the floor.

"No." I shook my head. "I don't want to talk. Your talks are always bad. You're never like, ohhhh, I think you should buy more shoes. Or, herrrrreeee, go buy a new handbag. No. Your talks suck."

He ignored me. "We can't live like this. You need to stop."

"No."

"You need to unpack everything."

Over my dead body. He doesn't want to move, fine. But I'm willing it into being. Sort of like a Field of Dreams thing. I'm packing up all our stuff, so the new house will come. As a matter of fact, I have another run to make to the liquor store today. I still have the basement to pack up.

"Leave me alone," I said. "Can't you see I'm manifesting my destiny? So go away."

"What you're doing is nuts. Seriously, we can't go on like this."

Well, no. He's right. We can't. And that's the idea.

"Look. Just find me a new house and it's not a problem. But I'm not living here anymore. I refuse." I pointed to the cat. "See? Even the cat doesn't want to live here anymore. He's moved into the Chi-Chi's Margarita box and refuses to come out."



And personally, I'd take a Chi-Chi's box. He seems very happy...

Wanna Be A Writer?

Stephen King has some advice for you then...

Racing Up Heartbreak Hill. Or, How Hubby Ate All My Damn Twinkies.

The man ate my damn Twinkies.

And not just any Twinkies. Hubby consumed the special box I had stashed in the back of the cabinet. The very special box my mom had given me to celebrate my first offer from an agent on my novel. He'd eaten the whole damn thing.

"What the hell did you do that for?" I asked. "Those were my special acceptance Twinkies and now you've eaten them all."

He shrugged. "You were taking too long, so." Hubby patted his mouth delicately with a napkin. "I couldn't have them going to waste."

Well, ow.

Eat my Twinkies and then drive a knife into me, why dontcha.

Fine. I know it's taken a while. But I'd warned him, and everyone else. Publishing, it's a slow industry. Like really slow. Like excruciatingly slow.

It's not my fault.

Not that it matters, because he should never have eaten my Twinkies.

My dad agreed.

"He shouldn't have eaten the Twinkies," he said to me yesterday on the phone. "You're close, very close."

"I am," I agreed. "It's agonizing, though." And now, thanks to Hubby, I've been forced to suffer, Twinkie-less.

"You'll get there," he said. "You just have to hang on."

And then he went on to tell me a story.

"So we were at my friend Tommy's party the other night. And his daughter is there, and she's training to run the NYC marathon. It's always been her dream. This guy there overhears her talking about it and he starts questioning her."

"What does this have to do with publishing," I asked. "Or Twinkies?"

My dad ignored me. "Anyway, he asks her how many miles she's run at one time and she says sixteen. She says everyone told her if she could run the sixteen, she could make the twenty-six."

"And this has to do with Twinkies, how?"

He kept ignoring me. "So the guy says, ignore them. If this is your dream, you run twenty. You give it that extra four miles, you give that much more to it than everyone else, and then you'll be sure to finish the race."

"And, the Twinkies?" I asked. "This relates, how?"

"She asks him, why the twenty? And the guy says because that's when most people give up, at the twenty mile mark. You know you can make twenty, you won't give up. And that's how you win the race. You just don't give up."

I sighed. "So, you're saying if I run twenty miles I can have my Twinkies."

"That's exactly what I'm saying," my dad said. "You're just at Heartbreak Hill. Keep going, don't give up, and you'll cross the finish line."

I got a little teary. "Thanks, Dad. I appreciate that, I do. It's been really stressful and I want my book published so badly."

"And your mother and I want the same for you too. Especially seeing you published and getting a fat paycheck, because then you can support us in our old age."

He tries. I'll give him that.

*sigh*