mental masterbation

well, gray is laying on the couch where he's been since monday night, slowly dying from what the minute clinic nurse described as a "very nasty virus" (you know, as opposed to the amiable, cuddly ones), and now the future of our weekend retreat is in jeopardy. the strep test was negative, so there's nothing for him to do except drip snot (CHECK!) and look pitiful (CHECK!). once again, the minute clinic was a fifteen minute trip with nothing but a co-pay, and the nurse was a rock star, and we left with tissues, mucinex, and a thank you card for our host and hostess - just my little way of forcing the universe (and the death virus) to see that we MUST! GO! ON VACATION! and that prolonged illness will not be tolerated.

but the truth is, if he's not 92% better by friday morning, then i might be forced to call up wisconsin and tell them we can't make it because we'd be dragging our infirmity with us, and that's no way to repay your hosts. ok, make that 85% better. i'm hoping i don't get sick two days behind him and cause the cancellation with my own bout of not eating anything but sherbert, leaving 3' piles of snotty kleenex on the floor by the couch, pinching off a giant dump all day because pooping requires moving off the couch, kind of illness. so long as i can ward off the germs and gray is 74% better, wisconsin will never be the same.

thanks to everyone for the feedback on safety first (i changed the name to humility, and am still working on something better). it seems that most of you thought it was rad but that it might benefit from the removal of some of the words that add to it's (apparently) verbose length. i forget that bloggers like to read things in short batches and anything over 500 words is pushing your attention spans to capacity. THANK GOD I DIDN'T TORTURE YOU WITH TWO STORIES. i suppose if my only problem with writing fiction turns out to be that i have too MANY words falling out of me, well that's a problem i can live with.

really, i need to learn to edit my stories before i post them to save you the trouble of having to do it for me. but this funny thing happens when i finish writing something, especially when i think it might be better than "your mommy will hang it on the fridge". it's like i get high off my brain fumes and giddy with the knowledge that i figured out how to put the creepy world in my head down on paper, and not only is it down on paper, but it looks just a little more than two-dimensional, and i think it might even be starting to burn a hole through the paper...then i get all handsy with the publish button, and you people are left with basically what amounts to my right brain's orgasm juices.

funny thing that story taught me yesterday: if you're dragging your heels, unable to decide how to start fleshing out that idea that's been rattling around in your head since december, and the deadline for completion is looming so large that it's starting to flash it's teeth just to scare you, the best thing to do is decide you'll recycle a different story instead - something you've already written and just need to tweak - and move on. that's when your "problem story" will decide it wants to be told after all and out it will slip in an hour like that baby on the train tracks in india.

also, i learned that using the past perfect verb tense can turn into incredible clusterfuck in a real hurry.