Bakelite: Part VIII

“Dan, what on earth did she post?” asked Carol. Dan paused. Carol could hear the rasp of her own breathing which made her self-conscious, even with someone as familiar as Dan. The more she waited for her ex-husband to talk, the more she felt her chest tightening again. “Della is not what she seems,” said Dan. Yes, well that’s obvious, Carol thought, still waiting. Dan started again, “Listen, Care. I need you to promise me something. Will you promise not to look at Della’s blog until I get there?” Carol was stunned. “Come on, Dan. Is it that bad? I’m not a Faberge egg. I can handle this. Why are you being so overprotective? It’s late…. You can’t come over here now.” Dan was silent again. “Care, please, trust on me this. I think we need to look at this thing together.”

Bakelite: Part VI

Carol and Della started their blogs around the same time. Carol remembered the day, the moment, they decided to blog. They were sitting on the brown leather couch in her living room, drinking coffee after dinner and talking together energetically about their ideas. Carol had already been reading plenty of knitting blogs and figured she was ready to start one of her own. After all, she was designing her own baby blankets and sweaters now, and she loved the idea of sharing her patterns with others. "I can also tell my readership where to shop. I know where to find the cheapest and most gorgeous baby alpaca wool in all of Ontario!" said Carol, flushed with excitement. "And your Bakelite collection, don't forget about that, sweetie! You could sell those little suckers," added Della. Della viewed blogging as a way to get rich. "I want to be the next Dooce!” proclaimed Della. “Whatever it takes, Care-baby, I’m going to create a life that will be excellent to blog, so that people will want to read me every day… to see what happened.” Della was the dramatic friend. The fun friend. The outrageous friend. The friend Carol lived vicariously through at times. It seemed somehow that Della had always been in her life when, in fact, it hadn't been that long. Della had only moved to Ottawa from Calgary two years earlier. Her husband, her high school sweetheart, had died unexpectedly. “It was a bummer,” Della told Carol the first time they met.

Bakelite: Part V

(*If you haven't read the first parts of this story, start here).

Carol decided to approach the incident by restoring normalcy to her home. She prepared a pot roast for dinner. She and Roy ate silently on the same brown leather couch on which the incident took place, facing the flat screen TV and flipping between the Kentucky Derby and the Weather Channel. The family cat, Ginger, collapsed between them and fell into deep slumber. Neither knew or really cared anything about horses or horse-racing, but the Derby was something they had always watched together as a family when Dan lived there, so it seemed right. After dinner, Roy’s skinny, pasty-faced little computer nerd friend, Sterling, arrived, and they retreated to Roy’s room to play games. Little boys playing games, Carol thought. This thought reassured her. Carol stayed on the couch with her cat and her knitting and began to feel like she could breathe again.

Later that evening, Carol prepared a bath with lavender and eucalyptus oils to soothe her body and clear her lungs before bed. The water was still running and she was standing naked in her bathroom when the phone rang. She quickly wrapped herself in a pink terrycloth robe, turned off the water and opened the door. The ringing had stopped and she could hear Roy voice: “I know. I know….Don’t worry. Everything’s cool here….O.K…..I didn’t do anything…… Well, yeah, I have.…but everyone does…..what does that have to do with?…But it didn’t…..Relax, would you, Dad!” Upon sighting his mother’s worried face peeking out the bathroom door, he spoke louder. “Ok, then. Thanks, Dad. Here’s Mom.” Roy handed the cordless to his mother and headed back to his room.

“Hey Dan. What’s going on?” Carol said, shivering and wishing she were in the bath. Dan sighed loudly into the phone. “Just enquiring a bit about his porn consumption. A lot of kids are, you know, little porn freaks now, looking at all kinds of weird internet shit that you and I never saw…I just wonder if he saw Della as some kind of, you know, porn-scenario-in-the-making.” Carol answered with surprise, “I thought you thought it was more of a move on Della’s part…Isn’t she the one who initiated the thing? Anyway, being all aggressive with him isn’t really helpful, is it? Why don’t you talk to him about it in a normal, man-to-man talk kind of way?” Dan sighed again and was silent, which was not like him. “What is up with you, Dan? Why do I get the feeling you have your knickers in a knot about something?” Carol was always good at getting her ex-husband to open up. “Care. I need to talk to you about something else…It’s Della’s blog… You haven’t seen it, have you?” his voice sounded shaky now. Carol could feel herself getting out of breath again, but answered slowly and carefully, “No. I hardly read the thing at the best of times…even though she’s linked to my blog, of course. Tonight I’ve been just trying not to think about Della at all, ok?” Dan hesitated for a second, then said, “Ok. Ok. Listen, Della says some things on her blog that might upset you. Which is why I’m calling.”

Bakelite IV

At this point Carol was pretty much completely out of words and energy. She walked away from her son to her room for a little cry, which didn’t happen, so she picked up the phone to call Dan. Her ex was no moral compass, but she needed to talk to a semi-sane adult, to just get this thing out. Dan was with a client when she called, but said he could excuse himself for a couple of minutes. He listened to his ex-wife recount what she saw when she walked in the door: Della and Roy on the couch together in some kind of abnormal position. Della’s shirt half off. Roy’s hand in the shirt. Della wearing one of her Bakelites. “There’s really no limit to who Della will pull her tits out for,” said Dan, trying to reassure her. “She’s a freak and a fuck-up. A country bumpkin, really. She probably needed material for her trashy little blog which she imagines to be some kind of get-rich scheme. Forget about it, Care.” Carol whispered loudly into the phone, “But that’s our boy…He’s only 16. And a young 16-year old at that. Just a kid, a little gamer, a computer nerd, really.” Finally, Dan sighed and said, “Whoa whoa whao, Care…So what? Our kid got to see what a set of saggy old 50-year old tits looks like…Just let it go, hon.” Carol corrected him, “Della’s 45”, and then suddenly they were both laughing at they weren’t sure what. He had to go, he told her. She invited him for supper. “I got something going on,” he said, which was code for out with a woman. They said their goodbyes. He asked if she was ok. Yes, she was ok. Really? Yes. Really. He said he would have a talk to Roy next time. Good idea. She hung up, located her handbag, dug out her puffer and sucked on it deeply.

Bakelite III

“Sorry about that, Mom” said Roy, slowly trying to move in the direction of his bedroom. “We didn’t do anything really,” he added, looking away, embarrassed. His profile showed a chinless, chubby lad whose young skin appeared pulled down by gravity. “What was she doing here anyway?” Carol asked. “She was waiting here for you, actually…You were late, I guess. She said something about you helping her with her resume.” said Roy, squinting and still not looking directly at his mother. Right. Carol remembered. She was supposed to help this woman, her friend, get a job. Right.

Bakelite cont'd

Della wrenched the bangle off her wrist and placed it gently on the glass coffee table in front of her. “I didn’t steal it. I just wanted to try it on because it is adorable...and you have gobs of them...all lined up in there, your den, or whatever you call that room,” Della prattled on, pointing and gesturing a little more dramatically than usual as she made her way towards the foyer where she cinched her body into a short pink trenchcoat and stuffed her large feet into a pair of black, pointy boots. “That’s my Bakelite collection that I care about very much, thank you very much.” was Carol’s delayed retort. She felt ridiculous immediately after saying it. Finally, Della made her exit and Carol’s gaze turned to her son.

Bakelite

“Get your paws off my boy, Della.” If Carol had been a cowgirl, she would lassoed Della and wrangled her right down to the carpet. Della looked up surprised, no trace of embarassment, just the familiar face of offended innocence, dimples and all: “Lighten up, Care. I’m just showing him the ropes a bit here,” she said, buttoning her blouse. “Get out of my living room, you little predator. Cow!” Carol wanted to sound as strong as her words, but she needed her puffer. Della widened her eyes at Carol as if to communicate 'Not in front of the children'. Then, she turned to Roy beside her on the couch and layed a silver-ringed hand to his flabby pink cheek. “Sorry about that, sweetie,” Della said cheerfully. It was in this gesture that Carol saw the flash of a red plastic bangle on Della’s wrist. “And you stole one of my Bakelites while you were at it! Is there anything else that you would like to fuck with while you’re here?” Carol’s high nasal voice was no match for the intensity of her words, and she was conscious of this. She just felt an overwhelming exhaustion as she stood there in her living room, trying to understand this bizarre scene before her.

"Inventing a life for dialogue"

Just read an inspiring New Yorker article about how writer Richard Price uses dialogue. If you are a writer trying to write fiction, I highly recommend giving this a read. I've always had trouble figuring out how to do dialogue. My solution is just to write in the first person. Reading this helped me see other possibilities. When I sat down to write today, I felt less constrained by the dialogue problem. Here are a couple of little extracts of dialogue I wrote this afternoon:

“Lighten up, Care. I’m just showing him the ropes a bit here” she said, buttoning her blouse. “Get out of my house, you little predator. Cow!” Carol wanted to sound as strong as her words, but her voice cracked.

“There’s really no limit to who Della will pull her tits out for,” said Dan, reassuring her. “She’s a freak and a fuck-up. A country bumpkin, really. Look at where she comes from. Forget about it, Care.”

Solid Advice from Manny Blue

The magnificent, Manny Blue, one of the Holograms in the paradigm-shifting band, Astronaut Love Triangle, has given me some solid advice about how to be more productive -- without the use of coffee beans. Here are her recommendations:

Getting some exercise before starting to work
Working in natural light. I've learned to get all my ideas down in the daytime while sitting in natural light (luckily I have a window at work)
Writing my outline and ideas down on paper by hand - adding diagrams, notes, etc. Later I use my handwritten notes to guide me and keep me on track as I type out the report, etc.
No coffee (tea's OK) and no junk food - it just makes my attention issues worse
Fresh fruit on hand - a variety is important to me
Water... lots of it
Rewards! I write 10 sentences and I get to... (insert whatever works for you)
Walking around and speaking my ideas out loud... quickly sitting down and writing them down or typing them (I don't do this one at work)
Headphones with music. It blocks out the world and I can tap my foot to the beat. If my foot is busy with the tune, I don't get as distracted. Maybe the part of my brain that gets distracted needs to be doing something (this one really works for me)
Writing whatever comes to me (no second guessing), then setting the work aside for an hour or so... then going back to it to edit
Printing my work and editing from print (an editor told me this trick - he never edits from electronic copies... always the print)

I follow some of these guidelines already, except for the staying healthy part -- paying attention to what I eat, exercise, etc... This is what I am working on now. Manny, thanks for the inspiration!

Motivation

First of all, I want to thank you all for the motivation. You have all helped me, in your own special ways. Here are some motivational messages I received "off the blog":

"Congratulations! You are still in the running towards becoming America's Next Top Model."

"We can't solve problems by using the same the kind of thinking we used when we created them." (My friend informed me that this is Einstein breaking out of the confines of the old folk-expression -"You made your bed, now go lie in it").

"Then, I got this massive jumble of wonderful motivation-goodness from another friend:
IT'S NOT A VISION IF YOU KNOW HOW TO DO IT ALREADY. reach for the stars. YOU CAN DO IT. don't let the bastards get you down. IF YOU BELIEVE IT, YOU CAN ACHIEVE IT. never retreat, never explain, never apologize - get the thing done and let them howl. IF I CAN'T DANCE, I DON'T WANT TO BE PART OF YOUR REVOLUTION."

Nice, eh? I am doing ok. I'm currently in a Montreal public library that seems to be housing every single Montrealer with a mental health challenge. I've moderated the coffee-bean intake. Moving forward.

Update on Writing Hell

1) I've eaten an entire bag of ginger snaps. Sweet, little heart-shaped, spelt gingersnaps that I purchased at Boushey's on Elgin Street for a small fortune. Highly recommended.

2) I am making some progress, although I am still unsure if completion of the project is possible. My writing coach suggested that this may be a good opportunity throw my debilitating perfectionism to the wind once and for all.

3) I am doing the chocolate-covered coffee bean thing -- which actually is not too bad as an ADD medication.

4) I am demanding encouragement from everyone. That includes you. Please send me your best motivational messages.

5) There is no fifth thing.

Profiles + X365

I have taken a lot of heat because I haven't written those damn ESI profiles. Then, I saw this project, and I am considering doing it. The profiles could just be part of this X365 project. Sigh.
I'm currently in a very large library, suffering with a writing project. Why do I hate writing so much? I am trying to own this part of the process-- the actually getting it done part. I'm so much better at the brainstorming, idea stage...
I'll just take a little break here, and see what's for sale on Etsy - and check out Andrea's recommendations. Can someone please give me a virtual kick in the arse here. Help!

This Morning

A few issues this morning.

1) trouble getting out of bed because I was hearing the sounds of people scraping snow and ice off their cars, and that didn't motivate me to get up for some reason. I am also avoiding the stuff I have to do today....
2) no coffee in the house. I am drinking green tea, and it is just making me angry. I need to venture out into the snowstorm and caffeinate myself properly.
3) I am writing something, and the ending is not coming together. Why are endings so hard? That is not a real question. Here are some possible ways I could end it. 1) happy ending (they all lived happily ever after); 2) sad ending (someone dies or is seriously maimed); 3) Film noir ending (someone disappears and no one know what really happened); 4) surprise ending (totally fuck with the reader, and turn everything upside down). I know there are other kinds of endings, but these are the ones I am currently stuck on -- "stuck" being the operative word here.
4) I had a bizarre dream this morning that a close friend of mine had a blog called "Oatmeal Matters", in which she created very intricate and complex comic strips on rice paper, about a couple who bickered all the time, but in a very sophisticated kind of way. When I got up I decided to google "Oatmeal Matters", and no on has a blog by this name. In the dream, she had no readers, so I was going to generously link her to my blog, so that she would have about 15 readers a day.

"Owning" things

A good friend of mine helped me work through the writing hell situation of yesterday. She said, "Listen, Aggie. You need to own this part of the writing process, even though it's not as much fun as other parts of the process." She laughed at her use of the word "own" here -- because she's not a person who would normally say this kind of thing. I meditated on it, and I think she is dead on. So, today, I'm in the library owning the fucking thing. Unfortunately, there seems to be some kind of power outage here in the library, which may mean that I may have to own it elsewhere. So, a message to all of you struggling with writing, or any other crap you are going through: own it!

And, totally unrelated, (but probably related somehow in the grand scheme of things), here is a sweet image I witnessed today: a beautiful grey/silver cat sitting under a tree watching yellow leaves parachute down.

In Writing Hell

I am in the process of writing something - somewhat dull, but not totally - and am currently in writing hell. I have the outline. I know what I need to do to finish the stupid thing. I just need to do it. I have done everything to stimulate writing, including going here.
My existential crises, neuroticism, self doubts --- all of it is OUT in full bloom! I have promised myself that I will acquire a sewing machine if I can just get through this. Even that isn't helping matters.