dubious beginnings

Okay.

So my live journal has been sitting here like an empty storefront for months now while I pondered, do I really want to do this? Do I really want to have this online confessional? But then I thought, hey, why should my friends and family be the only ones to know how psychotic I am?

So I begin. Started the morning off with lots ‘o big plans (it’s amazing what a primer coat of coffee will do for a girl’s optimism.) To wit, here’s what I put on my to-do list for today:

* go to the gym. run 5 miles on treadmill followed by a half-hour of weights. emerge 5’ 8″ and leggy
* grocery shop for nothing but veggies and fruits, fruits and veggies
* work in my son’s lunchroom (sorry, no hairnet pics available) proving to be a beacon of unlimited patience, love, and calm conflict negotiation
* write at least 4 zip-bang chapters of the new book

Good, good, all good. Oh hold on…let me just take another bite of that Mallomar. Mmmmm, I’m back. Yeah, so here’s my day so far:

* Went to the gym. Took the first ten minutes to feel the blood moving in my legs again as there’s an Arctic blast blowing through Brooklyn. Felt like I should be told I was a beautiful Amazon goddess of love just for making it through the door. Scored a treadmill. Realized I had “the wrong CD” and that having “the wrong CD” meant I was going to have to run to music usually reserved for imagining that I am the lone survivor of an horrific accident at sea. Grumbled quietly. Someone switched the wall of muted TVs from CNN to “Regis and Kelly.” We’re talking six screens of this. Started moving. Began a game of supplying dialogue for their unheard banter:

Reege: Kelly, I’m thinking of storing vegetables in my colon.
Kelly: America, wouldn’t Reege make an adorable crisper drawer?
Reege: People, this colon could handle it.
Kelly: Makes me want to have another baby!
Reege: We can store it in my colon!

I don’t watch morning televison and felt oddly fascinated by the forced frivolity-coffee klatsch environment. I started to think that, honestly, they could put my OB/GYN on there to do celebrity pap smears, and as long as the tone was light and there were free gift bags for the audience, it would probably do okay in the ratings. After tripping on the hallucinatory experience of Mad Libs (no pun intended) Morning TV while trying to run to a Radiohead soundtrack (don’t try this at home, kids!), Russell Crowe made an appearance as a guest. Feeling less suicidal, I managed a decent 30 minutes before considering sit-ups and thinking, naaaahhhh….that’s what big shirts are for.

* Hit the grocery store. Bought fruits and veggies. Also, Cocoa Puffs cereal bars, Tostitos, half n half, and rice pudding. You know, just in case…

* Worked in the lunchroom! Made my son cry within the first five minutes. Had to find a tactful way to tell one of the little girls that I was glad she liked my velvet shirt but that didn’t mean she could feel me up. Also had to explain why we don’t wear ketchup-coated bread on our heads like food yarmulkes. Had the pleasure of removing the ketchup from said head with wet paper towels scored from the scowling lunch lady who I swear to you could scare a lifelong Teamster and who could probably work for Homeland Security considering the grilling she gave me about what I was going to use the paper towels for. Fantasized about telling all the kids that when they’re so loud, it wakes the monsters up and makes them come out at night–but first they put a sleeping potion on your mommy and daddy so that even if you scream and scream for help, they can’t hear you. Or at least, that’s what I’ve heard. Left the building to discover I had jelly smeared on my butt.

* Wrote nothing on the new book today. Zero. Zippo. Nada. Yesterday, I realized that I approach novel writing the way Francis Ford Coppola approaches filmmaking: I’ll shoot five hundred hours of film for one, two-hour movie. So I thought, hey, I’ll try to outline this thing (yeah, those who know me can quit laughing right now…) I’ve now outlined four different versions of chapters 1-9. I don’t think this is working.

All right. That’s it. I’ve gotta hit the coffee shop with my notebook and see if I can wrestle this puppy into some kind of shape.