I love shovels. I love getting dirty. Someone’s gonna think I’m digging a grave over here.

Gosh, how lucky we are. Really. We’ve had people all around us for the past four days, and though I’ve had to slip away for bike rides and naps, it’s been very nice. Good thing I made a wicked pot of turkey-and-rice soup on Friday. You know, there’s nothing like a big pot of soup to make people feel at home. Our friends Kim and Bob just left. We caught them walking by our yard trying to find our new bench…which has yet to be installed. Bob’s an architect, so I peppered him with questions about digging the footers, and now I’m all set with a plan. I’ll start digging right away. Maybe when I finish typing this. 

We sat outside in the adirondack chairs and talked about the bees and our plans for an outhouse, too. 

Anyway, we invited them inside for soup, and they accepted. We brought out Deb’s famous oatmeal cookies and some cheese and crackers and some homemade pickles and some chips, and we had a feast. Eventually, Kim said to Bob, “Honey, we’ve got to go,” to which Bob said, “Why? I’m having fun.” Great compliment. 

I tell you, I am ticked off. At Christmas-light manufacturers. I just dragged all those Christmas lights out of the attic and attacked the job of making this place look festive. But those damned things are all shot. Plug them in, they don’t work. So, I headed down to the hardware store and bought a slew of new lights…and this year I bought those big lights…you know, the old kind we used when we were kids. But they make them like crap these days…if you even look at them wrong, the bulbs blow out. I would pay more to buy lights that last longer…wouldn’t you?! But I don’t know if they even make bulbs intended to last a long time—and if they do, I don’t know where to find them. Where is our sense of pride in our products, America?! We cannot keep filling our limited landfill space with things as ridiculously crazy as Christmas lights. It flies in the face of Christmas. It’s downright sinful. This whole thing really gets my goat. 

So here I am. I’m prepared to start a revolution.

It felt good to be out in the cold…cold weather like this is like a slap in the face…the sting of it makes me sort of shape up, and I needed that today. And, yes, the house now looks pretty and festive. But I hate that I just filled up half a garbage can with dead strings of once-twinkly lights that don’t work at all. It’s a stinking racket.

Today is Thanksgiving, and Maria died tonight. 

She took her last breath about 10 minutes after we left her, and we are so very very sad. I told you, Reader, that she was unresponsive, and on Monday, after two weeks like that in Neurological Intensive Care, her family removed her from her respirator and all the other tubes, and they took her home to die. 

Tonight we stopped over with pumpkin pie and sat with Maria and her sisters and watched her labored breathing. We laughed and we cried and we talked about God and things like that. We rubbed her head good-bye. Jim was eating his pumpkin pie with her when she died. 

Come on, Maria. Smile for me.

That a Girl.

Shit. Okay, Reader, you may have caught me with my pants down. Seriously, that’s what it feels like. You may have chanced upon the beginning of Chapter Six. I started it yesterday morning, but  I FORGOT to label it “private,” and five paragraphs became “public” for a day. Anyway, I hope you liked it! Frankly, it’s not at all the teaser I would have posted to keep you asking questions, but there you go. It’s what you got. I do wonder what you’ll remember about what you read. Because you’ll have to have a very very good memory…I don’t think this thing will be finished for a long long time, and I don’t intend to give you too many more peeks.

Our friend, Maria, is unresponsive. 

Maria had an MRI a couple of weeks ago, and it showed a congenital weakness in the vessels in her brain…a hemorrhage from that weakness caused her massive stroke in July. Because this small area of weakness remains, she underwent a procedure on Monday to correct it and to try forgoing more-invasive brain surgery. On Monday night—after the procedure—Maria hemorrhaged again and was taken to surgery. She remains completely unresponsive to all stimuli.

Good morning, Reader. Yes, I miss you. Yes, I think of you often. Sometimes I think it’s good to remind you that I’m still right here every morning…I’m just doing something a little different with the hour. You see, I have only so many good writing hours in me each day, and if I spend my most productive ones with you, then other things don’t get done. I know you’re fine without me for a while, but these characters that are taking shape will not come to life without my attention. 

At a lunch I shared with a group of UC librarians and technology wizards, I talked about how wonderful and fun and crazily frustrating it is to write this first novel…because I’m not sure how to do it! I never took a novel-writing course, you know. But, over the years, I have come—amazingly—to trust my own creative instincts, so I simply trust how this is working. It’s quite unwieldy. Believe it or not, I have no idea of the plot or the conflict or anything you might think I should know by now. Who cares. It’s working.

Anyway, to learn more about how to write good dialogue, my favorite librarian suggested I re-read Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove. Which happens to be my all-time favorite novel. I’m right now re-reading Barbara Kingsolver’s early novels…Animal Dreams and The Bean Trees. I will also re-read The Beans of Egypt, Maine and Latourneu’s Used Auto Parts and anything else I can get my hands on by Carolyn Chute. I think she wrote a novel I haven’t yet read called The School on Heart’s Content Road. I want these voices sort of moving in my body as I write. And see how wonderfully important titles are? I have a working title, but I can’t tell it to you. You’ll love it. 

But, back to lunch. Shortly after lunch, one of my friends who was part of this conversation sent me a link to an article about other writers and their writing processes and angst. It’s a good article…from yesterday’s Wall Street Journal (university folks don’t send useless links). 

So, when you get to missing Not Alice every morning, you may want to start writing your own novel or your own short story or your own memoir or your own poems or your own blog. How should you do that? You just start. See you in a little while.

Just so you know, I went ahead and walked that dog yesterday morning. I did not wait for the rain to let up or for the sun to rise or for anything to change. We hit the dark cold rain and embraced it. We put my new resolve into practice—we greeted whatever the day has to offer with gratitude. Thanks for the rain and for this sweet sweet dog and for two good legs and for such beautiful places to walk and for warm clothes and reflective vests and for hats. And for every reader who passes by here.

Do I have to walk that dog in this crappy rain? I think that I do not. I think it will be okay if I wait until this afternoon to walk him in this afternoon’s rain.