Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Back to Work

I've been watching Dexter. What three seasons of watching people get stabbed won't do for a trauma you've gotten too comfortable with!

Honestly, it doesn't elicit more than a small twitch anymore. Used to be, someone would get stabbed or have their throat cut in a movie and it would send me into a trance for a while. I'd have to get up and walk around, shake it off. Now it's just a quick jerk into the dark place, and I'm back.

Small trips to the dark place are good for me - I've always been a darkly humored person.

The day of my wedding, I told my friends to let me know my husband-to-be arrived safely, because I was certain a tractor-trailer would kill him on the way there.

Things can't go this well for this long, can they?

I told my husband I want three children, because when one dies, you'll still have two to keep you going. I was serious.

But this is what you do - you hope for the best and plan for the worst, right? It's just smart. It's survival. At least I hope. I hope big. And I have this vague—not belief but—premonition...it will all be grand. Who knows? It could be delusion, another survival mechanism.

But I'm writing this book. I know how again. And my short story was picked up by North American Review, so I can no longer use the "I suck" excuse. I will write every day until I write as well as that again, remembering E.L. Doctorow's words.

Ugh. Hoping I can do; planning for the worst I can do; watching throats get cut and reading coroner's reports and reliving my own police interview I can do. It's all this goddamned work that I can't stand.

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