It’s not a warm fuzzy day, mind you. Just a fuzzy day. One where my brain isn’t quite clear. One where sitting on the couch (no, laying on the couch) doesn’t seem to be a bad thing to do.
I was going to work on editing my novel today, the second quarter of the book. But I don’t feel like it. I feel fuzzy.
I have to wake up before my appointment with my therapist or else I’m going to cancel that. Or sleep through it. I have already had tea (and a sip of coffee which left me tummyish).
Let’s see if I can wake up. Talk to you later!
Photo by Acharaporn Kamornboonyarush on Pexels.com
What is this TikTok thing anyhow?
I’m on TikTok. Yes, I have a TikTok. Yes, I’m old. Yes, I’m probably too old for TikTok. But I have these little books to sell, and anything that can help me do so is welcome.
Someone — a couple people — made obnoxious comments on my TikTok yesterday. The comments even included a reference to “WAP”. (And yes, I understood the reference. I’m not THAT old. If you’re that old, it refers to a really risque song by Cardi B whose lyrics I will not share).
When I get comments, they’re often not positive. Ok, the ones from my friends are, but the ones from the general public are often insulting or argumentative. I don’t know if it’s the nature of TikTok, the fact that I’m using it at 58, or something about me or my posts. I don’t answer the comments, because if I’ve learned anything in my old age, it’s ‘don’t feed the trolls’.
But what do you DO with TikTok?
I don’t really know what to do with TikTok. My mind doesn’t seem to work in a TikTok way. I don’t argue philosophy or eat plants from the forest or deliver speeches or do stand-up comedy. My stuff is like a fireside chat with a weird person. Here’s an example.
I guess what I need to do is find a niche. “Fireside chat with a weird person” probably isn’t a bad niche. But maybe a better one will come to me. I have to admit I come up with ideas about one minute till filming, which makes me a bit of an improv artist. A weirdo with a fireside chat, after all.
And I’m hoping for positive messages to outweigh the idiots who responded on my TikTok yesterday.
On the fifth day of my vacation, I’m officially at the point where I don’t want to do anything but sit on the couch and binge-watch Babylon 5. This is unfortunate because I’ve been watching that with my husband and we’re two episodes from the end. So what would I binge-watch? I could watch Dune again, or Shang-Chi. (Notice a nerdy trend here?)
I don’t do nothing very well. I easily get restless and irritable. But I can’t motivate myself to do what I need to do right now, which is to edit It Takes Two to Kringle, possibly because the only reason I need to do it now is that I think I should. It’s due for uploading onto Kindle in October, and so I have plenty of time for revisions and the like.
Maybe it’s time to rest and recharge. What that looks like, I don’t know, because I don’t do nothing very well.
I have lost and gained so much weight in my life I could be triplets. Obese triplets. I’m not sure what the problem is, except that if I start eating sweets, I crave sweets to the exception of anything else, even when not hungry. It’s something I have little control over unless I do something drastic: eat responsibly. And keep eating responsibly even when the sugar cravings scream at me.
I’ve chosen to eat responsibly again. The type of responsible where half the plate consists of fruits and vegetables and, most importantly, the sweets are kept to a minimum. Greasy foods are kept to a minimum as well, but the real focus is on what health nuts call “eating clean”. (Vegans use the phrase slightly differently to mean “not eating animal products.” Although I don’t each much meat, I don’t shun it entirely.) I eat one small sweet thing a day — usually dark chocolate.
This situation is stressing me after only two weeks of lifestyle change. Not that I have trouble following the new dietary rules — I do follow them and follow them well. But the eventual arrival of sweets in the house for Christmas is putting me into a panic. I know how to deal with it — only eat one sweet thing a day. Focus on healthier food. Get variety. Love vegetables. But I’m still irrationally panicking. How can I just not care so much about sweet food?
Some people find it easy to stay thin. Some people struggle to lose weight. Once I start, I can lose weight as well as anyone else my age (which is to say slowly). But my addiction to sweets takes over again and I say “the hell with moderation” again.
I can’t let sugar take over my life again. My doctor says I’m hurting my body with this weight gain. I can do it. I just have to keep it up.
This will be the second year that my husband and I will not be going to see my father and sister for Christmas. Even though we’re vaccinated and boosted and wear our masks, we’re cautious, because you can’t unmake COVID happen once it’s been caught. We decided that the threat of the Omicron variant plus the nearness of our destination to Chicago (and with hordes of Chicagoans coming there) make it too risky. Plus my dad is in his 80s, and I don’t want to gift him with any pathogens.
Richard and I feel a loss when we look at past Christmases — staying in a cabin at Starved Rock Lodge, sitting in the Great Hall opening up presents, watching families pose for pictures by the massive fireplace. Wandering around the nearby cities of Ottawa and Utica, splitting a huge pork tenderloin sandwich at Canalport (my hometown area is known for these). Visiting my family and swapping stories. All the rituals around Christmas, lost. We don’t even have snow!
The loss of rituals left Richard grouchy last night when his work dinner was canceled due to COVID. He got to the bottom of his symptoms of stomping and sighing pretty quickly when he realized the cause (it’s always good to know yourself).
The need for new traditions
With 10 days until Christmas, we will devise a set of Christmas activities to make up for what we have lost. We already have traditions of watching Christmas movies and episodes in the weeks leading up to Christmas. We have stockings, and the cats have a stocking too which we will fill with catnip cat toys. We will cook an Italian meal for Christmas dinner (but not the seven fishes of the traditional Italian meal, thank goodness). We will watch A Christmas Story and check to see if there are any good Christmas Day movies at the local theater.
We may play with words, play games, play with our new toys (I know I’m getting a fountain pen for my collection) and eat a feast with leftovers. We’ll cuddle in front of our fake fireplace, look at the Christmas tree, and eat turron (a candy I’ve always wanted to share with Richard; it’s from Spain, and there are several varieties of it. We have four).
Every year, my husband and I hold our Christmas rituals dear. Decking the living room with lit garlands, decking the porch as well, setting out the creche that I grew up with, playing Christmas songs, editing the next Christmas romance, watching Christmas movies, turning on the Christmas tree.1
It hasn’t snowed appreciably here in northwest Missouri, and this means we haven’t celebrated one of our yearly rituals. For 35 years (give or take a few), I have celebrated the first snow. There has been no snow this year, and no snow in the forseeable forecast.
Whether alone or with friends, I have performed the ritual of First Snow:
Wait till at least one inch of fresh snow has fallen and it’s night out
Gather a bowl full of snow (or, alternatively, sit out in the snow)2
Grab a cup of preferred beverage3
Drink toasts to various things as your imagination grabs you4
Pass the cup around (pre-COVID)5
Always begin and end with “To the Snow”
When done, dump the last bit of the cup into the snow
First Snow, by its climatological nature, is impromptu. Generally, there’s not more than a few hours of warning. This has meant that anywhere from one (myself) to eight (friends) have met up for it.
But, as far as I know, it’s not happening this year according to the weather forecast. I guess I will have to enjoy my green Christmas
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The Christmas tree hides in the parlor. We literally just turn the lights on in the Christmas season. During the worst of COVID, we turned the lights back on all summer.
When I was younger, I sat out in the snow. Not anymore.
This beverage has ranged from blackberry brandy drunk out of a mug in a city park to hot chocolate with brandy on my balcony to plain hot chocolate in my living room.
The later in the round of toasts it is, the stranger and funnier the toasts grow. Especially if the contents of the cup are high-proof. For examples of toasts, click here.
I apparently quit writing in this blog for almost two months, having made my last post on October 19th. I am a creature of habit, and when I lose that habit, I really, REALLY lose it. I apologize to my readers for such a long hiatus.
Where I’ve been
I’m doing well, although I’ve been busy. I went through a hard semester with my students. I published Kringle in the Nightand wrote the first draft of It Takes Two to Kringle during NaNoWriMo. I put up Gaia’s Hands to be published January 1. Gaia’s Hands is romantic fantasy — or fantasy romance. I don’t know which one; it’s about split equally.
Ok, maybe a little more romance.
What I’ve learned
I’ve learned that I need to keep my routines so that I don’t lose track of the little things that connect me to the outside world. Like this blog and my Tik Tok.
I’ve learned that I need to be more forward in talking about my books. You do know that I have two published and one about to be published from the previous paragraph. I also have a space opera on Kindle Vella called Kel and Brother Coyote Save the Universe — of course, it has a romantic flavor.
What I want going forward
I’d love to share my books with you. I’d love you to share your books with me if you write. I’d like to make a space where we have good conversations.
One Friday, in a college classroom that had seen a hundred years, Brent Oberhauser stood in front of his class, a tall and lean man in jeans and an ice-blue sweater that matched his eyes. He ran a hand across the side of his head, a habit he retained from before he’d started shaving his head against his prematurely and fast-receding hairline.
Students, heads bowed, wrote rapidly in examination books, answering questions about Medieval and Renaissance European history. History, Brent considered as he proctored the exam, wasn’t just about what happened, but what one had learned from what happened. More than once, he wondered what he had learned from his twenty-nine years thus far. He’d think about that later, when his obligations were over and before he settled down for the night. First, he would need to go to the office to pick up a couple books, then drive into Denver to work his barista shift at the Book Nook. If he timed it right, he could have a cup of espresso Romano before work.
The exam proceeded uneventfully, with students silently scribbling, and he wished his students a happy holiday as they wandered off one by one toward winter break. He gathered up the exams and walked briskly down a hallway with its dark wood and stark white walls, dodging students who waited for the next exam. He passed the statuesque Renee Porterfield, also a PhD candidate, who wished him a happy holiday in her rush down the hall in the other direction. Soon, Brent stood in his cubicle in the small grad students’ office, putting books into his worn leather messenger bag in which he’d already stuffed the last of the exams for the semester. One book he packed to help him double-check the last-minute corrections his dissertation committee requested after he defended two weeks before; the other book was a history of Father Christmas he had written a few years earlier and published on Amazon, and it was that volume that caused him much frustration at the moment.
Brent pulled on his fleece-lined denim jacket and slung the messenger bag over his shoulder. Father Christmas, he thought as he turned off the lights of the office on his way out. Survival of old pagan customs. Symbol of English Christmas. Topic of endless Victorian postcards. But which Father Christmas?
His cell phone rang. He checked the readout to find out who his caller was, and he answered the call. “Kris.” He felt his cheeks flame. “I don’t know if I can do it.”
The pleasant voice on the other side spoke calmly. “Brent, you wrote the book. You understand Father Christmas better than anyone else in — in the world, perhaps.”
That was the rub. Brent’s medieval reenactment group had lost their Father Christmas when Kris Kriegel moved to Missouri to be with his true love. Kris, the former Father Christmas, had decided that Brent should take over as Father Christmas for the Yule Ball.
It was two weeks till the Yule Ball, and Brent didn’t know how he could fit in Kris’s boots.
“You can do it,” Kris repeated. “I have a sense about you.”
“A sense,” Brent echoed.
“Yes. I’ve been playing Father Christmas long enough that I get a sense of who would be good at playing him. And that’s you, Brent. I can’t explain it. Trust me.”
“But I’m not you. They’re used to you.”
“I can’t come back and do it. Marcia’s going to have that baby any minute.”
“Oh, yeah.” Brent seized upon the change in conversation. “How’s she doing?”
“Fine. She thinks she’s huge, but that’s the way pregnancies happen. She’s healthy, and our daughter Noelle should show up right on time. Whenever that is.” Kris chuckled. “I’m doing Santa gigs with my phone at hand in case she goes into labor.”
Ten minutes later, after closing the call, Brent didn’t feel any better about playing the spirit of Christmas for the medieval reenactment group that hosted the Yule Ball, of which he’d been a member for ten years. I am not Kris. Brent grimaced. I am not Father Christmas.
I am prepping for my NaNoWriMo project, It Takes Two to Kringle. It’s the third Kringle Christmas romance. I’ve made a tentative outline which will get less tentative the second or third pass around. I have two weeks till NaNo, so I think it will get done.
But I also make a playlist for each novel I write, hopefully before the novel is written. I should mention that it’s not just my efforts; my husband contributes by searching iTunes for suitable songs. He’s at his best with Christmas songs.
The playlist goes as follows:
Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas — Judy Garland
Jingle Bells (Synth-Pop Version)
The Christmas Can-Can — Straight No Chaser
Sister Winter — Sufjan Stevens
Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow! — Dean Martin
White Christmas — Johnny Mathis
The Christmas Waltz — Leslie Odom, Jr.
I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm — Barry Manilow
Justice Delivers Its Gift — Sufjan Stevens
River — Sarah McLachlan
Christmas Lights — Coldplay
Time To Fall In Love — Lindsey Stirling
Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy — Pentatonix
Merry Christmas Baby — Elvis Presley
A listen through
I listened to the whole playlist this morning and I’m really getting a good feel from it. It fits the moods of the novel, and it stands alone as a Christmas playlist (along with the two previous years’ Christmas soundtracks).
Now all I have to do is write the novel in November.
Words Like Me 