November's Best (And a Personal Update)

There will not be a lot of fanfare today. I spent 12 hours yesterday at Gilroy Gardens with The Contrarian, and even though it was wonderful beyond the telling of it, it took up the entire day. He is the perfect age for a place laden with mostly kiddie rides and unburdened by long lines. I couldn't believe that we were in an amusement park and walking onto rides in the week between Christmas and New Years (typically pretty busy). Well we got off to a bit of a late start because three-year old. So I stayed until the last possible minute. That meant we hit traffic on the way back and the drive is over an hour on an open road. So our afternoon adventure turned into a day trip.

But it was perfect. I mean, with a three year old that means two meltdowns, a tantrum, and only one elbow to the face, but he generally decided not to use his contrarian superpowers to fit in with the norms for just one day, and we had almost a sublime time. Sometimes, when your companion is a three-year-old, the quality of your day is up to the mercurial winds of fate. But today was just about as perfect as they come. One of those days you want to dip in amber and fossilize in your memory forever.

When he's like 20, I'll be talking about his trip to Gilroy Gardens while he power rolls his eyes and says, "Jesus fuck, Uncle Chris, will you shut up about that fucking day already?"

There was even a little extra adventure within the adventure at the end when we got back to the car and I discovered that I didn't have my keys. Fortunately that only set me back thirty minutes or so, as after checking every place they could possibly be twice and even starting to retrace my steps while calling peeps back in Oakland to see what the chances of a ride were, I ended up realizing that an amusement park probably had a lost and found, and that was going to be my best play. And indeed they had them. (I left them on the flying strawberries, which was our first ride.) Well by the time we pulled out, it was after his dinner time so, of course, we had to do something about that on the way home. Three year olds are not known for calmly accepting boring ninety minute drives while they are also hungry.

By the time I got home, my brain was pretty much mush. I even used the wrong its/it's on my Facebook page. (Fortunately, it being the internet, after one person had very politely pointed out, everyone else considered the matter addressed, and gave me time to correct it. I absolutely did not get fifty notifications of maximum snark inside the span of a minute. I love how cool people are online!) I tried to post a blog. Then when I realized that wasn't happening, I tried to do some on my work in progress. My brain wasn't good for that either, so I tried to do some free writing. And in the end I just stared at my screen for a few minutes before throwing in the towel and going to bed.

So there you have it. Even I don't write EVERY day. But I do try.

I have a shit ton of half written posts at this point and about fifty I'm itching to write. This time of year is always like a cat playing with a mouse. "Finals suck, but now you have time to write. ALL THE CHORES YOU PUT OFF THE ENTIRE SEMESTER!  Hahahaha! Okay. Okay. I'll totally let you write now. CHRISTMAS SHOPPING! Okay....okay....seriously I'm just kidding. Go ahead and write. FAMILY VISIT! Awwww that was funny. Okay for real this time. Go ahead and write. CHRISTMAS!!! Shit bro...you're a good sport. I'll really let you write this time. THREE YEAR OLD OUT OF SCHOOL!"

Now I know how Charlie Brown feels when he just wants to kick the fucking ball.

But, for at least a few days, I have some time to focus on writing, and hopefully it's going to feel like explosive diarrhea of words is spewing out the tips of my fingers. On second thought, let's have it feel like something else entirely. Pretend I just said something that was totally a hot innuendo (but completely within the bounds of good taste).

I have a number of year's end posts to try and get up before Sunday (holy FUCK where did this year go?), so we'll probably dribble into the weekend here to make up for yesterday. Next week I'll try to get a good ratio of "meaty" posts up, but the end of the year always involves some review posts and donor thanking. If I get enough written to wing it while I'm visiting my mom (7th-12th), that shouldn't be too affected, and once I'm back from that, I am off to the races.

But without further ado, November's bests!

Where to Submit Your Short Pieces and (Hopefully, Eventually) Get Published by Bethany Brengan

Fortunately I was able to enlist some guest blogging help while I was going through the worst of my bronchitis (rather than put WAW on a hiatus) and Bethany's piece about where to submit was a well deserved best of the month.

Writing For Your Life by Marcy Kirkton

My mom even joined the fray of guest bloggers to help me push through and her article also was a big hit.

A somber note

A lot of artists have a lot of feelings about our US election, and I'm no different.