It’s Been a Minute

Would you believe that I genuinely forget to write? I genuinely forget a lot of things. It’s annoying to everyone in my life. Because sometimes? It’s dinner.

Another thing, though, is that I want to change what I write about. I don’t so much want to talk about my life and my parenting. Menopause sucks, marriage is both wonderful and difficult, so are teenagers. You’re all caught up. My passions lie elsewhere. Creative nonfiction, TV analysis (TV as Literature, basically), Observational comedy are some of the genres I’m into.

I hope that is going to work for my audience and grow it as well. My timeline is to retire from teaching in 5 years and write/edit/proofread full time.

It was a big punch in the gut to hear the news about Heather Armstrong’s death. I jumped on the bandwagon of criticism back in the day, and I feel like garbage about it. I didn’t do the “hate,” but I took the piss. She was a brilliant writer and if not for her, I don’t think I’d ever have written a blog. She was a pioneer of a brand new genre of writing when the internet was new, and she deserves her immortal palms for that. May she rest in peace, and may her children find comfort in their grief.

I don’t want to commit to an exact writing schedule. My publishing pace will fall somewhere between Stephen King and George R.R. Martin (constant and never).

So, That Happened

I’ll be back to a regular posting schedule next week.

Everyone recovered from Covid.

Monday morning I was showering and raw sewage bubbled up from the drain. It was a horror movie come to life. It wouldn’t drain and the toilet wouldn’t flush. Did I mention we have one bathroom?

We’ve done this dance three times this year, and at least twice a year since we moved into this rental in 2018. Not the literal shit dance that I did in the shower, but rather the plumber rigmarole with my landlord.

He has known for 4 years that he needs to descale and hydrojet the old pipe. I’ve stood in our bathroom with him and a plumber at least four times with the toilet removed, staring at a 70 year old cast iron pipe that has narrowed to two inches in diameter. It’s always a different plumber, because after landlord tells the plumber he’s crazy and it doesn’t need that, he sends the plumber away (unpaid) and then the next time our shower and toilet clog, the list of plumbers who refuse to come to our house gets longer. Always while we’re at work, someone comes and does some sort of patch job that makes it work (slowly) for 4 weeks to 5 months, and then we do the dance all over again.

Enough is enough. We’re moving. So I’ve spent the last week and a half on all the rental apps, dodging scams, visiting awful rentals, pining for rentals I can’t afford, and forgetting to eat and sleep. We found our dream house and applied then waited four days for good news. The rental agent texted me that the landlord was deciding between us and one other applicant. In the end, we didn’t get chosen.

“I dreamed a dream and now that dream has gone from me.”

Then I dreamed a bigger dream and got a better house. I’m picking up the keys tomorrow.