That darkness that brings light

My favorite days to write are those dark, otherwise dreary days when the rain pings against the windows, those days when the sun doesn't dare to peek from behind the clouds, days when thunder sounds across the gray sky. The passion of these storms has always brought out my passion for shaping stories, for creating in words the world and characters I see in my mind and giving them breath and life on the page. I find peace in these days, and solitude--that feeling that I'm the only person in a world that's cleansing itself, cleaning the slate, forging a new beginning...

That song's still running in the background of my mind...

Not teasing--just updating. I want to know the answer too. :)

I promise I'll let you know when I do.

"I don't know what to say"

Every morning I like to do a writing warm-up in which I type one hundred words on whatever topic comes to mind. Often these words are fiction: bits and pieces of stories, character sketches. Less frequently, I write about myself: my past, my thoughts about life, writing, motherhood. Today, though, I placed my hands on the keyboard and...nothing.

I have so many words I want to write, so many thoughts I want to communicate, but at that moment they all escaped me. I think there are times in life when there's so much to write about that the writer just can't get her head around anything in particular, and she's left to gaze helplessly at the screen, hands quiet on the keyboard. This was one of those times for me.

Finally, though, after many moments spent flipping through my mental file of all the ideas and thoughts I'd like to give voice to someday, a memory came to mind about my past as a college instructor out in Nebraska. I wrote about that time this morning, and tonight, since the piece sums up not only how I was feeling then but how I'm feeling right now, I've decided to repost it here:

When I was teaching college English, I would ask my students to freewrite in their journals, either to brainstorm ideas for their essays or in response to an in-class writing assignment. I would walk around, observing them, and often I would see students whose pens weren't moving, whose pages weren't filled. They would tell me "I don't know what to write," and I would respond that those are precisely the words that they need to be writing--"I don't know what to say"--over and over again. The rest would follow.

I don't know what to say...

And the theme song from Jeopardy continues to play in my head...

No news on the pregnancy front, as I'm sure you guessed from my title. The wait continues...

All this Jeopardy-style waiting is playing havoc with my creativity. I've been finding it really hard to write these past few days. I guess I need to get better at separating my writing self and my...well, self-self. Ha!

Do, do, do, do, do, do, do....

The waiting is the hardest part

Just a short post tonight...

I'm still waiting to find out if I'm pregnant or not. I should know within the next couple of days, and I'll post when I have an answer.

Some good news to report: my finger is healing nicely now that I'm taking Keflex. I should be able to start typing quickly again soon. No more hunt-and-peck!

Hope you're all having a nice evening. :)

Is she or isn't she?

A conversation my husband and I had today:

Me: I'm so hungry. I feel like I'm starving.
Him: (Reading Facebook on his cell phone) Uh-huh.
Me:  I'm serious. (Laughing) I know I'm not pregnant, but I feel just like I did when I was. You remember that? I would eat my food and yours too, most days.
Him: (Whipping around in his chair to face me, a strange look--panic?--on his face) Wait. How do you know you're not pregnant? Remember when you were ovulating...
Me: That was this cycle? I thought it was the cycle before. (Pausing to think and trying to ignore look of exasperation on husband's face) You're right. Huh.
Him: (Slumping in his chair) Huh.

So...this is weird. My husband and I aren't trying to have another baby. We have our two, and my husband, who's thirteen years older than I am, has two sons from his first marriage, both in their twenties. Although I love being pregnant and wouldn't mind having one more, my husband and I talked it over after our daughter was born, and we agreed that we already have our perfect family.

But, as my husband reminded me, a couple of weeks ago we did kind of ignore the fact that I was ovulating and didn't take the right precautions, so although I would say the chances are very slim, I suppose I could be pregnant.

Huh. We'll be happy if I am, of course, but it will definitely be a shock. I guess we'll need to see what the next few days bring.

Sidelined

About a week and a half ago, I developed a paronychia (infection) around the fingernail on the ring finger of my left hand. Because I still engage in the nasty habit of biting my nails, I get at least one of these kinds of infections every year. Usually, they go away pretty quickly with just a minimum of at-home care. This time, however, the infection just seemed to be getting worse, so today I finally made an appointment to see the doctor, who confirmed that it is indeed a paronychia and gave me a prescription for Keflex and orders to soak my nail in a mixture of hot water and antibacterial soap several times a day. If I don't see improvement by Monday, the doctor said she'll need to refer me to an osteopath to make sure that my bone hasn't become infected. Yikes.

It's hard to believe that a tiny paronychia can be so painful, but it is. Today I've been having trouble bending my finger more than a tiny bit, and typing has become really difficult. To top it off, I've strained the muscles in my right arm because I've been trying to compensate, so even typing with only my right hand--the old hunt-and-peck method--is getting harder. This infection needs to go away soon.

It's depressing to be sidelined from my writing plans so early in the month--if only it were an April Fool's Day joke--but I'm determined that I'm not going to let this infection keep me from writing. I'll probably need to use pen and paper for a few days and take lots of breaks, but I will write.

Take that, paronychia!