It’s the first day of truly shitty weather and I am having a small but obvious breakdown. Reading Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris non stop probably doesn’t help. You know you are not in a good state of mind when you start thinking: “David Sedaris? I love David Sedaris! He’s the funniest man alive! Such a great writer. Crazy great. How did he get that way? Ah ha! Here it is in chapter Seven! Crystal Meth! Too bad I’m not addicted to crystal meth. Why does Sedaris get all the good addictions?”

Clearly this is not a good mindset.

Sedaris is also an avid smoker–though he’s never achieved his mother’s proficiency for smoking without removing the cigarette from one’s lips. I once heard him say that ‘though he lives in Paris, he’s never gone to the Louvre. ‘Why would I go to the only place in Paris that doesn’t let you smoke?” Now that’s dedication to an addiction!

Crystal meth is a stretch for me, but I did try to pick up smoking yesterday. Sadly, I failed. I don’t like the flavor – not even of clove cigarettes, the smoke of choice for wimpy girls everywhere. All I succeeded in doing was giving myself a headache and making my brown velvet blazer smell like an ashtray. So, alas, no life threatening addictions for me. Thankfully, I have this tendency towards small but sudden breakdowns to fall back on.

By the way, this post if from my morning pages. Yes, disciples of Julia Cameron everywhere now gasp as I now reveal that a lot of my posts are retrieved from the deep secretive realms of my morning pages notebooks. A friend once “called me to account” because she thought I was posting from my morning pages. At the time I wasn’t, but now I do so with abandon. I know morning pages are supposed to be the cold storage for the most precious bits of your soul – but damn it, that’s for people who are full-time artists and live of off royalties in their Manhattan apartments, which they own and are large enough for a closet-size writing room all to their very own. I ,on the other hand, have the very full-time job of mothering two children and a very colicky chronic illness. So screw the vow of secrecy, sometimes the morning pages are coming out!

I’m constantly and ridiculously stressed out about excerising. If I exercise, I worry about how it’s eating up my writing time. If I don’t, I am worry about my energy crashing and and the roll of flab that’s spilling over the top of my once comfy jeans. For instance, right now my inner voices are both bitching at each other. The writer voice is saying “She has to write everyday okay! What? Do you want her to atrophy artistically?” Meanwhile my inner personal trainer/drill sergeant is shouting, “How can she work when she self-obsessing about her weight 24-7? Hey lardass! Get of the couch and give me twenty!”

Also, my inner Jewish mother is serving up the guilt like geflite fish. “Why haven’t you thanked Rose for the flowers? When are you going to post about the fantastic birthday surprises your friends arranged for you? Don’t you know the grandmothers are waiting for pictures of the kids in their Halloween costumes? How dare you spend so much time celebrating your own birthday when you did not even call Wendy on her 40th? When are you going to take those clothes to the consignment shop/move that box of stuff to goodwill/put away that laundry basket full of things that go downstairs/fold the heaps of laundry on the floor of the basement playroom? Oy vey! You don’t even have a real job like Karen or Heather and yet they manage to get all this stuff done. Where’s all your chutzpah?”

See? Small but obvious breakdown.

In an effort to keep from wallowing in my own dysfunction, I will now reveal to you my task list for today and then actually get off my ass and do it. I know it’s not thrilling reading, but what can I say? This is what you get when the only blogging I have time for is to post my morning pages.

-Watch Buffy The Vampire Slayer on video while walking on treadmill for 60 minutes, do 20 minutes of strength training.
-Write short chapter on children and centering prayer and submit to writing group (by end of day.)
-Grocery shop for Monkfish Abbey dinner tonight.
-Stop at Episcopal Bookstore or Kaufer’s Catholic Supplies for saints cards for Monkfish Abbey Day of the Dead
celebration tonight.
-Do assignment for this weekend’s writing class at Hugo House

Okay, now I can at least move my breakdown to the tredmill. Time to go watch Buffy kick some ass while my inner traininer kicks mine. Bye now.