A bit waylaid, but I’m here!

My beautifully peaceful morning was interrupted.

I have yet another day off today and I was taking it easy.

I was back in bed, windows open, sun shining, a cup of coffee on the night table. I was re-listening to the lecture about Christian Humanists and Erasmus — just to get everything straight before I get deeper into the lectures about Martin Luther.

Saffie was snuggled next to me on the bed, when lo & behold! A flea jumped off her and onto me!

So that was that.

I got right out of bed and put some more flea meds on her, then vacuumed the entire house. Then checked everyone else for fleas — a couple had them, most didn’t. But I went out and bought a bunch more flea meds for them anyway. Then more cat food and cat litter, while I was at it. Went to the bank. Then a text from my lawncare guy came — then I went in search of a shovel that my lawncare guy thought he might have left in my backyard (he didn’t). But I re-acquainted myself with a practically brand new post-hole digger that I’d forgotten I had in the barn and I texted him: Would you like to have it?

HE: Yes!! Thank you!!

So I dusted it off and set it out on my porch.

And now — a fresh cup of coffee here by my laptop, and 3 and 1/2 hours later….

My day officially begins!! Sorry I’m late!

Still — it is an absolutely beautiful day here in the Hinterlands. Again!

***********

Regarding my novel-in-progress, The Curse of Our Profound Disorder…

I did, indeed, start reading/revising from page one yesterday. I made it to page 111 before calling it a day. I hope to finish reading/revising it today, but there are 123 pages left to read. So I don’t know. I also want to do yoga, take a walk, and finish the lecture on Erasmus, and the day is already half over.

However, I really just don’t know what to tell you about this novel, gang.

When I’m reading it, I’m kind of uncomfortably spellbound. Which is a good thing. Because even though I wrote it, I’m still wanting to know what the fuck could possibly come next, and I just keep reading and reading and reading.

And HOW this book came out of me is a huge fucking mystery to me, gang.

In a way, it’s “stream of consciousness.” In a way, it has elements of all my favorite writers from my wee bonny early adulthood: James Joyce, Kafka, Kerouac, Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg– but still viewed through the lens of my own peculiar mind’s eye.

It is so frank, so matter-of-fact, so brutal, so raw, but also esoteric and sometimes so beautiful. i.e. — Something heartbreaking is being described by the protagonist, and then some lyrics pop up from “On Top of Old Smokey.”

Really??!! When did I write this? I don’t know but that is just so fucking me.

And, also, at the same time — it sort of brings closure to and/or celebrates people that I knew in my twenties, specifically. Like, now they’re going to live forever, whether we might want that or not.

And then I also suddenly have my main Native American character, Jack Kicking Eagle, speaking in the language of the Lakota Sioux! (Oh, like, when did I know that language?? Jesus.) And then I seem to know in detail the awful history of what happened on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in the 1970s.

Methinks I must have absorbed all this back in the early 90s, when I studied all the various Plains Indians in earnest, trying to learn more about my great-great-grandmother’s culture, history, and people. (She was Black Foot.)

And as I’m reading — again, I find myself thinking: Holy shit. Thank god I started writing this back when I did because I would never have remembered this stuff!

And I had such vivid dreams last night. Filled with unexpected people. I’m sure the dreams stemmed from reading over the novel.

I’m looking forward to reading the rest of it, to see how it keeps flowing, but what a book. I can’t believe it came out of me. And yet, even while it’s fiction, it’s so 100% my life. Or my experience of life on Earth, to be more exact. (“I’m Jumping Jack Flash, it’s a gas, gas, gas…” Or not.)