If I weren’t afraid to return to bed and trust the snooze alarm to awaken me in time to prepare for my second day of substituting this week I wouldn’t be writing this right now.
My heart is being beaten bloody with the book deadline, and if I had not set April 1 for my deadline last December, I’d probably feel much better. But I didn’t and that’s because I estimated incorrectly. No one else is at fault. But the publisher is losing patience with me.
I told my editor — a good fellow, who’s been great to work with — I would not sub teach today AND that I wouldn’t teach all next week so I could get the book done. Then I heard from a friend that there are only six more weeks of school for substituting this year! CHEEses! Six weeks from now my failure to pay real estate taxes (on time and probably at all) and make good my promise to my roofing contractor’s lawyer to send him a letter how I prop9se to create a website for his client will have me wallowing in more poo than I’m already immersed in with the deadline problem.
I MUST FINISH THE BOOK. AND I MUST SUBSTITUE EVERY TIME I AM OFFERED THE CHANCE! If anyone offered me decent work, I would have to accept it.
Except for next week. And I will feel like I’m being punished to write a book I have wanted to write all my life. And like yesterday, I will lurch through the seemingly interminable process of writing captions, a process I enjoy totally when I don’t hear the mournful dirge of the verdict of my destiny in my soul’s ear. There is no other place for me to go.
I thought I had a dinner engagement with a pilot’s club last night. I had even posted the event on my AeroKnow calendar. What pleasure I had yesterday was from anticipating the gathering. Yes, it would cost me dinner, but I swear to God, the prospect of eating another dinner of Ramen noodles and lunch meat nauseates me. I’ve been eating lunchmeat sandwiches lately instead. More expensive but tolerable. So I arrived at the dinner venue and realized after sitting at a table for ten minutes, I had remembered the date incorrectly. It wasn’t last night. It will be another night. I know this because I came home and checked my AeroKnow calender where I had posted it correctly.
I could have gone on captioning pictures if I had not stopped to attend the meeting, but returning home after the botched dinner, I was bummed out. So bummed out I could not get back to captioning. In another circumstance, I would have refused the doctor’s offer to put me on a respirator and I would have faded away, but not last night. I watched This Old House instead.
So here I am, hoping that my art class goes okay. It’s at an okay school, so there’s reason for optimisim. When I return home, I WILL RESUME CAPTIONING. I have 115 captions to go and I MUST finish them this weekend so I can spend all next week writing the short chapters and introduction. The Table of Contents, Acknowledgements, Dedication are all done. I am making progress, and I will finish the book.
Ooo blah dee, ooo blah dah, life prevails
