june 15, 2003.

I just about clocked C. Thomas Flood on Friday. I've been nursing a grudge against him ever since I found out that he was thrilled with my academic achievements and therefore me in general right up until the moment he met me. At that point he became scared. I mean, really. It's not like I show up to work in my fishnets & brocade corset, reeking of greasepaint and cheap red wine. I know how to be respectable. But apparently I've always been considered a person of lesser abilities because of my, let's say, dark proclivities.

Anyway, he was complaining that he'd only have one evening and one day to mark one class set of exams. I'm expected to mark three sets - that's 83 exams, folks - in 65 consecutive hours. I guess that when you come into the building 10 minutes after the first bell rings and leave before dismissal, you get an inflated notion of how much you're put upon by being expected to do 6 hours of work.

Fucko.

Today I developed an interesting new form of procrastination: I started writing a book. I haven't written fiction in years, partly because I'm too self-conscious of my amateurishness and partly because I can't think of any ideas. Yesterday I started thinking about NaNoWriMo and how I'd have half the designated month off in preparation for the Sprout's arrival. I then realized that since I'm only good at writing about one subject - myself - I might as well get going on the Big Book of Me. I started an outline when the first chapter suddenly began to materialize.

I was 500 words into it before I realized that I'd started a book.

700 words after that, my work ethic succumbed to fantasy. Maybe I was working on what would become a REAL NOVEL! Maybe I was finally writing myself into the stories of the world! Maybe my friends and family would gain a whole new sense of admiration for me!

Swept away by this rose-coloured monorail, I made my fatal mistake: I put the fragment online for the consideration of my Angels and Stacy. I emailed and asked them to take an honest look at it.

Well. I don't think I was prepared for quite so much honesty. Poet tore me a new plot hole, and before I was halfway through his exhaustive letter, I couldn't see the monitor for tears. The Boy, having happily departed to a hippie drum circle in the park, couldn't help me. So I called Dirk.

I like functioning, slightly manic Dirk. He can assemble an ego over the phone in 20 minutes. He patiently listened to my deepest fear: that I am fated to spend my life around people who see me as unintelligent and untalented, good enough to play the sympathetic ear and that's all. And the fear that my inner critic is right; that I'm a hack. Then he declared me crazy, pointing out the many people who consider me fit to write my way out of a wet paper bag. The problem, he said, was that I took criticism too seriously. I replied that I thought the problem was that I took my eyes off the prize; writing a book was the objective, not winning the acclaim of my friends.

I haven't picked up the book since then, but I have a much more hopeful feeling about it now.

Booty Call: Day 100 - Limb movements become coordinated and head is now erect. Eyes are now more forward, rather than to the side of head. Slow eye movements begin.