I feel so disconnected from everything.

How November Saved My Life One Year

There’s something desperate about the end of October, a sense of pervasive hopelessness that creeps in with the cold, when we see exposed all the lies we tell ourselves to get through the day, like naked tree branches shivering in the wind. All becomes tenuous and happiness seems such a stretch, you can only brush it with your fingertips and never grasp hold. It doesn’t happen every year, but this year I can feel it coming. That lack of something to look forward to other than day after tiring day after tiring day. There is hope somewhere behind the clouds, but it’s so foggy and distant. My heart aches today. I won’t deny it, not here. In fact, this is my solace. This is my hope. Words. It saved me one year, when the tediousness of life and the long stretch of countless days threatened to overwhelm. I wasn’t happy that year, and I didn’t know how to change things, where to start. In my stubbornness, I left myself nowhere to turn. No one to talk to. I’m still that stubborn person now, that hasn’t changed. Because I got through it before. That was the year I started writing. I lived for November. Literally. It was all I could see to look forward to. http://www.nanowrimo.org/

I wrote a terrible novel that month that I lost several computers ago, and good riddance to it. But it taught me to write frequently, to sit there and produce the absolute crap I needed to produce to figure out how to do it. I’ve lost touch with that, now. My time has grown so short these last couple years. And I have other things to live for, now. Not love, not friends, not family, and all of that is my stupid and stubborn choice. But the words, they’re waiting for when the rest overwhelms. I could see waking up one morning and not being able to do my job anymore, and I fear this complete failure so much I can’t describe it properly. Because I would have to admit, then, that I’m not the person I want(ed) to be. This is the lie that I tell myself, that I am, will be, or even can be that person. My belief is shaken, but if it cracks, the words will be there to catch me.

Thank you, nanowrimo, for that. All a writer’s words couldn’t say it eloquently enough.

Boxes and Bags

I’ve been packing up my life in boxes and garbage bags. It’s so small and insignificant and none of it means anything. Are our lives just collections of things? Discarded words on hand-written pages that even I will never read again. Clothes that don’t fit anymore, broken suitcases, play jewelry that I’m too grown-up to wear, a hat. The sum of twenty-nine years. Is this all? I’ve taken some misguided pride in my minimalism, some sense of great generosity in giving everything that meant something to me away, but now? I’m moving in two days and I feel like I’m leaving myself behind. Because I can’t find who I am to pack it up and tuck it into the trunk of my car. It’s like I never existed at all. A once friend might have given me a slow, reassuring smile and told me that I was merely in a liminal state. But he’s in the past now, with everything else soon to follow. The truth is that I’m scared.

Forgive me this self-indulgence. Once, I told a friend that now was the time for becoming. I was right, but yet a little early. Now. Today, tomorrow, the next, and the next, and the next. The days unfold ahead of us and they are ours. Our days and what we make of them. That is the sum of our years, not the things that we have when the time comes for counting them all. Things must remain meaningless. Actions, those are the important things. And words. No doubt I will wallow a bit in this feeling of loss and fear of all the unknown waiting for me, because these feelings prove I am alive. I will face the impending future, and I will make of it what I may. And the important things I will share as easily as if they weren’t important at all. Never mind the accounting.

So long to the familiar. Tomorrow is another day.

Cigarettes and Sunshine

Feeling a bit nostalgic since I quit smoking. Here’s a piece I doubt will ever find a home away from here.

Cigarettes and Sunshine

 

 

There’s garbage piled on the side of the street in clear plastic bags, the detritus of youth, the suggestion of fast food wrappers, convenience coffee cups, for rent fliers on neon paper beneath translucent skin. There’s a half circle of brick that overlooks the sidewalk, but it might as well be in the clouds for all the smoke. We nicotine fiends come between classes. The rest of the day, I’ll only see outside longingly through the slits between blinds but for now I breathe the free air, fifteen minutes to sit on the sun-warmed bricks in a tee-shirt and jeans, a belt cinched a notch too tight. To smoke a cigarette. To listen in that weary way that belongs to a student on a warm afternoon. On campus you are never alone and you are most alone, countless strangers, heads bent to cell phones, ears plugged with Skull Candy, eyes to the ground as though we’ve all been ankle-bitten and are standing vigilant against the next attack, or else staring brazenly forward, and that’s worse, probing, presumptive. I never know what eyes suggest. Or if they’re talking to me. My own eyes follow the trail of smoke–up, up, and away from the brick and the forsaken pickle slice gathering ash. I think the squirrels will still eat it.

There is a man in a suit and wing tipped shoes laughing into the plastic tumor that separates us all from each other. He’s not a man, really, that’s what I think. He’s a boy with a long face, and a man’s body who laughs too loud, and there’s something immature about it. It isn’t silence that he breaks, not with the thrum of two dozen conversations between classes, but it’s irksome. It’s like missing the punch line. And this is an afternoon when one wants to laugh, or at least smile. It’s the sunshine after the rain, the warmth after the cold. Next to me there’s a black kid puffing away, he wears baggy gray sweatpants with zippered pockets, and I want to tell him how wonderfully comfortable those look. But I don’t, because I never know how something like that would come off. Instead, I close my eyes. Young Mr. Suit has stopped laughing, and the noise is now soft and meaningless. Sneakered footsteps, the swish of a zipper, popped gum, a lighter flicking next to me. I open my eyes, see that Young Mr. Suit has gone, so has the black kid. A girl with a checkered backpack, short hair, and high cheekbones takes his place, exhales smoke in a thin-lipped stream while a boy with high school acne gobbles a tuna sandwich in the little time that is left to us. I know I should get up, go to class. But I linger. I feel alive there in the January sun.

And so much for that.

The other day I got an email from one of my professors saying that I need to go back to the drawing board on a fifteen page rough draft of a research paper for one of my brit lit grad classes. Fantastic. I’d written the first draft in a rush, trying to get it out of the way so I could concentrate on writing a novel. Now I’ve got to drop the novel in an attempt to catch up to where I’m supposed to be with this research paper. I have to say, I really don’t see the point of writing a conference ready research paper if we have no intentions of publishing it or going to a conference. But, sometimes it’s all about jumping through the necessary hoops. Fifteen minutes until class, and it’s all rubbish, all of it. What have I gotten from my grad school experience? Countless new ways to waste my time and to avoid doing anything I actually want to do.

On the up side (there is one?) The novel was drivel anyway. Much like my paper.

The Naked Draft #2

Ha. It only gets worse! I was having trouble coming up with my words tonight. Tomorrow I’m going to do some plotting before I sit down so I can get excited about it.
Chapter Two

A Month or so later, it seemed like Lauren and I were becoming friends. Granted, I’d never been to her house, or even got a ride home from school with her and her older sister, even though they lived just a few blocks down. She did, however, let me sit with her and her friends at lunch, and she said nothing more about my free or reduced embarrassment. She explained that everyone had been calling Doug Dougie since middle school, primarily because it seemed to annoy him. She said he’d freaked out one year, during gym class. He’d started screaming that it wasn’t his name, until he finally ran off only to be caught crying in the locker room a few minutes later. Naturally, she told me, it only made things worse. I tried to express as little interest in the subject as I could, and eventually Lauren let it drop. Sometimes I’d catch him following me down the hall, but as soon as he realized that I knew he was there, he’d change direction and scurry off the other way. I kind of felt sorry for him, he didn’t seem to have any friends at all, not even the other nerdy kids hung out with him. But, I couldn’t sacrifice myself to pity, not when I was making progress.

About the time the leaves started to change, Lauren began bugging me about the homecoming dance, whether I was going, who I would go with. I insisted that I wasn’t going, therefore I wasn’t going with anybody. She asked me if it was because I was too poor to get a dress, and I nearly walked away before she called me back.

“That’s not what I meant,” she whispered. “I mean that you could maybe fit into one of my sister’s from last year or the year before. Or maybe we could go shopping right before the dance and find something on clearance. Let’s face it, Megan, if you’re going to fit in at this school, then you’re going to have to go to the dance. You do want to fit in, don’t you?” The corners of her mouth turned up in the slightest grin. She had perfect teeth and a disarming smile. And she knew it.

“Nobody’s asked me,” I said, pricking at the corners of my cold pizza with a plastic fork.

“We’ll work on finding you a dress together,” she said, kind of batting her eyelashes as part of her argument. “Then I’ll find you a date myself.”

“Really?”

“Promise. I know several guys who’d love to go to the dance with you. It’ll be a great time, and you’d really regret missing out.”

“Really?”

“Of course really.” She slurped down the last of her vitamin water then stood to dump off her tray. I followed her.

“Oh my God,” she said. “I’ve just had the best idea!”

“What?”

“Blind date! Please let me do it, I’m a great matchmaker, and then it’ll be a total surprise.”

“I don’t know,” I said, but then she made that sad puppy face at me. That shit isn’t supposed to work on other girls, but I gave in almost at once. The truth was that I kind of did want to go, but I couldn’t bring myself to ask mom for the money for a dress. It was bad enough that she already made us keep the heat down to 62 degrees no matter how cold it felt in the house, to keep the electric bill down.

“Why don’t you come over after school and we’ll see if my sister has anything that would work. You know where I live, right? Over in the Oaks?”

The Oaks was this gated community not far from where my family lived. It had steel bars out front and a doorman to keep the people out who didn’t belong. I’d seen him there on my bike, in his too dressy uniform, a suit and a tie just to sit in a cubicle reading magazines all day.

“Right, what number?” I asked, not wanting to let her know that I’d never been in there before.

“Number?” She seemed confused for a second, then it came to her. “No, we don’t have numbers like some trashy apartment complex. I live in the one called The Shenandoah. It’s stupid, but what do you expect? My dad was the one to name the place. There’s a plaque out front, but the doorman should be able to tell you right where it is. Give me about an hour after class to sort through things.” She didn’t wait for an answer. Lauren was sort of impatient like that. I didn’t see her again until I got to her house.

When the doorman buzzed me in, Lauren took forever to answer. My stomach dropped and I felt certain that she’d only been playing some mean trick on me. She was infamous for that sort of thing, even among her friends, but especially among her enemies. But her voice came bubbling through the loudspeaker for Pierre (I wondered if that was his real name) to send me in. She was waiting for me just outside the door when I finally found her sprawling building with the gold-etched plaque out front.

“Well, are you coming in? I’ve found this dress that will look perfect on you. I bet it will even fit right. You’re about the same size my sister was last year.
Now I’m sick of writing this chapter.

Chapter Three

“Mom? Do you have any idea what time it is?” She’d forgotten to turn the ringer off on her cell phone again, and it woke her up. She recognized the number at once, even half a sleep. She’d been having a dream about a long time ago.

“Megan, thank God I got you. I tried your sister, but she didn’t pick up.” She sounded frantic and a bit slurred. Megan sat up and rubbed the sleep sand out of the corners of her eyes.

“What’s going on, mom? Have you been drinking?”

“At a time like this, that’s hardly relevant.”

“A time like what?”

“There’s been a fire.”

“Oh my God, are you all right?”

Her mom took a deep breath, but it wasn’t enough to calm her. She started sobbing into the phone, loud, obnoxious sobs. Megan held the receiver out from her ear, waited until her mom’s crying subsided a bit. “Are you okay, mom? Are you hurt?”

“No…I’m all right. It’s just…it’s just.”

“You got the Beave out in time, didn’t you?” The Beave was her mom’s dog, a half-witted Chihuahua with ugly bug-eyes and a terrible fear of anything much bigger than an insect, including table scraps.

“Yes, Beverly is fine. A little scared, but fine. But,” and she dissolved into sobbing again. Megan looked at the clock, it was just a little after three. She’d have to be up again in about three hours if she wanted to make it to work on time. She had to open the restaurant every Thursday, even though she hated working the breakfast shift. The money was absolute shit.

“What is it?” Megan pulled the covers over her arm, it was an icebox in the condo, just like being home again.

“The kitchen is ruined! All your grandmother’s cookbooks are burned up!” Her mom’s pitch rose, as though it were the worst news ever.

“That’s okay, mom. You must have memorized most of the recipes you use by now. If not, we can always find them online.”

“That’s not all,” her mom’s voice dropped low, perilously close to breaking.

“Take a deep breath, and then tell me. More than one if you need to. Just take your time.” Megan waited while her mom gulped air.

“Th-th-the f-fireman…” she broke off in an attempt to catch her breath and master her quivering voice. Megan waited, stifling a yawn into her pillow. “He said…h-he said that I have to get rid of everything,” she drew the last word out to accentuate it.

“What do you mean?” But Megan had a pretty good idea of what he meant even before she finished asking the question. Her mom was a horder. She lived in a little trailer now, and the thing was packed to the brink. Her entryway was stacked with old shoe boxes, those that weren’t filled with old shoes were filled with something else, newspaper clippings, voided checks, coupons from twenty years ago, earrings that no longer had a match, garage sale knickknacks, anything small enough to fit in a shoebox. She had almost all the clothes she’d ever worn folded in piles in her closet that reached to the ceiling and to the closet door. Her recipe books took up all but a tiny area of her counter where she prepared her meals, which were usually microwave dinners. Her bathroom was cluttered with dozens of bottles half full of shampoo, some of it was so congealed in the cap that you had to take the lid off to get any out. Her bathroom cabinets were full of expired prescriptions, some of them, no doubt, were Megan’s, like from the time she had mono in high school, or those couple times she had strep, or even just an upper respiratory infection. The drawers of her vanity were full of crusty make-up, eyeshadow that probably came from the seventies, mascara that was hardened to useless. Disposable razors she couldn’t bear to throw out. Her bookshelves were full of every pamphlet she’d picked up since her children were small, yellowing with age and barely visible behind the rows of tiny figurines that she kept precariously close to the shelves’ edges. She had a closet full of throw rugs and pillows, another that was old toys. The back bedroom was a cluster-fuck of every artifact from her childrens’ childhoods, clothes, games, pictures, school books.

“He said it was a fire hazard,” her mom said when she finally calmed down enough to speak.

“No arguing with that, is there?”

“But it’s my life. It’s all my life. I can’t get rid of it.”

“Is the fire out now?”

“Yes.”

“Mom, I’ve got to work tomorrow morning. Let’s talk about this tomorrow afternoon. How bad is the trailer? Smoke damage? Do you need to sleep here tonight?”

“It woke Beverly up before it spread too far. I wanted to try to put it out with baking soda, but I couldn’t find it. I know I have some around here, somewhere.”

“And not a fire-extinguisher?”

“No, I think there’s one of those somewhere, too. Maybe in the closet. Or behind the couch.” If it was in either of those places, her mom would have never found it in time to put the fire out. Thank God she’d had the presence of mind to call the fire department before the whole tinder-box went up.

“We’ll help you get stuff cleaned up, mom, later this week. We’ll throw out all the unimportant stuff, and if you can make a sound argument as to why it matters, you can keep it. Amy’ll help us decide what can stay and what has to go. But we’ll worry about that later. Right now I need to get back to sleep if I’m going to before I have to clock in. Do you want to come over? I can put a blanket and pillow out and leave a key under the mat.”

“I don’t know. I don’t want to throw out my things, Megan. They mean so much to me.”

“I know, mom. But let’s discuss it at a more reasonable hour, okay? Tell me how bad off the trailer is and whether or not you need to come over tonight.”

“I lost all my cookbooks,” her mom said. Her voice sounded small and pathetic. The Beave barked in the background. “Quiet, Beverly, hush, hush, hush.”

“How bad is the kitchen? Is there much smoke damage?”

“It’s cold in here. I’ve had the windows open all night, and I think I’ll leave the one in the kitchen open. The counters are blackened and I think they’ll need refinished. The cupboards were just catching when the firemen came, so I think mostly they’re all right, although a couple will probably need replaced. The wallpaper on that side of the kitchen is a total loss, the curtains too, but I’ve got more of those. Although I hate to lose them. They belonged to your grandmother too, you know.”

Megan sighed. “Do you want to sleep here tonight? I’ve got eggs in the fridge, I think some sausage links, you can cook yourself a nice breakfast, if you want to.”

“They’re going to come back in a month, you know. To see that I’ve gotten the place all cleaned out. If not, they’re going to report me. I can’t remember who they’ll report me to.” Megan watched the minutes tick by while her mom droned on about all the things she would lose, stopping every now and again to sob. Megan listened until she fell asleep. When she woke up, her alarm was going off and her cell phone was on the floor. She turned the alarm off and picked the phone up. Her mom was still talking, listing things that she definitely didn’t want to get rid of.

“Mom, I’m going to leave the key under the mat. You can come over if you want to get some sleep, but right now I’ve got to start getting ready for work.”

“Okay, dear. Thank you for listening.” There was no irony in her voice and it made Megan feel guilty.

“Why don’t you come on over and we’ll talk when I get home.”

“That’s okay, sweetheart. I’m sure your sister is probably up by now. I’m going to give her a call.”

“Okay mom, I’ll talk to you later.”

“I love you, dear.”

“I love you, too,” Megan said, and felt guiltier still for not meaning, at least not the way she should. The love she felt for her mother was that obligatory sort of thing, because she had no choice. She hung up the phone and got dressed for work. It was bound to be a long morning.

The Naked Draft #1

I have not proofread or even reread this, fair warning. It’s like airing my dirty laundry over a busy (or not so busy) city street. After writing this bit, I think I might change the POV, because all the I(s) are starting to annoy me! But at least I’m doing the damned thing!

I didn’t want to be mean to him, though I felt like I didn’t have much of a choice. I was the new kid, Dougie Fergus was the well established nerd. He had this sort of sideways shuffle when he walked that made it seem like he had something stuck up his arse. He was the first person to talk to me when school started that fall. My family moved to Capitola, Ohio early that June, so I’d spent all summer with no company but my two brothers and my sister, which naturally got old pretty fast. And this kid named Jerry from down the street, but he was in eleventh grade and I was in ninth, so I didn’t have any classes with him and didn’t even see him that first day of school.

I was standing in front of my locker trying to figure out how to put in the combination when Dougie Fergus stopped and offered to help. I showed him my combination, and with three quick turns my empty locker stood open.

“I’m Doug,” he said, offering his hand. I turned my back to him and shoved my notebooks into the locker. The truth was, I could see the score. He had dark brown hair like a dull, unwashed helmet on his head, pants that ended long before his sneakers began, glasses that almost engulfed his whole face, and that awkward sidle. Befriending the kid would have been nothing less than social suicide, and our family was already poor to start out with, which made things hard enough. Already I’d been working out ways to keep the other kids from guessing it. It was the free or reduced lunch that would give me away, but I could wait until everyone else had their food and get my lunch once there was nobody left in line.

“Thanks, Doug,” I said over my shoulder as I walked away. He shuffled behind me, trying to catch up in the hall. Breathlessly, he asked what class I had first period. I pretended that I didn’t hear him and walked faster. I felt like the kids loitering on either side of the hall were all watching me.

I made it to first period English just before the bell. Dougie, although I suppose I shouldn’t call him that, made it slightly after. He stopped up front to catch his breath and survey his surroundings. He spotted me and waved enthusiastically. I faked a yawn and put my head down on my desk.

“In your seat,” the teacher said. Her hair was cropped short and she had the absolute biggest ass I’d ever seen in person, like two watermelons bundled and stuffed into a pair of stretch-band pants. Dougie (old habits die hard) made for an empty seat next to me, but the teacher redirected him to a desk in the first row. It was the only time that whole school year that I liked the woman.

I watched as she called roll, trying to put faces to the names, trying to puzzle out who it might benefit me to make friends with. As I examined my peers, I realized that they were all watching me.

“Megan Kopinski?” the teacher said, her voice all mild exasperation, as though she’d said it several times, which she might have. I realized I hadn’t been listening, really. I’d spotted this boy with broad shoulder and an easy smile, although now I know that he was really laughing at me.

“Right. Here. Sorry,” I said. The class tittered and then Mrs. Walker (I only just noticed that she’d written her name on the board behind her) mumbled something under her breath about kids not even knowing their own bleeding names. Then she moved on, pronouncing names in a tedious monotone.

“Lindsey Laster…Mark Lawrence…Sandy Majors…” My attention drifted again.

The boy’s name was Stephen Harding. He was a junior varsity football player and Lauren Bywick’s boyfriend. She must have noticed me looking at him, or Dougie looking at me, because after class she asked me if I had a thing for that wanker Dougie. When I told her that I didn’t, she tsked at me and told me it was a shame, that we would have made an absolutely adorable couple. She flicked her blond hair over her shoulder and rolled her eyes. She brushed by me a little too close and nearly knocked me off balance. I was glad that neither of them were in my next class, though I thought Dougie was, because he followed me down the hall until I ducked into the girl’s restroom. It was filled with smoke and giggling girls passing what I thought, at first, was a home-rolled cigarette. The one with braided brown hair glared at me, nudging the redhead next to her.

“This is the senior’s bathroom,” she said. The redhead smirked. “The little girl’s room is two halls over.”

“But I–”

“No,” she said, “freshman, right?”

“Yeah, but–”

“No, you don’t talk.” She turned to her friend. “The nerve, right Brandy?”

“Totally,” Brandy-the-redhead replied.

“Can you inform her?”

“Do I have to?”

“Somebody’s got to,” the brown-haired girl said. She took a puff and exhaled a cloud of blue smoke, too thick and spicy-sweet to be a cigarette. “I’m hardly in the mood.”

“Greg?” Brandy asked. She set her backpack on the floor and took the joint from the other girl. She took a hit, exhaled slow, and then sighed. “What are you still doing in here?” I stood there, slack-jawed, kind of frozen in place. I thought I felt my fingertips tingling, but maybe that was just my imagination.

“Tell her,” the other girl demanded.

“Fine,” Brandy said, her voice all irritation. “Here’s the thing,” she passed the joint back and examined herself in the mirror, as though I wasn’t even worth a glance. “Freshman are not allowed to speak to seniors unless asked to. But you knew that, right?”

I wasn’t sure whether I was supposed to say anything or not.

“Go on. Answer,” she said.

“No?” It came out like a question, but I was just glad that I’d been able to say anything at all.

“New here, huh?” Brandy said. There was something like sympathy in her voice, her features softened in the mirror, and I really wanted to like the girl.

“Brandy,” the other girl whined.

“Right,” she said, and it was like I’d imagined the momentary change in her. “Well, now you know. You don’t get to speak to seniors, if one asks you to do something, you have to do it, and finally, you aren’t to be caught using our bathroom. Te claro?” I didn’t know what that last bit meant, but the other girl was glaring at me and so I hurried out and on to my next class. The bell rang before I got there.

I didn’t see Dougie again until lunch. I’d hung out awkwardly against one of the cafeteria walls, trying to look like there was some reason for me to be there, until I saw the lunch line die down. Then I took my place at the end of the line. Doug was maybe six people in front of me, nearly to the checkout. Lauren Bywick and Stephen were right behind him, whispering to each other. Lauren stopped to giggle and toss her hair over her shoulder. That’s when she spotted me. She scowled in my direction, though I don’t know what I’d done to her. Dougie noticed me a second later and hollered back to ask if I wanted to cut in front of him in line, and then have lunch at his table. I tried to pretend that I didn’t hear him again, but Lauren grinned maliciously and pulled Stephen with her out of line. She rejoined the line right behind me, and the others standing between Dougie and me followed her example. I was stuck behind Dougie, who waved at me like he hadn’t seen me for twenty years. I tried to slide my lunch back over the counter like I’d changed my mine about the pasty pizza square and the carton of milk. Lauren giggled and tapped me on the shoulder.

“Don’t forget your lunch,” she said, sliding the tray back in my direction. I should have told her I just realized I’d forgotten my lunch money, but I didn’t think of it in time. The cashier looked at me expectantly and I just moved ahead. I whispered that my name was on the free lunch list and hoped that she’d let it go at that.

“What?” She said.

“Free lunch,” I said as quietly as I could.

“What?” The lunch lady almost yelled it, it seemed like it took everybody at this school about one half second to get annoyed. “Child, you’re going to have to speak up.”

“Free lunch,” I said once more, almost in a regular tone. The lunch lady crossed her arms over her chest, her apron was stained with pizza or spaghetti sauce. She leaned forward, her tremendous boobs rested on the cash register.

“What did you say?” she said angrily. Behind me, Lauren snickered.

“Mrs. Dolin, she said that she gets FREE LUNCH,” the last part Lauren practically shouted, the lunch line fell silent. Dougie, who was still waiting for me looked at the tiles, or maybe at his slice of pizza. At that moment, I hated them all. Mrs. Dolin nodded and leaned back in her chair. “You’re welcome,” Lauren said, as though she’d done me some great favor.

“Right,” I mumbled. I could feel my cheeks burning. Mrs. Dolin grabbed a list from under the register.

“Name please?”

“Megan Kopinski,” I said.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart, I can’t hear you.”

“She said her name is Megan Kopinski, and she wants her free lunch now!” Lauren was barely able to finish the sentence before it dissolved into giggles.

“Thank you, dear,” Mrs. Dolin said. “Yes, there you are, Miss Kopinski, got you right here.”

“Wonderful,” I muttered. I took my tray, brushed by Dougie (pausing only long enough to glare at him) and found my way to an empty table. I dumped the pizza and the milk in the trash on the way, left the tray on top of the garbage can, then plopped down. I put my head on my arms and pretended to sleep. I wasn’t crying. I wouldn’t want anybody to think that. I was only sitting, and wishing I was just about anywhere else. I felt somebody sit down next to me. I knew it was Dougie.

“You don’t have to pay her no mind,” he said.

“Go away. Go away and leave me alone,” I snapped. It came out muffled by arms, but at the moment the last thing I wanted to do was see him. I blamed him for the whole thing. He got up without another word and left me. At least there was that.

The Naked Draft

Happy Halloween!

The Naked Draft kicks off tomorrow in honor of National Novel Writing Month. There will be typos, terrible sentences, and characters and scenes that will go nowhere. I can hardly wait to start.

I need to make time to write…

So, once a week, I’m going to work on some sort of something right here. Live and unedited. Well, maybe not live, but certainly unedited and probably no damned good, but it may save me from losing my mind entirely. I look forward to starting that at some point this week. In fact, I think I’ll call it my contribution to national novel month. I will start a chapter of the worst novel ever right here. Soon. Next week, I think.