What A Weekend/Everyone Should Have Friends Like Mine

And I don't mean "What a weekend" in a good way.

I dog and house sat for two very dear friends. One of the dogs has developed some special needs over the past year. She is blind, but gets around okay except right after she wakes up. She also has IBS. I won't go into details here. Suffice it to say that she often needs to get outside RIGHT NOW and doesn't always wake up in time to do so. Even when she does wake up, she might start in the wrong direction and not want to believe me that I know where it is and it's this way and please, please, please hurry.

Friday night's multi-interrupted sleep was nothing compared to Saturday night's getting maybe three hours total and not more than an hour at a time. Each time she moved, I had to be ready to help her get outside. Even when she was asleep, I had to be aware of whining and tummy rumblings so I could wake her up in time. As I said in an email to Jenny, not conducive to sleeping or writing.

I would finally feel like I might maybe be starting to get a flow or words going and have to stop, deal with things and then try to figure out where I was and where I thought I was going. It only takes a few of these to just kill any desire to even try to put one word after the other. After about ten o'clock Sunday morning, I just quit trying.

There was a point late yesterday that I decided that not only was I going to throw in the towel on the contest, but on the whole writing thing. Why was I bothering? Most people seem to be quite content, happy even, going to work and coming home day after day. They might work out and/or go to movies or plays or concerts. But mostly they work and take care of their homes and families, and watch television. Basically what I do already except that I give short shrift to everything except the television watching, because I write or try to write or think I should be writing.

And then it happened.

I heard everyone's voice in my head. I heard Jenny, Ali, Fleur, Mary, Shane, Nicole and all the rest of the Pirates saying, "What the hell are you talking about? You're making excuses. Get over yourself and get back to work." I heard Carrie saying, "If you don't finish something for me to read, I'll shave your head. You won't even see it coming."

How great is that? They don't even have to be around to give me a verbal--mental?--bitch slap.

It's going to be like starting a marathon, getting out front in the first mile, stopping to have a big lunch--maybe a nap--and then deciding that you are going to try to win it after all. But I'm not throwing in the towel. I may finish dead last, but I'll finish. And I'll have more words of TNN than I had when I started. And that was sort of the point all along.