May 1st

Pandora has finally gotten my trance music mix right. It took a lot of coaching on my part, but she's caught on. I like my trance light and cheesy. Thus, my channel is inspired by What Is Love, by Haddaway.

Keith has injured himself- his knee, to be exact. The hospital on post here is very nice and confidence inducing. We hobbled over to O'Charleys for lunch when he was finally released, with a crutch and instructions to come back in a week. I got grease from my Philly cheese sandwich on my white linen sun dress. It's in the wash now.

We have had our major "We've moved" argument. Throughout the move, there are periods of increased but impersonal irritation that erupts from time to time, like hot ashes. And then, after a while, Vesuvius blows her top and we are immersed in Argument, with a capital A.

We made up this morning, so I'm glad we got that out of the way. We're almost all the way home, now. Coming into our cool, mostly clean house after the morning out- it felt good.

I am writing like a son of a gun. For three hours, I wrote on my netbook in the waiting room of the hospital, the tiny laptop propped up on my purse. Its such a cute little thing. I love it.

I have four different stories I'm working on now. Three of them have the same exact characters. Eventually I will have to decide which one to pursue, but right now, I'm just letting myself go for it, whatever it is. I'm just writing it out.

It feels like I'm finally unpacking myself. As if I had folded myself up, tighter and tighter to survive the move and now, I am uncurling and all my imagination is seeping back in, like spring water.

I'm waiting for Keith to go back to work before tacking Ceallach and Phillipa. They've been essentially left hanging for about a month, right on the edge of a rather intense scene and I just don't want to start working on it, not knowing how much time I'll have to concentrate on it.

I'm scared of that scene, to be honest. I need to be all by myself, in a quiet house, with hours of time before me before I plunge in there.

In the meantime, this story has stolen my heart, and all my creative energy. It's only fifteen pages long, at the moment. Who knows where it's going? Somewhere interesting, I hope.

Excerpt:

It was the sound of the wind chimes. The sound came to her in the quiet summer evening as she stood at the top of the ridge, where the long grass blew amid the roots of old apple trees. It was a soft sound, off tempo and hollow.

When she heard that sound, she knew something had changed in the air. The sky above her was a soundless depth of blue and the faded, white imprint of the moon was fixed on the lower half of the sky, just over the dusky foothills of the mountain. Everything was breathless; the trees that surrounded the small meadow stirred restlessly, their leaves silvered and whispered.

Turning, she could see the buildings of her family’s farm on the crest of the hill beyond her, could see the dull red, wooden siding, with the white lintels glowing in the evening light. The thick, green grass that ran up the smooth slope of lawn was almost purple, and all of one piece, a thick pelt of grass.

Half way up the slope stood a lone pear tree, a black and twisted silhouette against the green. It bent back toward the farther hills, as though crying out for them. There were small, hard pears on the boughs, the girl knew, spotted with brown and slightly worm eaten.

She turned her back to the slope and waded into the longer, wild grasses of the meadow, following the faint sounds of the wind chimes. Moths flew up from the grass, disturbed by her brown, bare feet. Their white wings beat against the air, they danced clumsily around her and then fluttered away in the sky.

Ducking her head, she passed into the orchard. For many years it had been untended and the trees had grown wild. Their branches reached out determinedly in all directions, tangling, fighting for the sun. They made a maze that would have bewildered anyone but the girl, who had grown up under them.

She stopped short, when she got to the far side of the orchard, where the pine woods began to encroach on the apple trees. Strands of her hair fell softly back around her face as she stood there, one hand grasping a branch with whitened knuckles.

There was something lying on the ground, lying against the bole of one of the largest apple trees, one half hidden by the pines that had grown up around it. The pine branches cast a bewildering tangle of shadows in that space.

April 28th

9:35am

All over the south last night people were dying, some just north of us. We only got the milder winds and in the late evening, brilliant flashing of lightening though the trees for hours. We're living in a deadly climate.

7:47pm

We spent all afternoon outside, in or around the pool. At one point, Keith came swimming over to the side where I sat, reading. He wore on his head one half of a popped plastic ball, like a wet, blue shower cap and was supported by a blue pool noodle. He propped his elbows on the concrete, conversationally.

"So," he said, "I see we have a princess over here. I'd like you to know that I'm currently a frog, but if you'd like to kiss me, I'll become your prince."

"Is that so?" I asked, intrigued.

"Absolutely. I'm a very faithful frog and if you kiss me, I'll love you forever in return."

Who could turn down such an offer? Clearly not me.

"Now that you've kissed me," said Keith, sliding back into the pool,with a grin, "...you get to take care of me for the rest of your life."

"Hey! That wasn't part of the bargain!" I protested, laughing.

Earlier, I had tried on the string bkini I'd bought two summers ago.

"Yeah," said my husband, in a very dry tone, "Like hell you will be wearing that in front of company. Now go put on something else. In fact, I think a burka would do just fine."

I do love a man with a bit of a jealous streak, even if they do require a bit more maintenance than others. I like to feel like the precious jewel kept in the case, the private delight and the public pride of a good man. I wasn't planning on wearing the bikini in front of company, by the way. I just wanted to see how it looked after all that time.

I'll wear it sunbathing. When we don't have company.

April 26th

I'm beginning to love this house.

(The pool, by the way, is thirty two by sixteen feet. I had Keith go out and measure it for real, because a hundred feet did seem excessive, when I thought about it. That would be super cool, though. *grin*)

Every once in a while, it hits me. I'm living in Georgia, I think to myself. Holy crap. How did that happen?

Doesn't life seem like that though? Life just keeps on happening, in the most unexpected ways.

One day, I woke up and realized I'm thirty three years old. Thirty three years old, for goodness sake, and living in Georgia. And married, no less. And my husband is really in love with me and shows off in the pool and looks adorable soaking wet.

This fall I'll be thirty four. I was looking at a fertility graph while researching IUI the other day. I'm falling off the cliff of fertility. I'm riding the short, sweet curve of biological reproduction; it's about to leave me rolling in the surf, bruised, sandy and with no viable eggs.

I resent it, to be honest. Exactly why, I don't know- it's not personal. I'm trying not to worry about it. I can't control what will happen. I can't even anticipate it, so I might as well push it out of my mind.

That's what I did with the move, and you know what? I would do it again. I'd ride that river all the way to the sandy delta, that place of five days without furniture and a move without a house.

Because worrying about it before hand wouldn't have changed a thing. Not one thing. And if I had forced myself to think clearly about the move, I would have ruined those two or three weeks of peace and obsessing about my story. And I wouldn't have been able to get that time back.

I'm incredibly blessed; it occured to me, recently. I have a home, and food in the pantry, and money to the pay the bills, and Georgia weather in late April, which is beautiful, and a husband who still looks at me the way he did when we were first falling in love. He's my best friend.

I have so many blessings, I can't even count them all. And the thing about children, is that we only imagine that it's a given, that we'll have them. We imagine this when we're younger, when things are given to us all the time. We imagine this, because for most people, it works out that way.

But it isn't a given. Not much in life is. They're all just gifts. Often times we don't know why we're given the gifts we have. Sometimes we don't know what to do with them. Sometimes we want other people's gifts.

And that's ok, that's only human. And it won't mar my life if I can't conceive. I imagine I'll mourn. Maybe intensely, for a while there, when I go through menopause, or when my adopted children get pregnant, and have biological children of their own.

But there's always going to be periods of mourning in life. And we just don't get everything in life that we want. I keep coming back to this, in my own mind. It's oddly liberating to realize.

April 25th

I passed through the darkened kitchen last night, the wooden floors cool under my bare feet, and I almost felt like I was home. We are starting to relax into the space.

Random things remain misplaced and the entire spare room is nothing more than boxes that have disgorged themselves like a wall to wall carpeting of crap. But the guest room is finished, completely. Even the bed is made.

7:21

"How you doin'?" asked my husband, suggestively wiggling his eyebrows at me, from the pool.

I was doing fine, settled in my camp chair with an ancient, coverless Alistair MacLean in hand. He (the author) was expounding on the virtues of a Colt 45. MacLean does expound on things so very well. He's captured my attention on the build and function of various English Navy ships, for goodness sake; paragraphs and paragraphs of information given in such seductive language that I learn despite myself.

But Keith, my small arms weapons expert, vied for my attention, and would not give me any peace until I got into my suit and joined him. It was the first time we went in the pool.

Two minutes later, massive, pelting raindrops came flying like hail out of the sky. The storm's been raging now for about an hour or so. Keith's contingency plan is to hide in the laundry room, so we are on standby for evacuation. I don't think it will be necessary this time around; the rain is tapering off, no longer falling in thick sheets of water.

This is going to be a fun summer. I'm glad we got this house. Who knows how long we'll be in Georgia? Who knows what kind of house we'll get next time? Might as well live life deeply right where one is at, and a hundred foot long, eight foot deep, in ground pool adjacent to one's bedroom certainly facilitates that enjoyment. (I asked Keith for its dimensions; that's how I know.)

April 24th

There was sunlight splashed across the tree trunks opposite the pool when I woke this morning. Between the trees the sky was a bright blue. The fan lazily moved the air above the bed. It really is beautiful here.

We are being brutal and throwing away everything we possibly can. Still, there are boxes and boxes of sheer junk left to go through. I'm talking playing cards, small tools, washers, random bits of Army gear like belt buckles and spare shoe laces, ancient, wrinkled receipts, folders, Army manuals, a random sock, loose change and a DVD.

April 23rd, 8:34

Tomorrow is Easter. Little girls with frilly underpants will search under the play set for pale blue and pink eggs, embellished with stickers.

Families will rise before dawn; mothers will blow dry their hair, fathers will struggle to knot their tie and both together will attempt to wrestle their wild haired, sleepy eyed, and resentful children away from plastic baskets recently raided and into something resembling church appropriate dress.

They will stumble out of their cars; they will, inevitably, have not dressed warmly enough. They will stand, shivering, in the grey dawn, with goose pimpled arms and wondering eyes, and watch the light fill the sky.

All the while, the pastor or the priest will talk about ancient burial rites, and heavy, immovable stones being rolled away, revealing the unbelievable, the second, the lasting and true life.

And then everyone will go on to Golden Corral or IHOP and order too much breakfast amid the bustle and warmth of brunch on Easter. They will wait a long time for their table. Tots will bang their spoons, syrup will be spilled, someone will wail. Cranberry juice will be spilled on a brand new white sweater, the one with the sparkles and it will be tragic.

Or they will go to Grandma’s house and be served something less casual, on formal dishes, in the dinning room. Everything will smell like fresh brewed coffee and orange scones. Later on, they will eat spiral cut, honey glazed ham. There will be cut glass crystal.

One day, maybe, Keith and I will join their ranks, but not yet, not this year. We have no extended family to anchor us to tradition; we lack the necessary props.

We do have a ham, though, and I intend to cook it tomorrow, with fresh green beans.

April 23rd

I dreamed last night that I gave birth.

It was prolonged, and laborious. I kept moving my body around to different positions. I knew I could give birth to my child at anytime, but fear of actually pushing the child out kept me back from the final exertions.

After a while, I decided I'd had enough of the preliminary agony and began the final labor. Very shortly, I watched as my child crowned. Intense fear and disbelief vied for my emotions. I thought, surely this must kill me.

But then, I remembered, in the strange way that one does in a dream, that this was my second child. I had done this before and surely I could do it again. So I gave the final push and his entire head and then his shoulders appeared. And then my entire baby slipped from me and his father caught him, and his mother cut the cord.

Now, what could that mean?

I think it has to do with the move. Birth dreams usually signify massive changes in life, the beginning of a new phase. That would make sense, because this is the second move since getting married.

But what about that sensation of control? I had no real control over the move. Maybe that had to do with my acceptance of the move. I gave in to its reality, at last, after ignoring it, even up to the very last week.

It's a misty morning. The weather here is very beautiful, if one can ignore the temperature. There's wind and breezes that smell of honeysuckle. The evenings are long and sunny and tempt a person to sit around outside dreaming and thinking themselves better off than they really are, in the harder light of truth.

I can't concentrate on my blogging; Keith keeps coming in and out of the main area, wearing nothing but tattered green shorts and sneakers and asking me stuff. It's our first Saturday morning here and we were up, by force of habit, by seven thirty.

The kitchen is done, although small, annoying things remain stubbornly misplaced, malingering on counter tops, cluttering up the peace.

Written April 20th, 2:40pm

April 20th 2:40pm

It is raining. The girls huddle under the overhanging eves of the window and back door, respectively, and whine softly. They don’t understand why they can’t come in. The concrete is speckled with the marks of fat, splattered raindrops and I hear them battering away though the chimney of the fireplace.

Faint from the garage comes another sound of battering, that of Keith building himself shelves. Other than that, there is just the hum of the refrigerator that arrived yesterday and the perpetual moaning of traffic beyond the woods.

It’s the lull before the storm; it’s almost like home. We went jogging together this morning and were dismayed to see two large groups of middle or high school students waiting on the curb as we came down the steeply sloping hill that our house is built on.

“Why aren’t they in school yet?” groused Keith.

It’s no easy thing to go power walking, and then jogging, before the collective eyes of Youth, so fashionably appareled, so insular a group. We managed, though, and broke into a long, easy jog, like horses in harness, neck and neck, elbows swinging, heads up.

Shortly thereafter I was gasping for breath. I’m going to have to build myself back up and I’m going to have to get out the door by seven am. It gets as hot as one hundred and thirty degrees down here, or so I’ve heard. Right now it’s only in the high eighties. Yes, that’s right. High eighties, and humid with it.

Keith mowed the lawn and I swept the concrete and then we left, to explore post. Keith is about eighteen miles from where he works, which is a little further than before, but not out of the question, certainly.

The PX is massive, and busy. And we were there on a Wednesday, at twelve thirty. What must it be like on a Saturday, after pay day? We will never know; we will never be that fool hardy.

On the way home, we stopped at a Good Will store, so I could buy some books. I had two dollars, I figured I could get three paperbacks, at least. But no. Paperback books there sold for a dollar fifty each. I remember the days when they were twenty five cents. What is the world coming to? It’s a sad thing, my friends, when used paperbacks are hit that hard by inflation.

So, to economize, I got a massive novel that is actually three novels in one, by an author who turns out to have won a Nobel prize for literature, so I did pretty well for my money. It’s very entertaining, besides.

Written April 19th, 5:45

This area is over run by ticks, fleas, red ants, mosquitoes, spiders, and lizards, and visited occasionally by scorpions. We went to Wal-Mart and purchased an insecticide so toxic the entire half of the bag was dedicated to what to do if you should get it on you, breath it in, or possibly even look at it.

Today we:

Went to the Laundromat for the first time in a long, long time. It was unexpectedly clean and peaceful and as soon as we sat down, it felt like a long, summer Sunday afternoon. The sweet, clean smell of detergent and hot clothing filled the air, there was the quiet hum of driers, and washers ratting away unattended, on the rinse cycle. A wasp flew in the open door, buzzed around the ceiling tiles and made his bumbling way out again.

We sat and talked. I’m frankly amazed that after this move, Keith and I still find things to talk about it, or that we’re able to talk at all. I still find him funny, for god’s sake. Except for when he tried to pick up some bizarre kind of accent that was a cross between Singapore and Liverpool, with the speaker possibly being on mind altering drugs and drooling very slightly. He kept using words like “bonnet” and “ticker.” I don’t know where he gets these things from.

Then we went to Wal-Mart, where we bought more stuff than we have ever bought before. I had to go get another cart just to pile the stuff already scanned, so that the stuff waiting to be scanned would have some place to go, since our original cart was still full... of stuff.

Keith has got pool fever. He bought a net, albeit for fishing, but hey, a net is a net, and a blue pool noodle. He is out there frequently, shirtless, fishing in the pool and doing lord knows what, happy as a clam. He’s got a sunburn already and fortunately, I remembered where the Aloe Vera was.

We also got another air mattress, since the one we had been using sunk down to the floor by three thirty in the morning, just like clock work. At which point we, already awake and with bruised hip bones, would roll off and re-inflate it. It would last until about seven thirty, by which time we’re getting up anyway, as much out of misery as necessity.

Now we have a double thickness air mattress, and freshly laundered sheets and pillow cases and I am looking forward to sleeping well tonight. I also drank milk for the first time in more than a week. Milk is good.

Tomorrow Keith will mow the grass, bug bomb it and then wash and debug the dogs. We have to make a vet appointment for them, they have to be on a very sturdy anti pest regimen around here. For now, they are banned to the outside. They look pitiful, lying full length across the dusty concrete, or sometimes snuffling around the low windowsills, looking at us with beseeching puppy eyes.

The next day our household good will arrive, so we will at least have a TV and Keith will be able to play his PS3. The next day the internet will arrive and life will officially begin to get back to normal.

As for me, I’m going to go make the bed and sleep. Ah, the respite in sleep! If I could just sleep through tomorrow, I would.

Written April 19th, 7:45am

We have internet again! I am posting stuff I wrote when I was bored, sitting in the empty new house.

***

We are in the new house. I won’t say ours because it’s a rental. Moving is such dirty, dusty work. The thought of all the houses will we clean, and move out of and then clean, and move into stretches away in a long, fading line in my head.

There’s the sound of traffic constantly in the background, some highway is hidden by the belt of trees that slope down behind our house. I can’t see any hint of it, but its presence is always felt.

The pool is dirty, but this morning the water is a murky blue, instead of the stagnant, vibrant green it had been yesterday. The dogs whine at the door to be let in, but they can’t be, since the first thing they did was to fall, accidentally, into the pool while trying to take a drink out of it. The look on their faces was adorable.

Keith went for breakfast, it’s only seven forty five, but I’m nervous that the people we’re expecting today will arrive before he gets back. He’s the point person, I’m the dreamy waif attached and floating somewhere behind him, forgetting stuff.

The house faces south, the east is where the back bedrooms are and our bedroom faces the pool, with two French doors that open up to it. The afternoon sun shines in strong through the large, square and opaque window set over the soaker tub.

This house is strangely laid out, with what appears to be two dining rooms. I’m beginning to think that one may be the den. Though why “the den” is adjacent and completely open to the living room is beyond me. With a man as loud as Keith, if he’s partying in the living room, the den will become just an extension of his atmosphere.

I’m thinking of turning it into a den anyway, since most of the time he’ll be away at work when I’m working, so it will be a quiet place in the day. And it gets a lot of sun.

Keith thinks the realtor, who will be stopping by today to do a walk through of the house, has overcharged us by one hundred and fifty dollars on the prorated rent for this month. I dread that exchange. I always hate making a fuss, I don’t mind paying more, eating the wrong thing, or being last in line if it means peace and quiet.

Not so, Keith. Keith will do battle at any time, anywhere and heaven help the person who is wrong when he is right. He isn’t a sore loser though. If he’s wrong, he’s wrong and he shakes hands and moves on. Also, if he’s right, and the wrong he was right about is made right, then all is immediately right with him, though he’ll always be double checking that person’s work or figures. But he won’t continue carrying on about it.

If, however, his position is questioned, but he cannot be convinced of the error of his ways, and the other person is equally entrenched in their position, then heaven help us all, for the crap will surely hit the fan and be spread far and wide.

Still, though, moving does serve to remind a person that they are alive, a vibrant, living person who is at motion in the world, moving through it, absorbing experiences and evolving. I feel my own stage in life more clearly.

I think we will be happy here, despite the exorbitant rent. Keith must have his surroundings right; if they are not, he will never be happy. That is not him being a prima dona, it is just his nature. He can’t help himself.

He can endure extended periods of misery, such as a deployment, but that’s only because it is a deployment and not his home. Poor conditions are intolerable in his home, where he goes to relax and recharge and where he is vulnerable.

Hence we have this home. It’s a sunny home, a large home, with a slightly dark kitchen set between the den and the dining room, with dark stained, glossy wood floors and a very large, windowless laundry room. And the pool, of course.

In the summer, I will be able to get out of bed, slip into my still slightly damp bathing suit, and open the French doors as if I am a princess. I will step down into the warm waters, the chlorinated waters, and swim the four or five yards of its length. In the early morning light, the water will ripple calmly, the shadows of trees will tremble over the roughened concrete and the rumble of the traffic will keep me quiet company.

April 18

I've been doing a little research on literary agents, and completely terrifying myself in the process.

Marketing, marketing, marketing! Apparently you can't just have a good story and the writing skills to tell it, you have to be able to sell the story.

I hate marketing.

I can't sum my story up in one sentence; that's craziness.

I don't have a platform; I'm not even sure what the hell that is.

I'm not going to go into Barne's and Noble and try and schmooze the owner.

I'm not going to self publish; that is a losing proposition almost every time.

Ergo: I'm never going to get published.

Now, on to more pressing and realistic concerns, such as the fact that we are still homeless hotel dwellers. The realtor's office isn't open yet, so Keith and I are just sitting around, waiting. And drinking coffee, in my case. Probably too much coffee.

Ok, it looks like the house will be ours. In which case, you won't hear from me for a while, not until we get internet at the new house.

Back to less pressing concerns (because its so much easier to stress about things that don't really matter in the long run).

I want to finish this darn story already and start sending it out. I want to get rejected, I want feedback, I want to know how the whole process works, so I can make a better story and send that one out.

It's so intimidating to hear story after story of authors who have fallen short. Who am I to think I could succeed? How laughable is that? It's ridiculous.

I can't see my story clearly anymore at all, so I can't reassure myself by telling myself that I am actually a good writer. Besides, good writers are thick on the ground; good writers are a dime a dozen. They fail to get published all the time.

However, I did read that an author must absolutely love and be passionate about their own work. If they don't love it, odds are no one else will either. So, that's good.

And I don't care what the odds are. I have years to figure this whole thing out. Somewhere out there, at some point in time, there is a literary agent or publishing house that will be willing to take a chance on me. I don't care if it is Harlequin Romance.

April 16th

We are trapped in the hotel and we can't get out!!

I'm sitting at a desk covered with a pile of receipts, my car keys, a bunch of Chinese sauce packets, a dirty coffee cup with two unused creamers and two dirty plastic forks inside it, Keith's ball cap, and a bottle of RC cola. Keith has set up camp behind me on the bed, with a lap top and season two of his latest show on Netflix.

We have found a house, but they needed a copy of the lease agreement from our renters in Colorado, and our property manager didn't call back in time, so we couldn't close the deal on Friday.

The house is ours; we filled out the application and put down the deposit, but we can't move in until Monday. It's a very nice house, a brick ranch with 1,900 square feet of space, a two car garage, a fenced in back yard, a swimming pool, the maintenance of which is covered in the rent and contracted out to a local company.

It's a pricey place. But we have been every where and there are just no houses available, and it is covered by Keith's BAH, with just a little to spare. We saw one that we would have loved, but it was already rented. We saw another one that was too small and the driveway too steep and Keith didn't like the neighborhood.

We aren't the only people having trouble. We met up with one of Keith's sergeants and they turned down their on post house because it was so disgusting. They've spent days looking off post for a house and finally have given up and are getting a three bedroom apartment. They have three kids and a dog. Poor things.

So far, nothing's been stolen off the car trailer, the girls have not pooped inside the hotel room and Keith and I still find each other attractive, despite the fact that we are in one another's faces twenty four seven, with a shrinking pool of clean clothing to choose from, and the fact that one of us is inevitably going to be listening to something the other person doesn't want to hear but can't get away from. We take turns with the ear phones. I sometimes sleep with the pillow over my head.

Fun times.

One more day and we can break out of here.

April 15th

We are here.

Yesterday morning we woke at four thirty and were on the road by five thirty. There are few things more depressing that sleeping the last night in an empty, meaningless house, with an early morning, a long, hot drive and no home to get to, waiting at the end of it.

It's also oddly exciting. It's like free fall. We huddled up in the deep dent our bodies made in the quickly deflating air mattress, our heads close together. There was nothing distracting us from what is real, and what is necessary. No stuff cluttering up the view.

I've felt so alive lately. It's uncomfortable and makes me tired. I can't hide behind a routine; I feel everything immediately.

I'm not made for that kind of sustained, emotional intensity, so I've been living, at every possible opportunity, inside my own head. It's driven Keith crazy on more than a few occasions, when he's called my name, or waved to me, or otherwise attempted to get my attention, and couldn't, because I was sunk down so deep into myself.

I'm going to have to reread all the work I've done on my story in the last few days, because I have no idea how much of what I wrote is true for me, or true for the story. It's a fine line.

Keith's mother read my rosemary faerie tale and was enthusiastic about it, and wants me to send it to Disney so they can make a movie out of it. Now she wants to read this new one, and send the rosemary one on to her sister, who wants to read it now that she's heard so much about it.

That's all very encouraging. I'm not sending the new one out though. It's not finished, first of all, and I don't want to lose control over it. I don't mind, so much, losing the rosemary tale.

Keith is off looking at a house we found on the military website for rental homes. We found quite a few. Well, we found five, but that seemed like quite a few. He should be calling me soon, I'm anxious to hear from him; I really hope this house he's looking at is in a good neighborhood. It's available immediately. Immediately works for us.

The drive down went better than I expected, though there were two times when I nearly had a break down. Once, just outside of Atlanta, in heavy traffic, when Keith changed lanes and I couldn't follow him because sixteen wheelers were barrelling up at ungodly speeds in the lane to the left of me, followed by a steady stream of cars. And our exit was coming up, but I didn't know what it was, and I couldn't see the HD, because I was stuck behind another truck.

That was bad. But worse was when we got off the highway to find a hotel and then had to get back on, and Keith had the space to move across three lanes of traffic to get to the entrance ramp back on the highway.

But I didn't. I had to duck and freakin' weave through traffic coming up from behind me, breaking, accelerating, jerking the wheel, until I got to the ramp behind Keith. I've never been so freakin' furious in my entire life. I was swearing at the top of my lungs and got the girls all worked up in the back; they were like a chorus to my profane rage.

I wore broken down, ten year old Merrell clogs, no socks, a wrinkled cotton skirt, a disgusting, wrinkled, stained, too large white linen shirt, untucked, with the sleeves rolled up. I waited in the car while Keith got us rooms.

We got a nice one, after Keith wore them down. There are few people who can stand up to that man for very long. I happen to be one of them; the hotel clerk was not. We got a room on the ground floor and took up five parking spaces in front of it, with the car trailer , HD and my car.

We're in the very back of the hotel, though, and there aren't too many people back here. Thank goodness, because the girls keep barking at suspicious noises, smells and sounds and as you can imagine, one of those keeps popping up every few minutes.

He just called. That house did not work out, but he is off looking at another one and another realtor called. Sigh. I think I'm going to go watch some mindless TV.

April 13th

We are getting close.

The carpets have been professionally cleaned, the garage is packed and most of the rooms are cleaned.

So far, we've had the power go out, had an air mattress pop, leaving us sleeping on the floor and a near miss, just now, with a dog about to vomit on the clean carpet.

We have a plan of action.

Today, we finish everything up. Tomorrow, we leave at four in the morning. We try and make it down there in one go, and get a hotel somewhere in northern Columbus, where the crime rate is not so bad and the cost of rooms are high.

I will camp out in the truck by day, keeping an eye on the car trailer, while Keith goes and looks for a house.

I'm hanging in there. We spent last night at Keith's Dad's house, so we could remember what a mattress felt like (bliss) and do laundry (very necessary) and to say goodbye. Instead of going to bed early, I stayed up rereading section three of my story and being entranced by it. It makes me nervous, the fact that I like my own story so much. But I have to, if I didn't love it, how would I be able to put this much effort into writing it? It's god damned hard work.

I would post bits of it, but it's getting increasingly mushy, as I get close to the end, and tighten the corkscrew on my characters. They tend to lean on one another more and more, as a consequence, and to go hide, at any opportunity, in their own world. And I'm shy about posting the mushy parts on my blog; my characters are such private people, in their own world.

I must go and finish cleaning the bathroom. The next time I post, it should be from Georgia.

April 10th

The pleasures of moving are all suspended in a void, without context. They exist only in the moment, unanticipated and with no guarantee of lasting, and they are all hedged about with difficulties looming before and behind. They are the shower after two days of grease and cleaning, the hot cup of coffee in the paper cup, the sight of sunlight slanting across the bare wall and its accompanying sense of serenity.

Or now, an empty room, dim and cool, my feet on the windowsill, listening to Duran Duran. How long will this last? I have no idea. We still have this room and the bedroom to clean. We have miles to go before we sleep well.

Last night was a nightmare. I woke at three and could not get back to sleep. My head hurt, my stomach hurt, my back hurt. I was so exhausted I felt sick, but I was perversely wide awake.

We sleep downstairs now, in the empty living room, under the ceiling fan, the air mattress pushed up under the open windows. The windowsill is like our bedside table, holds my earplugs, glasses, phone.

We eat crap all the time. I haven't been able to jog, not because I don't have the time, or the energy, but because, in order to survive the move, I have shut myself down into some kind of dense passivity. There is no place in that dull weight, that blind, vague forward movement for the energy and control of jogging.

I can still write, but slowly. My insights into what happens, and what is right, come to me hours, sometimes days, apart. I got just such a moment of clarity yesterday afternoon and sat down, immediately, to capture it and that is exactly when Keith decided to fly his electronic helicopter around my chair.

Very shortly, he decided, wisely, that it would be much better if he got out of the house entirely. He went off to look at cars. Thank God.

We alternate between some kind of delirious, hormonal, extraordinary feeling of being in love, for the first time, ever, forever, and wanting to hit each other over the head with whatever comes to hand, snarling like dogs in a kennel.

Looking ahead is like looking down a dark tunnel; one that closes in immediately. Everything is only certain to get worse. There are days more of cleaning, of this life. Then there is only more packing to come, there are eight hours of driving, there are days of living in a hotel, looking for a house. We've decided it's too risky to rent a house sight unseen.

A hundred questions are unanswered. What will we do with the dogs? What will we do with the stuff on the car trailer? How long will it take to find a house? Will we have to put our expenses on the credit card, until the Army reimburses us?

Relief, in effect, is weeks away. So there is nothing for it but to take what comes, when it comes. At least we may be ready to leave here by Wednesday, to descend one more level down into the awfulness. As bad as this is, I suspect it's only purgatory compared to Georgia, which will be hell itself.

At least, by then, the end will be in sight.

April 8th

The house is empty.

I hid in the bathroom, on a camp chair, for most of the day, my feet on a rolled up sleeping bag.

It's kind of fun, actually. Our ties to this life are being snapped loose, one by one. We are floating free. We have no place to live, no job to go to, no schedule to keep. It's like camping; I keep wanting to grill something, or go for a swim.

Of course, it follows that we are driving each other crazy.

Tomorrow, we clean.

By the way, Keith read a section of my story and got hung up every other sentence on the names. He pronounced Ceallach like Cialis- as in the, "I can be ready anytime the moment is right...," Cialis.

I died laughing. It's a wonder I'm alive to type this right now, I laughed so hard and so long.

"Why can't you just name them Jones or something? That's a perfectly good name; it's American."

But the fact of the matter is, I've no idea, half the time, how to pronounce them myself, and I simply make up my own way of saying them. (Ceallach is officially pronounced "KULL-ach," in case anyone wondered.) I get them off a website that has name lists of ancient Irish names, which is my nod to the Irish for having come up with the original legend.

Excerpt:

I heard the sound of footsteps. All three of us looked up to see Dalbhach standing in the doorway.

He cleared his throat, looking a little nervous. I got the feeling he wasn't very comfortable around women, even his own.

“Well?” he asked. “How’s breakfast?”

“Juicy,” said Eithne, her eyes twinkling again.

“Good, good,” said her father, vaguely. He wandered over to the sideboard and began to pile his plate high with meats and breads. “Did Ceallach and Siofra leave for the forge?” he asked, his back to us.”

“Ceallach left already?” asked Siofra, appearing in the doorway.

He sounded disappointed. He wore loose pants tucked into his green, lacquered boots and a loose, dark brown shirt over it. The shirt had fine, gleaming embroidery around the hem and round neckline. He reminded me of those farmers I’d seen on the road to Bellaghy, only wearing better quality fabrics.

“He left very early,” I said.

“Damn it,” muttered Siofra.

Dalbhach sat down at the head of the table and began to make short work of his food.

“You couldn’t have gotten close to that forge anyway,” Dalbhach said, swallowing. Mealla stole a piece of bacon off his plate; he didn’t seem to notice.

“I know,” said Siofra. “But I was curious just the same.”

“We could ride over there,” said Eithne. “I’m curious. Grace, too.”

“I can’t,” I said. “He told me to stay in the house.”

“Yes, and much better that you do, too,” admonished Dalbhach.

Siofra sat heavily down next to me, his plate clanging unexpectedly on the table. He reached out with his long, knobby knuckled hands, instinctively, to try and quiet it. He looked up, nervously. I saw Eithne’s dimple reappear.

“But you two could go,” I said, casually.

“Yes, take her, for goodness sake,” said Mealla, briskly, to Siofra. “She’s always underfoot, getting in the way.”

His eyes widened in surprise as he looked at Eithne. He looked doubtful. “She does?” he asked.

"Constantly," her mother said, complacently.

“Well, I don’t mind taking her…”

“That’s kind of you,” said Eithne, gratefully. She looked down at her plate and then up at him, which was a very pretty maneuver, considering the length of her dark eyelashes. I saw Siofra’s hands go still for a moment.

April 7th

I have a Notebook and I lurve my Notebook.

Keith and I wrote it off as a moving expense, knowing that it would save my sanity and probably our marriage. This because tomorrow the TV and beds go, along with all the boxes that stand, towering, in hallways and rooms right now.

That would leave just the one laptop between us; the only source of Internet, entertainment and escape in an otherwise empty house.

Not good.

So now, I have this little thing all to myself. The best thing is that when I plug the earphones in, I am enveloped completely in my own little world. Not that I necessarily needs props to do that, of course. But it does help.

Guess what? We can't even move down to Georgia until Tuesday. I wasn't clued into that, before. (Denial is such a pleasant river before it runs dry.) So...that's, what? Five days of air mattresses, no microwaves and definitely the laundromat before we can even haul our stuff down South and begin to look again for a house.

It could be worse. We could be living under those conditions because of a tornado or flood, or something. I'm a woman with a Notebook, Pandora and headphones, complaining about the lack of cooking utensils and chairs. I think I'll survive.

So. My story is now two hundred and forty pages long.

Holy cow. Never have I come close to writing anything of that length before. It's so long that it stretches out into shadow, even in my mind, where I can unroll it swiftly, spinning through scene after scene.

This worries me. It takes me two days to read through the thing now, and I haven't done it in a while. What if I'm losing the cohesive feel of the story?

And my characters are evolving. I know they're suppose to; I know that that's good writing. But it worries me. What if I forget who they really are? What if, at the end of the adventure, they're completely different people?

Actually, it's too late for that, they already are. And it's not just the external challenges- they're rubbing off on one another. Every time they argue and make up, it alters their relationship. They are permanently changing one another.

I just want the changes to be organic, to be real.

I guess what I'm saying is, I'm worried about losing control of the story, because of its sheer length. It's almost ninety thousand words now.

You know what's crazy? I'm already thinking about my next story. I have the first few chapters sketched out in my head. I see interesting people on the street, as I drive by and I think, hey, I'd like to write about that person. That would a good story. I'd like to live in their shoes for a while.

Excerpt:

I began to walk with them. There was nothing else for me to do. Nobody looked at me. The sun was very hot on my head. I could smell manure, and hot leather. All around me were men at arms, wearing sturdy, serviceable blue armor, heavy packs on their backs. They looked at me, and then looked away quickly before I could catch their eye. Not that I wanted to.

I got angrier as I walked along, as it sunk in. How dare he treat me like this? It was as though I were his vassal, his possession. It was unforgivable.

For a little while, the anger kept me from realizing the extent to which I was dependent upon him. As the day wore on and my legs began to ache, I couldn’t avoid thinking about it. I was completely dependent upon him. I had no other recourse but him.

If he chose to treat me like this, I couldn’t say, fine, be an ass, and then go slam my car door and drive home listening to Stevie Ray Vaughan on the radio, very loudly. I couldn’t call up my friend and complain about him. I could do nothing but trudge along in the road, dangling after him like some kind of broken down kite whose string he held. The knowledge was frightening and humiliating.

The gravel road was very hard on my feet; I’d been wearing my flats. I cut through the lines of men and began walking along the edge of the road, in the grass. It was noon and the sun was shining straight down through the trees that laced over the road.

I thought, if he comes back for me, I’ll going to tell him to go to hell. I understood that I must have hurt his pride terribly, by questioning his strength in public. I wished, now that I saw it that way, that I hadn’t done it. But it couldn’t excuse the way he was treating me now.

The day wore on. I kept expecting at any moment to see his horse appear in the haze ahead of me, coming down the side of the road, his eyes searching the ranks of the men, his face apologetic, pale. But he never appeared. I stopped looking up as much, as the afternoon grew long.

I had fallen back, all the way to the end of the line, by the time they finally stopped. I dropped down, right where I was, right into the grass. I was crying from the humiliation and the anger. I didn’t want anyone to know, I kept putting my hand up to my face, to hide it.

Up ahead of me, men were heading into the fields, talking, and laughing. After a while I smelled wood smoke. My head was pounding with pain, from lack of water and the glare of the sun all day long.

After a while I heard the sound of hooves on the gravel and looked up with dread to see Ceallach. I felt anger and longing. I felt incredulous. When I saw him, I wished then that he had not come, that he had left me alone all night. I wished that we could have gone on being strangers, meaning nothing to one another.

April 6th, later

(Because I don't have anything better to do. Ha. Hahahaha.)

Excerpt:

Late in the afternoon, I began to smell the ocean, a rich, seaweed scent that was being carried inland by the wind. The fields around us became more wild, eventually turning to marsh, with cat tails and high, course grass that bent silver before the wind. I heard the sound of ducks and the cries of gulls.

We passed over a particularly marshy place on a wooden bridge, the horse’s hooves making a delightful, hollow clatter on the weathered, grey boards. A large, white heron stood as still as stone in the water, one foot up, its beak tucked against his chest.

Ceallach pulled the horses to a stop, and turned his back to me. “Unfasten my sword from the armor,” he said.

“Uh…ok. Why?” I urged Burroch up as close to Cashlin as I could and reached up to undo the metal fastenings. Siofra watched curiously, his hands resting on the pommel of his saddle.

“Because you’re going to wear it.”

“Say what?” My hands paused in their task.

“It’s the only iron I have on hand at the moment. Just in case we run into Aimhirghin sooner rather than later.”

The sword dropped heavily, awkwardly into my hands when I’d undone the last buckle. Ceallach took the sword from me.

“Turn around,” he said.

I twisted around on Burroch, who had turned his own head back, curious and wondering what all the hold up was about.

“Reach back and hold it in place for a minute,” he said.

When I did, he threw his scarlet sash around my head and settled it around my waist. He began to tie the sword to my back with the fabric. The sword was very heavy and awkward, the point of it jutted out a foot below my right hip and out of the corner of my eye, I could see the hilt rising up over my left shoulder.

“That should stay. We only have about another hour to go. Is it too uncomfortable?”

“No,” I replied, wriggling my shoulders experimentally. “But I don’t think I’d want to wear it all day long.”

“You’d get used to it,” he teased.

“Yeah, I doubt that.”

“I think it looks better on her,” remarked Siofra.

“Watch it, boy,” warned Ceallach, his eyes dancing. “You’ve already opened your mouth once too many times today.

“Look, Grace,” he continued, leading the horses back on the trail, “…we’re going to have to stay with my uncle. He’s stiff, self righteous man, but it would be unforgivable breach of manners if we didn’t stay with him and his family. I don’t want to dishonor my mother’s family.”

“I know the drill,” I said, already annoyed at the rhythmic banging of the sword against my shoulder blade. “Say nothing, stay by you at all time. It’ll be fine.”

“When we get home, you can take me to the Mall of your choice, to exact your revenge, if you wish.”

I laughed. “There’s a thought. I think Abercrombie and Fitch is right up your alley. We can get an Orange Julius and wander around, hand in hand.”

“What the hell is an Orange Julius?”

“Ha! Finally! Something about my culture you know nothing about.”

“What is an Orange Julius?” asked Siofra, twisting around in his saddle to look back at me.

April 6th

I have a pounding headache. Maybe I'm coming down with Keith's cold.

The movers come tomorrow. I have the last loads of laundry going right now, after this, it's the laundromat or nothin'.

I don't want to move. I never really fell in love with Kentucky, but it's not awful. And spring and fall are beautiful, and our house was comfortable and sunny and we had a nice neighborhood.

Everything is interrupted. I can't do any really hard work on my story, because my internal mechanism has stalled. I just keep going over and over stuff I already wrote, and there's this huge piece I need to completely rewrite and I can't, I'm afraid to start it and then not finish it and then lose the thread of where I was going in all the chaos of moving.

So it just sits there, up in my head, like a blinker someone left on, click, click, click, click and I'm like, damn it, turn the blinker off already and I flash my lights at them, but they don't notice and I end up following them for the next twenty miles.

It's like that.

I've completely rewritten section three, but I have yet to write the ending and it's just raw, in my head, like a bridge that broke in an earthquake, with steel girders bent and jagged, hanging over the river and cables swinging in the wind and dust sweeping off it into the water.

I was so afraid this would happen, it was why I wanted to finish the damn thing before the move, but there's just no way in hell. I have to completely redo the entire forth section, as well as write that ending.

Excerpt:

In the morning, everything sparkled and the river was swollen, went rolling between its banks, mud brown and flecked with leaves and grass. I had long, pale willow leaves caught in my hair. When I knelt by the river to drink, I saw the slender shapes of tiny, silver fish darting about in the warm shallows. If I held my hands still, they came and nibbled on my fingertips.

“Phillipa,” Ceallach called, his voice low.

I turned and stood. Coming through the hedges that hid the road from the bend of the river was a horseman, dressed in armor of a deep, bottle green, highlighted by a lighter, celadon green along the edges. I half ran across the grass to where Ceallach stood by the horses and took his hand.

“Ceallach,” the knight called, happily. “I thought I might meet you on this road. My name is Siofra. I was at Thirn Ei Rua but I couldn’t make my way to you; I was pinned at the eastern end for most of the day, dealing with Othgeird and his men.”

He was a young Sidhe, his hair a dark, red gold. Strands of his hair were braided, the braids falling in amid the rest of the loose hair. In the morning light, his head flared up like a penny in the sun. He sat on his white horse proudly and easily, his eyes looking eager. He glanced over at me and his face lit up.

“And I heard about the Middangeard girl who rides with you. After I’ve thrown your sword down, maybe I’ll take her under my care for a while. I‘ve heard some very interesting stories about human women. I’ll wait while you armor yourself.”

Ceallach’s sword was already fastened to the back of Cashlin’s saddle, along with the rest of our stuff. Ceallach reached up and drew his sword free with a long, metallic rasp.

“I won’t need armor to put a boy like you on your back,” he said calmly.

April 5th

I got all dressed and ready this morning, and started driving down the road to my therapy appointment, my last one, and actually, thank God, noticed all the trash cans at the ends of the driveway.

I thought "Hm. That's interesting. Trash day is on Tuesday. Wait a minute..."

So then I drove around and came home again, because my appointment is for Wednesday.

Keith is getting a bad cold, and coughed all night long, shaking the bed, and creeping up next to me to get warm, so no matter which way I turned, I was squished by a large, sweating, coughing, sickly husband. Poor guy.

He probably got it while staying in the House of Horrors. (And of one cute puppy. She was cute, even if she did pee on the bed. So was the kid, come to think of it. Poor kid.)

Or else he got his cold yesterday, while driving up and down the road in the driving rain, trying to find me, worried out of his head because it turns out that I actually did go jogging in a hurricane. Or at least, under hurricane warning.

How was I suppose to know? The rain had let up, when I started out. It quickly came back, however, and I ended up jogging two miles with sneakers that squelched with every step. I was soaked to the skin and euphoric by the time I got back, to find a ridiculously angry husband standing on the front porch, glaring at me with his arms crossed.

You know what's the best song to jog to? Long Cool Woman, by the Hollies. I'm a sucker for the classic rock.

So. We're looking at a house in Alabama. That's right. Alabama. Pretty much the worst state in the United States. No, wait...let me think...Yeah, no. The worst state possible.

Their license plates read "Sweet Home Alabama" and all I can think is, "You, poor, poor thing."

It's got a big back yard, a two car garage, a pool out under the perpetual pines, and three bedrooms, with not much total square footage. But one of the bedrooms will become an office for me to write in, so I don't care what happens elsewhere, so long as I have a place to retreat to.

The main question is, what is the neighborhood like? We don't know. It's a nice house, brick. But we saw such houses cheek to jowel by trailer parks, so who knows. I want to be able to jog without worrying about being raped by some drunken good ol' boy who finds my jogging skort too much to resist.

I know, I know, I'm ragging on the South a wee bit much. I can't help it; I have to give the horror an outlet. I'm sure I'll grow to love it- the Piggy Wiggly, the suspicious, glances, the Confederate flag, the massive mug bogging trucks, the fifty different varieties of fried pig skins, the idiot freakin' drivers who pass on the right, right in front of a red light, using the right turn only lane.

Oh well. The Army will only keep us there two years before moving us somewhere else, so I'll just think of it as an Interesting Experience.

April 4th

So. Georgia sucked.

We stayed at the house of people who do not have soap in their downstairs bathroom.

No soap in the bathroom, not even a tiny, hard, cracked sliver sitting in its own slime on the side of the sink. Who lives like that?

Not to mention, their puppy peed on the air mattress as it was being filled, and I was handed a regular bath towel to mop it up, and when I asked if they had any bleach or anything like that, the answer was no.

No bleach, no cleaning stuff. Nada.

When they served us grilled brats, it was with slices of white bread and nothing else. No plates, no silverware. No paper towels, not even a dish towel. I shook my wet hands off over the kitchen floor, after I washed them with dish soap.

We found no houses. Apparently, all the tankers moving down there are snatching up the rental properties as soon as they come on the market. We drove around for hours, finding nothing but heat and heat and more heat and swamp and pine woods and trailers and more trailers and just when you wouldn't expect it, a coven of trailers hidden in the pines, with a Confederate flag proudly waving over the trash.

It was awesome.

I got so desperate to write, that I sat in the living room, with the mind blowingly unnecessarily violent, grade B movie "Hunt to Kill" playing at decibel blasting levels right in front of me. I wrote on the couch with the puppy wiggling at my elbow, a child on a bike at my feet, bumping the tire into my knees (yes, in the living room). I wrote on, amid the occasional angry, drunken shouts from her father and the constant barrage of insults that the father and mother directed at each other, such as idiot, moron, bitch, lazy, and occasionally slapping one another.

I actually got stuff done; I actually wrote under those conditions.

So, the movers come day after tomorrow, the stuff will be packed and gone in two days. We'll stay after that, camping on the air mattress, cleaning and packing, and then leave a few days after that.

Either we'll rent a house from here, sight unseen, or we'll stay in a hotel, our stuff in storage, and look for a place after we get down there.

Oh, and I got my period the night before the drive, so that just topped the weekend off. Nothing like driving around for hours on end in those conditions.

"I thought we'd be so irritated at one another we wouldn't even be speaking," admitted Keith, when we were a half an hour from what is no longer our home.

"I know!" I said, in wonder. "I thought so too. Just think, this is just one of many, many moves our future has in store for us, moves where we'll be irritated and crabby with one another, and stressed out of our minds. Won't it be great?"

I'm keeping my jogging stuff back when we pack and I'm jogging, come hell, high water or hurricane, every god damn day until we have to drive the eight hours back down into the sweaty arm pit of the south, where we'll stay in a Motel 6 with two dogs and dirty clothes and no place to live.

It's gonna be great.

April 1st

Rabbit.

Well, I gave in and sent sections one and two off to my parents. Immediately, all my words lifted up, free of the page and floated, luminous in the night. It kept me awake for hours. My scenes all played out in the dark and I thought, it's right.

I shouldn't be writing like this, because it'll trigger some intense anxiety later. But I don't care.

My story is good. It's a good story. It's the way it should be. It's not intellectual or reserved or dry. It couldn't be, because I'm not that way. If I tried writing that way, it would be false. This story that I wrote, it's imaginative, unexpected, full of emotion and drama; it's entirely of myself.

If I had never written this story, it never would have existed in all the world. That must be the central joy to any creative act. It's a profound joy and I just feel certain we can feel this joy because we were made in the image of our own Creator. It's just so interesting to think that He took so much joy in creating us, that He wanted to pass on to us an ability to experience that feeling in much, much smaller and mostly harmless ways.

We are driving down to Georgia today, to look at houses. I have to get my head in gear for that. I'm already starting to feel really intense bouts of irritability concerning all the upsets in my routine lately. (And, alright, I admit, from hormones too. Hormones from pregnancy or period, I don't know yet. I suspect my period, to be honest.) But it would be just so embarrassing if I turned into some kind of drama queen.

I am excited to look at houses, but I'll tell you a silly truth; if I could send Keith down alone to pick out a house, I would. I'd stay up here writing.

Oh, and I figured it out. I figured out how to increase the suspense in the last quarter of the story without triggering Ceallach to go back to Tir na nOg. It's so ridiculously simple that I don't know how I didn't see it before. He's an ironsmith. He'll have already fashioned iron for Phillipa to wear, she'll just have to continue wearing it in her world, after the dream. Because even Ceallach couldn't suspect that a vengeful faerie would take his child, because he's not thinking of his child as being human, and faeries never snatch up other faerie's children, just the human ones.

Voila.