Last night I used the word repertoire in conversation, and was blithely continuing on when Keith waved a hand in the air.
"Hold up, hold up," he said. "Back it up. Rep-e-twar? Seriously? Now, let me tell you about Rep-e-twar. It's a word of English and Spanish origin, from back in the late fourteen hundreds.
"The first part of the word, Rep is derived from the word represent and means that I (here he gestured graciously toward himself) will represent you. And," he concluded with authority, "twar means, 'F- you,' making it an insult, as in, 'I will rep-e-twar that guy.'"
He's like a walking dictionary, that man.
I stayed up til 10:30 on Friday night, writing Torii. I was just intoxicated, and I wrote it until I was just one scene before the end. Then I didn't work on it for the rest of the weekend, because I had to give it a chance to settle.
It's bewildering, trying to decide what scene to present and in what order. By now, the entire third part of the story is peppered with little notes in parenthesis, telling me where I need to move it or change it or what I need to add there.
I haven't heard back from the second agent I sent a query letter to, and it's been two weeks, so I think I can safely take that as a rejection. Tomorrow, I must devote some time to tweaking my letter and hunting down a new agent to send it to.
Although, my father recently became friends with someone on facebook who is an editor, as well as a writer and musician, and he graciously agreed to read a few chapters of my work. I just sent that off, so we'll see.
On a completely different topic, I was reading some threads on facebook and just amazed at my father's articulate courage and compassion. He just seems so fearless, and yet so welcoming.
Then I felt bad that I wasn't the same way. I thought about adding a comment to some of the threads, but I just couldn't.
"I'm sorry," I said to Christ, "I can't participate. I'm cowardly."
"I delight in your father, but I only made one of him; I didn't intend anyone else to be a carbon copy. I love you the way I created you to be," He replied, right off the bat.
Sometimes I think I am imagining this voice that I don't audibly hear, but it's become so familiar to me. He speaks to me in a still, small voice, a voice I know because He's the good shepherd, and He calls me by name.
It's as though I'm sitting, staring at a blank wall of my fear or misunderstanding, or condemnation, and suddenly, the wall slips down and I'm given a glimpse of something a great deal larger and more expansive than I could have understood on my own.
It's funny, because He was teaching me that same lesson at church on Sunday. I keep getting sucked into the idea that I must be everything to everybody, and instead, I need only be myself to the people around me.
They handed out communion at church, and I had a panic attack. I had a hard time keeping myself in hand; I wanted to escape. I had to tell myself over and over again that there was nothing to be frightened of, that I wasn't going to be struck dead by the Wrath of God.
Still, even though I had already prayed for forgiveness, I had to say another quick one just before I ate the tiny square of bread, just in case I had sinned in the two minute time span.
Church can sometimes be just like a minefield.
