There's a really fine Warren Zevon song* that goes "You say you're tired; How I hate to hear you use that word" and I've never really understood the meaning behind that. He's telling someone younger or more inexperienced not to give up, but I always interpret it as, "You say you're tired? You have no idea what that means. I'm dying and I still got more done today than you did." That makes no sense, though, because I just looked it up, and this was a song he wrote twenty years before he was diagnosed with terminal cancer.
It may just be an older guy telling a younger guy to hang on, that love will find you, but I dunno. All I can hear is the "you say you're tired? How I hate to hear you use that word" bit, and think about somebody hearing me complain about being tired of writing every day. But man, I am.
This new "Lara and the Witch" story is going nowhere. I keep writing on it, and it's not what the story was supposed to be about. It was supposed to be a simple tale--Lara gets her heart broken when she's a Freshman or Sophomore in high school, and when she falls in love again, a year or two later, she's initially blissful, but then starts to worry that it's not real . . . that magic is afoot.
So far, I've written the first bit, and then skipped to her at sixteen (or so), already hitting it off extremely well with a popular, handsome Senior named Scott/Scotty. And then, I went off the rails, writing a whole new story where Lara, blissfully happy, decides to cast a spell so everybody can feel the joy she feels right now.
I just liked the idea of this decent-hearted girl wanting to share the wealth around, and basically wrote the "Lara-charms-the-whole-high-school" stuff like it's its own short story, which I suppose it could be. I've been writing that "short story" for the last few days, and started it in September, but I'm now worried that it's utterly expendable, and maybe should be cut out and released as "Lara The Love Bug" or something.
Sit-ups Today: 150 (I had intended to do two hundred, right there as punishment for not writing tonight . . . and I even failed at that)
Sit-ups In October: 538
Push-ups Today: 58
Push-ups In October: 227
My sister got the whole family passes to a place called Top Golf up in the city, and everybody but my brother went. Apparently, it costs a great deal of money, but she got us all in on her work's dime to check it out for a possible work team-building outing coming up. I have never played golf before--only the miniature kind--but my brother-in-law does it every week or two, and I didn't know what to expect. It was just a driving range, really, with a huge green football field-type area completely surrounded by building-height netting, with various targets down on the ground (which were essentially big holes with netting on top of them and sensors in the netting. We were all entered into a computer, like you do with bowling, that would keep track of our scores.
Each of the targets had concentric circles around them, and you scored more points the closer you came to the center. But to me, it just seemed random, so hitting a target might gain you three points or it might gain you eight--you never knew.
There were a dozen of us, so the games took a long time, especially when it was the three year old's turn, since he could not hold onto his golf club or wait his turn, and I did very, very poorly. After half an hour, my score was still zero, while my brother-in-law hit a target every single stroke. Eventually, I started getting the hang of it, and by the time the sun went down, I started earning points, even though that was sometimes just luck. There were little booths, facing the field, and three different levels of them, and every one was full.
There were also waitresses that walked around (wearing masks, of course) and took food and drink orders. That bit was super expensive, and I didn't dare order anything (if I told you how much money I have spent in the last month, you would probably throw up in your mouth. It bugs me that it doesn't make me feel that way too). That ended up being wise because my nephews ate a few fries and took a couple of bites of their burgers, then declared they were full. So I got more food than anybody.
Music was playing, and there were a couple of songs where the lights on the golf course (the targets had LEDs on them) started to sync to the music, and that was pretty amazing. My twelve year old nephew told me I was holding my club wrong, and I did what he suggested, then ended up getting a lot more distance on it. I even passed his score briefly, before he left me way behind.
At one point, the three year old knocked over one of the (plastic) glasses with his golf club, and we yelled at him. By the end of the night, both and I and my sister had done the same, so I suppose we owe him an apology (in my defense, my cup only had ice in it).
The first game took an inordinate amount of time to end (they let you use twenty balls each, and then the game is done), but the second game, we got the hang of it, and started stroking two or three times a turn, which tripled the speed (and fun) of the game. My nephew and his dad were neck-and-neck a couple of times, due to my nephew (accidentally?) scoring a twelve on one ball, and a six or eight on another. I never got anything higher than a six, but hey, after all the zeroes, a six felt great.
At one point, I took my nephew to the bathroom, and he acted like he had never seen a urinal before. "Do you want to use that instead?" I asked, figuring it was low enough to the floor that he could-- Oh no, he went over and put his hands in it, like it was an automatic sink or something. I'm not sure why I told you that little bit. Just cruel, I guess.
I ended up doing my run pretty late at night. It's getting colder out, but I really have taken that do-something-x-number-of-days-in-a-row-and-it-becomes-a-habit dictum to heart. I enjoy it, even though it's a literal rerun every single night (I really struggle at the beginning, and by the half-mile point, I want to turn around and go home, but I don't, and after the one mile mark, it's much easier, even the breathing is easier). But hey, I try to think about writing every time I go running.
And tonight it seemed to pay off. I got an idea for the ending of the Lara "short story"--where she runs into Scotty's ex-girlfriend, who is just amazing: beautiful, smart, big-boobied, older than Lara, talented, and who was once blissfully happy with Scott the way Lara is now. But not anymore. Now Lara is with her, and due to Lara's spell, the girl (Danielle? Daniella?) is simply happy that Scott is happy.
But that gets the wheels spinning in Lara's head. Why did Scott break up with this perfect girl? And why is Scott with Lara now? And is he happier with Lara Demming that he was with Daniella? And if so . . . how come?
That brings us to the whole point of this story--can Lara trust Scott's love for her? The other day while running, I had an immensely dark idea for the ending of this story (or the part leading up to the ending, at least), and this diversion/detour in the middle of the story could lead right into it.**
Thinking all this through, I finished my run, and couldn't wait to write as soon as I got home.
Words Today: 1026
Words In October: 3869
*Gonna have to do my WZ episode of the Outcast this week if I go to the cabin. I've been putting it off, but I need a new episode to drop next, so why not?
**Except it doesn't have to. I could still just cut the whole "short story" out and easily get to this dark ending in another way.
No comments:
Post a Comment