She Knows

She knows her grip is too desperate, too needy, but she doesn’t loosen her hold on his hand.

They are going out to dinner, and he has reassured her she looks fine, twice at home, again in the car. His tone had been more exasperated than appreciative that last time, and she winces at the demands her insecurities place on him.

He always says she looks beautiful. He always holds her hand.

Even so, she can’t quite believe him when he says, “I love you.” It might have been true when his infatuation was new, before she’d worn him down, tugging at him like a dingy being tossed by the ocean. He is not the first person to serve as her anchor. Others have tried and failed. Surrendered to it. She knows that one day the moorings will snap and his safe harbor will vanish, too, as she is drawn back into the maelstrom. This is the only truth she knows.

There are reasons he’s still at her side. He’s an optimist, but in a relaxed sort of way that allows time to slip by without bothering him. Her children have his eyes and curiosity. His children have her hair and love of drawing. They are blended together in their small, socially awkward, imaginative, living creations.

On the other hand, he is impatient, frustrated when he is held back from something he wants to do. She holds him back a lot. Some days, he goes on without her rather than work to bring her along with him. One day he won’t come back. This is what she tells herself on the black days.

But today is one of her better days, so she tightens her fingers around his palm and marches into the restaurant. The whispers of thought that brush against her become less of an overwhelming chaotic storm, like the one she’d fought against outside. Walking down busy pavement through swarms of teenagers and judgmental suburban professionals is never pleasant. Restaurants, at least the more dignified ones, are easier. Diners tend to focus on their meals and companions. A thought or two might be sent her way when she walks behind the hostess, winding her way down the path between tables. She can handle that. It’s nice to have a reprieve from the opinions and disdain that pour from other people’s eyes.

Sometimes she forgets how to talk to him, but this is a good day. They talk about world events, friends, and nonsense that makes them both laugh around their forkfuls of pasta. Together they entertain their server with the sort of patter-talk that used to trip off the tongues of Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn. The server loves them, their wit, the welcome into their little bubble of irreverent amusement. It’s one of those moments when she knows they’ve been labeled a “happy couple” in someone’s head forever. She wishes she could bottle that feeling and carry it with them back out into the world. She would open the bottle on the bad days, when she can’t breathe from the pain of her helplessness, when he can’t quite find the patience this time to react with understanding rather than irritation.

Her illness has become a third wheel in this relationship, and she doesn’t know how much more they can withstand. How much more she can fight it. How much longer he can stay. But he still calls her “beautiful”, so she clings to hope, and to him.

She thinks that her biggest burden is knowing she’s not quite sane. Her mental vision is forever impaired, tinted nonexistent shades, and she can’t see clearly. This illness has wrapped her in chains that lay so heavily on her, she cannot lift her body from the bed. But she can still see all her potential, all her wasted opportunities, and all the losses of friendships and dreams that have come and gone while she’s carried on surviving.

One day she may not win the battle. She knows that, too. It’s strange that it frightens her enough to make her feel safer, wearing her terror like armor around her heart to protect her from herself. Using fear to survive at the same time that it keeps her from living.

Most times when he attempts to drag her out of the dim room of her inner sanctum, she tries to let him. Some days she hates him for it. On the worst days, she hates herself too much to do more than keep breathing for him.

She has never been a crier, and when she breaks down, it scares him. He brings her ice cream. He tells her why she is worthy of love. He tells her he believes in her. He tells her he’s never going to leave. He tells her about all the wonderful things that are worth living for. He tells her he loves her.

She knows.

Depression lies. It’s not her fault. She’s not a failure. She’s not unloved. She’s not weak for not conquering this awful mountain of Can’t. She matters to people. She matters to him. Depression lies.

She knows.

She holds his hand.

Balancing Mind Ogre Patterns

On Wednesdays, I get toothpaste in my eye. I’m not sure why this occurs every week without fail. It’s not intentional. Wednesdays are not good days for me in general.

There’s a pattern.

Sundays, I forget to do everything and wind up frantic at 10:00 at night, wondering how I’m going to do it all with no time.

Mondays are like New Years Day. I’m bright and shiny with intention and purpose. It will be a phenomenal day. I will exercise, plow through my pending work, clean the house, volunteer for a charity, and find a cure for the common cold. I wait until about 3:00 to admit none of that happened, but the dream has not yet died.

Tuesdays, I take another stab at it, but it’s like January 2nd. You can’t recapture the magic of that electric determination. By lunchtime, I stop even pretending to be a productive member of society.

Wednesdays are toothpaste. There’s often an afternoon nap involved, too.

Thursdays, I don’t give a damn about anything. I do what needs doing, but it takes effort. If someone asks me to participate in some event or activity on Thursday, it ain’t happening.

Fridays, it’s a toss-up whether I’m even going to get dressed.

On Saturdays, my resolutions come back, only this time I swear to go out and enjoy the world, see art, watch a play, and enjoy life. It’s a beautiful day. The sun is shining, the birds are singing… I’ll just finish this chapter in my book, and then I’ll get going. Yep.

Then I keep reading straight through to Sunday evening.

The pattern of my life is one I would love to change. My therapist would love for me to change it, too. If nothing else, I would get more work done, which would enable me to afford my therapy sessions. It’s a vicious circle.

Every night, I lie in bed and imagine worlds and adventures and people, forming them into stories in my head. Everyone tells me to write them down. I don’t.

When you talk to people about depression, this is not what they would imagine, I think. How it wears you down, dragging at you in whispers that hold you back with subtle force. I’m not sad. Like I said, it’s a beautiful day, the sun, the birds, etc. My mind is just not under my complete control. And yes, it’s frustrating as hell.

There are rare days when I am hypo-manic and can take on the world. Those are the days when work gets done, stuff gets cleaned, and I am the mistress of all I survey. Brimming with focus, burning to explore the world. It doesn’t last, though. I pay the price afterward with an unusual low. This is kind of like a kid on a sugar high passing out when they come back down.

So low is bad, high is bad, and I have to learn to ride the line between the two. My pattern allows this, but I need to change my pattern. How to stay balanced while doing this is a conundrum.

My friends and family want wonderful things for me. That’s great. I want wonderful things, too. And I understand it’s hard to watch from the outside while I continue with the same old behaviors and making the same old mistakes. It’s impressive these people stick around, really. I’m annoying.

There are these voices in my head. (No, not like that. I’m not schizophrenic.)The encouragement, faith, love, and admiration I receive from the people in my life is a quiet chorus, whispering at me over and over to remind me that there is something more, and that I can have it. These soothing voices join together against the loud clamor of my own inner voice telling me I suck in every possible way. It’s hard to hear past that barrage of negativity.

I hear everyone, though. I do. No one should ever think that their words have no effect on me. Often those words are the only weapons I have in the fight to do SOMETHING today, even if it’s brushing my teeth. Without those voices in my mind, it would be a fight I couldn’t win.

Mental illness is invisible. Sure, you can see someone flake out and do some weird shit. You can see cuts, scars, weight gained or lost, mood swings, seizures and meltdowns. It’s below the surface that the true symptoms do their damage, however. Each depressive person’s experience is unique to them, but there are many near-constant similarities. The biggest is that depression has the potential to tear apart everything they care about and want to build for themselves. It’s impossible to do your taxes, wash the dishes, or manage your workload when you’re fighting a sumo wrestler in your head. Your hands are already full.

I’m not sure where this is going, but here it is anyway.

In my case, depression is a fact of life. I’ve never been without it, even as a toddler. There is no “me” without depression. I’d be a completely different person. That means that there is no clear way to unravel its effects from the rest of who I am. It feeds my creativity, informs my decisions, and influences my relationships. So I have no frame of reference for what “normal” would mean for me. I don’t think I’d like it.

My imagination walks hand in hand with my illness, giving me words and images and characters to bring to life in my writing. The books I read come alive, dynamic and immersed in detail. That would be hard to give up.

Having been judged and marginalized all my life, I am much more accepting and accommodating in my interactions with others. I embrace the huddled masses yearning to breathe free. (Metaphorically. I’m not a hugger.)

It makes me want to help others, support those who are suffering, particularly when their circumstances are more heartbreaking or perilous than mine. I want to fix all the problems in the world, even though I can’t fix mine.

Depression gives me those gifts, but it keeps me from using them. And that’s a dilemma that makes me run around in mental circles day and night. I want to use the talents and strengths. I want to achieve my potential. I want to tap into the creative spring inside me. If only I manage to be strong enough to fight the ogre who lives in my thoughts and tears apart my confidence.

My ability to feel any self-worth is significantly impaired. I can’t accept that it’s not my fault, because I’d get past it if I didn’t suck. I can’t defend myself against criticism, because it’s true that I suck. It’s hard to believe that anyone really loves me because I suck. There’s no point in working to become healthier, since I’d suck regardless. Every time I meet someone new, they can tell right away that I suck. No one will ever read my books because they suck. I will never, ever be good enough, because I’m not good at all.

This is the ogre that lives in my head. This is the voice that I hear ALL the time. It’s constant. It’s there right now, telling me to stop typing and just go back to bed with a pint of Ben & Jerry’s and a spoon to mourn the loss of my dignity.

I may not be dignified, but I did write this. The quiet voices of hope helped me write this, and so even this small step is an accomplishment.

Suck it, mind ogre.

Life on the Spectrum's Edge

This is long, serious, and personal. It has nothing to do with writing or books and everything to do with real life. I’ll understand if you choose not to read it, but I hope you will.

There are a lot of people out there who don’t understand the autism spectrum. That’s okay. There are a lot of us living with it who have a dodgy grasp on it, as well. That’s part of the problem – it’s such a wiggly, amorphous concept that trying to fully understand it is a lot like trying to nail Jell-O to a tree.

"Have fun with that."

Still, we need to talk about it, because 1 in 88 children today are diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum, so not having some awareness of what “autism” means is a lot like not being aware that some people are born with red hair.

"It's so... not brown!!!"

So first, what’s with the spectrum? How come autism gets a spectrum? Shouldn’t a person either be autistic or not autistic? How can people who manage to function in society, hold down jobs, and have families claim to be autistic? How can those people possibly be facing the same challenge as Grandma Ruthie’s hairdresser’s son, who hasn’t spoken a word in twenty years? Does the spectrum just exist to give lazy people an excuse for blowing off important things? Or is it just doctors’ way of making autism fancier than other disorders?

"Care for some champagne with your diagnosis, sir?"

When you meet a severely autistic person, there is no question that their disorder is real. Human beings are quite capable in believing in a condition when there are physical manifestations that prove its validity. However, what many people do not understand is that autism is not a physical issue. Autism sits in the brain. It lives in the mind.

Now, I am in no way qualified to talk about severe autism and what that experience is like for the parents of severely autistic children. What I know, without question, is that it has to be an intensely difficult, exhausting, often discouraging, but sometimes miraculous experience. Non-verbal autistic people are blowing away audiences with their unexpected vocal talents, and through the tireless intervention of families, teachers, doctors, and friends, these people who could so easily be discounted and marginalized are having a profound impact on the people around them. Each of them can touch a person’s heart, even if they cannot tolerate being physically touched themselves. Each one of them can contribute to the world in their own unique way, whether on a large scale or small. They are not defective. They are not less. In so many ways, they are beyond the normal, and the world seen through their eyes is an awe-inspiring place. This is why it is so important for us to continue to build bridges of communication. We do not need to bring these people into our world – we need them to bring us into theirs.

I want to tell you about my son. I will call him Steve, since that would make him laugh. In order to talk about him, though, I first need to tell you a bit about me.

Mental illness seems to run in my family. Nothing exotic that involves drinking Kool-Aid or eating one's neighbors or anything, but it’s there. Along with a HUGE boatload of denial. When I was in high school, I told my parents that something was very wrong with me. They insisted that I was just “being dramatic” as teen-aged girls are wont to be. They were wrong.

I wound up struggling on my own with near-crippling clinical depression through the rest of high school, the entirety of college, and into my adulthood. The longer I went without the proper professional help, the worse my symptoms became. In my final year of school, my boyfriend was tying my shoes for me and delivering chapters of my thesis to my advisor on my behalf. I couldn’t have done it if you’d put a gun to my head – not even tying my own shoes. That was the year I finally got the help I so desperately needed, but anti-depressant drugs are tricky things, and again my boyfriend was there, peeling me off the ceiling when the doctors guessed wrong and reassuring me when I thought I would lose this battle for sanity.

I married him two months shy of my twenty-fourth birthday. My new husband had graduated college a whopping five days earlier. It was the late 1990s, and as many of our generation were discovering, the plentiful jobs we’d been promised were simply not there. I was working as a temp, though I was in a long-term assignment that soon afterward became a full time position. Neither of us knew what we wanted to be when we grew up, so when I discovered I was pregnant a year later, we found ourselves scrambling to define who we were as productive members of society. A mere twenty months after our wedding, Steve was born.

We were both thrilled and terrified. My husband had buried his own father just the day before the birth, and the entire family was emotionally wasted. I was shocked when it came time to leave the hospital, and the nurses just handed me this tiny, fragile human being and let us drive off with him. It was tempting to demand that they wait until a responsible adult showed up. Twenty-five hadn’t felt unbearably young until that moment.

As new parents do, we adjusted, learned, and second-guessed ourselves silly, and the years began to pass. Steve was in a nice daycare, my husband and I both had stable jobs, and my depression had receded to a whisper that was easy to ignore. And then the letter came.

It was from the director of Steve’s daycare. She advised us that Steve was no longer welcome to attend because his behavior made him “a danger to himself and others.” He was three years old.

Steve had had a meltdown, they told us. The children had been fighting over a popular toy, so the staff had removed it to a high shelf to resolve the matter. This had upset Steve more than anyone would have predicted, and he had lashed out, throwing his shoes and flailing around so much that he had knocked over a wooden bookcase. It had almost fallen on a child napping nearby.

We didn’t understand. Steve was sweet, kind, generous, articulate, and perceptive. The child they described was a monster. Our child – my baby – was a monster to them.

"Who, me?"

We found another daycare center. This one had more highly trained staff, and we kept them apprised while we began talking to child psychologists to try to understand Steve’s behavior. We thought it was our fault as parents, and that if a professional could just tell us how to fix it, Steve would be fine. But he wasn’t fine. He loved that daycare, but they weren’t equipped to handle him. One day, I was called to pick him up, and the director lowered the boom. Another rejection, except this time he was aware of it, and it hurt.

When I arrived at the center, I found him in the director’s office. He was in hysterics, crying over and over, “Help me, help me, Mommy. I can’t stop. I can’t stop.” My heart broke. It has been twelve years since that day, and I still cry when I think about it. My little boy was suffering, and I was failing him. I didn’t know what to do.

Neither did the specialists we consulted. We talked to everyone. We took him to the Cleveland Clinic for a battery of tests, including allergies, vision, hearing, and anything else they could think of. I paid his now full-time babysitter to drive with us to the All Kinds of Minds (now, Success in Mind) center in North Carolina to have him assessed by their team of specialists. We filled out more forms than I could have imagined, until my entire world was reduced to “strongly agree” and “somewhat disagree.” This went on for YEARS. It was not until he was in 3rd grade that he was diagnosed by a neurologist with ADHD, and the medications began.

The medicine helped, but not enough. Every year, the neurologist increased the dosage, looking to mask the symptoms and assuring me that I was being paranoid when I wondered if there wasn’t some other issue contributing to Steve’s abnormal behavior. When he was in 6th grade, the neurologist increased the dose again, and when I saw the pill, I wasn’t sure Steve was physically capable of swallowing something that size. I followed my instincts and didn't administer it.

We fired the neurologist. Steve’s new psychiatrist finally – after EIGHT YEARS of consultations and treatments – diagnosed him with high-functioning autism, which at the time was labeled Asperger’s. By continually increasing the dosage of his medication, the neurologist had actually put Steve at risk for heart disease. The psychiatrist also confirmed the ADHD diagnosis, and she added one more to the mix. Steve showed undeniable signs of anxiety disorder, and it was quite clear where that had come from.

6th grade was a nightmare. The public middle school assured us that they were equipped to work with Steve, but it soon became clear that this was a lie. His teachers continued to insist that he be responsible for tasks that he was not able to manage on his own. Rather than accommodating him or helping him, they began emailing me at work on an almost daily basis. They wouldn’t even speak to him directly to correct the behavior, instead choosing to report the infraction in real time to me at work. I just kept getting emails and phone calls and being summoned for meetings, in which they made it clear that these problems were a result of my failings as a parent. I should be making sure he did these things. Not them. Obviously, they could not be held accountable in the face of my flagrant inability to parent my child.

"You suck."

We now had a younger son – let’s call him Fred – who had started kindergarten that year. Because the Universe has a weird sense of humor, little Fred had also been kicked out of his daycare at age three and was diagnosed with ADHD. He would get over-stimulated and lash out, in one instance forcing the teachers to evacuate the classroom and restrain him to prevent any injuries to himself or his classmates. So I was now receiving emails and phone calls nearly every day from TWO schools. To say I was overwhelmed and desperate doesn’t even begin to cover it.

I worked in a law firm as a paralegal, and there was no way for me to continue working and parenting my boys. The longer I attempted to find a balance, the worse both areas of my life became. One day, I had a moment of real clarity, and I quit. I have been home for almost four years now. We eat a lot of ramen noodles.

One of the things we have always been aware of is Steve’s staggering intellect. This kid is flat-out brilliant. Any adult who sits down and speaks with him is completely blown away. There was no way I was going to let him fall through the cracks and waste all that beautiful potential and unique genius. I’ve kept talking to specialists, talking to him, and just being present. We found him a wonderful private school that boasted a one-of-a-kind integrated autism program, and he blossomed. After two years there, he was accepted to one of the most challenging private high schools in the area.

Today, Steve is a sophomore at that school. He is both thriving and struggling. We are beyond fortunate that this school understands that high-functioning autism isn’t just an excuse. The teachers and staff recognize the potential in him, and they bend and adjust to allow him to achieve. He is happy there.

However.

Steve began having crippling anxiety attacks that made doing his homework impossible, and occasionally interfered with his performance in the classroom. At first, we attempted to help him with a mild anti-anxiety medication, but when he began to exhibit signs of clinical depression, I was on the phone looking for a therapist without hesitation. I knew what this meant. I knew the cliff’s edge he was peering over, and I would not let him fall.

We have learned a lot from his therapy sessions. In order to make it a safe place for him to speak freely, I am not in the session with him, and his therapist does not share anything Steve tells him without Steve’s permission. One revelation was that Steve’s mind works entirely by association. This explains his flair for maths and languages. It was the source of his academic strength.

It was also his weakness. Steve’s memory associated homework with the trauma he experienced during that nightmare 6th grade year, and the only way to correct that would be to slowly replace the association with more positive memories. We’re still working on that. 

I am attempting to ignore the boiling rage at what that school did to my son. They took a child who already faced too many obstacles, and they broke him. Yep. Pure rage.

The psychologist spoke in awed terms about Steve’s intelligence and inventiveness. I suppose to the parent of a neuro-typical child it would be a source of pride. The level of brilliance the psychologist described to me would grind every PTA parent’s honor student bumper sticker to dust. And of course I am proud of everything that Steve has accomplished and the man he is becoming, but one fact remains. He is still dangerously depressed.

So this is my life. I work from home as an editor and author, and I advocate for my children. Fred needs speech therapy and is refusing to complete assigned class work. I’m emailing teachers and consulting with intervention specialists and trying to get him an orthodontist. Steve has to take anti-anxiety medication to even face making a list of his nightly homework, and I help keep the tasks small and manageable by parceling it out to him in tiny pieces, concealing the overwhelming whole. He was sent home yesterday at first period because his teacher saw he was too depressed to face the day. Other parents get calls from the school nurse. I get calls from the school counselor. I take a deep breath and call the psychologist and ask for an extra session. I call the psychiatrist to discuss adjusting his medication. I email the school to let them know how Steve’s treatment is changing and what new techniques we are trying.

This is the reality of autism. My son is on the high-functioning end of the spectrum. Unless you’re looking for it, it’s hard to notice the signs in his appearance or behavior. Like the depression that I know will never completely leave me, my child has an invisible burden, but he carries it with assurance and patience. He knows I understand, and he knows I’ve got his back. He also knows that not everyone will believe that his autism is real. He knows that some people will tell him to “just cheer up” and “stop freaking out.”

All I can do is keep the lines of communication open. I listen, support, and encourage. I am honest with him. Watching me accept and take pride in the weird, quirky person I am has taught him to do the same. He told me one day that he felt sorry for normal people who didn’t have a cool family like ours. I told him to be patient with them, because they didn’t see all the amazing things we could, and that made it hard for them to understand our world. I taught him that no one is better than anyone else, and that we’re all on a journey to find the best in ourselves. And then he told me the most terrifying thing of all:

The day I quit my job to stay home and help him and his brother was the day he stopped contemplating suicide as a solution to his problems, because now Mom was on his side.

I never knew, and that makes my heart go cold. My number one fear – the thing that can tear me apart with just a thought – is losing my children. To lose him to other people’s ignorance, vanity, and misplaced sense of discipline would kill the person I am and shatter the person I strive to be.

So that’s why I am writing all of this out and posting it for the world to see (or at least the ten people who read my blog). This is why autism awareness is critical. No one is asking you to understand it. No one is asking you to understand diabetes, depression, bipolar disorder, or any other of the scores of invisible hurdles that so many children and adults must overcome.

Just be aware that the reality of living with these challenges is more than you can imagine. Be aware that telling a parent who has struggled for years to keep their child whole that they’re doing it wrong is an insult and cruel. Be aware that, even though you can’t see physical symptoms, the pain is still very real, and the risk of fatality is realer still.

That’s all you need to do. If you can’t understand, at least be aware.

Thank you for reading.

Not Going According to Plan

This year, I was going to have an outline. I was going to arrange my plot ahead of time, actually finish the Scrivener tutorial so I could use it for once, and I was going to go into NaNoWriMo with a solid game plan.

As anyone who has read my blog can probably guess, that is not what actually happened.

I have heard of some people having already produced a NaNoWriMo word count of 20,000 or higher, and I’m trying not to spiral into a vortex of self-pity. There is a remote possibility that I might just been the teensiest bit competitive, but I can neither confirm nor deny it. Depends who’s asking.

I have so much on my plate right now that if I stop to really think about it, I wind up in the fetal position weeping to the accompaniment of terrible 1980s power ballads. I have 50,000 words to write, a charity piece to complete, and two manuscripts to edit… not to mention those paltry house/children/husband/personal hygiene issues that occasionally require my attention as well. Add in things like a hurricane, my teenager’s report card (don’t ask), a smashed kneecap, a new internet provider, and the virus from hell that is bouncing around my household, and things may feel just slightly completely out of control and hopeless.

Don’t worry for me, though. This is my third year participating in NaNoWriMo, so I’m a little calmer than I might otherwise be right now.  That’s not to say I’m actually calm – just less completely batshit insane.

What have I done today to combat stress? I gave myself permission to watch a couple episodes of Sherlock. I pfutzed with Instagram. I iced my knee while working on one of my editing jobs. And I opened the file for my NaNo novel, cast an appraising eye over it, and said, “Nope, not today.”

I want to enjoy writing this novel. Even with the pressure of the 30-day deadline – and often because of it – I have actually enjoyed writing the novels I created in prior years. When I sit down to write this year, if I’m not enjoying it, the deadline doesn’t matter. My feeling is that, with a ton of other things hanging over my head, I won’t be able to relax and have fun.

My advice to first-time WriMos is simple: relax. Yes, you want to use the pressure of the deadline to free yourself from your inner editor, but don’t put so much on yourself that you spend the entire month miserable and subsisting on Fritos and reheated diner coffee. You’re a writer, so writing should be fun for you. I still plan to hit 50,000 words by midnight on November 30^th. I also plan to be sleep-deprived, slap-happy, and perhaps a wee bit mental. But those are all things I enjoy (in moderation). NaNo is the one time of the year when you are really aware of the breadth and scope of the writing community around the world, and it gives you a wonderful sense of camaraderie and belonging that we isolated and often awkward novelists are not used to experiencing.

So relax. Have fun. Write down every lunatic idea that pops into your head. And if you cherish your sanity at all, don’t worry about other people’s word counts. The only person you’re competing with is yourself.

Here We Go Again...

Here we are, quivering once more on the cusp of November. I am preparing to take that deliberate leap into insanity known as NaNoWriMo. If you have never heard of this authorly phenomenon, please see my barely-coherent posts from this time last year for a slap-dash, but essentially accurate, explanation.

Before I fling myself into the abyss, I wanted to stop by and relay my thoughts on this auspicious occasion. Unfortunately, my thoughts seem to have distilled down to something along the lines of: “I must be out of my ever-loving mind.” Nonetheless, I will make a concerted effort to post regularly about my NaNo experience this year in between choruses of Nearer My God to Thee.

On a side note, everyone has discussed the fun-filled gobsmack that was Hurricane Sandy. No one was more surprised than me at the impact that an east-coast storm could have on Ohio. I really thought that, like so many other tourists, it would head straight for New York City and ignore the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. I was wrong. Not only was the Rock Hall damaged, but thousands of residents are still without power and Shorty will be staying home from school for the third day in a row. In fact, one nearby school is now being used as a shelter for people displaced by the storm. We were very lucky to have been in one of the first areas to which power was restored, and all our friends in the affected regions have had their heads cyber-counted.

Many people have suffered terrible losses, however. Please consider donating to the Red Cross by texting REDCROSS to 90999 to give $10 to American Red Cross Disaster Relief.

Now, to all my fellow WriMos, best of luck to each of you! May your wit be plentiful, May your word counts be high, and may your coffee never get cold!

The Novelist at 40

I’m turning forty this month, and I can’t say I’m particularly happy about it. I mean, I’m nowhere near mature enough to be middle-aged. I’m certainly not ready to start acting like a productive member of society. How can I be turning forty?

Oh, wait. That’s right. I’m a professional writer.

My profession is one of my absolute favorite things about my life, because it’s like belonging to an exclusive club: The Pedantically Insane Club for the Compulsively Verbose, if you will. This club’s membership stretches back to the dawn of time and includes such pillars of the community as Charlie Dickens, Willy Shakespeare, Dorothy Parker, Hunter S. Thompson, and Virginia Wolfe.

By pillars of the community, of course what I really mean is brilliant lunatics who made it socially acceptable to be an eccentric misanthrope with permanently ink-stained fingers, a complete lack of tact, and a dodgy sense of fashion.

If you think about the writers whose works have endured – particularly if you are a writer yourself – you will notice a pattern. Each of them is described by contemporaries with words such as “socially inept,” “caustic,” and “completely batshit crazy.” While we accept this as the natural order of the universe when studying long-dead masters of the written word, we still seem to be surprised when we encounter the same qualities in contemporary wordsmiths. Generation after generation of writers has been confronted with society’s clearly unrealistic hope that they will behave like normal, rational human beings. All this accomplishes is to guarantee that modern writers are just as misunderstood and ostracized as their long-dead counterparts.

Our world has manufactured a criterion for socially-acceptable insanity: brilliance. Once you have been labeled “genius,” you can be as rude and unhygienic as you please. Unfortunately, it is rare that such a distinction is awarded prior to the death of the weirdo in question.

However, it is possible for modern writers to take comfort in the history of censure that those who have gone before us have endured. As writers, we are traditionally expected, and in many respects are obligated, to behave in a socially inappropriate and often blatantly disrespectful manner. Crazy is simply just one part of the job description. Hence my self-proclaimed status as “professional oddity.” It’s not just an arbitrary title – it is a sacred trust.

So it’s okay that I’m turning forty, because I’m a writer. No matter how old I get, I’ll never be old. I shall wear my immaturity and irreverence like a badge of office until I draw my last breath. And if I’m very, very lucky, my writing will still speak for me after my own voice falls silent.

Until then, I’ve still got stories to write!