Lockdown: Pants afire

Laundry Thursday morning was uneventful. I had twice as much as usual, thanks to my new black tees, but twice as much as not very much is still not very much.

I spent some of the laundry time thinking about groceries. There’s a Safeway in the same strip mall as the laundry, openint at five in the morning and the couple of times I’ve stopped there to pick something up, it was basically me and the stock people. That’s what I want, minus the stock people, who tend to block exactly the spot I want to get at, and take forever to make room for me.

But by the time I was ready to roll, I really had to get to a bathroom. I should have stopped at the office, then the Safeway two blocks from the office. Instead I trucked it for home.

So now it’s been two weeks plus three days since my last visit to the grocery store. I’m thinking about stretching it out to Monday night. I’ll have to grab some Diet Pepsi somewhere, probably Long’s again in the wee hours.

I got a couple more hours of sleep before reporting for work.

Work was busy. Had a couple of Zoom meetings, started a new project (for a huge ask), and was told I’ll be working directly with the CEO on this one. It’s fine. The project looks straightforward enough with no landmines I can think of.

I worked on edits for that cancer center story. Other stuff I can’t remember now.

I guess the Big Mac combo was my breakfast. I finished off the Portuguese bean soup for lunch and dinner. Kind of scarfed a bunch of chips while working on NaNo, so maybe that was dinner.

The NaNoWriMo group Skype was well attended, chatty, and fairly productive. I didn’t work efficiently, and stayed with it until nearly one in the morning, finally packing it in at 2647 words, or 11,077 cumulative words. That’s nearly 3000 words ahead of the pace, so I’m feeling good. I could slack for two days and only be a couple of words behind.

In NaNoWriMo lingo, there are outliners and pantsers. Outliners plan what they’re going to write, sometimes for a whole year in advance of November. Panters fly by the seats of their pants as they write their novels. You can probably guess which one I am.

I’m writing a cozy mystery set in a high school. I don’t think you’re supposed to pants a mystery novel, but I’m trying. Thursday night I was seven chapters in and still hadn’t decided who killed the custodian or why, so I had my main character play a little game where she would just name people she worked with, then make up a crazy reason each person would murder the custodian. She turned into a little song, each coworker a new lyric.

It was fun, and it led me to figuring out who the killer is. I’m still tossing a coin on the motive, but I think something I wrote a couple of days ago is an accidentally well-placed clue. So my motive may have already written itself.

I have to say some of the funnest bits of writing are explaining teacher culture to people who might not be familiar. I’ve got a lot of that to mine over the next three weeks. I’ll enjoy it if nobody else does. If you’ve never snuck out of an assembly, asking the teacher whose homeroom sits in front of yours to keep an eye on your students, you’ve certainly thought about it. Hey, dental appointments are difficult to grab sometimes, or someone was making 10,000 photocopies before school and you’re giving a test tomorrow.

Yes, of course I’ve done it. But my students didn’t need my supervision — they were always super well-behaved.

Crush Girl and I texted about some shows she’s been watching. I made a few recommendation because of course whatever anyone else is watching is not as good as what I’m watching. I need to get over this need to tell people what’s good. Jenny texted me to get some help editing something related to her work. I’m always down for that, especially for Jenny.

One of my friends has been in self-isolation because she was feeling suddenly terrible and had herself tested. She messaged me to say she tested negative, like six days after her test. What a ridiculous turnaround. But I’m glad she’s feeling better and doesn’t have it.

It’s been a crazy November so far and it’s going to get crazier. Especially if you’re doing NaNoWriMo. But even if you’re not and would like someone to connect with in the craziness, leave a comment and I’ll send you some contact info. Don’t self-isolate needlessly.

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