In honor of my 10th day of being 40, I thought I'd go back ten years and give a peek of my life at 30.

(Full disclosure: the photo is taken shortly before my 31st birthday. I do not like any photos from earlier in the year. Deal with it.)

Worst thing about turning 30? I was living with my parents. That's just embarrassing. Granted, it was temporary, but by my birthday, it had been going on for weeks longer than we'd hoped. We had moved from Seattle the previous August and were building a new house; everyone who's built a house will understand how the weeks dragged by. To the point that, around about my 30th birthday in January, my mother was asking, "Now when is your house supposed to be finished?"

Not soon enough.

While living with my parents, our one and only daughter was born. After my shortest labor (four hours) and with no epidural (not the gameplan), my husband and I graduated from one-on-one parenting to zone defense (basic philosophy--there's more of them than of us, try not to let anyone die). I had thoughtfully pulled out everything I would need for a newborn before the move and made sure it didn't get packed away in the storage unit. Which was all well and good until we put the swing together and realized we had all the pieces except the motor.

We finally moved (into the home we're still living in) just after Valentine's Day 1999. We had no neighbors, something that would not change for an entire year. We had no yard, something that would not change until nearly the end of summer. We had no TV, something I had ambitious hopes of never changing (Hope: "Maybe we'll discover how wonderful it is with no television!" Reality: "Do you know how many times I've watched that Sesame Street videotape in the last 7 months? Get me a satellite dish now!")

Life was good :)

And here's my basic mantra about growing older: I can totally love getting older as long as my children do the same. I'll take 40 any day of the week over having 3 children age 5 and under.

Check back in 10 days for a look back at 20. (It will be worth it for the 80s hairstyle alone.)

FORTY DAYS OF FORTY

Good news--my birthday did not include a single doctor's visit.

Bad news--I'm still forty.

Good news--It's better than the alternative.

So what did I do on my birthday? I got up at 2:45 a.m.; drove an hour to Haiku, Maui; rode another hour up Haleakala; watched the sun rise over the crater; rode a bike 29 miles back to Haiku.

It seemed like a good idea right up until the part where I had to get up at 2:45 a.m.

Seriously? It was a lot of fun. Which might have something to do with the bike ride being almost completely downhill. Oh, and for anyone who might be considering this in the future? They're not kidding when they say it's cold on top of Haleakala. And I don't mean cold for Maui--I mean cold, period.

Now I'm in the midst of my Forty Days of Forty.

This concept was introduced to me by my friend, Laura (great name) whose husband took it upon himself to make sure each day for forty days before her birthday was something special. (As he told me, don't get too excited. Yes, one day he gave her a horse. But another day, he gave her a pancake. The classic "It's the thought that counts.")

I, selfish creature that I am, did not want to start my forty days before my birthday, as that would have necessitated sharing it with the month of Christmas and New Year's Eve. So I'm doing the forty days after.

I am currently on day 7. So far, so good. No more Maui, but I have my friends. It's a fair trade.

Yesterday's treat fell somewhere between a horse and a pancake. While talking to Katie on the phone in the morning, we decided to go to lunch. Why not? It's my forty days, after all.

And if I can spread that concept around, the world will be a little better place.

At least for forty days.

(Ask me how I feel about my age on Day Forty-One.)

RANDOM

1. What happens when Dad gives 15-year-old a cell phone for Christmas without asking Mom? Said 15-year-old takes video of Mom attempting Dancing With the Stars on Wii. And shows it to his friends. At which point Mom threatens to disable either son, dad, or phone.

2. The Law of Inverse Time and Writing: a fabulous, not-to-be-missed opportunity to share one's writing will arise at the end of a month in which absolutely no writing has been done except the family Christmas letter.

3. Taking down Christmas decorations is almost as satisfying as putting them up.

4. Diet success during the holidays means gaining no more than two pounds. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

5. Sub-zero temperatures and two feet of snow in the front yard are absolutely blissful to contemplate when one knows that 24 hours from now, one will be contemplating it while on a beach in Maui.

6. As long as my 40th birthday this week doesn't include outpatient chemotherapy or a two-hour long meeting with my son's radiation oncologist, I will be delighted to bid 39 farewell.

DECEMBER BOOKS

DEATH BE NOT PROUD/John Gunther/A
Written in 1948, a non-fiction account of the author's only son, Johnny, and his diagnosis with and death from a brain tumor. What I found most intriguing was immersing myself in a cancer parent's world sixty years ago and how different it was. Johnny was one of the first treated with a precursor of chemotherapy, developed from the chemical weapon mustard gas. Parents weren't allowed to spend the night in the hospital--this 17-year-old boy would call his dad last thing every night to say goodnight. Pathology reports took weeks without computers and faxes to send information. Doctors would not give any information to Johnny's mother, only his father. Darn good thing none of our doctors tried that! A small but beautiful book about a boy and his graceful last year of life. Recommended.

ALL SOULS/Michael Patrick McDonald/B-
Another non-fiction, about the author's family and his years growing up in Boston's South Side. It was well-written (I would give it an A for style and prose and scene-setting) but depressing. Four of the author's brothers died, in prison or shot by police or drug overdoses or suicide, and one sister fell (or jumped) off a building while high and suffered permanent brain damage. Unless you're interested in a sociological account of political incompetence, gang violence, and the destroying nature of drugs, I wouldn't recommend it.

IN THE WOODS/Tana French/A+
Another new crime writer to love! Hooray! French's first novel is set in Ireland where a police detective investigates the murder of a young girl on an archaelogical site. But it's complicated (naturally) by the fact that Detective Rob Ryan was once Adam Ryan, a 12-year-old boy who went into the woods with his two best friends and came out alone, catatonic and with someone else's blood in his shoes. The new murder site contains a link to that old disappearance and Ryan sets the stage for trouble when he remains on the case by lying about his past. He's never been able to remember what happened that afternoon when he was 12, but working this murder begins to unlock his memories. It's not an easy or light book, but I was drawn right in and impressed by French's character work. I especially liked Cassie Maddox, Ryan's police partner, who is the main character in French's second novel (which I'm taking with me to Hawaii this week.)

AN INCOMPLETE REVENGE/Jacqueline Winspear/B+
Maisie Dobbs' latest case takes her to Kent and the hop-picking fields. It also reveals more about her past and the gypsy blood I didn't know she had. While clearing up a land deal involving vandalism and mysterious fires, Maisie realizes that the village is holding a secret from the war that continues to reverberate almost twenty years later. I liked this one much better than the other recent entries in the series; it was, of course, well-plotted and well-told.

UNABOMBER/Robert Graysmith/C
I was looking for an in-depth study of Ted Kacynzski and his life and psychology, but ended up with a minimum of human interest and a maximum of technical detail. I'm not really interested in the schematics of each bomb he made--not to mention I can't understand them. But there was just enough personal storyline to keep me going. I liked the accounts of his adolescence, his short teaching career, and especially his interactions with his family. But it wasn't the biography I was looking for.

NEW ENGLAND WHITE/Stephen Carter/A
Carter writes beautiful prose and twisty plots about upper-class African-Americans who keep coming up against the facts of their skin color in white society. But not really. What he really writes about is people--difficult, complex, ambitious, and interesting people who wind up in even more interesting situations. One snowy night, Lemaster and Julia Carlyle come upon a body in the snow. It turns out to be Julia's former lover, Kellen Zant, an economics professor at the university where Lemaster is president. Julia thinks it's only the emotional landmines she has to watch out for her, but sooon discovers that Zant left her clues to something dangerous he was working on before his death. Now the people who came after him are after her, sure that she will decipher what he's left behind, a secret that involves her husband and may change the course of the next presidential election. But all Julia wants it to be left alone--until she realizes her troubled daughter is at the heart of the secrets.

EXTRAS/Scott Westerfield/B+
The newest in the UGLIES series, EXTRAS benefits from a new point of view character. Aya Fuse lives in a city that functions on reputation, determined by how many people connect to your website (or the future equivalent of such). Trying to kick a story that will rocket her out of extra-hood and into the high life, Aya infiltrates a group of girls pulling amazing tricks. But the real story comes in a train tunnel and with the alien-looking creatures who lead them to what looks a lot like a missile silo. Set several years after Tally Youngblood and her friends changed the world, Aya is a refreshing voice and when Tally shows up, it's fun to see someone else's take on a character who told her own story for three books.

CHRISTMAS NUMBERS

8: books received by me from me

1: linen-silk coat received by me from me

12: inches of snow on Christmas Day

16: people fed at my house on Christmas Eve

4: chairs borrowed to seat people on Christmas Eve

7:30 a.m.: hour we allowed children out of their rooms on Christmas Day

2: children who had to be woken up at that hour (not the teenagers--it was the little ones who were sleepy)

4: presents my husband cheated and bought me after telling me to buy my own gifts

2: presents I cheated and bought my husband (3 if you count the DVDs that were for both of us)

16: Christmas Days as husband and wife

1: incredibly surprised and happy 15-year-old, the newest owner of a cell phone (not my idea)

2874: calories burned on December 24th--I usually work out between 45-60 minutes to burn between 2100-2200 calories a day--apparently, all I need to go each day is get up at 7:00 a.m. to shop and go to breakfast, then spend the rest of the day cooking, cleaning, and wrapping gifts--who knew?

12: days until my husband and I leave for Maui

Merry Christmas!

FICTIONAL CRUSHES

My friend, Amy, gave me a wonderful idea for a post--list my fictional crushes. (So my husband can blame her for what follows--I'm just doing what she suggested.)

Where do I begin . . .With Frank and Joe Hardy solving crimes? Gilbert Blyth holding fast to his love for Anne? Austen's Mr. Darcy or Bronte's Mr. Rochester or du Maurier's Maxim de Winter?

In ascending order, here are my Top Five Entirely Fictional Crushes, loved from words alone and the stories they live in.

5. This was the hardest spot to fill, but after long and careful thought I had to go with Faramir, Captain of Gondor (THE LORD OF THE RINGS/J.R.R. Tolkien)

In the film versions of Lord of the Rings, Aragorn is far and away my man, but before the films were the books and in the books, first read when I was 17, Faramir has my heart. What to make of a man who can resist the One Ring? Who fights for a father who torments him? Who falls in love with Eowyn . . . (I'll get to her in another post--Fictional Women I Wish I Could Be). So Faramir it is.

4. Francis Crawford of Lymond, once Master of Culter, later Comte de Sevigny (THE LYMOND CHRONICLES/Dorothy Dunnett)

I think I'd love him for his titles alone--there aren't a lot of great titles in today's world. The first time I read the six books in the Lymond Chronicles, it took me to the end of the third book to fall for Francis Crawford. He's the epitome of a riddle wrapped in an enigma, something the author perpetuates by only very rarely using his point of view. He's a Renaissance man in the Tudor era, who can fight and love and deceive in multiple languages and across continents. He's charming, clever, athletic, cruel, loyal, dangerous, and vulnerable. And he recognizes a good woman when he meets one--even though Philippa is only ten years old the first time she crosses his path.

3. Peter Wimsey (The Wimsey Novels/Dorothy L. Sayers)

Younger son of a Duke, army captain in WWI who "had a bad war", collector of rare books and solver of mysteries in 1920s and 30s England. He babbles about anything and everything, sings like a professional, and has beautiful hands. He also has the good taste to fall head over heels for a mystery novelist the first time he sees her, as she's standing trial for her life. It's Harriet Vane who makes Peter human and crushable--I re-read the Peter/Harriet stories more often than the Peter stand-alones, just to imagine what it would be like to have a rich, titled man in love with me.

2. John Tregarth (The Vicky Bliss Novels/Elizabeth Peters)

I fell in love with John the first time he ran away from a gun in THE STREET OF THE FIVE MOONS. Art thief and avowed coward, John is bound to break into bad jokes at the most inopportune moments. He also has a bad habit of leaving Vicky to pay the bills and, although she never knows when he'll show up, she does know that he'll bring trouble with him. But she can't resist his insane sense of humor and his esoteric knowledge of English poetry--until he shows up with a pretty little wife and in the company of dangerous men in NIGHT TRAIN TO MEMPHIS. I defy anyone (okay, any woman) to read that book and not fall for John.

1. Ramses Emerson (The Amelia Peabody Novels/Elizabeth Peters--what can I say? Clearly Elizabeth Peters and I have the same ideas of what makes an irresistible man)

Although I generally love seeing books made into films, just to see the beautiful settings brought to life, I hope I never see Ramses Emerson caught in flesh. That way, I can continue to worship him through the pages of books alone. Ramses is the son of Egyptologist parents in the early 20th century and is himself a brilliant scholar and linguist. But it's his actions that make him crushable--from disguising himself as an Egyptian nationalist to working undercover as a spy during WWI to scaling the sheer wall of a cliff-side dwelling to get to the woman he loves . . . Sigh. And when that love, Nefret, marries another man in a fit of pique, the crush is absolute. Ramses Rules. End of story.

So what can you learn about my psyche from this list?

First, that I'm an Anglophile. Barring Faramir, each of this men is British (and I think a point can be made for Faramir--at least his author is British.) True, Francis Crawford is loyal Scots through and through, but British is British, whether he wants to admit that or not.

Second, that I'm a sucker for other times and other worlds. Except for John Tregarth, none of these books or men are contemporary. What can I say? I like swords and battles and chivalry.

Third, that each of these men has something in common besides the British accent: principles. As a character says of Peter Wimsey in GAUDY NIGHT: "That is a man able to subdue himself to his own ends. I feel sorry for anyone who comes up against his principles, whatever they may be."

The principles of an art thief may not seem to have anything in common with those of a Tudor soldier or an Egyptologist. But each of these men, in their own stories and their own circumstances and their own ways, comes up against a choice to break those principles. And they don't.

Peter Wimsey lays out the facts of an Oxford poison pen even when he believes it will destroy any chance he has with Harriet. John walks away from Vicky, allowing her and even pushing her to think the worst of him, in order to save her life. Francis Crawford sacrifices every single personal love to protect his country and his family's honor. Faramir sends Frodo away with the One Ring even though he knows his father will never forgive him for not taking it.

And Ramses? He will do anything to ensure Nefret's happiness, even when it appears to take her away from him. And he will endure any pain, mental or physical, to save others. And he will drive himself to the point of illness in order to do his duty to his family and country.

And the women they love? Eowyn, Philippa, Harriet, Vicky, and Nefret are independent and stubborn. They go their own way and they make their own choices, some of them stupid.

And the men wouldn't have it any other way.

In GAUDY NIGHT (it's the one I've most recently re-read), Harriet says that she almost wishes Peter would interfere instead of leaving her to make up her own mind about their relationship. And someone tells her: "He will never do that. That's his weakness. He'll never make up your mind for you. You'll have to make your own decisions. You needn't be afraid of losing your independence; he will always force it back on you."

Here's where I make up to my husband for this post: he doesn't have a sword, or a long list of hereditary titles, or a desert cliff to climb.

But he has principles. He has never broken them.

And he has always, since we were 17 years old, forced my independence back on me.

That's not a crush.

That's love.

WHOSE CHILD ARE YOU?

My daughter likes to read. A lot. Every night around here it's "Hey! Turn off your light and go to bed!"

But last night was a new one.

While I blow-dried her hair, she kept reading. Had to use both hands to keep the pages from being blown over, but she didn't falter.

Could she be any more my child?

NOTE:

I finally finished my November Books post. Scroll down a few posts if you're interested.

Ahhhhhh.

I love Christmas.

I love the music and the lights and the gift-giving and the food.

And I love decorating my house.

My Five Favorite Christmas Decorations:

1. Christmas Trees. Plural.

One in the front room, with white lights and lots of silver ornaments but with splashes of cool colors (blues, greens, pinks.) Icily elegant.

One in the family room, with colored lights and sentimental ornaments--from the collections of kids' ornaments brought home from school over the years to olive wood ornaments my husband brought back from Jerusalem to my personal favorites, the stuffed felt ornaments my grandmother made that hung on my childhood Christmas trees. Brightly nostalgic.

2. Nativity.

I have several, including a cornstalk one I bought in Kenya last year, but my favorite will always be the white matte porcelain Nativity that my parents gave us the Christmas that we got enaged. It has been through multiple moves and not a piece has broken, including the oh-so-delicate shepherd's staff. I especially love that Joseph has his arm around Mary while they look down together at Jesus in her arms.

3. Stockings.

I made them. Enough said.

Okay, not quite enough said. I only made the stockings for the children. Cross-stitched: 3 different Santa versions for the boys and 1 Angel for the girl. Each child added to the family was progressively older before they got their handmade stocking. By the time I'd finished the third stocking (she was 6 at the time) I just couldn't face starting one more for the youngest. So I took the one I'd made for my husband, carefully unpicked his name off the top, and put the baby's name on it. Voila! I'm an amazing mom :)

Oh, and Chris and I have plain velvet stockings from Target. I'm over the whole handmade thing.

4. My gilded pinecone. You'd have to be me to understand--or have a good knowledge of the most recent STEPFORD WIVES film.

5. Pictures with Santa.

We didn't quite begin this tradition early enough--the first picture we have is when our oldest was 2--but we've been going steady ever since. We're starting to run out of room to display them. But nothing makes me happier than seeing the progression of our children through the years. We're off this Saturday morning for the annual picture and breakfast. Maybe I'll post it when we have it. For now, enjoy the photo at the top, the first one which has all four of our children, taken in 2001.

Merry Christmas!

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY

On December 3 . . .

1986: Chris and I had our first date.

1991: Chris and I got engaged.

2007: Our 11-year-old son stays home from school with a headache. Last night he told me, "If I wake up tomorrow with a headache, promise you'll take me straight to the emergency room." (He went to school just fine today, thank goodness.)

The things we don't anticipate when we're 17 or 22.

I'm glad we were together for the unanticipated, my love. Happy Anniversary.

NOVEMBER BOOKS

GAUDY NIGHT/Dorothy L. Sayers/A+
Possibly my favorite mystery ever, I re-read this every few years. This time it was for book club. Sayers was a Golden Age mystery writer, sharing the British stage with Josephine Tey and Agatha Christie. Lord Peter Wimsey is something of a crush of mine and I've wanted to be Harriet Vane since I first read this. In this outing of the series, set in the late 1930s, Harriet returns to her Oxford college and winds up investigating a Poison Pen who is vandalizing the college. Peter drops in and out of the story while he and Harriet work out their personal life, but the book is redolent of Oxford and scholarship and the pull between professional ethics and personal concerns. Every time I read this book, I wish that I had gone to Oxford.

CITY OF FALLING ANGELS/John Berendt/B+
The story of Venice in the 1990s, the book opens with the burning of the Fenice Opera House. Berendt uses the investigation and rebuilding, with all their Venetian twists and turns, to frame his look at the city and its inhabitants. Definitely made me want to visit and possibly own a palazzo on the Grand Canal. Time for me to start reading books that lead to less expensive dreams.

ARE WOMEN HUMAN and THE MIND OF THE MAKER/Dorothy L. Sayers/A-
After re-reading GAUDY NIGHT, I was moved to look at some of Sayers non-fiction. She was well-known as a Christian writer, friends with Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, but she also had an obvious interest in the role of women in society. The first book here contains two short essays that scathingly and satirically deal with the concept of women as actual humans rather than a separate species from men. The second book was more difficult but also more rewarding--a Catholic artist's attempt to explain the concept of the Trinity using human creativity as a model. It was challenging but rewarding.

UGLIES and PRETTIES and SPECIALS/Scott Westerfield/B+
A trilogy of YA books set in in a utopian future where the Rusties (us) have died out after destroying much of nature and where society is now strictly kept within various city limits. But the driving force is the surgery that is done when a teenager is 16, one that takes them from Uglies to Pretties. Tally, just short of her 16th birthday, can't wait for the surgery and to join her friends in New Pretty Town. But then she meets Shay, and learns about The Smoke--a place where people have never had the surgery and live together in the wild. Tally has been sent by Special Circumstances to locate The Smoke and betray them, but then she meets a boy . . . An excellent concept but also a fairly compelling story. I definitely read them quickly to see what would happen. Although it's billed as a trilogy, the author just released a new one this year, EXTRAS. I'll get back to you.

THE MIRACLE AT ST. ANNA/James McBride/B
Made into a film by Spike Lee this summer, I found this an intriguing book. A little too, hmmm, spare? underwritten? for me. It's a story of a group of Buffalo Soldiers (the Negro regiments) caught behind enemy lines in Italy. They wind up protecting an Italian child who witnessed a massacare at the church of St. Anna and they take refuge with a village while they wait for help. For such a slim book, I did learn a lot--points of view include the child, the various soldiers, a villager who is hiding rabbits under his bedroom floor, and a legendary Italian partisan. It's not by any means a cheerful book, despite the title, but curiously satisfying nonetheless.

BROTHER, I'M DYING/Edwige Danticat/A
Danticat is a well-known Haitian-American writer. This is a memoir of sorts, about her two fathers--the one who brought his wife to the U.S., leaving Edwige and her brother behind in Haiti for years, and her Uncle Joseph, her father's brother, who raised her and her brother until her parents were able to bring them to New York. You see the differences between the brother who left and the brother who stayed, but both of whom loved their families and their homeland. The crux of the story is her Uncle Joseph's death while in the hands of U.S. Immigration in Miami. A brief and easy-t0-read book that's full of emotional layers. Highly recommended even if you've never been to Haiti.

CHECKMATE/Dorothy Dunnet/A+
The last in the Lymond Chronicles, that I began re-reading last month. What can I say? I have a definite crush on Francis Crawford of Lymond and I want to be Philippa Somerville, his border-English wife. In this last novel, they have to resolve their very complicated marriage while Francis is leading the French army and Philippa is trying to chase down the truth of his birth. Seriously, if you are at all interested in historical fiction--pick up The Lymond Chronicles!

THE END

Except, of course, that it isn't. The end. There may be a writer in this world who writes impeccable first drafts--I just haven't met any of them. And if you are one, please don't tell me. I want to keep my will to live.

In the comments, Amy asked "What do you do now?"

Ah. I face the fact that the jumpy, disconnected, with-occasional-flashes-of-brilliance manuscript labeled Kieran 1 must now be turned into an actual story. With a beginning and an end (those aren't a problem) and a middle (problem).

But I actually don't mind that work so much. Rewriting and revising have never been as difficult for me as getting down the first draft. (Of course, I've never managed to revise to the point that a professional wants to read the entire manuscript--but I digress.)

I start with Chapter 1, taking out some of the historionics; then rework Chapter 2, making sure I have accurate information for Kieran to discover about the Langlies and that we get a good peek at her coping-with-stress mechanisms; then Chapter 3, where I change her locale for getting into the past . . .

I think that's as far as I'm willing to think today.

Rejoice with me. I slightly exceeded my goal of 1500 words a day, I wrote every single day in November, and I have a first draft that, at the very least, makes sense to me.

And most of all--I proved to myself that I can still write.

Priceless.

Today's word count: 2266

Total word count: 70,983

Tomorrow's plan: return to the real world

Today's word count: 1686

Total word count: 68,713

Tomorrow's plan: FINISH

Today's word count: 1551

Total word count: 67,025

Tomorrow's plan: Lucas and Jerrot

Woo-hoo! Two days and 2975 words to meet my goal--I'm going to make it! More importantly, I'm rocking my ending. Nothing feels better :)

Today's word count: 1572

Total word count: 65,466

Tomorrow's plan: confront Lucas, Gemma in trouble

Yesterday's word count: 1155

Total word count: 63,892

Today's plan: Thanksgiving--need I say more? All right, I do plan to get Colin and Kieran back into his time

Happy Thanksgiving!

I DON'T THINK NOW IS THE BEST TIME

Directions
1. Put your iTunes, Windows Media Player, etc. on shuffle.
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
3. You must write that song name down no matter how silly it makes you look.
4. Title this email what the answer to your last question is.
5. Good luck and have fun!

IF SOMEONE SAYS "IS THIS OKAY" YOU SAY?
To the Rescue—Nighmare Before Christmas (I don't know who's doing the rescuing--it isn't me!)

HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF?
A Gaelic Blessing—Mormon Tabernacle Choir (Can I switch that to Celtic blessing? The Scots and Welsh blood protests)

WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?
Encore of One Day More—Les Miserables (Oh, yeah--always one day more)

HOW DO YOU FEEL TODAY?
Loved Ones and Leaving—Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (I only wish they would leave--why do schools think we want our children around on holidays?)

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE'S PURPOSE?
Something to Sing About—Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Ah, yes, join with me: "Life's a show and we all play a part, And when the music starts, We open up our hearts")

WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?
The Shadow of the Past—Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (Almost 40 years' worth of past)

WHAT DO YOU OFTEN THINK ABOUT?
Something Dark is Coming—Battlestar Galactica (turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, rolls, pie, pie, pie . . . and here come the calories)

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
Fall for You—Secondhand Serenade (if only he were coming with me to see them in concert tonight)

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?
Many Meetings—Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (meetings are great--goodbyes not so much)

WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
Stay Close, Don’t Go—Secondhand Serenade (except when I'm reading)

WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING?
Blonde Over Blue—Billy Joel (good thing my wedding is in the past, because this song would never fly with the brown over hazel woman that I am)

WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?
Rest in Peace—Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Perfect--Katie, see to it. I want the undead vampire Spike to sing at my funeral)

WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST FEAR?
Remorse—The Mission soundtrack (can't top that single word)

WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET?
Whatsername—Green Day (not even going to touch this one)

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS?
Stone the Crows—Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (I suppose it could have been worse)

WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO NAME THIS POST?

I Don’t Think Now is the Best Time—Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End (now is always the best time to put off writing my 1500 words)

Today's word count: 1559

Total word count: 62,735

Tomorrow's plan: Kieran and Colin work out their return to Sorrows Court

THE WORST DREAM

Am I the only person in the world who suffers from teeth dreams? Apparently not, since I found it pretty easily on dream interpretation sites. I've just never met anyone else who told me they had dreams about their teeth literally falling to pieces in their mouths. Leaving wiggly pieces in sockets. Yes, these are very vivid dreams. I'm always glad when I wake up and run my tongue over my teeth to find them all (root canals and crowns and all) firmly attached to my gums.

In the dream interpretation sites, I found that teeth-falling-out dreams have to do with anxiety. It could be as specific as anxiety about one's personal appearance (Duh! having your teeth falling out while you talk to someone would definitely be a bad way to impress them with your elegance!) Or it might just be generalized anxiety.

When I woke up at 4:30, counting my teeth with my tongue, I realized that teeth dreams will always have a subtext for me now. Considering that December 18th is the one-year mark of the day my then 11-year-old had 3 teeth pulled and the dentist told me, "There's something unusual going on. I sent a tissue sample to the lab for identification."

So I'd say my teeth dreams might now be evolving into anxiety-about-scans-and-possible-relapse-and-also-my-mind's-way-of-dealing-with-past-trauma.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to brush and floss. Twice.