"Let's face it, I'm tired!"
NaNo finished last night. I even managed to, um, wrap it up, more or less. It ends with Kate driving back into the driveway at the end of a twelve year day only the car doesn't smell like feet anymore and she stands in the driveway looking into the forest... and you'll just have to wait until I publish the book(bwahahahha) Book? What book? There's no book. I'll go back and look in a week.
My friend Russ over at R a d h o l e did what I would call an executive summary on himself. Russ is pretty cool and I love going to his site, he often makes my day. So Russ was asking who and where I was and I realized that while I'd been introduced to Russ through Amy's NaBloWriMo site in October he might not actually have a clue who I was so instead of answering in email I'll put it here:
Alecto's Executive Summary (hold the snarkiness until it's over)
I am a forty-three year old professional mother of three. That sounds ludicrous, doesn't it? That's because I have a very schizophrenic relationship with my self the creative programming junkie and myself the mother. Myself the creative programming junkie is very important to me. Myself the mother is a given. Sorry, ladies, but that's a fact. I've had to work harder to be taken seriously in the work environment than I have in motherhood. Sad, but true. And whether you share my values or not, understand that to me, the me that is outside of mother is just as important as the me who delivered those squishy bundles 21, 16 and 7 years ago. Yeah, I have a 21 year old son. How cool is that? I also have a 16 year old daughter and that's cool too right up until it's not. The 7 year old saves my sanity.
In writing the story of Kate during November I had to come nose to nose with some very painful pieces of my past. So here it is. I am a corporate fast track executive washout. I made it seven years in a technology corporation on the fast track to SVP of a major profit center and then who knows what else when I fell so hard from grace that I could not bear to go back in for another round. It's not that I did bad, it's that I lost my stomach for it. That embarrasses me more than I can tell you. If I was a man I would be shamed into oblivion for not picking up and going on. As a woman I have been given a buy and this is what shames me more than anything. I hang my head but know the truth.
So where was I? 43 year old mother of three, divorced twice, married three times, I might be the bravest person I know. Or most stupid, jury's still out. I receive no alimony and no child support from the father of my first two. The father of my third is a bit better and I got smarter. I am hard core mother, that's a fact. I am an application programmer and business analyst. I look at numbers and tell you, more from my gut than not, what a particular market is doing. For me it's in paper and printing at the moment but I'm pretty good at it. I work with databases and system architecture. I am the person you call when it all goes to hell. I don't have the answers but I'm the one who will work it out because I believe the buck stops in my lap, even when it doesn't. This is a not an attribute.
I care more about the food my children eat than the state of my databases. This causes daily angst as I try to wrap up in time to get home and feed them something organic and appropriate before they need to go to bed. The S on my chest is for Sucker and I'm finally OK with that.
I like to write, a lot. I recently wrote a 50,000 word book in 27 days. I am nuts.
I paint, mostly in watercolors but when I was younger in acrylics all over my bedroom walls. My mother was very good to me. I grew up with horses, sort of. From the time I was twelve years old I leased a pony or a horse so I could ride. I did the family laundry and a whole lot of other things to support this habit. It was never for free. I was very good, good enough to do things but I didn't care, so I hacked instead and was happier that way. I had a farm with horses during my first marriage. The horses have all gone back to my mother in Ohio, I'm OK with that.
I would like to have chickens in my backyard again. I might just do that. Even though it's going to piss off my neighbors so bad I won't be able to stand it.
I read a lot, almost anything except chick lit and romance, can't stomach the stuff. I like Mark Helprin and Stephen King. My favorite book is Mark Helprin's Winter's Tale. It's about magic, and cloudbanks the structural integrity of bridges and New York City before and after the turn of the century.
I live in a part of the country that is unbelievably privileged. I worked very fucking hard to get here. I am a high school drop out. I was raped on the floor of my living room at 17. The evidence of my case was hosed by the over zealous detectives, he is still out there. My parents emotionally abandoned me at 17 and then completely at 18. I cleaned houses to put myself through college. It was not so easy. I had a baby and a husband too, that part was OK. I am privileged but I have a really, really hard time acknowledging that. I am angry and that embarrasses me.
I love music. I don't listen to nearly enough since I split with husband number two, who has a real knack for picking up the esoteric and eclectic. Lately I listen to almost nothing but what's over on Madeline's site or what's on WFUV, which is basically public radio.
OK, that's not exactly an executive summary, is it? I'm babbling. But there you go, that's me, precariously balanced and doing my damn best to have it all.
(p.s. I'm also a happy person. Because I want to be and that is all.)
(p.p.s. I just wrote 1,100 words like it was nothing. Damn. Look what happened? Maybe I can do this after all)

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