Merry Christmas Baby...

Well. At least one post a month? I think that's a target I can hit, or at least use to motivate me to write tonight. I'm watching S.O. play Halo 2, and every now and then, things flash across the screen like "You were sniped by stinky clamhole" and "You beat down Cash a Nash co." S.O. is playing on line with his dad, who has probably been consuming a good bit of Christmas Cheer.

I was sad earlier, because I hadn't talked with my mom. Today is her birthday. I was all set to ruminate about how lonely I feel, shed a few tears, and go to bed. But S.O. came home and reminded me that she is a doctor, and if she hadn't called me back, it could be that she's out delivering a Christmas baby--otherwise she probably would have tried to get in touch with me repeatedly. It made me feel less sad. Thank God for S.O., really.

So I made myself a really awful cup of coffee with my new coffee maker (not the coffee maker's fault). And I'm sitting here with three books. Anne Lamott's "Bird by Bird," Lincoln and Denzin's "The Landscape of Qualitative Research: Theories and Issues," and a Christmas gift from my mom--the 2007 edition of "The Best American Short Stories." A. is spending the night with grandma. She's going to use the wallet Santa brought her to go shopping at Dollar General tomorrow. If that's not Christmas joy, I don't know what is.

Over the past couple of months, I've been doing a lot of writing and thinking, though it hasn't led to that magical moment where I complete a full draft of this article I've got to get out by the end of the month. However, I have had an important recurring realization.

It may be possible that I am a writer that happens to be a social science researcher, and not the other way around. I'll refrain from any romanticizing of writing as a vocation and just say that I'm going to keep working my way through "The Artist's Way at Work," I'm going to keep plugging away at that article, and I'm going to keep writing.

In her introduction, Lamott writes "that sometimes when my writer friends are working, they feel better and more alive than they do at any other time." She says that she tries to:

"...warn people who hope to get published that publication is not all that it is cracked up to be. But writing is. Writing has so much to give, so much to teach, so many surprises. That thing you had to force yourself to do--the actual act of writing--turns out to be the best part. It's like discovering that while you thought you needed the tea ceremony for the caffeine, what you really needed was the tea ceremony. The act of writing turns out to be its own reward."

Let the church say Amen.

She says that a good place to begin is by writing down childhood memories "as truthfully as you can." I'll do that in a minute, I suppose. I know that doesn't sound convincing. Annywhooo....

Perhaps by sticking with writing (everyday, even if it's just the Artist's Way "morning pages" or something sort of like a journal entry--or a blog posting), I'll be able to do justice to some of the things that seem interesting to me. Like, the fact that when I was at the Casino last weekend celebrating my sister-in-law's college graduation, even after the roulette ball jumped out of the wheel and hit me in my chest, I still didn't get the message that perhaps that wasn't my lucky day. Or, last night--the experience of watching an infamous, local "Ashford and Simpson" type musical duo perform "Tonight is the Night You Make Me a Woman" at the BYOB hole in the wall club on Christmas Eve....

But mostly, hopefully, I think I'll just continue to have that feeling that Lamott describes so neatly.