NaNoWirMo is complete and I met the 50k goal, but that was about it. For years I’ve wondered why mid-November marks the end of my writing until January at the very least. This year it occurred to me that I stopped writing as the Christmas music started playing at work.
I don’t mind Christmas music, but the other music we listen to for the rest of the year is music that I would typically listen to while writing.
I did pick up the second world for a bit, but then caught a cold… and James relapsed.
He went eleven days without drinking. For him this is huge, but then he drank. Four days after that he drank again, three after that. Then for two days. Three days after that he managed to get money off my card without my noticing and there was a two day binge in which he decided he was going to leave me, called a friend in another province and convinced said friend to buy him a plane ticket, which he did not use.
I kind of got excited there.
The next day the cops visited us because he told said friend he was either going to be on the plane, or he’d kill himself. This friend has known him for years and should have seen through the bullshit that is James. He loves himself far too much to do more than make a dramatic scene.
Like cut himself and smear it all over the floor, then lay in the dried blood as if he were dying. The fuck, James?
The next day our landlord was going into our apartment to do a second round of pest control and there was blood all over. Then James started puking on the floor, ignoring the metal bowl I put in front of him, because why not?
He’s been very “woe-is-me” since then and I’ve simply not been putting up with any of that shit.
We’re spending Christmas by ourselves. Because of him. I however am not going to just sit about and hope it comes together. Every year on Christmas I end up crying, except the one year where I was drunk.
I got a tree, a stocking, some gifts for me. Dollar store crap for James. A couple of managers at work are keeping their eyes out for coal. I’m not joking. One of them met him, commented on his accent the next day and I had to explain to her that he was drunk, that’s not an accent and yes, I told him never to come to work while drunk.
She got pissed and jokingly, I hope, said she’ll buy him coal on her next trip to the states and he can have that for Christmas and nothing else.
He’s been sober five days now, still no job but he is applying for unemployment. Yes, I could continue paying for everything, but it puts a huge stress on me. No one at work can even understand how, on my income, I’m managing it. They might think I have a job on the side, or I’m selling drugs.
But I don’t own makeup, I don’t buy clothing, and they see it in my face every time something like “oh, managers HAVE to wear an ugly Christmas shirt, don’t have one? Buy one!” and I start loosing my mind. I don’t have any expenditures besides bills, food, and rent. I had planned on dipping into my writing fund to buy an Xbox One for myself for Christmas and ended up not.
Speaking of writing fund.
My book dropped into the editor on Monday and she said, and I quote, “This is the first of many questions, which spelling do you prefer to use?” and then nothing. I’ve heard nothing for days on end. Days and days. WHERE ARE MY QUESTIONS?
I don’t do well when I know someone is reading my writing. I really don’t do well when I know they’re making red marks on my writing. When I found out, because I scheduled it into my phone back when she and I made the agreement, I lost my mind and almost passed out on a bus.
In five more days it will be back to me. I’m still going to be panicking and it will be very difficult to get through, but I’ll do it, because I’m determined.
Fragmented Reality 