writing doodle ... Dawn and dawn

I'd love to say I'm a morning person, but I don't like to start the day off with a lie.  A lie down, as my English grandmother used to say, sure, I'm just fine with that.  A good lie down builds endurance for the coming day and shortens necessary naps to reasonable length of a mere three to four hours.

The problem with actual lies, the noun not the verb, is that a lie could potentially be used against me in court.  I don't have much time for something that can be used for someone else's betterment.

Dawn is a time of day that should be seen on the way home from a party, not as the result of a full night's sleep.

Frankly I've never had much luck with dawn or Dawn, my ex-girlfriend.  Something about never spending time together even when we were in the same place and a lack of attention to detail.  She failed to understand that I, Zero whatever my last name is as of this writing is, am a big picture kind of a guy.  In my job, that has served me well.  She wasn't critiquing my life plans or my employment, it was a lack of attention to details in the bedroom. Evidently attention to details in sex means a lot more to her than to me.  I had no problem with a one to one ratio on orgasms.  Who knew, and more to the point, who cared that she wanted to see if she was multi-orgasmic?  After a long shift at work, there is only so much time, patience and effort I have left to play those kinds of games.

Now I have plenty of time to contemplate dawn and Dawn.  My shift changed, the girlfriend left, and all I have now is a dog with an identity crisis.  Before the recent blow up, Dawn wanted to see if she were ready for motherhood by buying a Dorkie, a dachshund Yorkie mix, and now we are supposed to be buds. Something about a lack of bonding with my mother.

writing doodle - introduction 2

I tugged the edge of the pillow from beneath our mutual heads hoping to dislodge the thing gently.  An early morning song of the Black and Decker symphony wasn't on my playlist for the morning and a pillow a day might keep the racket away.  When my mother taught me manners, it was things like: don't talk with your mouth full, stand up when a lady enters the room, use please and thank you, use a napkin opposed to a sleeve at meals, and put the toilet seat down.  Never did she ever mention anything about pillow sharing etiquette  so I figured I was safe.

The little voice in my head didn't approve of the apparent hangover as an excuse to be inattentive to my erstwhile guest.  One solid tug of the pillow and I could blot out the Miss Manners wannabe in my head.

Do the manners police cover things like pillow etiquette   What about mattress equity?  Is there a possibility that maybe, just maybe, it would be OK to flip a coin to see who had dibs on the extra blanket in winter?  With my luck, the MP, manners police, would be headed by my mother and there is no way I want to know how many of these kinds of squabbles she ever had to break up.

I tugged again and met resistance, drool, and one brown eye.

The only words that came to mind were, "What big eyes you have, Grandmother."  Wearing only a pair of socks and a little red, knit cap didn't really cast me in the role of Little Red Ridinghood, any more than my hairy chest casts me in the role of Big Bad Wolf.  Based on the glare, I was highly suspect my guest would appreciate being called Grandma.

Since the pillow was no longer much of an option, I unceremoniously yanked up the sheets and blankets in attempt to cover my head.  I was greeted by resistance and a a long and stark rip of the sheets.  With a deep breath in, I attempted to roll to my side and promptly greeted a pile of wet laundry on the floor.

I fumbled through my jeans for my cellphone to determine the time.  Nine-seventeen, Friday the thirteenth.

Perfect.

writing doodle - introduction

There were three things wrong with this morning.  First of all, someone had glued my tongue to the roof of my mouth. My eyes were so dry, there weren't enough eye drops in the world to rebalance them. And finally, the house next door to mine was under construction, and the fucking construction crew was already at work with a jackhammer.

Four things.  

Someone was sharing my pillow.  Snoring.  Loudly.

Unfortunately, I had no idea who it was or how she got here.

Shit.

Camp NaNo is coming

Seems that I need support when I write ... it also seems that I annoy my friends to death getting their ideas and opinions, multiple reads, requests for suggestions, etc.

Going cold turkey and going all on my own for me hasn't been that great either.  Sure there are a couple of local groups, but they are very into memoir.  Not much in my life would be worthy of a memoir, unless you count trips to the dog park when Peabody was alive and he hit on women, and then I'd never be able to sell it to anyone.

My point?

This year more than the other years I've done NaNoWriMo in November (the 50k in a month challenge), it was like a Nike commercial.  

I just did it.

It wasn't inspiring.

It wasn't necessarily grammatically correct.

It did get finished.

In April, it is Camp NaNo.  No word count.  Just a commitment to writing every day.

So, I am going to do it again.  

In April.

With an outline.

Name?  Jesse's Girl.

Genre? Romance-ish

Lead Characters?  Zero and the 'gorilla' his dreams, Jesse's girl, Sugar.

Base idea?  Zero's heart has been broken by the untimely death of his wife.  A promise not to be alone for too long.  Years pass and he never really heals until he comes across a dog who needs a home.  It is love at first sight for man and dog, unfortunately she belongs to his elderly landlord.

Theme Song?  Ricardo Arjona - Fuiste tú feat. Gaby Moreno (Video Oficial) 

So, I'm gonna take the bull ...

 Introduce myself, and hopefully find his horns ...

And be the last one standing at the end.

Ideas?

Suggestions?

writing doodle - Ralph

In kindergarten, I was told I needed a role model.  Actually everyone in Mrs. Snodgrass's class was told of the express need to choose a role model before we got old, like seven years old.  Grady O'Brien wanted to be a fireman like his uncle Pat.  Rhoda Van Ness wanted to be a pastry chef like her mom. Candy Peterson wanted to be a bride, so she could always be beautiful and everyone would have to be nice to her all of the time.

Everyone had a real person they wanted to resemble. Well, maybe Candy didn't, but everyone else did.

Except for me.

I wanted to be like Doctor Doolittle and talk to all of the animals.  He knew when they were happy or sad.  He could make them well and knew the desires of their hearts.  When I was told it was make believe, the whole class laughed at me.  How could someone so magical be pretend?

I cried for days.

I refused to go to school for two weeks.  My refusal did little to stop my mother from bundling me up and walking me to school.  She made note of my protest

During my darkest time, I talked to no one.  Except for my stuffed, pink bunny, Ralph.  Ralph had been with me through everything; wanting a baby brother and getting him.  Not wanting a sister and getting one of them.  Learning how to ride a two wheeled bike.  Learning my letters. He even waited at the edge of the pool when I took swimming lessons.

Ralph and I could do anything our hearts desired.  There was nothing we couldn't do together.  A letter went home my first day of school, Mrs. Snodgrass didn't think Ralph should go with me every day, thought he was better saved to play with at home.

Mom and I talked about it and after asking Ralph's permission, cut a small corner of his left ear and attached it to my pants' pocket with a safety pin.  No one but the three of us would ever know and Ralph still got to be a secret part of my adventures.

So after three months of school and four tortuous days of taunting by the other kids, my mom took Ralph and me to McDonald's to play on their slide.  We three came to a decision about Doctor Doolittle; I could still become my own version of him.  I probably wouldn't live my life on an island with exotic animals.  Probably I would never hear them speak.  But I could learn to love them, respect them, and heal them.

tbc.