Ruminations From a Cluttered Mind

In the interest of pulling myself out of a slump, I visited the fanfiction.net site for an old, forgotten favorite of mine, Hardcastle and McCormick. I used to tape those episodes in...let's see...probably about 1990-ish. No, 1991. Summer. It was after my Scarecrow and Mrs. King phase.

Anyway, someone just posted a terrific filler for the season 3 episode called "If You Could See What I See," about a psychic who foresees Mark's apparent "death." Anyone familiar with my fan fiction may recognize the episode title and loosely, the premise, as suspiciously close to a Probe fic I wrote a few years ago. Shameless, I know. Ahem...it was a particular favorite episode of Hardcastle and McCormick. And it guest-starred Rosemary Clooney. Bonus.

This particular fan fiction was such an angst-y, satisfying read, and it was written by another RN like myself, making the medical references gleefully realistic. Oh yes, I recognize your hypovolemic shock! Medically-induced coma during post-op intubation, Dopamine drip titrated to preserve renal perfusion, broken bones being a tertiary concern, after stabilized vital signs, extubation, and infection control (well, it does no good to resolve hypovolemic shock only to succumb to septic shock).

So, a big kudos to Voyager Tip for this one: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10574615/1/From-the-Ravine-to-the-Cookies-Missing-Scenes-from-If-You-Could-See

One thing led to another, and I was ravaging the Hardcastle and McCormick stories, until I found more great reads. There are quite a few in this fandom, actually. Quite a few very talented authors. The whole thing inspired me to climb into the crawlspace and root out my old VCR tapes with the show on them. I was looking for the Rosemary Clooney ep, in particular. Did I find it? I found the right season and a number of episodes aggravatingly close to this one, but unfortunately, I have tape 45 and tape 47, but no tape 46. Dang it. Well, there's always Christmas to look forward to. I think Season 3 will end up at the top of my wish list.

In other news:

1. I am not now, nor am I soon to be...writing. It's just not happening. The well's dry.

2. Husband's Greek cooking has reaffirmed my faith in his inherent worth as a spouse and as a cook. The man is a genius in the kitchen, I swear.

3. Parker Stevenson day approaches, and anticipation increasingly turns to dread. I hate crowds. The event is too formal and controlled; I won't be able to be natural. I don't shine in these situations. I'd do much better at your average Comic Con, I think. What the hell was I thinking, anyway? Gaaah!

4. I really need something...perspective, I think...to pull out of this funk. Sleep probably would be a good start. I'd better wrap this up and go to bed.

Reasons I am taking a writing hiatus:

1. It's all Annabeth's fault. I'm watching The Hardy Boys right now.

2. Man, projects like this are a lot of work, and it's a lot of work to maintain the energy necessary to keep on track.

3. As usual, I do have other obligations to attend to.

4. My 2012 fic continues to reap in the hits, while my current project languishes. Drives me nuts, I tell you. Drives me absolutely nuts.

5. Where the hell am I going with this story line, anyway? I can't remember. At this point, I'll have to reread what I've written to figure out what I was doing. That's a lot of reading.

6. I don't like my own writing quite that well.

7. Must do something about this growing sleep debt. I'm starting to lose focus on more than just the writing.

8. I've already lost weight I never intended to lose with my preoccupation with writing. Maybe I should just put it aside and actually eat a meal once in a while.

9. Cabin fever. I am sick to death of being cooped up in the house, trying to finish out the year of homeschooling and keep laundry at bay. Must do something physically engaging.

10. Perhaps I just need a short break and a new perspective. With any luck, I'll change my mind by the weekend.

So, for day 2, I'm looking at recommending 3 fanworks of others' that are essentially underrated. This one required me to apply myself and actually create links, but I'm fairly game so here it goes...

1. Christmas Party by lasergirl is from the Adderly fandom. There are few Adderly stories out there, and this one is, in my opinion, the best. It really captures the quirkiness of Mona and the wit of Adderly, as well as their comfortable friendship that only toys with the very idea of ever going deeper. http://archiveofourown.org/works/77234

Ahh, nuts. I was looking all over for #2 and I can't relocate it. So now it's after 10:00 and I have to be up early, so I'm going to bed. Again, this would probably be easier if I had a greater base to draw from, but I'm relatively new to the whole fanart phenomenon, so this will have to be put off until I have more time to devote to the assignment.

I don't know whether I'll be able to finish this blasted story anymore. It's a cute irony. I finally brainstormed a solution to the convoluted plot I created. I nailed down who's good, who's bad, and who's playing both sides and to what degree. I couldn't come up with this a couple of months ago for anything. But now it doesn't seem to matter. I don't have the heart or the energy to revise what I've written so far to firmly reflect what I've decided about the characters, and I can't write the last few chapters at all. All my energy is wrapped up in the singularly engaging project of growing a new human being. I don't seem to have space in me to share that energy with anything else.

The children want me to be home. They want me to do homeschool with them, which is flattering albeit impossible. Oh, yeah, I recognize this mood. Let's see, I believe it was in April or May. Let me check...

Sometimes I look back at certain, critical junctures of my life and find myself growing thoughtful. Once upon a time, I passed through one door and swung shut another. What if I had reversed that scenario? What if my criteria for making life-altering decisions had been ordered differently? What if the most life-altering choices in life weren't settled in my glorious-but-oblivious youth?


Yep, that's the mood and it was indeed in May. The good news is I entered into a highly creative and productive phase a month later. The real question is, can I multitask this time around? At this moment, I'm ready to take my story and kick it to the curb. Of course, in the mood I'm in, I'm ready to offer it the company of hubby, too.

I do believe this calls for a moratorium on any curb-kicking, and I shall enjoy a dish of rainbow sherbet and an episode of well-being inducing television fluff.

Sometimes I look back at certain, critical junctures of my life and find myself growing thoughtful. Once upon a time, I passed through one door and swung shut another. What if I had reversed that scenario? What if my criteria for making life-altering decisions had been ordered differently? What if the most life-altering choices in life weren't settled in my glorious-but-oblivious youth? I think this phenomenon, this mental rewriting of the road not taken, occurs when you realize your current opportunties have substantially dwindled and the sky's not the limit anymore. I do believe the term for this is "midlife crisis." I absolutely fail to see how the purchase of a flashy sports car could possibly alleviate the situation. Instead, I choose to watch lots of old TV and eat salad. I could eat junk food, but there's no reason to let myself go or anything. Besides, the way I cream n'sugar my coffee, I get my fix for sweets daily by 10 a.m.

My husband was telling me a story he heard from a policeman who came by the gas station last night. Husband encourages reliable folks, like truckers, railroad workers, and police officers, to hang around at night so he's not alone with scary people who happen by. He does this by plying them with lots of free coffee. Anyway, the story is, this police officer had to try and pull over a drunk driver, a teen, who was behind the wheel of a stolen combine. How do you pull over a combine? It's really big, like a tank. You can't shoot out the tires. You can't lay down spike strips. Your squad's going to run out of gas before the combine does. I guess what happened is the police just tracked the kid until he finally pulled over to relieve himself. Kind of sounds like fodder for an episode of Cops.