When I got home I got a call from this guy who responded to one of my personal ads a few weeks ago; his emails were well-written and interesting and intelligent, but I don�t know if we were both just tired and out of it, but the conversation was stilted and almost painfully dull, definitely no sparks there. I don�t want to write him off � we agreed to meet for coffee on Monday � but I am less enthusiastic than I was when we first started emailing. Does that make me horrifically shallow? I really love engaging people in conversation and when someone doesn�t seem to be enjoying himself, or is unengaged, I�m turned off to it. But I will still meet him, because again, I don�t want to judge him completely on the basis of a 20 minute conversation.

Goodness. I feel like this is good practice for NaNoWriMo - quantity over quality indeed! I have been thinking about NaNo a lot lately � Andi�s just running with her idea and I�m so jazzed to listen to her plot and character ideas and she�s really inspiring me � yet I�m a bit stressed over plot. I am feeling compelled to do one big whopping barely-fictionalized once-and-for-all account of the Louse Years, really just drain it out of me for good, as if telling it in one big 50,000 word opus will finally drain it out of me, excise the wound and cauterize it for good measure. (Just an aside � I am writing this in MS Word and the grammar check keeps telling me "Long sentence � no suggestions." Yargh! It had damn well better get used to that for NaNo!) As if somehow it will stop hurting, which is not entirely accurate � it really doesn�t hurt as much as it used to � but as if somehow I can finally put it away, finish it, close the door on it. And then I�m conflicted; I don�t know if I want that. I don�t want the pain anymore, but in a perhaps-not-so-healthy way, I think there�s a part of me that enjoys the status of being someone who has overcome this horrific treatment and period of my life. If I�m no longer Aimee the Survivor, what do I talk about anymore? What do I use for self-reference? Who am I? Will it make me boring and ordinary? Will I write this NaNo novel and then be done with having anything significant to say? I hate to admit it, but sometimes I feel as if the only good writing I ever do (or at least the best writing) is about the worst, darkest parts of my life. If I continue to heal and flourish, does that mean that this art of mine, as amateurish as it is, will fall aside, useless? Will I become one of those "and today, oh my god, I went to the mall!!" chicks (who all seem to live in my hometown)? I am of course being florid � what else is new? � but the dramatics mask some legitimate concerns. Which, perhaps, can be fodder for my NaNo novel.

And I can always put in some monkeys and ninjas if I get really stuck. A monkey-ninja dream sequence! (I almost wrote, a monkey-ninja-erotic-reverie-dream-sequence, but yuck.)

Shalini will appreciate this: when I was a student teacher my senior year of college, I had my 5th graders write historical fiction short stories based on the story of how the Taj Mahal came to be built � we watched a travel video (which I got from the Waltham library!) for inspiration. Well, I guess in some split second frame, there were some monkeys on the grounds of the Taj Mahal. And every single one of those stories mentioned monkeys. A good portion of them were specifically about those damn monkeys. Monkeys, monkeys, monkeys!! (Imagine a Neely O�Hara reading on that.)

See, there I go with the NaNo practice!! Monkeying around much?

I talked to my brother today; he was quite exhausted but sounded so very happy. Aimee came home so now their household is complete: Aimee, Marty, Chloe, Kari. Marty was also looking forward to the weekend of the wedding and getting to hang out with me and Neil. I think I sometimes take my family for granted, but Kari�s birth woke me up to it: a lot of people do not have happy families, and it is a cause of much grief and pain and loneliness for them, and just because I am often focused on what I lack, doesn�t mean that I should forget just what a treasure I have in this loving family of mine. Of course it�s often messed up and dysfunctional as all hell and frustrating and a big old pain in the ass, but I am so very loved, and that is such a gift. I think of friends and coworkers and acquaintances who are estranged from their siblings � hell, my father hates his brother and is none too fond of his sister � and it is so foreign to me, and let me remember not to take Marty and Neil for granted. (Because although Neil is my cousin by blood, he�s my brother as far as my heart is concerned.)

Funny, I used to look up to Marty and Neil in a peculiar way; as if they were cooler than I was, and I was lucky that they wanted to hang out with me. But you know, that�s changed. They�re lucky to have me wanting to be with them too! There is such a warmth and deep love between us, and so much laughter. They are my touchstone to where I come from. I can never quite explain it, or touch upon it exactly, but when we pile into Neil�s car and roll the windows up and drive around the back roads of Seymour and pass around a joint and talk and laugh and sing along to Dark Side of the Moon in unison (Marty had the DJ play that during dinner at his wedding, and the entire wedding party was singing along softly during �Time� and it brought tears to my eyes), I almost feel as if we are somehow communing with my parents, their cousins (so many cousins, all so close together!), their friends, the stories we all grew up hearing, their past. I may be imagining this on the part of Marty and Neil, but I feel as if we are nostalgic for a time we never lived in.

We may not have the most illustrious background, us once-removed from the Valley kids, but I feel as if it is part of us: Bungay Road and the old middle school that looks like a prison; Kerite and its �XXX days since our last industrial accident sign!� and the guy who sells wooden lawn ornaments with the poorly lettered sign that looks like it reads �Wino Chimes.� Our long-haired, hippie pothead parents and their stories. I remember my dad telling us how he would smoke weed and listen to Yes and watch cartoons with the sound down and marvel at the synchronization. I remember Neil�s dad Jim telling us about dropping multiple hits of acid at once and spending three days in a graveyard watching the trees dance.

And oh how I miss Jim!! He died three years ago of cancer � actually, if I remember correctly, a morphine overdose (I don�t know if it was accidental or not, though there was no reason to believe it wasn�t), which he�d been taking because of the cancer pain � and still today I will walk down the street and do a double take because I think I�ve seen him in a crowd and of course it isn�t him but it pains me so much that he is gone. (I remember one time when we were about 9 and 11, Jim was driving the three of us to his house in Ansonia and Marty and Neil had been teasing me about my weight (which, come to think of it, they almost never did), and he very sternly stood up for me and told them to cut it out, and I always � to this day � appreciated that.)

I remember stories about the pot leaf my dad and his friends painted on a window in the yearbook committee office; about how Jim and Bev (Neil�s mom; my mom�s sister � get this �as if I weren�t hard enough to follow already � Jim and my dad were best friends since they were six. Jim started dating Bev and they introduced my parents to each other, over 30 years ago) would hand out pieces of gum in class to their friends, except the gum was laced with acid. How Bev would drive around Seymour while playing guitar, and steering only with her knees. I remember my mom telling me how she met my dad for the first time at a school dance and he was sitting on the floor cross-legged, surrounded by candles that he�d made, and she knew she loved him that very moment.

Oh goodness. I am getting quite not-very-coherent. And I�m still not really getting at what I�m trying to get at. And I imagine that my family sounds like a bunch of burnt-out, wasted slackers (which, in some instances, they are!) But I guess my point is that no matter what they are, that�s a part of me. This history, these stories, those long mellow smoky car rides � it is all in my blood. It�s not much reflection of my life now � I only smoke weed when I�m with Marty or Neil (or Jill, who has the Valley history too) and I don�t think about it much at all when I�m not around it, I don�t crave it (though I smoked a lot toward the end of the Louse years; he had it often, and anything to dull the pain). I don�t live in the Valley and would never want to. And my parents and relatives and the town have all changed too. (Well, I don�t know so much about the town!) But there�s still something about it all that still feels like home; I may not want to live there, but every once in a while, visiting feels just right.

(And I suspect that Jill and Brian and Steve just might get an inkling of what I�m so clumsily talking about. You can leave the Valley but the Valley never leaves you?)

And I�ve really hit the wall for tonight. Let�s see if this makes any sort of sense tomorrow. Not that that�ll stop me from posting it tonight!