The title of this post is perhaps my favorite line from the movie A League of Their Own, and a bit of an inside joke between babycarrot sister and I. The story behind the lines (and the inside joke) goes a little something like this:
The movie is pretty great (for a movie about baseball, ha! and is also) about a younger sister trying to step out of her older sister’s shadow. (It’s also about 101 other Very Important Issues, but I’m simplifying lest I plot spoil or send you screaming for the door with the length of this post.) The elder sister (played by Geena Davis and her pre-scary-plastic-surgery-face) is the shining star of the family, and her parents’ favorite. At least that’s the familial scenario as told by her kid sister, Kit (played by Lori Petty).
At one point early in the movie Kit (hilariously) defends the favoritism premise by recounting how her parents typically introduce the two of them to strangers.
“This is out daughter, Dottie,” Kit says with a sweeping hand motion and a voice dripping with mock adoration and pride. “And this is our other daughter,” she continues with a wretched face before again crooning, “Dottie’s sister.”
Ever since first watching the movie I have loved quoting those lines to Theresa, in half-hearted assertion that she is my parents’ favorite, the proverbial golden child. It’s funny because it’s (half) true and (half) vexing (to my sister, and isn’t that the job of an older sister? To protect and nurture and annoy her younger sister?).
“Yay for random endearing sister stories, Kerri, but, um, what’s the point?”
Right!
The point is: I miss my sister. A lot. Her currently living in a country that happens to be separated from this one by a very large ocean is exciting! and challenging! and other great exclamatory adjectives! It’s also particularly difficult during holidays, when our family is gathering together to give thanks and break bread and tell ridiculous stories that only families can tell. Will and Theresa are some of the best storytellers I know, and they are also two of my favorite people on this planet, and so I miss them.
Despite The Hearty Missing, Thanksgiving really is one of my favorite holidays, and as such I have every intention of enjoying every second of my four-day weekend, baking the best sweet potato pie (thanks! to Ali for the pie recipe and to Erin for the crust recipe) and watching copious amounts of football. There is also a plan to dress Iggy in a ridiculous elf costume and take pictures of him in the (Eek! Ack! Zoinks!) snow.
Oh, how being easily amused while owning a pug is endlessly amusing.
On the emotional front I’m just….really tired. Work has been obnoxiously monopolizing my time as of late, and while being so busy keeps my mind and my hands perpetually occupied, it also leaves me little time to process feelings I know I need to, and I’ve been feeling less “strong” and more “teetery” (which is totally a word, I just decided) as of late.
Work has also been devouring my preset time for NanoNano (as I like to call it), and I will herein admit that attempting 50,000 words in 30 days given my current emotional landscape was probably a bit too ambitious. I’m in no way quitting, and in fact as of today I have managed to write 14,200 words of which I am proud, and actually sort of like.
More than anything this month is teaching me that I do have time to write daily; I just have to make it. Which how elementary a revelation can you have, right? But it’s true, and it’s taken me awhile to get here. Logging 1400/1500/1600 words a day is 100% doable for me, if I possess the desire and the discipline to get up early or stay up late, or forsake that stack of dishes for two hours.
Prioritizing has become the name of my game, and slowly but surely I’m discovering how to maximize the hours in the days I’ve been given.
I hope this weekend you can find the time to tell everyone you want to how much they mean to you, and to give thanks for everything you have, and/or supremely stuff your face with large amounts of tasty starches and sweets while contemplating sending yourself out into the fray on Friday morning to elbow a woman in the face for a half-priced sweater.*
I’m thankful for (so many things this year, including) each and every one of you, truly, and I would never elbow you in the face, no matter how cute and half-priced the sweater.
*Don’t worry; I heard that woman totally had it coming.
Stories I said I had. Tangential stories and life-changing ones.
Until today I haven’t known where, exactly, to begin. And so quiet this space has mostly been because some beginnings are tricky. Sometimes it’s quite impossible to denote where something ended and something else entirely began.
I’m not going to be able to tell you everything, but then the best stories never really do, do they?
(That’s not a trick question. I promise they don’t.)
(Unless the story was penned by Henry James, in → Read more...
This week I’ve been finding pieces of writing long lost and forgotten. Unearthing words belonging to me, and words penned by some of my favorite of all literary voices, collected and saved and scrawled excitedly on pages littered with foggy memories of past lives, obscured now in light of all that was and is and is to come.
Of the words not belonging to me, Lucille Clifton’s were the ones I found most often, recounted in notebook after notebook, or inked → Read more...
They say water changes stone, carving it over time to angles and dimensions in harmony with water’s need to reach the sea; but sometimes, stones change the watercourse instead.
-The lovely and eclectic Shari
I’m collecting my favorite corners, like the one with the stunning oak tree on display for an entire neighborhood to see, its limbs shading a bustling crosswalk shooting confidence into pedestrians like electric currents of white light, fresh graffiti on a nearby curb: an infinity symbol, black and simple.
I’m collecting stories about the apartment window filled with small elephant figurines along one of my favorite walking routes. So many trunks standing side-by-side and none of them alive.
I’m collecting the surprisingly → Read more...