Yesterday I finally finished my apocalyptic story, “Hot Times at the Dinosaur Bidet.” It’s New Year’s Eve 1999, and everyone—including Jeremy—breathlessly waits to see if Y2K will shut down the world. What they don’t know is there’s something much more dangerous than a glitch out there, and it’s not a question of if—but when.

I’d actually finished this story on January 10—five days ahead of the deadline—and had shaved it from 5,002 words down to 4,672. But when I read it to Nathan, he said that, at five pages in, he “wasn’t sure what game we’re playing, here.”

I was disappointed he was right. The story was buried under a lot of slowly-paced description of characters, the party they were at, inane conversations and way too much 1999 detail. I figured out I was writing the story as a journal entry about the New Year’s Day parties we used to go to at Walter’s. Charles and I lived for New Year’s Day. I looked forward to that venison fondue every year. And I think in 2000, the first day of the new millennium, that was the one where it was 75 degrees out. I sat outside on Walter’s steps, watching the snow melt, smoking a cigarette—there were ashtrays in the living room, but the weather was so nice I’d wanted an excuse to go out and enjoy it. I even bought one of Walter’s paintings that reminded me of that day. I’m proud of myself that I saw the problem with this story and spent the next five days totally reengineering it, and I’m very happy with it now, and I even brought it down further, to 4100 words. I subbed it yesterday. We’ll see what happens.

I got this really cool dino-killing lava bomb game. It’s one of those ones with the silver balls and the little holes and you have to roll the ball into a hole and “hit” a dino. I’ve won it three times. It was on the Kohl’s clearance rack and I couldn’t say no. I’ve had fun so far. And I love my new Dollar Store markers Nathan got me for Christmas—they don’t bleed through my coloring pages. I’m supposed to do fifteen to thirty minutes a day of a hobby to calm the nervous system, and I have a lot of stuff now. I haven’t started the cross-stitch or the mini Lego sets yet, but I love the Atari games, the word searches, and the sticker books. The coloring I have had on hold because I didn’t like the way the markers bled through the page. It really works. It’s the break I need, but some days I skip because I’m too busy. I have to make it a priority.

I am so excited to start volunteering at the aquarium! It was weird. It used to be when I visited there over the years, I could still see the 2001-2004 iteration, even when I went back in 2015 – 2019 (but I figured out I shouldn’t really have gone back then. I wasn’t ready). But this time, when I was there for my tour and initiation on Wednesday, we were standing in front of Pinniped Cove—it’s in an area where the doors between the ray pool and the outside used to be—and I saw it as someplace totally brand new. Clean slate. And that old June 20, 2001 magic—that was the first day I went for my two-day volunteer training—was back. The air full of promise.

Everything’s different now, of course. The place has come a long way in twenty-five years. It really IS all new. Maybe some facts about the animals haven’t changed—I mean, spider crabs are still pretty docile and still camouflage themselves with seaweed and cownosed rays are still a little bit like puppies and horseshoe crabs still have blue blood—but Norwalk is AZA accredited now. It’s up on a level with Mystic. We were the bastard child back in 2001. We weren’t respected. Now we are. And I’m honored I get to be part of that tradition. And no one I worked with is still there, except for Bruce and Deb W, who only works Sunday afternoons. Oh, and Sharon. I’m hoping to stay there for life now. This is what I want. Maybe there will be a full-time job there for me. I’m putting it out there. Nothing in my life has brought me as much joy as that place, and that’s the truth. I really would give up everything just to be there. I’m so happy I at least for now get a few hours a week.

Even as I’m super excited, I’ve been looking at my plate and just seeing how totally overwhelmed I am and wondering why I’m doing all of this work. I mean, what for? Other people just have a job and a family and one other thing. I don’t have a job at the moment—I plan to start looking for one in March—but I have 34 Orchard and my own writing. A book I’m working on editing. I’m on the New England Horror Writers Board. A house that’s a train wreck that needs cleaning out and cleaning up (I try to do a little each day). Judging a contest for the next couple of months. Also, the Dark Discussions movie review podcast every week. Plus running write-ins every Sunday night, the Parlor for 34O and the NEHW Happy Hour. That’s on top of feeding myself, normal hygiene, and house cleaning. I wake up every day and my to do list is fifty items long. Most people only get to that in one year. There’s something wrong with me. All I do is work. Relax? What’s that? Something has to give, I just don’t know what yet. I KNOW this isn’t healthy. It’s quite possibly a trauma response. In fact, I’m sure it is. And getting too overloaded has happened many times in my life. I MUST START SAYING NO. And do things less intensely. My friend Sherri from high school likes to say “Done is Better than Perfect.” I’ve been trying to adopt that, and it’s working, albeit slowly. But for now, I’m just going to do the best I can. I want to enjoy the aquarium. I don’t want to be stressed out with all this other crap that honestly? I really don’t have to do. My parents screwed me up. They put value on how much work you got done in a day. And this is the result. If I want to foil them, then I’ve gotta change that game.

I mean—there IS the fact that I can’t do the things I used to enjoy to unwind due to the MCAS. I can’t have a nice glass of wine or smoke a cigarette anymore (and I’m tired of hearing people say ‘oh, you should be grateful! #blessings! Look at those bad habits you kicked!’ NO. Take your toxically phony positivity elsewhere). Restaurant food could be a dangerous minefield causing a reaction, and it’s hard to go out with friends and watch them eat when I can’t. I can’t have chocolate or a nice dessert. I am still relegated to the few items of food I can tolerate. I mean I’m super happy I added steak and homemade cranberry sauce, and honestly, I WILL be working on some junk food in the hopes I can find SOMETHING. And I am really glad and grateful I am so much better off than many, many others who can’t even leave their homes, like that woman who eventually became allergic to her husband and died. Every night I really do thank God I’m not worse off. But maybe filling my life with work is taking the place of all the fun I know I can’t have. This could just be exacerbating something that was already there. I’ll have to look into all that.

THE NEPAL STORY IS ALL SETTLED! So excited. I really wanted the piece, only to find out that paying a writer in Nepal is pretty darn difficult to do. It has taken a week to figure it out, and at one point I was so frustrated I was just like, ‘that’s enough,’ and I drafted an email backing out—and I’m proud of myself I didn’t send it. That we just kept plugging away until we found a solution (he did, actually). I am overjoyed to bring “The Town in the Sky” to the world—the aftermath of the 2015 Nepal earthquake, so devastating, grounds the piece in reality, but it feels hyper-real. Like sure, it’s fiction, but I can tell this writer was there, and that a lot of what’s depicted is not fiction at all. Things we here in the west didn’t know about. For us it was a headline, but this just hammered home for me that when the disaster’s over, people are still left behind to deal with the consequences for years. The rest of the world moves on, but those affected don’t. But I think why I really love it is because there are details that could only have been known by someone who was there, and things that were kept out of the media. Like the government, telling folks through the radio, that “everything is fine! All is well!” while these people are digging bodies out from beneath piles of rubble. What an image. There’s ranting and raving about a whole lot of stuff, but that’s nothing compared to what others are facing. Like that bar fire in Switzerland, teenagers experiencing their hellish final moments as they’re burned to death beyond recognition. How about we pour our energy into tackling corrupt, lax, and infrequent inspections and making buildings safer? Coming up with severe formal punishments for club owners who cut corners and disobey laws and codes so that others are terrified enough to stop doing it? So few responsible for mass disasters were held accountable. I mean one of the guys who owned The Station only got 500 hours of community service for his part in ending a hundred lives. What a joke. I feel like if somebody reads this story and feels even a modicum of something, maybe somehow that will make a difference.

I did some more work in the 34O inbox this morning, and Charles and I rearranged a bunch of furniture so I can start finally getting my office back together. I’m going to spend an hour or two on the next short story I wanted to write, and although that call doesn’t close until March 1, I wanted to have this done by February 1. But, Chas and I have some errands to run, among them going to the post office (to mail out a 34O payment and a couple of thank you notes), so we’ll see what happens today. I know I said my new promise was to do writing for two hours a day, like others who achieve success do. I’ll work on that in my next shadow session—giving myself permission to just write. I did that before and worked great (for about a week), so I guess I need to do it again and reset.