Oh, for the simpler days

This week is barely begun and I'm digging my way out of a huge pile of work. In addition to my regular job, which takes up a good 1/2 of my day and sleeping about 4-5 hours, the rest of the time I'm working feverishly to finish the edits on a novel to send to an interested (and may I say avid) publisher. In addition, I have an article to finish for a magazine, a review to write (not to mention the ten other books waiting to be read and reviewed), and my novel for NaNoWriMo to get back to work on. Then there's the three other articles for magazines I need to get done by the end of the week and four more stories I owe for print anthologies. Somewhere in that time I need to touch up my roots, do some laundry (it never seems to get done), and clean the apartment. I may have to cut back on sleep just to get it all in.

And Beanie wants me to watch House with Hugh Laurie, whom I adore, but my TV isn't back from the shop yet. Even if it was, I wouldn't have the time to watch anything since I need that time to work and I can't spare an hour of advertisement-riddled television on a show I haven't seen that is in its third season. Nope, I don't think it's going to happy this week--or for the foreseeable future.

When I talked to Beanie on the phone yesterday she told me Mom was on the other line and wanted to know if I wanted Uncle Bob's number in the hospital. (Here's your sign) I got the number and called my uncle--my favorite uncle--and we talked for a few minutes. He evidently fell down the stairs and was unconscious for a considerable amount of time. My aunt found him at the bottom of the stairs amid the shattered glass of a table top. Lovely. The EMS had to cut off his clothes. He had an intracranial bleed and the echocardiogram showed an aortic aneurysm they needed to fix once the bleeding had subsided. He's been getting dizzy for some time and this is his third fall with a head injury.

He was glad to hear from me. We hadn't seen or talked to each for about seven years, although Mom keeps Uncle Bob and my aunt supplied with my writing. Uncle Bob said I made his day. He made mine. He's the only one left in the family who has never called me by my name. He calls me Pearl (or Pearly Mae). My grandfather nicknamed me Pearl and he never called me anything else. Grandpa added Bailey to the Pearl and he and Uncle Bob would torment me as a child singing, "Pearl Bailey won't you please come home." I got so upset and would tell them over and over, "I am home," but they kept it going just to hear my protests. I grew out of that a long time ago, but it was good to hear my uncle call me Pearly Mae.

Grandpa had nicknames for everyone and he called me Pearl, he said, because when I was little my teeth were like tiny, perfect pearls. Gram said it was because I was his precious pearl. Either way, I got the good name. You should hear what he nicknamed all the others. Some of the names make no sense and the rest are downright--rude. Imagine calling a child Leaky or Blacky or Gassy or roadhog? Then, of course, there's Bessie the bull frog and that is my sister Carol. There's also Pickle and Hatchet Face. Simpler days.

Well, it's back to the word mill for me so I can finish the final edit on this novel and send it to the waiting publisher and then I have to go put in about four more hours with the doctors. Oh, for simpler days when all I had to think about was homework and boys.

That is all. Disperse.