Everything’s exploded again. It’s exhausting to have this much shit be wrong with my life.

I’ve had to see the dean of students. She wanted to know why I couldn’t get divorced now, so I had to explain. She said she got it, because all I’d have for money is whatever they’d garnish from his SSI and yeah, try finding something to rent for that little. For four. Plus kitties. I couldn’t leave my kitties.

But she’s also called in my dean-of-department (but just the one department…maybe she doesn’t know I’m a dual major?) and I worry I’m going to end up in hot water. I’m trying hard to be good, and God knows I’m pushing myself like fuck, and I’m not bad. I’m just fucking exhausted. And stubborn. I didn’t come all this way to just come all this way. I. Will. Finish. University.

Or I’ll be finishing me. And that’s probably not a smart idea.

Anyway. Struggling all over. Both major works are in for ENG327, but now I have to produce two finished drafts from the workshopping. The teacher liked #1, but not 2. I can see it from the…ream…of comments. And I can see why. #2 the character hasn’t got a purpose. He was SUPPOSED to lose his mind and give the reader the realization that he had been unreliable for a large part of the time, but I failed. Well, I tried.

1 I have to create an actual ending, because dropping Meredith off a roof is not an ending. (Oh yeah it is, asshole, but fine.)

Most of the work is in for ENG300. The last pieces listed are a “found item presentation” and I can manage it maybe?

The big report is due for forensic mit. We’ve also got a presentation. I also have an interview tomorrow, because I require an expert opinion on the parents of our erstwhile young offender. (His mom has diagnosed developmental delays. His dad MIGHT. And this would have been the 40s - 70s, so not modern parenting or modern approaches to mental health or anything. Nope. This is the hardcore nasty shit like institutionalization, lack of knowledge about sexuality, CPS like whoa, six kids, just miserable shit. I feel so sad about these files.)

I need to figure out some kind of cleansing ritual thing for after I’ve handled a lot of that. I guess I didn’t know I was going to be sensitive to it, but I SHOULD have, since, well, developmental delays are every day here. This killer has notations in his records at 7-8 that match what Kitten used to do around the same age. Kitten got help. And support. And a steady home. And adored. Offender Child got like 25 foster homes/schools.

So I guess I could look at this as “I matter.” I am (hopefully) preventing a tragedy as deep as the one that is this Death Row inmate’s childhood? My baby knows who the fuck her mama is. She has no fear about cramming her Kittybutt into my bed in the morning. She knows where I am. She knows I’m coming if she wants me. Sometimes, she knows that a little too well: she’s back to playing hookey a bit (she tells her dad she’s sick, he buys it, and voila, Kitty gets a freeday!)

But she’s fine NOW. She’s been boisterous and playful all day.

So Thanksgiving is coming up. Crank out the Nano, I have to hit at least 3k a day to win now. So behind. So not caring, either, this novel (I dropped idea 1 and went back to Oldest Unfinished Manu, which is unfinished because it’s just…not working) this novel blows. I guess I’ll clean it up and Wattpad it. At least the mc is funny, and the celebrity-gossip angle is kind of fun, if overdone in romance. And it’s a love square: two couples in flux. For a while it is two separate love triangles, but it’s past that phase and moving into its final form. Imogen and Mason will end up together, Cerise will take Trent back, and Imogen and Trent will write an album about the experience (because he’s a songwriter, Cerise is a pop tart, Imogen is a helping-profession/attorney (it’s gone both ways) and Mason is a PI.) And then Trent will become a pop tart too, which is always funny. And Imogen will be okay, because I think what she’s up to now would get an actual attorney or therapist disbarred/unlicensed.

Mason will be fine.

Nano. Win that bitch. And also crank out the first rewrite for 329 (is it 329 or 327, who cares) and fix the ePortfolio for 300. And prewrite the sections for the forensic mit report. I can do an intro, the prebirth, and gently fill in the rest. Then I can strengthen that by early December. In the first week of Dec, I’ll churn out rewrite 2.

And you can’t forget the eternal Spanish grind. How many fucking tenses are there in Spanish and why are there so mannnnyyyy. I cannot remember them. They gel together and I can barely make a functional sentence now.

And I thought I could be a novelist.

Yeah, I’m a dipshit. But the end is in sight. Less than a month to the finish line for this horrorfest term.