A handful of total nonsense

It’s a Tuesday night and I’m watching Capitals hockey, my ever-present proof that October isn’t all bad. It’s not that good, but it’s not all bad. I was just reading my backlog of drafts. I have so many that I forgot about some of them. They’re like handbags. They’re like eggs or milk or strawberries--I get more than I need and then some end up going bad. Some of those old drafts are no longer relevant to anything in either my life or the world at large. OBE, as the Feds say--overcome by events.

Ten million (give or take) drafts in progress, but nothing to write about today. It’s OK. Even the most brilliant creative minds only have a few ideas at any one time, and I’m not a brilliant creative mind. I’m just a girl with a cluttered pile of Google Docs drafts, sitting in front of a keyboard, hoping that a post will finish writing itself.

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It must have been about two weeks ago when I wrote that.

Actually, it was just over two weeks. October 8, to be exact. Today is October 24. I realized, because I’m just that brilliant, that Google Docs must have some way to track versioning; and after I realized this, it was but the work of a moment to figure out how to do it. And so I did, and now I know exactly when I started writing this. My literary executors will need this information .

I’ve published three posts since October 8, including one from my draft backlog. Of course, I also started another draft, so I’m still overstocked with drafts. Maybe I’ll have a sale.

It turns out that there’s another good thing about October; that is, when your favorite baseball team is playing in the World Series. I love the World Series no matter who is playing as long as they’re not in New York or Boston. But I love it so much more when my team is playing. And it’s too early to say anything more about that.

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It’s Friday night now and we’re watching game 3. That’s not a prediction or anything, just a statement. It’s OK to mention that we’re watching a game; it’s just not OK to speculate on the outcome.

If I’m being honest, which I always am, I’m not 150 percent sober right now. I’ve only had a glass and a half of wine, but my tolerance is not what it was. I just registered my son for his first year of high school swimming, completing an online form that makes the FAFSA look like an Amazon order. I’ll recover my will to live, I”m sure, but it will take days. I should have taken screenshots. I’ll need to document the entire process so that I’ll be able to repeat it in the spring when I have to register him for baseball. I’ll have to remain clear-headed and sober. I’ll have to train. Maybe a few days of fasting and meditation first. Or maybe I’ll make my husband do it next time.

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Now it’s Saturday morning. I have some plans today but right now, I’m the only person in the house who’s awake, so I’m reading and writing and watching old movies. Yes, you can do all three at once.

I have always disliked Woody Allen movies rather intensely. Even before poor Dylan Farrow (who I am sure is telling the truth) told the world about her childhood sexual abuse, I found his movies annoying and self-indulgent. But “Match Point” might be the exception to my no Woody Allen ever rule.

Right after “Match Point” ended, “A Handful of Dust” came on. I didn’t watch it because I love the book, and because it was time to get off the couch and do something. I mean really. But “Match Point” seemed very much like what Evelyn Waugh (who wrote the novel A Handful of Dust) would see in 21st-century life, especially among the English upper classes, and especially in the relationships between men and women. I’m pretty sure that Woody Allen wouldn't expect anyone to compare him to Evelyn Waugh, but there it is.

Waugh was smart enough that he would have known that once abortion is available as a choice, then it’s not long before the choice is no longer in the hands of the pregnant woman but instead in the hands of the unwilling father of her baby. He would also have known that a man who demands that a woman abort his own child would have no problem killing her when she fails to cooperate.

The murderer in "Match Point" gets away with it and the viewer has no reason to think that he’ll ever pay for his crimes, but I still think that Waugh would have approved. He was smart enough to know that bad people get away with things all the time. He also knew that there are always consequences; if not in this life, then in the next.

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So that’s what happens when you let me get mixed up with movie reviews and theology. I’m competent at neither. I just know what I know.

It’s the last Tuesday in October now, and I’m still not making any World Series predictions (though it’s do or die tonight). I’ll say only that this weekend didn’t go quite as we expected. Much like this blog post, in fact. Maybe it did write itself.