May - the month I just have to get through

Ever have one of those days when you have so much to do, so many things on your list and crowding your mind, that the message you keep hearing is, "Just gotta get through the day..."?

Well, that's my month. With two shows for the studio - a recital this weekend and then the company's first dance concert (ack!!) in two weeks - my to-do list overflows. Add to that the new classes I am teaching 4 mornings a week and I have dance combination overload! That's what happens when you have so many dance steps in your head that you get confused which ones you are doing. It's especially awkward when you're taking someone else's class! A big LOL there!!

Pretty much all my free brain time is spent designing dance classes: barre and center combinations that somehow coordinate, plus making some easier or harder depending on the level of the class. And oh yeah, trying to figure when to take classes for myself! I have to refresh my body somehow, too.

So where is writing during all of this? It's there but sporadically and incrementally. Usually I have a book outlined and can plow through 2K-2.5K per day, for an average of 10K per week. I love to rush out a wordy first draft and then shave it all away. But during this month, I feel like I am eking out a word at a time, not even a scene but just a description or two. And the book itself is a tough one, in a genre I love but have never spent much time writing.

Complex subject + minimal time = infinitesimal daily word count

In fact, I shouldn't even do word count. Maybe idea count. Because I still think about the story. I still plan it and imagine it and care about my characters. I just need time to sink myself into it. And honestly, that won't happen until May is over. I just have to live with that, even if I don't like it.

The lure of leftovers

If you don't know me, you will probably think I sound strange and if you do know me, well, you'll probably think I'm a lot stranger than you already do.

I hate having food in the house.

Weird, huh?

I also hate furniture.Okay, see, I have this fear of settling down, of staying in one place too long, of not being able to pack up and leave at a moment's notice. Buying furniture - and painting the walls and putting up pictures and decorations and generally making an apartment more comfortable and personal - means you're stuck. You can't put all of your important belongings in the car and drive off.

I know, I know. I've been in this same apartment, same town, for ten years (10, oh my god) and it doesn't look like I'm about to leave any minute.

But I could. I can. I can leave what's here and start new somewhere else. I can put my husband and my ballet slippers and my laptop in the back of the car and just go. Well, maybe Mo doesn't go all the way in the back.

Freedom.

What exactly does this have to do with food and my distaste for having it in the house? You're probably asking yourself. And then quickly following that with, "man, Leigh is seriously deranged."

How could I just leave - or go away for the weekend or shake up my world - if there is food here? It means I can't do what I want when I want or the way I want. Food in the house, like furniture, requires me to make plans and decide where I'll be for a while. Most of the time, I do like plans and I do enjoy a routine but I like the feeling that I don't have to if I choose not to. In other words, I want to choose to be routine, not feel forced to have one.

Is that so strange?