falling like forgiveness from the sky

Cold and rainy today. I rather like rain, but at this time of year, I prefer it to come in its crystallized form: more Christmasy. (There's no way to spell "Christmasy" that looks right, although this variant, along with "Christmassy," appears in acceptable format under "Christmas" on dictionary.com. "Christmasy" looks off, but "Christmassy" is just weird and "Christmas-y" stupid.)

My parents and I passed the weekend in southwestern PA with my mother's family -- always an interesting experience. I'm actually surprised that anyone on that side of the family believes me to be intelligent; I never talk when I'm there. Although I have received my own strong dose of their Scotch-Irish temperament (vocal, opinionated, strong-willed, story-loving, clan-loyal, wry-humored, quick-tempered), when faced with those traits in concentration, I tend to retire into poker-faced staring at whatever falls directly in my line of vision. Perhaps the lack of drool convinces them that I'm not actually retarded.

Adulthood has brought a measure of freedom, however: Now I can go grab a drink with my cousin Adam away from the people we still term the grown-ups; and this time an old friend of ours, Dustin, came along as well, having relocated to southwestern PA for the first time in well over a decade. Great times were had, much Yuengling consumed (Yuengling! On tap! Joy! Rapture!), old stories rehashed, new stories relayed.

It's funny watching my cousin in his young adulthood. He has acquired the knack inherent to the males of that side of the family, which is a sort of genius for a colloquial style of oral storytelling. When we were little I mostly wanted to kill him, though I don't know if anyone really knew this, since I sat quietly in a corner masking my glower; now I think he's generally hilarious, with occasional flashes of amazing insight into his character or his family.

He also called me a fucking idiot for not getting any of my poetry published yet, and since I don't think he's ever read anything I've written, I pretty much love him for it. Few things quite match the warmth of having a loyal family backing you up, however little they might actually know of what you do.

The weekend was kind of tiring; my grandfather's health is deteriorating and everyone is bearing the strain. I feel worst for my mother and grandmother.

But, we got through it, it was, overall, a good visit, and the parentals and I trekked home yesterday evening (we made a quick detour at the Grove City Outlets so I could spend a little of a gift card burning a hole in my pocket; I don't spend a great deal of time or money on clothing, and although I wasn't in a shopping mood -- I don't share the love of clothes-shopping pervasive among my sex; I'd rather buy groceries, kitchen gadgets, movies, music and books -- I still found a darling sweater and some bangly jewelry fabulously on sale, and remembered the joy of new and pretty clothes). After over 48 hours of being surrounded nonstop by people, I had reached my limit and felt more than a little frayed, so I spent the evening at home with Simon recharging my introvert batteries on solitude.

Happily, I made progress on the Clytemnestra project as part of that recharging process. As I've blogged here and there in the past, the sticking point on that one, as much as I'm playing with narrative form, has been the organization: The more free-wheeling in appearance, the tighter in organization a piece has to be. So last night I booted up my college laptop, which boasts one of the more recent versions of the non-linear, seventy-odd-page tale (I used this computer long after I graduated), and my other hand-me-down laptop, which doesn't short out as often as the Compaq, in order to work on an outline of her early life events in linear time.

I think it's going to be beautiful. As I mapped things out sequentially, more and more scenarios and realities kept occurring to me, things that made the characters what they are, things that led the characters to do what they did when they did. So satisfying to discover more details and greater depth in an already beloved story.

This is only the tip of the iceberg, of course (that has to be the most tired, overused, cliched, dried up and largely meaningless metaphors in the English language; I'm only keeping it so I can keep my derision of it in this post. Yesterday at the grandparents' house the History channel used it on a program about underground tunnels and secret passageways and I fumed about it for an hour); before I'm through I envision entire documents and hard copy printouts littering my hard drives and my living room, all carefully labeled and with several different methods of organization all at once. But the start is always fun.

So today I'm dressed in my new apparel and feeling like a million, I spent the morning housecleaning, I have a few different jobs to apply for in the continuing quest for work, and a good deal of thinking to do. All in all, a surprisingly promising Monday.