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Summer Nights

Another summer day slips by into evening as I enjoy what summer is about. I didn't get out of bed till 2:00 pm, but it was almost sunrise when I went to sleep. My body wants to stay awake for about a day and a half. That's the worst my summer bipolar mania's been so far. I am taking my meds regularly. It does help. No summer spending spree. No money for a summer spending spree--but that never stopped me before. I think there's a pill for that now, but it's not prescribed for me. Just taking antibiotic for a tooth/gum situation now. The dentist/periodontist cut my gums back, and they keep growing. I'm unique.

When the clouds override the sun, the temperature is a lot more bearable. Even so, with my crazy sleeping schedule, I was out watering the watermelon patch at 1:00 am. Very little wind to stir the trees, and only a few insects filled the night's quiet. So dark even with the porch light on. I think I spent 45 minutes watering the flower beds and listening to the night.

The container plants have only suffered a little leaf loss, and the watermelon plants have yellow blooms on them. I've brought two jalapenos in. For as hot and dry as it's been, the landscape is faring well. Walking back from the corner store this evening, I noticed how the bushes have overgrown their spring trim, and the crepe myrtle of all colors is still on the plants in full bloom. My crepe myrtle leaves a light pink dusting over by patio concrete area. It's like light snow when it falls.

I got a phone call today that's got me sparked for another chapter on "Butch" which was renamed "An East Dallas Vortex" then shortened just to "Vortex." I have the work on private view because the story is still happening, and I wouldn't want any participants to find what I've written.

In comparison, it seems like "Ghetto Gandhi," that my young friend and all his friends read while I wrote it, is going to be the work for me to edit, and clean up, and expand, and condense, and include more obvious mental symptoms, and give my writing tutor something to work with. And then he's going to make sure I send it to a publishing company--and I hope it's not a self-publishing company. At least I'll have an extra head, with a sympathetic and professional ear, to see me through the process.

I read in the back of one of the writer's magazines, in the classified section, that a published author would call you up, or e-mail you--how ever often as you wanted to pay him. It was like $30. per time, and more money for more frequent contact. Sounded like he had a system that worked for him. He knows what writers think their problem is.

A writer needs and extra spur, in addition to just wanting to write, in order to go through the entire process in this day and age. You can write for yourself without that extra something. It's the idea/concept of getting published that's slowed down my writing. Writing gets to be about a different thing. So, I'm adjusting.

I know I've always been one to start projects and depend on someone else to finish them. Everybody needs a little help from their friends. I'm looking forward to this tutor.

In the meantime, the junk mail piles up, the dogs track in dried up crepe myrtle flowers and shed hair on the hardwoods, dust collects in Mom's house, and the house on the market just sits there and grows brown grass. I need a break from monotony--but saying that always makes something happen, and then I regret it, so I'll just think it, and go write on that chapter.