Last night Zippy and I, the temporarily childless couple, went to the Denver Botanic Gardens to hear Loudon Wainwright III and Richard Thompson play.  The evening was perfect.  Dinner and a bottle of wine on the lawn as we listened to two extremely gifted songwriters pour out their hearts.  I laughed and I cried.  Loudon was coerced into performing The Acid Song (oh happy day!) and Richard sang Walking On a Wire (a song he wrote when he and his former wife/singing partner, Linda Thompson, were splitting up; Linda sang it on their album so I’ve never heard him sing it).  Wow.

Earlier in the week, R’s nurse and I were discussing the frustrations of trying to get R to drink some stuff he needed to drink before having a procedure he’d agreed to have done.  R was in rare form and had dug in his heels.  Big time.  He complained about what he couldn’t do and complained about what he wanted to do but refused to take any action that would alleviate his complaints.  It was infuriating.  The nurse told me she’d worked with him on a previous hospital stay and that R kind of cracked her up.  I told her she had a great attitude but that his contrariness was making me want to bang my head against a wall.  She said, “Don’t do that.  Then you’ll have a headache AND a pain in the ass.”  That really made me laugh (I was tired!) and I felt so much better.  Nurses are the best.

I’ve been disciplined about my writing goals this week and hit my word count five days in a row!  I’m realizing how important it is for me to establish a routine and stick to it.  And yes, I’ve had this realization before and then lost sight of it along the way so I’ll probably be back here in another few months saying, “You know?  It’s really helpful when I set a word count goal and then hold myself accountable to it each and every day!”  Feel free to laugh when that happens.

My other cool writing-related development is that I have a new technique for handling my inner critic.  Lately I’ve really been plagued with negative thinking whispered in my ear by that horrid inner creature.  I guess William Faulkner’s off drinking or having sex or something because he’s not doing a very good job watching my back right now.  But that’s okay because I now have an actual voice to put to that inner critic.  And that voice is………………R’s voice!  That’s right, folks.  Whatever nastiness starts echoing in my head (You know, Tracy, this isn’t very good.  No one’s going to want to read this.), I repeat aloud in R’s rasping whisper.  And then I laugh!  And keep writing!  I totally recommend this method for thwarting your critic.  Not everyone is as fortunate as me in having a near-constant negative person in my life who complains about everything in a very unique voice (his vocal chords were damaged years ago) but I’m sure you could use your father-in-law’s voice or that nosy neighbor’s or the twit at the bank the other day.  Try it, you’ll like it!

Wishing everyone a glorious weekend.