Countdown officially starts, 32 days till we leave on vacation. Probably ought to start making lists of everything I want to get done or take care of before we go, and the things I want to take with us. Top of the list will be clearing out and setting the DVR.

I am dreaming about writing every night now. The dreams are weird and peppered with burrito and Walking Dead stuff, but mostly about writing. My dead mother has showed up in all of them, got a little bossy in one. In the dreams I have to find things, like a strange Easter egg hunt, because the objects are crucial to the next step of moving forward. There are lots of rooms with lots of things going on. Last night was mostly in a lounge-sized room in the basement of a huge hotel or something, everything was dark red- carpet, drapes, furniture- and a pool filled up most of the floor, and some kind of small whale filled up the pool. I couldn't believe parents were letting their toddlers swim in the pool without supervision, and then I started finding kids without parents and had to get them matched back up, and then of course we needed to find someone's bottle, but through ALL of this I was working on constructing phrases and proofreading and my unnumbered pages all got scattered. That was nothing compared to the nights before, filled with crazy elevators in very tall buildings and the laws of physics were changed. Last year around this time I was stressing out about flying on vacation for the first time in years and kept dreaming of washing machines breaking down and flooding and having to wring out piles and piles of clothes. My stress dreams are something else.

The most important thing I can do today is ask my submission rep how in the world 'everything in one file' works. I'm so used to working across scattered blogs with thousands of separate post links, pulling my stuff together to lump into 'one file' goes against my nature. I can understand the layout, I've done professional work, but this new online dropbox feels as spooky as the the slot in the wall at the correction center on Camazotz. I'm allowed to submit up to so many words as per my contract- does this include the extra stuff outside of the actual content? I have several more silly questions along that line, but I keep telling myself once this first time is over, the rest will be a breeze. I've got 15 working titles lined up, most of them sketched out a little, and once I go deep in my cave and DO this, I hope it flows as easily as my blogs do for me. I can't help thinking of the old woman in Mostly Harmless who drags her photocopier out of her cave and hooks up the solar panels.

In the meantime- lists and some solid gold dancing.

The pain level came back down, but now I'm super deep in my head, debating whether to go deeper. I think I can hold this off till the Walking Dead live tweet is done tonight. Until then, just this over and over while I do stuff.

If I were to see my doctor about this he'd call it sciatica, and if I could take pain pills, he'd prescribe giant motrins. Been down this road before. I may have to switch up my workout routine for heat, stretching, and different core for awhile. I was NOT having pain anything like this before that fall, and now just the thought of traveling for two weeks in about a month is giving me dreads. I had so much trouble getting through Walmart for a short 20 minutes today that the rest of my day kinda looks shot now. I'm trying not to be disgusted. Gotta keep moving, because settling in one spot is a little excruciating. This is the kind of pain that pisses me off and drives me to get way more done than I should be doing.

There are two things on this earth that give you that invigorating feeling of being alive just with their presence- the fresh smell of skunk, and pain spikes throbbing through a nerve with every move. Guess which one I wish I was invigorated with right now. I was looking for Punky Skunk and chanced upon Pandemic 2: Disease Mutation where you are encouraged to wipe out all life on earth- "Instructions: Use your disease points to increase your infection rate so that you can wipe out all human life on the planet. For the best game experience, select Realistic Mode." But here you go, click the pic for Skunk Blaster.

This is why I am the Jack Bauer of pain and depression. DISTRACTION. Speaking of Jack, 24: Live Another Day starts up on May 4th (May the fourth be with you...). I'll be on vacation, so I'll have to remember to set my DVR.

I go on about Jack Bauer in other places, you run into him sooner or later on other blogs going clear back to 2008, I think. This is one of my favorite motivational vids. We are who we create ourselves to be in our minds. The rest follows if we want it badly enough. And now on with my day.

Throwing on the brakes a little, boinged outa bed going six directions. Nice to see this kind of energy but it's about to be exponentially wasted if I don't commit to a single direction or two. Starting six things means nothing if I finish none of them. So regroup in the Pinky blog, let's tackle the crucialest question first- what's for supper? Went down to the big freezer in the basement and hauled up a 6 pound Boston butt roast to start thawing for the crock-pot tomorrow, maybe tonight will be tuna melts or tomato soup and grilled cheese. Scott's an easy guy to please. Click this if you wanna get lost in the most beautiful grilled cheese collage you ever saw. Might hafta make one for my breakfast.

Have you guys ever watched Weird Al's White and Nerdy behind the scenes vid? Donny Osmond cracks me up. If you plan a trip through Branson this summer you can check out the Osmonds show.

Here's the finished one. You guys know Key and Peele are in this one, right?

The Spock version.

The Connor Temple version.

Lego...

The Spongebob version has over 4 million views.

One more. I am sufficiently redirected now. Sometimes I have to use drastic measures to calm my little brain down. I don't have a herd of real life friends around me keeping me on track, so I've learned to be self sufficient in the motivational department. I think the key is to get these sprints into free association out as quickly as possible. I never did make that sandwich.