I confess: I totally made up more than one science fair set of data. It's too late to do anything about it now, Mr. Lindstrom!*

Because I am currently in a measuring cycle of illness (wherein the doctors want me to record everysinglepiece of information about my illness numerous times during the day, and I hate it, and then I forget, or I am too sick, or I am too sore, or I just do not care at all, and I am tempted to just fill in all the blanks the way you would if you forgot to do your science fair homework and needed to some extra research done), I am going to hit you with a by-the-numbers post:

• 17 - The number of prescription medications I am currently taking
•  2.5  - The approximate number I think are actually doing something, maybe? Who can tell?
• 0 of those are new drugs and 
• 2 of them are for breathing, so that's good, anyways.

• 86 - My average resting heart rate for the past month
• 139 - My average standing (or post-standing) heart rate for the past month - That's just standing: God forbid I try and do anything over that because then
• 175 - My average "I attempted to also stand for longer than it took for the pulse ox to read my pulse" rate for the last month 

• 1 - Number of times I have left the house since the calendar read March
• 0 - Number of times I have left the house since the calendar read March that were not doctors' appointments  

• 3 - How many different strengths of antibiotics it took to kick this last sinus infection, probably because of
• 5 - The number of sinus infections I have had to treat since Christmas

• 17 - Books I've read in the past week
• 1 - Books I've written a review of for Cannonball Reads in the past week
• 0 - Reviews I've actually posted on Cannonball Reads in the past week
•  17,000 - Number of excuses I've given to myself for not writing/posting any of the others

• 14  - Number of people who have promised to come over/said "we should come over"/attempted to/said they would like to see me since the New Year
• 4 - Number of people who have actually come over (and one of them is an infant, and the other a husband, so neither of them had much say in the matter)

• 2 - Number of times I've watched the Veronica Mars movie already (Yay Kickstarter! Yay for getting first run movies delivered to your computer! Boo to computers freezing at P I V I T O L moments in the movie! (If you have seen it, think 'cars', fellow Marshmallows, and you will understand why I was so unhappy.) 
•  1.5 - Number of days it took me to watch all 3 seasons of VM on Amazon Prime in preperation for the movie 

• 6 - Number of draft posts I have written since I've published a post here, all incomplete
• 5 - Number of Tumblr posts I have published for the whatshouldwecallfibro.tumblr.com I am a co-admin of, in the same space of time (because giffing is easier than writing, people)
• (Currently most popular, by the way: For all of you chronically ill Whovians out there)

• 63 million (approx.) - Number of times I have wanted to throw the computer and it's stupid Excel spreadsheet of numbers out the window since I have been symptom tracking
• 3 - Different websites I signed up for because I thought they would help with the symptom tracking, only to bail because it was easier to Excel it myself 

• 2 - Separate weeks my dad has been on vacation already this year, and I have been stuck in the house with him
• 0 - Clues that he has that there is anything 'off' in our 'relationship' even though I have spent the better part of 
• 2 - Separate weeks ignoring him as much as possible (When I had the sinus infection it was 0% possible, because I could not even find the kitchen, let alone make food.) 
 

• 39 - Average number of hours a week my mom has been working at the retirement home for the past month
• 100% - How exhausted this is making her & how much it sucks to still be the one who can't work, even though I'm 
• 200% proud of her for kicking ass and doing so awesome (The old people love her, of course: They all request her and one woman told her she was an "angel on earth." But it's also seriously depressing, and even the stories she comes home with bring up all sorts of Grandmother-y related feels for me, so I know how tough it is on her.)

• 16 - Other things I've got on my to-do list for tonight
• 2 - Realistic count of how many of those things I might accomplish (eat/shower)
• 0 - Cares I give that my to-do list will be carrying over to tomorrow
• 100% - Realization that I should rename the to-do list the "Carried over from before" list, because it's more honest.

And finally:

• 6:00 - The time, and that means more numbers to mark, more foods to eat, more pills to take, more things to cross of the list. 

*And I usually NEVER cheated, but ... I'm not going to watch this stupid thing for three months: I'm going to put it together a few weeks ahead of time - IF you're lucky.  My brother and sisters were all "do it the night-before-ers", so I think me occasionally fudging the data on whether or not cats and dogs are right and left pawed is not, so much, the end of the world.

Today was

our local NaNo chapter's writing marathon (technically, it still is) - the Boston chapter travels all over Boston/Cambridge/Medford area and writes at all sorts of different places - they even camp out somewhere (this year a church basement, I think) and type the night away: I had hoped to hook up with them tonight at the Starbucks in Harvard Square, but it was not to be.

Which is not to say it was a completely wasted day - I did, in fact, NaNo my fingers off, completing just under 5000 actual words (you know, the ones that wind up in the story), 2 hours of research, and a pretty good outline of where the rest of the book is going.  Except for how it ends, of course.  I mean, I know that it does end, I'm just not 100% sure how I get from where I'm at to where it needs to be (and I highly doubt that I will be able to do that in the remaining 19,995 words, but that's another story). 

So yes: Yay!  Novel is mostly plotted - I've done some course correction, I think I have ways to fill in the plot holes, and I know where I want to end up, eventually. I just have to write the rest of the words to get me (or, rather, my characters) from here to there.

I actually took some time today and worked out some character backgrounds, fleshed them out a little, even though it wasn't stuff I could include in my word count, or stuff that will make it into the writing - I found that knowing them a little bit better on paper (because I already had the beginnings of most of these ideas somewhere in my brain) really helped me focus and speed through.  Hence the 1 hour, almost 2 thousand words with which I am closing out my day.

So, I'm disappointed I didn't get to play with the rest of the Boston WriMos, but I'm going to try again tomorrow - they're meeting at the Boston Public Library for an 'intermission' - a little movie and some games and chit chat and things to clear your head space as we hit the final two weeks.  I'm hoping, now that I've got some scenes in mind and a broad sketch of where to wind up, they won't be that hard on me.

I know for some people, it's hard at this point to keep the momentum coming, but last year week 2 was my toughest - sloughing through all the rough and random edges of a story, trying to figure out how all the scenes should cram together to create some sort of puzzle, gnawing off the pieces that don't fit, and hoping you didn't lose anything too important. I'm hoping that I just cleared that difficult mess of my plate, and the rest will be "oh yeah, I know what needs to go here," or "Clearly I am a genius, because this is the best story ever!!"

Neither of those things are anywhere close to the reality of what will be happening in the next 14 days, but just having the numbers - both days on the calendar and word count numbers - on my side makes me feel good.  So when I am pulling my hair out next Wednesday (because Wednesday is pie-day, and I hope to be finished by then hahahahahahaha), you can all remind me how I said the worst was probably over, and I promise not to curse at you too much.

Of course, as previously discussed, my cursing is currently at Scooby Doo levels, so you have nothing to worry about either way.