Nightmere is enjoying rolling in the girls’ chalk drawings.

First I will say I finished my next draft. It took me 32 days and in some places was barely more than a screenplay, but the story was there, bang. The first pass of editing added about 10K words. It’s hovering around 62K words now and is with my own personal Alma Hitchcock who is actually using red pen on it, which is excruciating to watch. I’m sure I mentioned it’s a murder mystery involving clones and shit. I don’t know what to do with it now. But I am going to start outlining the sequel. These characters aren’t done yet. I’m still editing my short story and am going to use it to apply for a fellowship that starts in September. I’ll keep you posted.

On Monday I left my mobile telephony device on my nightstand, as I do ocassionally. Shit happens! Usually I remember to email P. and tell him I’ve been a bubble head again. It’s no coincidence I get a lot more done on days when I’m not easily contactable though. Still, I have a duty to remain reachable because I have one that’s barf-at-any-moment age and another one who’s like Bella Swan but with a personality (read: clumsy but fun during a night on the town).

I left work at my usual time and walked up and down the street I usually park on. No car. Maybe I passed it…where was the car? I walked back and forth with the dog, who was delighted with the game and my increasing sense of urgency. Oh boy! Now we were powerwalking! How fast would we go! He watched me closely. Would we begin to…run??? HIS FAVORITE.

His hopes were dashed, though, because I went back into my office and called P. from my desk phone. I had to tell him the car had been stolen. Reception was bad wherever he was.

“Hello?” I said. “HELLO HELLO HELLO?”

Finally I heard him: “…at the hospital…”

OH GOD. The car’s been stolen AND he’s at the hospital? My brain turned off for a second. You know what white noise panic that shuts off your ears?

They clicked back on again. “…kid’s foot was run over by a rollerskate so she’s having an xray…” He didn’t even have to tell me which one it was. The small one gets scrapes and bruises, but the big one sprains, strains, jams, spindles, folds, mutilates, and pulls things. Fortunately she hasn’t actually broken anything. Yet.

Franny was okay, though, and nothing was broken. They couldn’t reach me so they called him. Or maybe they called him first, now that I think of it. I didn’t have any messages except from him. [He came and got the car since he couldn’t reach me.] I get why the school takes these things up to 11. I really do. Next time we are just going to take her home and see how she does. They try to use that pain scale on her and everything is a NINE, OMG. She’s sensitive.

Last Friday she played Lily St. Regis in Annie, Jr., which is an abridged version of Annie, not the child of the orphan and I dunno, her dog? Imagine a plucky bastard dog baby in a fro wig. That is Annie, Jr. Because I am a moron and cannot find the pictures I took of her (I believe I transferred them somewhere for processing, SIGH) all I have at the moment is this tweet from the night of. Okay, it’s way more 1940s than 30s but it worked with her evil hat and evil dress.

If you know the musical, which I didn’t, since I thought from a young age the movie looked terrible (we watched it after; it is, except for the villains), you will know the character of Rooster. Rooster was played by an adorable out lesbian who did a marvelous job. I cannot tell you how much it blows my fucking mind that my kid is in musicals with an out lesbian who is in a relationship with Miss Hannigan. Times have changed.

ANYWAY. Franny was great and is refusing to do the musical next year. What she cares about, besides loafing, eating popsicles, and reading Archie comics, is art and the Japanese language. This is okay with me. I took her out to Dilettante after and her Auntie Dave surprised us by treating. I was supposed to pay since I dragged a bunch of grown ass people out on Friday night to see my kid be in a middle school musical for ten seconds. But no!

She is about to leave for a month to go to her dad’s house after school on Friday. I promised to send her packages and bought her a bunch of books to take with, since the library where she’s going is closed, boo. Her dad came to the musical on Saturday when I was helping kid-wrangle and I looked up from my phone and saw some old guy with a bald spot in the audience next to Franny’s grandpa. And lo! it was you-know-who. Well, we are all getting older, aren’t we? Every minute.