Coping mechanisms

We all have them. Sometimes they are coping mechanisms for dealing with difficult people, or for doing things we don't want to do, like housework. There are all kinds of coping mechanisms. The little spiral notebook I carry around with me is a coping mechanism for getting the stuff done that I keep forgetting to do, like remind the fella to refill my windshield wiper fluid. (Living on the coast requires gallons and gallons of the stuff--I don't know if it's the salt in the air or what, but I have to wash my windshield off nearly every morning.)

So--I blogged a couple of weeks ago about keeping on, and being a slug and how I ought to cut myself a little slack. Well, I have been. I have been slacking up, down and sideways. I am ALL about the slack.

Which is where the coping mechanism comes in. I am so good at slacking, that my friend B asked if I needed a writer's weekend to make myself finish this stinkin' book. (I am Soooo close to the end.) (Well, maybe not quite that much...) (but almost)

With the daughter coming, and jury duty lurking not far beyond that, I wasn't sure I could get away--then I realized that I had THIS weekend free. B and I have not yet discovered a cheap place between our two cities, so we are going back to Valley Mills and the dude ranch with its plywood-walled cabin to write all weekend. Time away from the world and its expectations so I can make myself write.

I am taking a folding chair. The chairs in this place are Hard. It's August, in Texas, and while I think this place has a window unit a/c, it's still bound to be hotter than blue Hades (which you know is hotter than regular Hades...) Maybe I will take a fan. We have fans.

I have bought chips and dip and fruit and cookies and Coke Zeros (vanilla and plain). Tonight I will cut up fruit (hence the picture above) and put the Coke Zeros in the fridge to get cold, and I will pack. (Do you know how hard it is to find a picture of fruit salad with no kiwis in it? My salad will have none. Nor will it have watermelon, though I wanted some, because all those other people on the island bought them. It will have cantaloupe and honeydew melons, grapes, strawberries and pineapple. Also maybe peaches.) Tomorrow, I will go to work in the a.m. so I can get out of town early (before bad Houston traffic). Then I will go home and load the ice chest and the car, and buy gas, and lunch to eat in the car, and I will drive to Valley Mills. And when I get there, I will write.

So. Now I have put it down in electrons on the Interwebs. I have to do it, because y'all will know if I don't. One way or the other, I will get the writing done. I have pulled out one of my coping mechanisms. But, boy, am I glad I'm not on an actual deadline...