Leftover Thanksgiving

I'm okay, I guess.

Yesterday my sister and I went to her daughter's home (my niece Rachael's) to spend Thanksgiving with her and her son, Greggory. Adding to the pathos were Greggory's paternal grandparents, Will and Mary. Mary is (partially? wholly?) Indian, so I guess that was traditional enough. Will is her second (?) husband, and they're the parents of Rachael's ex-husband, but like to visit their (only?) grandson on occasion. Greggory is about thirteen.

So we're all related by blood or marriage or something, and that's about the extent of our commonality. It occurred to me that we're what's left over after all the real family and loved ones get together. The high point, for me, was Will and Mary's forgetting to bring a card table so two people got to eat off an ironing board. That, and Will is (was?) a minister (Episcopalian?), so grace no doubt had more effect than were I to have said it.

It wasn't bad. We talked a lot about phones and stealing lumber from construction sites (Greggory's wanting to build a skateboard park in his back yard).

I struggled and got out a couple thousand more words on Big Train Show. I may finish, but maybe not. It feels so much like I'm writing just for the sake of writing instead of creating anything, that I've little heart in it. Unlike Kicker or The Reader's Emporium, this story isn't all that gripping to me. I had some interest going in, but maybe not enough to carry me through to the end. I'm quite jealous of all the other wrimos who are all bubbly and excited, wishing I felt any of that this year. I'm glad for them, and for the efforts of all those who labor to make NaNo work, but I just can't get connected this year.

Not to NaNo, not to anything. I just am.