I'm playing Surface Tension with my life.

Alright. It's November 1 and my denial is no longer denial, it's just reality.

I'm not doing NaNoWriMo this year.

There. I said it. It's out on the internetting and there's nothing I can do about it. Officially I'm not writing 1,667 words a day for the month of November.

I'm not sweating words from my fingertips onto my poor MacBook's can't-quite-keep-up-with-my-typing-speed keyboard in the dark lonely hours of the night.

I'm not tethering myself inextricably to @NaNoWriMo's Twitter feed.

I'm not tearing out clumps of hair during breaks from @NaNoWordSprints.

I'm not probing the inner recesses of my ear canal with a tablespoon digging desperately for The Point To My Story.

I'm not crying.

I'm not accepting caffeine as my lord and savior.

I'm not doing premature spring wardrobe shopping, ordering holiday cards with overly elaborate designs, shaving cryptic messages into the cat's fur, custom blending toenail polish colors for the dog's pedicure, cooking my way through Cook's Illustrated's back catalog, taking up crossbow hunting, training for a marathon or rebuilding a 1967 VW Squareback's engine.

Well, to be clear, I'm not doing any of those things while procrastinating on my NaNoWriMo novel.

Though I may do them while procrastinating on the millions of other things that have clogged up my life to the point where I can't do NaNoWriMo because The End would be so visibly near if I were to heap that beast somehow on the tippy top of Mount HOLY SHIT HOW WILL I EVER GET ALL THIS STUFF DONE over here.

Yes, friends, I have successfully filled my life to the absolute brim.

I'm playing Surface Tension with my life.

The combination of going back to school, starting a business, winter gardening (winter garden blahblahblah coming soon), trying to get in some fall fishing, taking up fly tying (yep, hobby #1001 right there), taking up Crossfit (is that considered a hobby? I'm not counting it as one.), indulging in the Giants World Series victory  (this takes serious dedication, so do not roll your damn eyes at me) and project managing our forever-taking bathroom remodel has taken me to the very edge of the glass that is my life.

I'm afraid that if I were to add even a drop of NaNoWriMo to that glass, it would spill over onto the counter and I would lose it.

"It" being "My Sanity". And we know what a tenuous hold I have on that already.

So, I'm just not doing it.

It pains me and I hate not doing it because I love NaNoWriMo's sick torturous fun and I am on a three consecutive year roll of winning and I have two stories outlined in Scrivener (love you, Scrivy!) that I could totally blast 50,000 words at and everything, but no.

I musn't.

Instead, I am going to write on this blog.

And my business's blog.

And Examiner.

And Twitter. And Twitter.

And Facebook. And Facebook.

And write term papers.

And scholarship applications.

And midterms and finals that are supposed to be comprised of 20 short answer questions but really end up being 40-50 short to long answer questions because SOME professors like to make single questions into 10 sub-parts that each require their own short to long explanation so end up taking THREE MUTHER EFFING HOURS to complete.

All of that I'm going to do instead of NaNoWriMo.

I hope you understand.

Also, here's pictures from some of that shit I just said was doing all the Life Clogging.

Obviously we were dressed as Giants' Bat Girls for the Halloween Giants World Series Victory parade. OBVIOUSLY.

That's the Giants manager holding THE SECOND WORLD SERIES TROPHY THE GIANTS HAVE WON IN THREE YEARS.

You know that I will wear those wrist warmers even when I'm not being a Giants Bat Girl.

I tied this fly.

I fished this fly.

And despite the beauty and perfect conditions, I caught nothing.

Which is OK because I got to hang out with this sexy guy all day who bit my hat sometimes.

The winter garden is KICK ASS so far.

Ever wondered what juvenile buckwheat looks like? Wonder no more.

That guy is a cauliflower. He lives under that fabric. More to come on this.

I now have five fewer flies than this box was holding at the time of this photograph. THANKS JERK TROUT.

There's more than just cover crops in the garden this winter. BIG TIMES.

Ah, to have a fully functioning bathroom without paper covering the new flooring. That's the dream.

Oh right. And also to be able to shower in my own house.