What Happened in October?
Hello everyone! October started off slow, but really sped up near the end. I can’t believe it’s the last Monday already! Usually, I’m excited to write the end-of-month wrap up post…but this month, I don’t really have a whole lot to talk about. I’ve had a nasty cold almost all month, so in the interest of keeping everyone happy and healthy, I haven’t been doing much outside of the normal.
Recently my cold has been clearing up, however, so I’ve been able to do a few Fall Activities! As we all know by now, Fall is my favorite season so I’ve been very happy with the leaves changing and the weather cooling off (even though my allergies are killing me and the chill air has me dreading winter!). Let’s get into what I’ve been doing recently…
The Toothbrush
This month, the Golubich-Best house has been a sick house. We’ve all gotten a gross cold that hasn’t shown any signs of getting better. “Mary, have you been tested for Covid??” you may be asking right now. No need to worry, because I did go get tested for the Rona with my roomie/best friend/platonic soul mate Damian, and we are both in the clear. Seeing as it isn’t Covid, the fact that this cold hasn’t gone away has been annoying, to say the least. I’m so sick of coughing!
Usually when either Matt or I get sick, the other gets sick. No matter how we try not to kiss each other on the lips, or wash our hands over and over, nothing works. We usually get sick within days of each other. This time around, I was adamant about not getting sick. Matt was the one who got sick first, and I avoided kissing him and getting his germs as best I could.
The week Matt got sick, I bought new toothbrushes. We both noticed how similar they looked (they both had white handles, but one of the toothbrushes bristles were gray and the other white). I made sure to let him know that the gray one was mine, and when I opened the package later on, I left Matt’s white bristle toothbrush in the packaging.
A few days passed, and I noticed that the white bristle toothbrush was still in the package. I didn’t really think anything of it; Matt hasn’t always been the best at switching out his toothbrushes, so I figured he was just running down the clock on his old one. Whatever.
I usually brush my teeth in the shower, but this day, I had to wash my hair. Since my hair takes forever to wash, I like to brush my teeth before I get in the shower on hair wash day. It creates the illusion of saving water in my brain (even though I know damn well that’s not correct…). I saw that Matt had finally taken his toothbrush out of the package. But when I picked up my toothbrush, I noticed it was wet.
Confusion set in. Why was my toothbrush already wet? I had just picked it up, so there was no way it could’ve gotten wet. I looked at the other toothbrush. It was bone dry. Matt usually brushes his teeth before laying down for bed…did he use my toothbrush?
I asked him which toothbrush he thought was his…and to my horror, my head cold-inflicted husband said “The grey one, right?”
“How long have you been using the grey toothbrush?”
“I don’t know, since we got them, I guess?”
The entire time Matt had been getting sick, he had been using my toothbrush. I was livid. Seeing as he was about to go to sleep, however, I held back just how angry I was about the situation and used the white toothbrush instead, making a note to disinfect both toothbrushes later.
I got sick a few days later.
The only reason why I was so mad (and am still slightly annoyed) about the whole situation is that I made sure that I was careful about telling him exactly which toothbrush was whose. I left the white one in the package for him, not me! Why would I leave my own toothbrush in the package and still throw away my old toothbrush? That doesn’t make any sense to me. I guess the other reason I was so mad is that the whole time he had been sick up until that moment, I had been so careful not to get too into his bubble so that I wouldn’t get his cold…I could’ve been kissing my husband the whole time!!
Now we both know which toothbrush is whose, and we’re still coughing and miserable. It is what it is!
Pumpkins and Corn
The other weekend, our friends invited us to go to the corn maze with them! We drove up to Lynd’s Fruit Farm and wandered around a field of corn for a few hours, finding the Jurassic Park-themed goal (a big ol’ Dino!). It was muddy because it had rained a few hours before we got there, but I think it honestly added to the fun of walking through walls of corn.
I had JUST gotten sick that weekend, however, so by the time we found the exit, I was exhausted. The biggest reason I didn’t dip out on the corn maze is because I had been looking forward to it all month. I had a lot of fun, but I think me being sick really affected my happiness that day…which makes sense!
After the maze, we went to the market on the farm grounds. Lynd’s Market is probably one of my favorite parts of doing fall stuff, and even though there wasn’t nearly as much to buy and look at (I’m assuming they had to maintain a certain distance between stalls because of Covid), it was still fun to walk around and look at all of the food and home goods for sale.
We bought pumpkins at the market (the pumpkin patch was too muddy!) and then I had to tap out. Being sick at the fruit farm sucks, but it was still fun anyway!
DIY Testing
If you’ve never had a Covid test, let me tell you about it. CVS offers free Covid testing, and the one I went to has a drive-thru setup specifically for testing. Damian and I went once my cold started to get worse and we both were able to get in and out within 15–30 minutes. All in all, it wasn’t that horrible. The catch? We had to do it ourselves.
If you’ve ever stuck something up your nose as a kid, this is kind of like that but way less damaging. You take the swab that the pharmacy gives you and stick it up both nostrils (far enough that your eyes water), twirl it around, and then let it sit in your nostril for a few seconds. Simple!
The worst part for me was the sneezing. I sneezed a good few times while the swab was in my nose. I thought it was either going to shoot out of my nostril, or I was going to catch it in just the right way and impale my poor brain! Luckily neither of those things happened, and I was able to get my sample swab back to the pharmacy lady with everything intact.
The test results came back after about three days (at the time of my test, the turn around was 2–5 days), and I was so relieved to see that I tested negative. I’ve been able to work even though I have a cold thanks to the mask mandate. I hate wearing my mask at work, but it is nice to know that I have less of a chance of giving someone my cold!
If this were a normal year, I’d try to work but I’d probably be sent home because of all my nose blowing and laugh-coughing. I’m not sure how ethical it is for me to still be working despite my cold, but no one I work with has had the same cold so I guess that means I’m not getting anyone sick? Who’s to say?
Music Obsessions
This month, I tried to make the playlist spooky, I really did. But then Ninja Sex Party released their new album, “the Prophecy”, and Ariana Grande released her new single for her album that drops this week, so I had to include some tracks from them. The Weeknd and Kenny G also got together and released a remix for “In Your Eyes”, which slaps. I love me some Kenny G.
There are some spooky tracks, though! “Hungry Like the Wolf” is a classic, and Freddie Dredd is always a good choice for some Halloween music (I mean, he raps about killing people and blood and shit like that, so we can’t really go wrong choosing a track from him). All of these songs I’ve been listening to regardless if they’re spooky or not, so I figured why not throw them on the monthly playlist? Check it out here!
NaNoWriMoOhNo
If there’s one word to describe my work ethic it would be “Procrastinator”. I don’t know what it is, but I’ve always been a last-minute kind of person. My first instinct is to blame the ADHD, since I’ve always been like this, but I’m sure I could change if I wanted to.
Procrastination has led my NaNo prep this month. I’ll be the first to say that the project I want to finish this coming month is a little intense. 50,000 words of a story told from two different POVs? A plot that spans across eight in-story years, the longest stretch of time I’ve ever tried to write? Usually, I’m good at one POV, one to two years in-story storytelling. “Years Apart”, which looks like it might be the semi-permanent title for now, is shaping up to be a pretty big project.
I’ve finished mayyyyyybe half of the storybuilding. Character development is never over, in my opinion. My characters are like real life people. As I write them, I learn more about them, and if I don’t make constant notes, I forget all of their little quirks and tics. I figure the blueprint of the characters that I have right now will be a good one to work with as I write the meat of the story.
The meat? The plot? I have Luke’s POV down solid. I know exactly how this character is going to react, I know exactly what’s going to happen to him, and I know exactly what I’m doing with him. The plot from his POV is perfect.
Stefan? My other main character? The other POV we will have throughout this story? I have no idea what he’s up to. I have no idea how to write him. And I have about a week to figure it out.
Stefan starts the story at thirteen years old. A school athlete and a relatively popular kid thanks to his famous older sister, Stefan’s mind is unlike any other character I’ve tried to write. I know his voice near the end of the story. A twenty one year old man, confident and kind, dominates the page. But this thirteen year old boy, nervous in his own skin and confused about how his life will turn out? He’s got me stumped.
I barely remember being thirteen. I believe I was in 7th or 8th grade. Now that I look back on it, I know I don’t remember a lot of middle school because my depression was beginning to develop. Memories I should have aren’t there, and I’m pretty sure it’s because depression erased them from my brain. Short-term memory loss is a somewhat common symptom of depression, but I’m convinced that I’ve forgotten older memories because of depression as well.
Why am I telling y’all this? Well, trying to reach back into the memory banks of my mind is hard when I’ve seemingly erased huge swaths of time from them. I can’t remember what it’s like to be a thirteen year old specifically. I remember being upset all the time, and generally sad. I can’t remember why, and I’m pretty sure life wasn’t really that bad back then. But I’ll have to do some quick research to figure out what a thirteen year old’s brain is like before the 1st.
Between trying to figure out how to write a closeted teenaged boy as realistically as possible and get all the rest of my ducks in a row before I ignore everything for 30 days to write a novel, it’s been a strangely stressful time for my writing! I’m still very excited to dive into National Novel Writing Month despite my awful planning.
I’m always ready with a Plan B, and this year’s NaNo prep follows that path. I have a plan if I can’t figure out how to write Stefan before I have to start writing. Luke’s story is so cemented in my mind that I can write his POV no problem. If I have to trash Stefan’s POV temporarily, I will! I want to commit to writing this story the way it’s been presented in my head, however, so eventually I’ll be going back to Stefan if I do have to go with Plan B. Either way, I’m excited to begin writing this story instead of just planning it!
That’s it for October. It started out slow but just like a snowball on a hill, it got real fast real quick. I’m excited for November because I get to work on this year’s NaNo, I get to eat everything on Thanksgiving (my favorite holiday), and I get to (hopefully) see my vote matter.
Speaking of voting, I voted early and it took less than 30 minutes. If you plan on voting early, please do! Lines are long, but they move fast. If you plan on going on Election Day to vote, make sure you have everything you’ll need (like your ID, for example) to go vote! I don’t really like talking politics that much, but this is a VERY important election. Please get out and vote!
Next month, I’ll attempt to keep up with my weekly posts. “Years Apart” will have my full attention, but I do like to warm up before I start writing. Maybe some of those warm ups can be thrown into one post? Who knows!
For now, I hope you have a very spooky Halloween and a great start to your November!! I’ll see you here next week!
