My bried frain ... (fried brain)

As you can probably tell by my lengthy absence, I am completely immersed in this novel writing, poem-a-daying month of insanity.  I am handling it fairly well, though, considering the fact that my brain is now mush when I am not writing.   For example, I find myself saying words wrong, like "dit sown" instead of "sit down," and sentences are coming out scrambled, like "Minute in, I'll be with you."

Today I rejoiced in the realization that I was on the home stretch and might actually finish this sucker
before Thanksgiving.  I was revelling in the fact that I would have to go way over the limit just to complete the ending. 

I told Pete, "I reached 40,000 words.  I only have 5,000 to go!"

"I thought it was supposed to be 50,000 words," he answered.

"No, it's 45,000," I corrected him.  "Isn't it?"

"We've been talking about 50 from the beginning, remember?"

I had to go to the NaNoWri website and double check!  Of course, Pete was right.  Just last night I knew it was 50,000; what happened today?  At times I think I am suffering from a brain tumor. 

There have been other lapses of memory this month, too.  I find the fabric softener sheet in the washing machine,  forget things here and there.  Words I normally know how to spell, I have to look up in the dictionary, and I can't even remember what words to look up in a thesaurus.  Minutes turn into hours, hours to days and now it is the 20th.  I mean, what has happened to this month?  When did the Salvation Army ringer start standing outside stores?  How come other people have Christmas decorations up and I am still thinking Halloween? (Actually it is probably because I am the one eating all the candy for fake energy.)  Sometimes I just want to scream.

When I get on Facebook, my fingers are so used to typing fast, that somehow when I try to comment on somebody's status, I have done something (not sure what) so fast that instead of a comment, it shows up as a "like."  I am actually writing a comment and-- 'Voila!'-- suddenly the screen turns white and returns with the thumbs up sign waving in my face.  And I have no idea what happened.  For example, a friend wrote that she had the stomach bug.  I was going to write, "Sorry... I hope the kids don't get it," but my fingers did something, and the You Like This thumb appeared for all to see.  Huh, as if I like my friend being sick!  It was quite embarrassing; I am really a sensitive gal.  It has happened another time, too.  But when I rechecked the comment, I decided my liking it was not as offensive as the other one.  The person said that she was drowning in work for a big presentation the next day.  Maybe liking it sounded supportive?  I just don't know anymore. 

Oh well, it's November... what can I say?  Except, of course, thanks to my understanding family who doesn't mind at all if we eat nothing fancy for a month, and for my friends cheering me on.  I love you guys!