Feed Me Sushi and Leave Me Alone Pretty Please

Sweet baby Jesus. The plan I had been quietly constructing all week: Virgin River. Bridgerton. Sushi. Not sharing the sushi. Doing precisely zero things that required me to be useful to another human being.

By the end of Josey’s Montana tournament, I was spent. Like, fully cooked. Migraine from hell. Day one was twelve hours, day two only eight — cool, cool, cool — followed by a four-and-a-half hour drive home. I was officially in three states in a day and my body had opinions about that.

The last game, the guy in front of me was full spread-eagle and leaning back into my knees and I was getting murdery. The whistles hitting like f*cking sirens. I was grateful for the one cool mom sitting next to me because she’s a badass and at that point she was the only thing standing between me and a felony.

We got home, unloaded a cooler full of banana peels and empty Gatorade containers, and I got a whopping eight hours with Jacob before he had to leave for a work trip.

I b*tch a lot about the logistics. I would change absolutely none of this madness.

Then Josey went to her dad’s after school Monday and — drumroll please — the house was mine for 48 sacred hours. I can count on two hands how many times that’s happened since we built five years ago. Sweet baby Jesus. The plan I had been quietly constructing all week: Virgin River. Bridgerton. Sushi. Not sharing the sushi. Doing precisely zero things that required me to be useful to another human being.

I did do those things. And also: I worked ten hours both days, didn’t go to the gym once, and rage-cleaned my entire house at a speed typically reserved for people who are either nesting or completely unraveling. Possibly both.

Once you notice the floors you notice the counters. Once you notice the counters you notice the pile of things staging a quiet protest on the stairs for three weeks — stuff that belongs on the second floor, that nobody is taking upstairs, including me. I couldn’t stop. It wasn’t about the mess. The house was too still and my brain needed somewhere to put all its noise.

By night two I couldn’t sleep. Every sound was a thing. There was a spider in the bathroom — not a small one, a spider with intentions — and I textJacob to come deal with it. He was in another time zone. Asleep. Reasonably. He did not respond.

What finally knocked me out was Bear. My fat, dramatic, absolutely perfect French bulldog. She settled in next to me and started snoring — that specific congested little honk, like a fat old man who’s needs a CPAP — and I was out in four minutes.

I miss hubby. I hate that I miss hubby. I will absolutely be telling myself I need space again by next week, and we both know it.

Sending this early because we’re at another tournament — local this time, three days. Easter Sunday is my birthday. I will be celebrating another trip around the sun at a volleyball gym, probably eating a sad protein bar, definitely not acknowledging how old I am now. There are worse ways to spend a birthday. I’m telling myself that.

Okay. The Book.

The way I’m editing this thing is not how I thought I’d be editing this thing. And I say that as someone who thought about it a lot.

I finished all nineteen chapters. And instead of doing what normal people apparently do — hand it to an editor and stress-eat through the waiting — I built a four-phase framework to get it right before it ever leaves my hands. Because I’m a control freak.

Phase 1: Positioning.

Who is this book actually for. What does it promise. What’s the one line that holds all of it without collapsing. Harder than it sounds. Took longer than I’d like to admit. Done.

 Phase 2: Voice Audit.

Not line edits — pattern hunting. All nineteen chapters, looking for the places where I drifted. Where I stopped sounding like me and started sounding like a LinkedIn post I would scroll right past. We found three recurring patterns, named them, and now I can spot them in about four seconds. Done.

 Phase 3: Surgical Fixes.

This is where we live right now. One chapter, one flag, one decision at a time. I paste a chapter. I get one flag: here’s the line, here’s why it’s off, here’s a fix. I say yes, no, or I rewrite it out loud in my own words on the spot. No expanding. No starting over. Just finding the exact places I stopped trusting myself and walking back in. Part One is done. It’s faster than I expected, which either means I’m getting sharper or I’m breezing past things I’ll regret. Choosing to believe the former and moving on.

 Phase 4: The Sell.

Back cover copy. Pitch paragraph. Positioning doc. The stuff that has to make someone pick up the book before they’ve read a single word of it. Saving the best existential panic for last, as is tradition.

Part One (of four) is done and the framework is working. More to come.