I love statistics. Stats are a way to tell stories with numbers. But in this case they're a way to tell you the numbers about a story.

Specifically they're telling you about my current NaNoWriMo novel, Exchange Magic.

I don't remember the exact conversation, because it was a long time ago now. But the circumstances were something like this:

My best friend and I were in tenth grade, our first year in high school. It was mid autumn, it was cold, it was rainy, and frankly going to school had lost that sparkle. We decided there should be one day every school year where you're allowed to wear your pajamas to school and have a big comfy blanket as well. And we decided it should be “the first Friday after the first cold, miserable day of each fall.” So we told our friends that next Friday was the first Annual Blanket Day. We were heavily involved in choir which gave us an advantage; the choir program in our school ran to almost three hundred people, a goodly portion of the entire school.

Note: Transcriptions are below.

I've been thinking about all the ways I write things down, why I write things down, and how thought collection methods change the thoughts collected.

This year has been hard enough on the face of it, but for some reason I have come up with a number of ways to make it even harder on myself. This wasn't really intentional; most bad habits aren't.

Some part of my mind has decided that “the past” has nothing to teach me, because nobody else in my lifetime has had to deal with all of this.

I've done NaNoWriMo every year since 2008, and I have “won” (meaning I have written 50,000 words in one month on a single project) every year as well.

But on purpose. I definitely have enough food in the house, I just choose not to eat it. And I'm making this choice because for most of my life I have just eaten all the time. I was never hungry.

These are the things that have been occupying my mind lately. Which is a change, because for most of my life I haven't really thought about them at all. They've just been part of life. But suddenly I'm facing them and thinking about them, and, in between moments of panic and stress, learning to appreciate them.

So, no more sugar, far fewer carbs for me, at least for a while, until I can get my relationship with food under control. Which isn't fun. But there's not a good reason to keep looking back, that's just a good way to be discontent.

So it's time to start looking for new better things. Things I can eat and like.

I have a routine now, more than ever, and out of necessity.

For years my motto has been:

Such power there is in clear-eyed self restraint —James Russell Lowell

But honestly, I've been less “powerful” than I could be because my self restraint has been just enough to keep going.