electric mist

bah.

Am doing taxes. Am going mad. Send chocolate.

every little thing...

I discovered this fun new mom's blog, dooce... she cracked me up with the "stupid standard" post, except that it reminded me of all the things I did that, if the kids knew about them? I would totally owe some therapists somewhere my house and all future earnings.

The first big one was the time when Luke wouldn't sleep. Nine months of colic, people. Nine. Whole. Months. No sleep. Sleep deprivation can make you do not entirely bright things. (That's my story and I'm sticking to it.) He never slept, except to catnap just long enough for me to start thinking that maybe, just maybe, I might actually get to eat or sleep or you know, shower, and feel like a human again, instead of just an over-grown furry milkbag, but then as soon as I'd make it into the other room, bam, crying.

One night, very late, we'd been doing the pacing, dancing, singing, pleading, begging, jiggling, rocking, begging, dancing, pleading thing, and for some reason that made a whole lot of sense at that moment, I decided that I would "swing" Luke. (We didn't have one of those fancy swings that you can park a kid in... or otherwise known as the Jake Motel, once Jake came along.) I stood and started with him near my knees and lifted him up, then let his weight carry him back down where I'd swing him through my legs so that we had enough momentum to go back up again. He was five months old and heavy; I needed the momentum. So anyway, I start swinging him, and he does this astonishing thing: he laughed. Actual laughter, not hysterical I-am-going-to-die and you-are-going-to-hell screaming, but laughing. And of course, this must be encouraged, this strange laughing thing that I had heard other babies did, but apparently my baby was broken and never did this thing. But there he was, laughing. Was I going to stop swinging him to go back to the screaming? No, I was not. Even if we did gain a bit of momentum on each swing... even if he was getting a little heavy and my arms were getting a lot numb. Because at the top of every arc, that kid laughed. I would have kept it up until my arms fell off.

Unfortunately, my arms did not, indeed, fall off. No, what happened was that at the top of the arc, after we'd been doing this for about four thousand years, Luke decided to be Superman, and he stiffened and popped clean out of my hands, doing the most perfect "Superman is flying imitation," you would have been impressed.

And here's my thought process:

Holy shit, he's flying.

Holy shit. He's flying.

Over my head. With the flying. Only babies can't fly, a fact that seared itself into my brain the very next split second. Because I am quick like that. I spun around and yep, there he was, sailing head first toward the rocking chair. Have you ever seen a baby register complete shock? Let me tell you, they can do that. They look a little bit like a squirrel who just swung for a limb and missed and realizes that, damn, gravity works.

So I dove for him, sort of half-assed breaking his fall before his head ker-thunked onto the rocking chair, and we both hit the chair with such force, the chair and Luke and I all went sliding into the piano.

He had the mosed dazed, confused look on his face. Like geez, if this is supposed to be when she loves me, what is she going to do when I pee on her? And he didn't really move much. I'm not entirely sure he blinked, there for a minute -- probably wanting to keep an eye on me in case this tossing-the-baby concussion thing was all a part of the game.

I swear to god, that kid never had another night of colic. Nary a peep. It is an amazing testament to the resiliency of kids that mine made it past the age of two.

fuck.

I am appalled that Senator Breaux (who is a Democrat from Louisiana, for crying out loud, and someone I thought was one of the decent guys) had offered an amendment trying to spread the FCC's ability to fine for indecency as mentioned in this article. How close are we coming to the mindset of the book banning era in this country? Didn't we ever learn anything from the McCarthyism?

I was 12 years old the summer of the Watergate hearings. For reasons I have never been able to explain, I sat glued to the TV, watching the hearings, watching as one by one, higher and higher up the ladder, the men were indicted and convicted. The presidency was crumbling out from underneath the country, and no one could do anything to erase the damage. By the time I was a senior and had to do my senior thesis for American history, I chose to do one on "The Rise and Fall of Richard Nixon." There were books - so many from even prior to Watergate which had warned of the dangers.

The danger is this: when the government starts deciding that you aren't bright enough to know the facts and make choices for yourself, so they'll form committees and decide for you? You are already in prison. Your rights are worthless, because rights without power, rights without choice... are nothing.

That was an era when the hubris of the government was so entrenched that it was natural for the leaders to think, "It's okay for me to do this thing which furthers my cause, because ultimately, I know what's best for everyone."

We are back there again. Freedoms are eroding right in front of us, and there is no co-ordinated out-cry. There are a few sites which are trying to make some noise, but I don't know if it's going to be enough.

The Patriot Act. Patriot II, which didn't get passed, but the fact that it existed is scary as hell. The FCC going bonkers. When the whole Janet Jackson thing happened, I thought it was a stupid ploy -- I was more annoyed at the fact that Timberlake tried to pass it off as a malfunction rather than a choice... because malfunction implies that he meant to grab at her clothing and rip it off, just not quite like that. I couldn't have cared less that an actual breast showed up on TV -- I cared about the way it was done -- with some sense of violence / S & M / objectification, communicating to women and girls everywhere that ripping a woman's clothes off is a sexy entertainment type of thing, even if it might be embarrassing to her. I wish Janet Jackson would have said, "You know, we thought it would be okay, and maybe we made a choice the rest of the country didn't like, but it was a choice... so that it showed she was choosing what to do with her body. I am totally okay with the fact that the people who didn't like it could scream to the hills and then choose to never watch either of those performers if that's what they wanted to do to show their dislike; but I do not think it's okay for someone else, some government committee, to go all whoopass on every single communications outlet and start regulating what we can and cannot see or hear. Who is it that gets to decide? And how will their politics, their religion, their own fear of preserving their jobs affect that? And more importantly, who voted for that committee? What? What's that you say? No one voted for them? They're appointed?

Well, how's that for biased self-interest? Sure, that's who I want deciding what is okay for me to see and hear. Not.

So what are we going to do, all of us here on the internet? Sit by and wait until they come for us, too? Will we have done something in time?

I don't know the answer. Maybe it's as crazy as making sure that every weblog has the word "fuck" in the title somewhere, so google goes fuck-crazy for a few weeks. Maybe it's as crazy as us writing to the writers of all the shows, asking them to put a fuck here or there, (or a breast here or there), whatever -- because seriously, if everyone defies them, they cannot win.

We cannot sit idly by. The bell is tolling.

heh

My inner 12 year old got a kick out of this headline. Swiped from Chaising Daisy.

and the beat goes on...

Twenty-two years ago at 7:30ish p.m., we were married. We were barely old enough to think, much less get married, but we both knew right away that this was it. We'd dated one date and knew. That whole love at first date thing. We were married three months later. I was 19 and he was 22. Insane, that it should work.

In my head, we are still in our twenties, sometimes in our early thirties, even though I am 41 and he is 44 now. He is crazy, funny, sweet, sexy, annoying, and always interesting. I have yet to manage to predict exactly what he'll say or do, and he makes me laugh, generally at least once a day. There have been incredibly difficult times and, luckily, many more incredibly good times.

(an aside... he is cooking in the kitchen as I write this, and he just looked in the oven and exclaimed to the chicken breast there, "That's your happy ass." He cracks me up.)

I want to write more here -- how, when I don't believe in myself, he gets indignant because he thinks it's obvious that of course I can do anything I want, how he constantly does the little things... but we're off for some fun, so more later.

finding voice (long)

Before you read the rant, understand this: I think teaching is one of the most difficult and important jobs in the world. I have huge respect for teachers and we have been lucky to have a few in our lives who were just beyond stellar. But this time... well, ranting will follow:

I'm not sure what the most difficult thing about havng a kid with special needs is, but one of them is helping that kid to find his own voice in the world. If the world already feels disorganized and chaotic, if you think you're doing what you're supposed to be doing and only after the fact, discover that you're not, or that you've left out half of the requirements or you've jumbled them up... you don't really know how to fix that. In Jake's case, his ADD and dysgraphia compound one another and impair what's typically referred to as the "executive functions" -- time management, organization, sequencing events, strategy. He will legitimately believe he's organized and doing what's needed, only to discover there are things he's left out, things he's forgotten or misunderstood, or just plain jumbled in such a way that what he does produce isn't "right" no matter how much effort he's put into it. When this happens in school with all its rules and regulations, with teachers who naturally assume that the kid either (a) didn't care or (b) didn't try very hard or (c) both, then their attitude toward a kid who's drowning in chaos is to generally heap punishment on top of what the kid had felt was his or her best effort. It's no wonder a kid facing this day in and day out would just give up.

We've battled this for Jake for years, ever since we had his diagnosis. The frustrating part is that they're learning more and more about dysgraphia and how it relates to the chaos a child experiences in the world, but I didn't know nearly as much as I needed to back then, and in a way, he's paying for that now. It's frustrating, because there are things I would have done differently to help facilitate problem-solving for him.

Meanwhile, Jake had been having extreme difficulties with his English teacher, and when I tried to talk to her a few days ago, I said, "Hello," on the phone and she LAUNCHED into all the things she thinks Jake has done wrong. And while they have to give him some accommodations, she felt like they were doing all they could for him and he just didn't care and wasn't trying. The anger and animosity were surprising, given that I had tried to call her for three weeks to address what I could see to be a developing problem. During the conversation, she seemed to relax and come around a little bit, but we still had issues. I asked for a meeting.

When Jake and I arrived, I expected to meet the teacher and student teacher and although we were going to be discussing problems, I thought that the previous phone conversation would have at least lessened the animosity.

Boy, was I wrong.

We sat down and the teacher launched again. I was shocked. She said, "Now, before we start..." and then she talked with a level of venom I have never experienced with a teacher. First, you don't get to say, "before we start" so that you can launch an attack and expect me to sit there quietly. That will happen the day I quit breathing. Second, I am all about having my kid take responsibility for where he isn't pulling his weight. But I am not going to let someone sit there and call him names and make accusations -- which had NO foundation in truth -- and wait until that person runs out of steam before meekly speaking up.

She was lucky I didn't drop kick her across the room.

I tried three times to politely interrupt her so that we could get the conversation back on track. And by "back on track" I mean, an actual dialog where she talked to me and asked questions and Jake and I got to do that apparently unheard-of-by-her thing... respond. When she kept going, I put my hand out, tapped the table and said, "Mrs. W. you're going to have to stop talking now, because you are pissing me off. I came here to help you, and to make sure that Jake was pulling his weight, but we are not going to accomplish a single thing if you spend time hurtling accusations; you're making me angry and no telling how Jake feels. IF the point of us coming was so that you could have an actual dialog with Jake to get to the bottom of this, then let's do a dialog."

Her eyes were as big as saucers. I am not a big person, and I rarely come across as a loud person, and it takes a lot to piss me off, but watching someone berate my child is right up there on the top of the list on things to make me go ballistic. But once I am pissed off, I will take you down. And, since I had shocked her into silence, I took over the meeting. I asked her to give me some examples of things Jake had not being doing well. She didn't have many -- mostly that he didn't write things down in the order she wanted, etc. I asked her if she had seen his diagnosis. She was aware of the ADD, but didn't seem to know about (or understand, possibly) the dysgraphia.

One of the strategies for ADD students to help them remember what to do later when they get home? Write down the assignment from the board. Great strategy, if writing something down isn't part of the problem. It's like asking someone who doesn't see so well to stand at the back of the classroom without their glassess and read off the board in order to get the grade -- it's a definite disadvantage, and no one would dream of doing that. Asking a dysgraphic person to write a list down -- in a hurry, when the bell rings -- is about the worst thing to do.

She didn't know. It was like lightbulbs had gone off. I explained to her -- look, if you would ask him to say it out loud to you from what he's written down, one of you will catch whether or not he's written it correctly. If you've written something on the board and he comes up to ask you a question about it, it's not because he's being a pain in the ass on purpose -- he genuinely has gotten confused. If you humiliate him, he's going to give up.

She asked Jake some questions, and he very articulately began explaining some things. This is a kid who can -- when he wants to -- discourse on a number of topics at a college level of thinking / analysis. He's got that in him... it just rarely shows, because if he thinks you think he's stupid, he just shuts down. It's a very bad trait -- I want him to see that as a challenge (as a, fuck you, I'm going to prove you wrong anyway sort of thing), but he's not quite there yet. He's getting there -- he seems less intimidated and more determined to help himself.

By the end of the meeting, there was such a significant turnaround in her demeanor, it was worth the time and effort. She and Jake were talking and they came up with simple, easy ways for him to stay on track without disrupting her teaching plans or soaking up a lot of time (or being belligerent and a pain in the ass.) Jake apologized for having just shut them out and not tried to explain - she apologized for not having asked earlier if there was a problem. A much better outlook.

We still have a few hurdles there with her, but he sees that he can confront these issues and do something about them. He wants to go to college, and I want him to realize he is going to face this sort of sentiment over and over, and it's up to him to help himself.

He's got to find his voice in this world, and it can't be a whiny, "poor me" sort of thing -- there are too many people out there with far more things wrong and they view those as a challenge and they don't slow down. And we're getting there. I think.

When we got to the car after the meeting, I asked Jake how he thought it had gone. I was still focused on the end of the meeting, and he laughed and said, "Well, it got a whole lot better -- but geez, Mom, I thought you were about to throw down with the teacher right there in the library." Cracked me up.

But he did say that he saw what he could have been doing to help himself more, and since then, he's been making the effort. Sometimes a little throw-down is what you need.

Starting from Square Two

Sometimes you need a light, fun read, and you search around, desperately trying to find something that isn't so cynical and jaded, it's off-putting or so saccharine that your teeth hurt by chapter two, if you can even sustain interest that far. And then sometimes, you see a recommendation on the web, you think it sounds like something that would entertain you, and so you try it out, fully expecting that like the last four or five books that you've tried, you'll read a little, not care about the characters much, set it down, meaning to go back to it and then you never do... only this time, it holds your interest.

Caren Lissner's newest book, Starting From Square Two turns out to be a delightful way to spend an afternoon reading. I think a lot of people would categorize this as "chick lit" or "romance" based on where it seems to be placed in Barnes & Noble, but I thought it transcended those over-simplified definitions.

The story is about Gert, 29, who's been widowed for about a year when her two single (and terribly jaded) friends decide it's time for her to get back into the dating game when really, all Gert wants to do is sort of exist, dealing still with the constant reminders of the husband that had been such a part of her coming into being -- college romance, happy marriage -- and she hasn't quite found her way past the grief. Her friends insist that she date in spite of her grief, and in their own crazy ways, they are grieving just as much for missed opportunities or time lost or for not finding what they thought was "out there" and are, instead, still very alone. Without giving away anything about the story, I really enjoyed the way Lissner developed Gert and showcased a main character who had sense without losing any of the story tension as to whether or not she was going to figure out what was best for her. The obstacles here for Gert resonate with a depth and feeling I hadn't expected in a book about dating -- and I liked Gert all the more for how she traveled her journey, and the depth of feeling Lissner evoked. That there are obstacles -- and that they're real and not your typical superficial romantic comedy farces -- is a credit to Lissner in that she gave them weight without feeling ponderous or melodramatic.

I enjoy all sorts of books -- from The Three Junes to anything by Welty to thrillers (Harlen Coben, Robert Crais, Dennis Lehane) to Faulkner to Austin to Flannery O'Connor to Neil Gaiman, to Connie Willis... and on and on. Different moods, different books. And some days, when I need something light at the end of the day, something to make me smile, it's really nice to discover another author that takes her genre and transcends it. I'm looking forward to reading her next book.

killing us loudly, indeed...

Sometimes you come across such a good and justified rant that you simply post a link and hope more people agree and spread the word. I've just discovered Lizbeth's wonderful blog -- y'all go check it out (follow the rant word above to find her blog).

On a side note -- do y'all have trouble seeing the links in the sentences like the above? I know one friend does, and I could make the color darker or bold or something if it's bothering anyone else.

happiness is...

So I got the cat the new basket.

Have you ever tried to put a child down or hand him over to someone and he turns and grabs for you with all four limbs and has a look of such abject horror, it's as if you're about to feed him to cannibals after he's used for Satanic worship? That was Puddy when I tried to show her the new basket. Hated it. Scared silly.

I paid $19.95 for this stupid thing, which was just silly to do because she'd been perfectly happy with a $1.98 Wal-Mart basket, but this one had a nice comfy lining and everything. (The bigger shocker I think was that Carl, who is so not a cat person, went with me to PetCo to find her a basket.)

I ended up holding the basket in my lap, letting the cat sit in it and pet her for a while. She was rigid at first, then she finally relaxed. Then she started kneeding it, once she decided it wasn't going to suck her into a vortex of hell, and I think she ended up deciding it was a good thing:

this is just sad...

Remember how I described Puddy's basket on my desk (my former "in" basket)? And how she would leap into it, sliding it closer to the edge of the desk each time, then at least once a week, tumble over the desk like Wile E Coyote going over the cliff? Well, she finally destroyed the basket, to the point where the bottom had completely fallen off the rest of the poor thing, and the sides were so frayed, there was no hope of recovery. I don't even know where the bottom went to, but I set the "top" over on my side table next to my desk to remind me to buy her another one. I'm so used to her hopping up on my desk, I didn't even pay attention when she did it again today until I realized she was lying down on the side table and when I turned, I just totally cracked up. This is just so sad:

Yes, I am going to get her another basket today.

What do you mean, I'm not working. I am so too. Okay, I am working on entries and not taxes. grumble grumble grumble.

like I want to spend time with these people?

You know, I really thought I was going to love the new Bravo series, Significant Others. It looked edgey, funny, and wonderfully snarky. Then I saw an advertisement about how they had all these funny comedians, so they didn't need writers. (It was a really nasty sort of ad, like "writers suck, so who needs 'em.) And that made me want to smack them, but I was still curious enough about the premise to watch a couple of episodes.

Holy cow, do they need writers. Sure, there are a lot of funny, snarky lines and bitchy moments and viewing of the very worst in these couples (which is what has brought them to see a therapist... the audience "is" the therapist, sitting in the therapists' position and watching the couple on the couch argue, which is interspersed with "real-time" snippets of the events in their various locations which inspired that day's conversation with the therapist.)

There is almost nothing redeeming about a single person on the show, which makes it very difficult to sit through so much bitching. They are so rarely actually nice to anyone (even friends or family) that you wonder what sort of hell hole these people emerged from, and can they go back, please?

Anyone else see this?

spring fever

It is so gorgeous again today, I just made a trek to my local plant nursery to make a list of plants I want. I'm going to add to the front beds to finish filling them out, because I was going for the "cottage" look and the woman who did the landscaping just couldn't wrap her mind around something not being traditional and very organized. There are a few things she did that, once done, I didn't know how to re-do without spending a lot of extra money -- she bordered one bed with a very traditional look -- everything in a neat row alternated by another plant, the entire border identical. It's not what I wanted, but it does look pretty, so I left it. I also left it knowing that I could intersperse a lot of what she did with other things to soften that "rigid" traditional look.

We had a plan drawn up, but it's one thing to see it on paper and another to see it in the ground. I have a knee-jerk "ick" reaction to anything too regimented, hence the love of the whole "cottage garden" look. From now on, though, I'm going to draw up my own plan. At any rate, the front beds are far far better than what they were when we moved in, and after I get this next round of plants in, I think it's going to be what I want.

I'm just itching to do it today. It's so beautiful outside, I cannot stand having to stay inside to work. But, I keep reminding myself, there are several other weekends that I can plant, but not any other weekends where I can finish this tax stuff (finishing out an audit)... so, damnit, I'm going to be good and not buy plants until I can take that break and do it myself.

But it is killing me.

hello, stress

Wanna know how to get your heart rate up? Wake up, wander to the office, past the front door, notice a white piece of paper taped to the window of the door. Check it out, realize that it is a bench warrant. For your youngest son. Realize it's for a speeding ticket that he gave to you at your insistance to help him remember to pay in time. Realize that you did not even think about it again after you put it in a place where you would have to see it every day so that you wouldn't forget it. Realize that this place is the "in" basket, where the cat decided she wanted to sleep. Then realize that you'd put other papers on top, because March was such a long way off, there's no way you wouldn't dig through the whole basket again by that time, so there was nothing to worry about. And just for kicks and giggles, realize that your youngest son is driving home after school and could easily be picked up and put into jail because he was relying on you to remind him.

Yeah. Fun morning.

Jake has ADD, and has a very difficult time with time management. I, on the other hand, generally remember dates and times and phone numbers and such with a freakish accuracy. I wanted him to hand over the ticket so that he wouldn't forget.

Yup, great going there, mom.

So as soon as he got home from school (luckily he gets out in the morning), we rushed to the courthouse, went through about 1500 hoops, up and down the elevator a half-a-dozen times, but we got it paid, got it set up so that he can take a driving class and, once he does, have the ticket expunged from his record.

Whew.

getting your green on

St. Patrick's Day was always a fun day for me as a kid. With an Irish last name and green eyes, I staked a tiny claim to the day, enjoying the parades we have (a very green version of Mardi Gras) and the good will. When I was in high school, we were assigned a genealogy report and I dreaded it, since it meant having to talk to all the old people in my family. (You know, ancient people, over 30.) The report was going to be dull since I had grown up knowing that I was Cajun (Cajun... with an Irish last name... hmmmm?) and that was so normal around here -- almost mundane.

The Irish last name mystery was explained away by my grandmother: supposedly, when my grandfather's grandfather had arrived in Louisiana, there had been some war between siblings, and he had changed the spelling of his last name just to break with them. (But... but... he didn't spell it all that differently, I protested, and it's still very Irish in the first form...) I was told to hush.

There was another mystery which no one would address: my dad and all of his cousins are big men, with dark hair and blue or green eyes. At 6'2", my dad was the runt of the family; his cousins were in the 6'8" range. (But... most Cajun men are small and wiry and... small!... how is it we're Cajun again?) Again with the hush.

Turns out, there was a Scotch-Irish man of a Highland clan (and tracing that clan was a joy -- there was some incredibly cool history there)... anyway, a Highland man who immigrated to Nova Scotia, married into the Acadians there and when they were dispersed and fled, his family came to South Louisiana. So even though the decendents were raised Cajun (and my father only spoke Cajun until first grade, where they forced him to start speaking English only), there was a great bit of Scotch-Irish heritage being passed along -- including the big brawny look for the guys, lots of green eyed women and occasional red hair.

This delighted me. I enjoy the Cajun heritage, but I had always had an affinity for the Irish and the Scotch and I cannot explain the "calling" but whenever I see a photo of the Highland area, it feels like it is speaking to me of home.

(Of course, on my mom's side of the family, there were the great-grandparents who immigrated and met on the ship... he was from Italy and spoke nary a word of anything else, she was from France and same thing... they met and married before either of them could speak the other's language or English. So there's Cajun, Scotch, Irish, French and Italian heritage. Or as my mom puts it, not a calm bone in my body.)

St. Patrick's day will always hold another distinction for me, though. It was the day I discovered I was pregnant with Luke and my life changed and my world spun and tilted and re-shaped itself in an irrevoable, wonderful way. Scary as hell, but wonderful.

ugh

I am not writing.

I am not writing in the office,
I am not writing in a bar,
Nor in the bedroom
Or in a car.
I am not writing near the cat,
nor am I writing with a hat,
or here or far or in or out,
and who knows what that's all about.

I'm feeling grumpy, I'm feeling mean
I'm staring at this stupid screen
I am not writing and that is that
It's time to take a good long nap.

first flowers

I am abysmally bored with accounting, and have only a moment, but I wanted to post just a couple of images of my new flowers. This is the first time I have ever had a real garden (all of my own design) and bulbs, and I love looking out my office window to see:

and my new crocuses:

We planted nearly two hundred bulbs -- daffodils, crocuses, and tulips (which are about to bloom), and I thought two hundred bulbs would just look so extraordinarily crowded. And ha. They barely make a real dent in the beds. (The beds are large, though.)

This winter, we put in a bunch of shrubs; I'll be adding quite a few more things, like althea ferns and some grasses and some plant I saw which had wonderfully deep purple leaves (I can't remember the name). More photos when I get those up. And when the tulips bloom.

permission to be naked

In her entry, Dream Credentials, Tamar says, "And then? Well, I don’t have any credentials at all now. I parent and I write. Someday I’ll be published, maybe even sooner than someday. And that will be important for the validation and the chance to get my words out there, but in the end it is not the main event. It’s the corollary to the main event. Which is living it. I know that now."

Sometimes I wonder how it is that I have been waiting for permission all of my life to "be" a writer. I sense in myself the sort of tentative approach to the novel that makes me think I am sort of waiting to be credentialed... waiting for someone to come along and give me permission.

I am a writer -- that's what I do, it's who I am when I wake up in the morning. I live with that awful double-vision, in that I am in the world in the moment, but there's always a part of my brain taking notes, wondering how I would convey that moment, living in hyper reality because I'm feeling something and analyzing what I'm feeling and how I'm reacting and comparing it to people around me because I want to be able to convey that moment, in its essence and richness.

But there's a part of me that keeps waiting for permission to delve into the novel, to explore it, and I think Tamar hit on part of that -- it's the feeling of, "who, me?" -- how on earth do I think I can write a book someone would want to spend money and time reading? There's something about the way a script works that sort of lets you off the hook, as a writer, because you know what you're creating isn't the final product -- if there ever is a final product, a film, it's going to be because a whole bunch of other people have stepped up and plunked down a lot of money and a lot of time and turned that script, that blueprint, into a filmic experience. And it may be great or it may be awful, but it really isn't all up to the writer, as much as we'd like to take credit for the good things.

But a novel? That is pretty naked right there. That's about as real as it gets, because there isn't anyone else swooping in to turn it into something else -- there's you and your own efforts and your own storytelling ability and your own truth and willingness to dig deep and expose the ugly, because there is no beauty without the ugly, and you've got to be brave. That's hard. That's naked, and honestly, I find myself falling back on the script format because it's safer.

There. I said it. Safer.

I don't want to be about "safer." I want to be about digging deep, finding the story, ugly and all, and getting it down in such a way that people respond. So maybe, that's all the permission I need. Maybe.

me and cardboard tubing

I woke up this morning from the strangest dream... the space shuttle was hurtling toward Earth with some sort of problem, and I knew how to fix it. And the way to fix it required a phenomenal amount of cardboard tubing. Seriously. Cardboard tubing, and I was frantically pulling it all together, getting whatever it was ready for the shuttle (I seriously have no idea why) and somehow, it worked. So yeah, I'm sure NASA is going to be knocking on my door any minute now.

(No drugs were involved in the making of this story. And no space shuttles. Although I have to say that Tamar somehow was in the dream at one point explaining where to find cardboard cogs and gears. Yeah, I know. I am weird.)

Hildago

As with any review, there may be spoilers here, so if you don't want to read about them, skip this entry.

I have to partially agree with Mary Ann of Flick Filosopher on her assessment of Hidalgo: two words: Veeeee-go. I mean, really. The man could stare at a phone book, much less read it, and I could be entertained.

Unlike Mary Ann, the movie felt slow to me, but not in the purposeful force-you-into-the-movie way of an Antonioni, but simply too... over-simplified. And to me, Viggo really has the chops to have taken it to a deeper level, so I have to fault the story.

The story wants to be about a man's inner journey, and there's enough angst and denial-of-his heritage in Frank's life at the beginning of a movie that we feel the promise of something deeper to come. Frank enters the ultimate race of a lifetime -- 3000 miles of desert across Iraq -- and puts his life and that of his beloved horse, Hildago, on the line mostly because he can't stand his world and what he's become. He's been running from himself for his entire life, and this ultimate race is just one more way to run.

The thing is, Frank is already pretty certain about who he is in ways that come across in the story; the way he sits on a horse, the self-assured way he handles all of the taunts from the other racers and bystanders, the way he seems to already know how to run a 3000 mile race across a desert, even though he hasn't run one across a desert before and we don't really see him learning much from anyone around him. He just knows, and that sort of self-assurance doesn't lend itself cinematically to a man discovering himself. (If that makes sense.) So the inner journey that the outer race represents... isn't all that far for him to go. He faces obstacles, he overcomes. He faces more, and overcomes again.

Then, in the middle of this journey story, and to add twists (though someone will probably pipe up that this is real from the real life story)... is the kidnapping and rescue of the Shiek's daughter. It briefly gives Frank the opportunity to say some things out loud about his heritage that he hasn't vocalised yet... and even so, it felt superficial when it should have felt more moving. This is, after all, the most important epiphany of his travels, of his life, and it feels like it emanates off the surface and isn't wrenched from the gut. Even at the point of the climax, when he sees the images surrounding him, when he's at the last leg and giving up? I'm still not sure what it is he's getting from that moment or how it's ultimately playing into the journey of who Frank is and who he will become. The writer has the first racer interrupt him and point out that they are very near the end of the race... which he hadn't been able to see because of his dehydration and exhaustion... which just sucks the power out of those images. I get that he's asking for help and that the help comes... but it comes from serendipity, not from a specific message or guidance from the images, which were what he was calling upon. I wanted to see a moment when the images were beckoning him forward, when something was conveyed to him about who he was as a man, when calling on that heritage paid off for him in a more emotional way. And instead, the competitor stopped on his way to taunt him (thus wakening him up to the fact that he was very close to winning) and the horse that was almost dead a few seconds before stands up and looks miraculously better. And can run like hellfire is about to get it.... while he's dehydrated and couldn't even walk a few minutes before... with a deep gash in a front muscle... while carrying a rider. (I had a horse with a gash not nearly as bad as that -- she was a quarter horse and damned fast, and when she gashed her leg, she was in so much pain, she was practically in a stupor. It took her weeks to get back up to the point where she could walk without wincing and longer to carry a rider. And I weighed less than a 100 lbs.)

Even with all of that complaining, I still enjoyed the film, but it was mostly because like I said, Veeee-go, and then, there are horses. I love horses and I will watch almost any film where they are prominent. (One of my favorite films is a coming of age story, THE MAN FROM SNOWY RIVER. I know, half of you just rolled your eyes, but I love that movie and if you don't like it, there is something wrong with you. Seriously. Wrong. So there.)

ha!

And over on the In Passing... site, one overheard conversation that cracked my ass up:

"Remember Kenny?"
"New guy, Josh's old co-worker?"
"Yeah. Tonight he was leaving the office and said, 'I'm going to go home and cook these steaks.' I didn't really care, but I said, 'What steaks?' And then he says, "Didn't you see them defrosting on my desk? I bought them from this guy. He was selling them out of the back of his car in the parking lot at McDonald's.'"
"Ew. Ew. I don't even eat cow but ew."
"So in case the next story I tell you about Kenny starts with 'So we haven't seen Kenny in a few days...' Now you know why."
--A guy and a girl waiting in line for breakfast at La Note

Imaginary Girlfriends!

Man, I have missed my calling. I could have been an Imaginary Girlfriend. I just love how it's cheap, it's easy, it's totally correspondence (or AIM, though I think they charge extra for that)... and the guy can "break up" with his imaginary girlfriend and she'll write to beg him to take her back. You just know all of those high school guys who are tired of looking like a nerd who couldn't get anyone are going to be lining up for this (even though I think it says you have to be 18, like how are they going to check?) This site is going to boom. Swiped from the wonderful Amanda .

feeling great

Damn, but I woke up this morning feeling great. TERRIFIC. Yay me. No headache, nothing but good sleep. (Where on earth does the phrase, "like sunshine in my pants?" come from? I mean, that is just crazy, but it keeps bouncing around in my head to some weird tune I can't identify.) (No notes from the peanut gallery that I am also crazy. We already know that, thank you.)

write like god

I really really love this shirt. And Corey, honey, this shirt was tailor made for you.

When you first click on one of those pages, page down and you will see links to other shirts or other parts of the site, which is, by the way, a very cool writer's site.

I have been absent from here due to a headache from hell. I don't get them often, but when I do, I would rather die than communicate with people. Any people. Including the loud noisy ones who live here. But I am better and I am back. (I, apparently, am also evil because I ducked out of a fund-raising luncheon that I was invited to today, but I have more work than I can even think about doing to get done, and really, I hate luncheons. My idea of hell is to have to dress up and go to a luncheon with "ladies who lunch" or coporate types who are into that sort of thing because it's a good work-networking opportunity. I think I would rather be skinned alive, this is how much I hate the idea. Anyway, I am here and doing something very cool on the thiller, which is waaaaaay better than trying to swallow poorly seasoned rubbery chicken.

even more with the sick

We had looked up "pink eye" on the internet and saw that there were three causes: allergy, bacterial, or viral. Typically, bacterial is the one most doctors treat, and therefore, is what most doctors assume is the cause. Turns out Jake is not typical. Of course. The ophthalmologist (doesn't that word look funny?) put this funky dye stuff in his eye and did some sort of blue light on there and pronounced it pink eye of the viral kind, which is apparently much more difficult to get rid of (unless we're very lucky and it's something called adnovirus, which I am probably spelling incorrectly, but it's a virus, it can bite me).... because with the adnovirus, your body can build up immunity to it in eight to ten days and fight it off. However, since Jake had recently been sick, his immune system hasn't really regrouped yet, and even if it is this adnovirus, he might take longer. If it's some other virus, lots of nasty things could happen, like scar tissue on the cornea, harming his vision, so to be safe, she precribed him some anti-viral drops (which is quite different and much more expensive than the anti-bacterial drops we'd already been given before).

And apparently the virus is so unusual, none of our regular pharmacies had the drops; I was most grateful for a very determined nurse who called around to every pharmacy in creation and finally found one bottle of drops, not terribly far away.

I swear, if I hear of some freakish strain of illness within a hundred miles of either kid, I'm locking them up for the duration, because they will not only get it, it will mutate into some impossible-to-heal-unless-you-hock-your-house version of the virus, only to infect my kids. Grrr.

night vision

I work in an industry that thinks it must start at the buttcrack of dawn -- construction. For someone whose creativity comes alive about ten o'clock at night, this is a problem. We have a business -- it's not like I can quit and go elsewhere -- and it's responsible for putting food on the table, etc., so it's not like I can ignore it and wander off to dance to the beat of a different drum, but damn, I wish the world would function a little less rigidly.

I have always been a night owl; when I was in high school, I'd start a book late in the evening, thinking I could put it down and just finish it the next day, but that so very rarely happened. More times than I care to admit, I'd hear my dad's alarm go off -- Dad was a truck driver and had to get up at 2:30 or 3:00 a.m. sometimes for some of his shifts -- and I'd quickly extinguish my bedroom lamp and wait until he was up, dressed, gone and the last sounds of his truck turning the corner drifted back to me before I'd turn on the light and finish the book. Of course, I'd usually finish it at four in the morning (I am so not a speed reader like Diane -- man, I wish I was!)... and my alarm would go off at six or so for school. I think I passed the majority of my first and second hours in a sleep-deprived stupor. (Of course, the drive to school with my little brother drumming on my arms and head tended to get the adrenaline pumping.)

Even now, with all the grown-up responsibilities, I find myself trying to go to sleep at a decent hour (with the inevitable sleep deprivation mentioned below), and my brain just turns on. Answers to problems, or doing suicide laps over new problems, keep me awake. (Suicide laps = the term my eighth-grade basketball coach gave to the exercise of going back and forth on the court in a hard run, each time going to 1/4th of the court farther. Then starting over until at least one kid fainted. Fun coach.) But much more than just the worrying, or the solutions to problems... night time is the time when I simply feel more creative. My imagination kicks into overdrive, I am better able to free associate and weave in and out of a sort of lucid dream state and snag the details I need for whatever creative endeavor is in progress, and I easily get into a zone where time suspends and the world feels right and good. It's god-like in those moments, intoxicating and wonderful, and somehow more real because of the silence enveloping me in the night rather than the intrusion of daily living.

I completely frustrated both of my parents, who are morning people. My dad used to say in the mornings when he got me up, "Now, don't be scared. There's this really BIG yellow thing outside right now. It's called the sun. It won't hurt you, I promise." At some point a few years ago, I read where they had discovered in some scientific study that there is a gene which predisposes a person toward being a night-owl or a morning person; apparently they discovered there was some sort of link to this gene (and I think it was also linked to a specific eye-color? or something in the iris?) and a person's biological clock and it wasn't just that person being lazy in the morning, but being biologically programmed to do better at night. I showed my dad the study, and told my parents it was their fault (hee). They at least left me alone about it after that. I can only hope that whoever discovered it got to work nights while doing so. There should be a secret midnight rally or something, celebrating bucking the system.

more with the sick

We thought Jake had pink eye last week (on top of all the other fun stuff I was dealing with for Luke's allergic reactions), so the doctor prescribed some drops. I just had to get a ride to go pick Jake up at a friend's house because his eyes were bothering him so much, he couldn't drive home. They are swollen, and one is very red. We don't know if this is still the pink eye or if he got something in the eye and scratched it -- he'd been working for the friend's dad, unloading all the items out of their attic (they're remodeling). So now he's home, the light hurts them so much, the TV bothers him. I had him flush them out with some eye wash we have, and we're going to keep doing that since it seemed to give him some relief. Then I imagine it will be back to the doctor again tomorrow. Yippee.

painting into corners

I have had one spectacularly wonderful writing day. (I edited this from "hellaciously wonderful" which accurately reflects the twistedness of the event of writing to "spectacularly wonderful" which better reflects how I felt when it was over. Writers worry about these things. This is why they do not give us the red button on the big nuclear silos. We'd agonize over whether to call it red, maroon or deep burgandy while the restof the world blew up.)

And "day" being a loose term since I spent a lot of it staring at the screen and finding various and assorted ways to not write, until all of a sudden, I realized the next step. The "holy shit" moment when the twist is both so organic and so unexpected, I feel like I have just slam dunked something. Of course, I have just made it extremely difficult for my hero to get himself and the people he loves out of this jam, and this it the turning point in act one, but hey, that's what's fun about the whole thing. When I was working on the action comedy, I would throw up these sorts of obstacles and I was absolutely certain I wasn't going to be able to come up with a way out of it, but it actually made me more creative. I think if you write to a predetermined solution, you end up with "predictable" -- but if you write with "impossible odds" against your character and force yourself to delve really deep, you can come up with some seriously creative moves / characters. Moments like this? They are the juice, the elctricity, the thing that makes the writing worth it. This is what makes the act of writing a joy.

(Lots and lots of people want to have written, but they don't want to be a writer. I want to do the writing. I want to be painted into that corner and challenge my characters to see if we can get out of that moment without resorting to the cliche. I love this.)

fun site

Check out typo_illus_01 -- and it took me a second to realize the text is the song lyrics. Have your sound on (if you're able to at work) to appreciate it.

Swiped from Chasing Daisy, who often has interesting links.

geez.

I felt so grouchy this morning when I woke up, if it had been an Olympic event, I could have gold medaled. For crying out loud, I need a decent night's sleep before I hurt someone.

if writing were like sports

You know, I wouldn't trade being a writer for anything else -- I love the solitude, I love the creation of the world, tossing impossible obstacles into the mix and seeing what these characters will do, what makes them tick. I love the fight to distill the moment, each moment, to its essence, to the one exact point where everything hangs in balance. Last night I fought a fierce battle. It was me against the scene, which was trying its dead level best to be static, talky, informative without drama. I wrote, deleted, rewrote, deleted... more times than I can count. I felt like a boxer in a ring, punched and counter-punched before I could even move into position. It took round after round, hitting the mat, wondering whether the bloody fight was worth it...why not just let this one go and live to fight another day... but you know, you just can't do that. The allure is great -- rest on this one, do the hard work on the next opponent, on the next scene. But you're not a writer if you rest, if you give in to the mundane, just like any great boxer or baseball player or footballer... you push. The great thing to writing is that you push yourself in the quiet of your own room, so it's not as likely that when you fail, there are witnesses standing around to boo. It's frustrating though, when you succeed -- that one round when you knock out the opponent and the odds had been against you -- there's no crowd to go wild, no screaming from the stands, no bookies paying off the ten-to-one odds. Wouldn't that be amazing, to have that sort of cheering going on every time you beat the odds?

Of course, all those crowds in the bedroom late at night when I've finished a scene on the laptop might just freak out Carl a little bit. Although that might be fun, too. Heh.

white fog

Another terrible nightmare this morning, after a night of poor sleep. I was comfortable, just could not shut up the brain. Most of the day felt like I was trying to function with white fog clogging the synapses, and even my vision is affected with days like this -- everything has a white, gauzy haze to it. Could not do anything for the construction business and was very lucky that is was a surprisingly quiet day. Gave up about 2:30 and napped. A very long nap. Still feel half human, but feel as if I'm coming out of a fugue state. These don't happen often and to tell you the truth, I don't think I've ever mentioned them in an entry or to friends. I rebound, work long hours and forget it even happened until months later, white fog closes in again. It is a strange, surreal experience to realize that you suddenly cannot think... you sort of realize that you're not grasping even basic sentence structure... explanations to other people are disjointed... and if it wasn't me inside this body, if I were watching it from the outside, I would assume distraction or drugs. It's strange feeling as if your IQ just dropped 40 points in one morning, but at least it goes away and I will be back to normal tomorrow. I think.

tuber talk

Y'all, sometimes, I just do not know where the brains went, but they did not stick around here as we have clicked along. As evidence, here is a conversation from last night:

Carl
(telling a gross peanut story)
And then he was hopping around
like some hopping around thing... you
know, kinda like that guy that
you see on TV. The one who's
dressed like a peanut in all of those
peanut commercials? What's
his name?

Toni
Mr. Peanut?

Carl
That can't be his name.

Toni
The peanut guy?

Carl
Yeah. That can't be his name.
It should be something easier
to remember. Like "George."

Toni
Because calling a peanut shaped
cartoon "George" is easier to
remember than "Mr. Peanut?"

Carl
Yeah.

Toni
!!

And then later, when we were playing rummy and I was fairly well stomping Carl's ass and we were laughing and cutting up, I laid down a big set of points.

Carl
Cheater cheater, pants on fire.

Toni
(snorting laughter)
Pants on fire?

Carl
Wait a minute, that didn't come out
right....... what is it again?

Toni
Liar liar, pants on fire.

Carl
What goes with cheater cheater?

Toni
Pumpkin eater.

Carl
Pumpkin eater? I like
mine better.

So now it's "Cheater, cheater, pants on fire" around here. For everything. Just so you know.

LDW my ass

In the construction business, we have to rent equipment. There for a while when the business was so slow, we had gotten out of the habit of having to rent much because we either owned it already, had a friend (in construction) who was out of work and wanted to lease / rent it to us, or we could pick up the equipment cheap because so many other construction companies were going out of business. This last year (from last March until now) however, things have picked up. We have several jobs going on covering about a four state area. It is neither pretty nor fun to make sure everyone has everything they need to build the damn things we build when half of our own equipment is two states away.

We're a very little company. We just happen to do big work, and far away, so now we've been renting more and more equipment.

Used to, when you rented equipment, you paid a damage waiver fee (LDW stands for Loss & Damage Waiver) -- a whopping 14% of the rental fee tacked onto the rental (before taxes) which was an insurance policy. If you didn't rent very often, it was a nusisance but a necessary evil -- if you damaged the equipment, you paid a deductible, and the damage waiver insurance kicked in. You know, hence the name.

But equipment rental companies got wise to this and decided to add a couple of neato little quirks in the mix. Like, if you damage it, sure they'll cover it, but not until you pay a $500 deductible OR two times the monthly rent of the piece of equipment, WHICHEVER IS GREATER. Or the exact cost of the damages. The bastards. This is printed in itty bitty fine print that you don't see on the invoice, but is on the delivery ticket -- the ticket the guys in the field sign. Like they are actually going to read the itty bitty bitty teeny print when they have a backhoe sitting there, ready to go to work? Yeah. Right.

So, for example, the backhoe that one of our overzealous employees damaged last week? (Which I did not mention here yet.) We could pay twice the monthly rent of $1400, so $2,800. Or we could just pay for the estimated damages -- which will be about $1,400. They're not even going to fix it -- it's going right back out on rent. So we paid about $200 for the LDW waiver for the two months we had the backhoe, $400. Now we'll pay for the damage because it's cheaper than the two times the monthly rent... that's $1,800 going whoosh down the drain. I want to smack somebody.

I'm now renting enough to where this is annoying and digging into profits, so now I'm going to have to buy a floating rider policy to cover rental equipment so that I can pay a set amount every month, whether I rent something or not just in case I DO rent something and it gets damaged so I can then have the privilege of only paying the deductible. At least I can quit paying that 14% of LDW on every rental we have -- which, given how much we rent now, is probbably about the same price as the policy.

I am having a party over here, I am having so much fun.

grace under pressure

I cannot imagine the hell of the adoption process... the hours of waiting, of hoping, of auditioning, in a sense, to get to be a parent. I cannot understand the absolute intensity of the emotional rollercoaster, and how anyone can put themselves through it, but I think if every parent had to go through this before having a child, the world might be better off... because parenting is very difficult work. I read excerpts of lives like Maria's in Transitions and Poop: She's Home -- at how she had the baby, then the adoptive mother changed her mind... and then realized that no, she couldn't parent and wanted Maria to have the baby after all... and I think I would have never been able to manage the kind of grace and unselfishness Maria has displayed here. Being concerned for the birth mom is a smart thing to do, of course, because it sets the tone for the relationship from then on, but it's obvious when I read stories like this that Maria cares and is trying very hard to do the very best she can for both the child / her child now, and the birth mother. It amazes me, that grace. That is a lucky child.