I found this on the back of my son's homework.
Family portrait by Cheese.




I was going through his papers and I am sorry to say I easily spotted my frizzy haired self. Cheese told me originally my head was much larger like a giant balloon but he couldn't focus for laughing so much, so he made it smaller.
Obviously I added color to create the series. I like how doing so seems to effect the mood of the family.

February 13th post that has been hanging around in drafts

I'm feeling more optimistic about editing. I hope this feeling will last through some actual editing.
(that was three days ago, since then.)
I got irritated with the people I know for not enjoying my writing, so I decided to do some simple tweaking of it, so I could show it to other people....I printed it out, and read several pages. I didn't enjoy it at all, no energy, no atmosphere. No wonder my readers aren't excited. This realization caused my mood to plummet. I had the woe is me-s. I am so awful at everything, there is nothing, NOTHING, I am good at. I have no graces, no talents, I stink at this, that, and the other thing. Bad wife, bad mother, no domestic skills, not attractive...yada yada yada (I mean why limit myself to a writing bash when I can bash myself about everything?)
That was the mood I was in Wednesday while I went on my walk. It was a beautiful day. It is better though to walk angry than sad, angry moves quickly, sad meanders and mopes, feeling sorry for itself, drifting back and forth between edge of road, and grass.
During my walk I saw a low stone fence, created without mortar, just round stones, and sharp ones, resting, wedged, interlocking like a puzzle. And suddenly I wanted to be that fence, to be something, anything, connected, solid, holding. A low break against wind and snow, standing year after year.
Reading my work I felt it as a visible struggling, that was what it manifested, the stress of a writer desperately trying to say something, not the concerns of the characters, not their story, but mine, I saw the ugly strain of my attempt, I read failing. Struggling, like I can not hear my own voice and am wildly screaming and screeching, trying desperately to hear, to be heard, but without confidence in my ability to make true sounds, nerves and stress mangle my thoughts into harsh broken noises.

Last night I didn't feel up to going to the writer's meeting at our local bookstore. I had never gone before, but thought I should because next month is a writer's conference, which is expensive, and really scary to me (alone in a prolonged social situation with many strangers in places unknown.) and if I intend to attend, I better start by dipping my toe in this bracing pool now. I decided to just go check it out from a distance, pretend to read a magazine or something.

I'm so glad I went. I was nervous and had to be invited over by the woman who gave the editing talk at the library on Monday. I thought it was just going to be random talk about the writing life, but there was a topic and a print out, and then reading aloud and critiques. Anyway..they were inviting, understanding, and energizing. Others who have traveled the road I am on. They were encouraging and eager to offer ideas and tips. Rather than a lone failure (I'm a loser baby..), I felt like I was part of something, connected to others also working on trying to become authors.

They talked about editing, ways of approaching it, ripping out sections (ripping out your heart), of the possibility of needing to set the draft aside and start writing all over at the beginning. Bracing words, a shiver at the thought of doing such work, tearing stuff down, starting over, yet also the bracing support of others holding me up making me feel strong enough to do it.
I didn't want to go, but now I know I needed to. I could join this group, be part of round and jagged stones, set together, creating a low lying fence, a break against wind and snow. Forming something, a group of people who write, we could stand together year after year.
In this simple act of going from a lone stone at the periphery of my yard, to a stone set with other stones, all jagged and smooth in different ways, but each striving to be more, a boundary of being could be built,


this post is almost two weeks old, and both long and incomplete, but I've decided to publish it so my thoughts can keep moving forward.

Nearby, even have an unfinished real post. But currently all tied up in knots over child and school.

read cat picture as SCREAMING, not yawning (though I am indeed tired.)

I've been quite busy lately with..It takes a village. As in it takes a village to get my son to do any of his school assignments. And this year there are all these big long term project thingies, history day, science fair. I am trying to readjust my mindset so that it stops being a continual source of stress. Because a stressed out me is no good for me, and no good for my son, or for my husband who I keep trying to get to take my place in the whole helping our son get from point A to point....um well actually maybe that should be from point D to point A.

A person who does manuscript editing for cash is speaking at my local library tonight. I went last year to hear her and I'm thinking she is just going to say the same things, but still I'm probably going to go. I need to get back on track with my writing and maybe this will help me to do so. I did make the tiniest bit of progress the night I was so sick I couldn't sleep at all. Just little things that I liked...a swan graveyard, a secret door leading to a hidden staircase, etc. little clues and riddles to decorate the story with. Little things certainly but for me emotionally helpful flourishes.

mood a bit..I don't know what word fits..
Yesterday was my birthday. I turned 39, probably a good time for self reflection and what not, but my stomach virus had derailed any deep thoughts into merely, "God, I never want to feel this awful again."

Yesterday I felt my energy coming back, felt more like myself. I took Cheese to an orthodontist for a second opinion concerning Invisalign (this one recommended braces instead). After school, I was a bit bummed that not only did my husband not take off for my birthday but he was also working till 10PM. But I was able to put butter on the raisin bagel I ate, that was festive. At about 9PM my best friend from college called to wish me a happy birthday and that meant a lot to me, and suddenly I was cheery and chatty. After I got ready for bed I did what I always do before getting into bed, I went in to check on my son. Sometimes I just look in on him, but often I still lean in to listen and make sure he is breathing. He sleeps with a CD (on repeat) now (a woman singing in Japanese) so I have to lean in close for a second to hear him. As I did this, he popped up abruptly (which he sometimes does, as a 'haha I'm awake!') and his head crashed into mine. I grabbed my nose, started whimpering sharply, and felt the blood coming down into my hand. I ran for the bathroom leaving a blood trail behind me. Blood dripping down my chin, all over the sink, my hands, running down to my elbow. Thank goodness Bob was home by then, he had been yelling, "what's wrong?" forever downstairs and now came up to find out. He ordered me to apply pressure to my nose, and tilt my head back slightly. I started to feel nauseous and faint (probably from some blood dripping into my stomach and because I was hyperventilating a bit). I got into bed, took tylenol, applied an ice pack to my face (which Bob told me to do, but which I had to go downstairs to get for myself). Oh how I wished I was sleeping. I couldn't figure out how I had come to find myself in such a situation. It took a lot of harassing Bob to get him to at all clean up the blood trail on the carpet, he kept saying he didn't know how to clean it, and trying to go back downstairs to watch television. I didn't fall asleep before 1am, I couldn't breathe through my nose, and my nose hurt, and after awhile I realized there was no rest till I washed the blood off of my elbow and foot. But I did finally sleep. Ah sleep. Sleep is great.

I was a bit disappointed that Cheese didn't ask me how I was this morning, he never even got out of bed last night when it happened. Though clearly an accident and not his fault, I still would have liked an 'I'm sorry." Whenever I have accidently hurt him I have always said, "Im sorry". He didn't wish me happy birthday yesterday either. Of course he did both after some serious prompting.

Anyway so here I am, no much swollen and only a bit black and blue along the left side of the bridge. I'm fine. But it was an odd sort of a birthday. And I am in an odd sort of a mood. You know being sick leading up to my birthday in a way I hadn't been sick in 11 years, and then the finale of closing that day like that. I live a rather careful slow paced life, and am not used to any sort of physical trauma, and though the damage is slight, for me it was indeed traumatic. I truly hope that last night was the finale, I am a bit concerned about what might be lying in wait round the corner.
Yes, I seem to have lost my pep, maybe that is it there upstairs staining the carpet, perhaps after I go up and truly clean it out, it will be abosorbed back into me.
Well the good new is, all this has distracted me from any trauma I might have felt over turning 39. It is just good to be here, be well, and not have any parts broken.

(Cheese says the discoloration doesn't really show because my face is rather multicolored already. I'm sorry to say he is right.)


now if I could just get some decent pancakes...I know my mood would brighten.

sick. At least finally well enough to go online for a couple of minutes. I hadn't been sick like this in 11 years. I can't remember ever having gone an entire day without eating anything like I did on Friday and I was too sick to sleep or watch tv. Miserable. Yesterday I had a small banana and a soft pretzel, and was able to watch movies :)!! Today my son, who has no other interest in the super bowl, keeps asking, "what are we going to make to eat for the super bowl!" Actually we were supposed to go out to eat to celebrate my birthday (which happens later this week), but my current food ambition doesn't go beyond hoping I can eat some diced pear and not regret it.
"What do you think, fish and chips or corn dogs?" He just asked me. Obviously I can't eat either. I just hope whatever my husband and son make the smell isn't nauseating, and that they clean up afterward. (my refusal, over the past two days, to clean up after either one of them has caused some tension between them, but eh..I have faith that they can survive one more day.)