Nothing really

When my computer hard drive crashed AGAIN (yes, the new one that I got last summer), I kind of gave up. Without my computer, my whole organizational system was thrown off. I must say that I think it was good for me in a way, to look at things differently. I started writing things out BY HAND, like journaling in the morning with coffee and actually writing letters to my mother and sending them by snail-mail. I think it is good to get this different perspective every once in a while, and to have that connection between your mind and your writing hand and the pen and paper.

Since I got my latest hard drive, my computer has been slower than ever. I have been very unmotivated to use it for much of anything. But, I am still here. I just feel like I don't really have anything to say.

I have had to focus on basic survival issues so much lately that I have not done a scrap of fictional writing. A great deal of my time goes toward keeping myself and my children healthy, especially my son with Cystic Fibrosis, who has had to do extra breathing treatments lately due to a scary bacterial infection that we are having trouble getting rid of (you'd never know it to look at him, he seems the picture of health, a very active and rambunctious 5 year-old boy). Then there is my persistent anemia, that I thought I had taken care of, but now seems to be resurfacing.

We've been trying to survive winter again, in this crappy economy where my husband's job is pretty much seasonal and I have been having a really difficult time finding work. Then it got really cold, below zero, and our pipes froze. It's my least favorite time of year, contrary to the popular song lyrics, "it's the most wonderful time of the year." Bullshit.

I don't mean to complain, just to explain where I've been. Things are looking up. I got a part-time job, working with some friends who have their own business in their home. It's a great situation. And I've got another job interview coming up. And I've decided to go back to school in the spring, to work toward finishing my masters degree (taking one class).

So where I am at right now is very grounded in survival and reality - heck, I'm not even reading any fiction, just non-fiction lately. And I've been thinking about getting my first tattoo ever. When I can eventually afford it. So, what's going on? Nothing really.

You & Your Heart

I haven't posted in a while -- partly because I'm lazy, partly because I'm in my usual horratious November funk. I'm getting awfully tired of feeling sorry for myself, though. That takes a lot of energy, suprisingly, and surely I should put that energy to better use. Nonetheless I was being my usual useless November self when I decided to fire up YouTube and listen to some Jack Johnson. If you have perchance lived under a rock for the last few years, Jack is a cool, laid-back ex-surfer who did the soundtrack to the "Curious George" movie, and has multiple other, wicked awesome albums. (Albums? How fucking old am I?)

Anyway, Jack totally set me on fire, especially the video for "You and Your Heart." In case you didn't know (and if you didn't know, you either don't know me or ignored everything I've said in the last five months), I learned to surf this summer with my fabulous sister and multiple fabulous East Coast friends. So this video really hit me. Sure, I'm in New Mexico now, with no real hope of surfing till my next East Coast trip. But just seeing the gorgeous waves and water sent my heart soaring. I felt like a modern, bizarre surf-version of the fucking "Sound of Music" or something.

I love surfing. What really makes it amazing to me is that when I'm standing up on a wave, nothing else exists. Nothing. I can't emphasize that enough. I can't even really explain it. It' s just me on the wave.

Surely I can take this pure feeling and find other ways to experience it. It's not like November is good for anything else.

Advice from my daughter

Whenever I tell people I’m writing a novel, they inevitably want to know when I will finish it; I hope this is because they’d like to read it, but I can’t speak for them, of course. Frankly, I’d like to know when I will finish it, too. I have 100 pages that are almost good enough, in my opinion, to send out for critiques. The first three chapters, in other words, although it may turn out to be four, depending on the story flow.

I am under the thumb of my own perfectionism. I can’t help but try to make it as readable and believable as I possibly can. I run across poor word choices, too many adverbs, repeated words, repeated phrases, continuity errors, et cetera et cetera ad fucking nauseam. I work almost every night after my family goes to bed, and I still don’t have the first three chapters.

However. Once I’ve sent those chapters out, I’ll take all the critiques I receive and put them in a separate file that I won’t even look at until much, much later. That will be a big help, I’m sure.

I’ve told one of my friends I’ll have the manuscript finished by the end of the year. The calendar, evil bastard that it is, tells me that this is eight weeks away. Yeah... no, don’t see it happening.

Given the time it takes for agents to read and reject or otherwise respond to queries, not to mention the lengthy process of publication if a house decides to buy the book, I suspect I’ll be working my day job for at least another two years. Which means that I have to deal with the causes of my procrastination there.

What it comes down to is that I’m not comfortable offering criticism to some of the managers here. Unfortunately one of those managers is my boss, whom, owing to circumstances beyond my control, I have to audit at least twice a year. Reporting nonconformances to her is a huge pain in the ass, and it makes me want to dig a very deep hole and hide away in it until the nonconformances go away.

This approach has not worked.

So I’ve been considering the feasibility of bringing up my discomfort with her and trying to improve our relationship. When I suggested this at the dinner table last night, I knew how absurd the idea was as soon as the words were out of my mouth. I'm going to change my boss or her attitude; that’s a fact. What I can change is my own approach to those uncomfortable situations.

Before I even began to articulate this line of reasoning out loud, my daughter piped up.

“Mom, you just have to remember three things. No, four. First, be polite. Second, talk slowly so they can understand you. Third, talk about important things, because that’s what people want to talk about when they’re at work. Fourth, be serious about it, because that’s how people act when they’re at work.”

Did I mention that she’s seven?

She had pegged my three main failings and told me how to correct them. When I’m talking to management about what they’ve fucked up, I tend to speak quickly to get it over with. I sometimes lump trivial stuff in with the important things. And I very often try to lighten the mood and come off as not-so-serious to avoid putting the other person on the defensive.

This takes a lot of time and energy. It’s a waste.

So I’m going to follow her advice. I’m going to be polite (I always am anyway, at least in these situations), I will speak slowly, I will focus on important things, and I will take them seriously. Because it’s my job, and as long as I’m here, I might as well do it right.

And if they don’t like it, they can kiss my ass.

Hei Matau

In the spirit of surfing, and of my interest in all things Polynesian, I recently bought a Maori (New Zealand Polynesian) fish hook necklace. It is made of bone ("Human?" someone asked in horror, which made me laugh, and also made me realize that, vegetarian though I am, I didn't actually give a shit if it were human). According to the seller, the carving

signifies abundance and plenty, strength and determination. A good luck charm for catching good luck and positive energy, and safe journey over water.

It just seemed like a really nice necklace for a chick who digs water, and surfing, and Polynesia. I might even have to come up with a haiku...

Sad, Sad, Sad...

The happiest day of the year is when I arrive in New England to see my sister, her husband, and my nephew and niece. The second happiest day of the year is when I fill my pool.

The saddest day of the year is when I have to leave New England. The second saddest is when I empty my pool.

Today is the second saddest day of the year.

Other people's problems

People like to tell me things. I am not exaggerating when I say that perfect strangers have come up to me and started telling me intimate details of their lives. I've thought that maybe I should go into counseling, because I obviously look like I care. Sometimes I do, but mostly I don't. I do find other people and their problems interesting though. I guess that's why I got that useless degree in Psychology way back when, because I wanted to study people. When it came down to actually working with people and their problems, I found myself wishing that I could be a carpenter or something simple like that, where at the end of the day you could actually see some progress.

So when I start wallowing in my own self-pity (oh, I'm so tired because my son with CF kept me up coughing in the middle of the night...), I think of other people's problems, and I don't feel so bad. Because everyone I know has got them, and I wouldn't trade with any of them. Now, if I knew someone who had the problem of having too much money and not knowing what to do with it, I would be willing to trade problems with them.

One day, when I was feeling particularly tired, a friend of mine sent me a link to a blog, which I have since lost, by this young woman who works a full-time job, has an infant, AND she herself has CF (Cystic Fibrosis). I thought, damn, it's hard enough to take care of yourself when you have an infant, let alone working full-time, then top that with this life-threatening illness...argh. I really wished at that moment that I had the problem of too much money, I would have sent her a boatload.

Then there are the people who you think have it made, but when you really get to know them, you see that they too have problems that you would not want. So what the hell am I getting at? Not really sure. Just wanted to share a thought, since I have been so busy lately and haven't contributed much to our ongoing online conversation.

I have been soooo busy, and soooo tired, but I've been having a great time too. Sure, I've got some serious problems. My son has this serious life-threatening illness. My husband works two random part-time jobs and we never know when or how much money we will have. I don't have a job at all. So I work full-time at being the best mother, wife, and household manager that I can be, and sometimes I still come up short. But I also get to go for long runs in the mountains with my incredibly fit husband with whom I am still in love after 14 years.

So, that's life. We all have problems. We need to be compassionate with others because you never know what kind of shit they are dealing with. And be thankful for those days when the problems are small, or at least manageable, and you get a quiet moment to sit and write or walk outside on a beautiful day. Which is what I plan to do today.

a relatively mild and somewhat thoughtful rant

I am terribly sick of reading shit by published writers who have obviously stolen my fucking ideas. And of discovering that plot devices I have used are as common as flies on feces. And of having to consider and reconsider the title of the book.

Over the last few days, I've been reading Angelology, by Danielle Trussoni. The first twenty pages sucked me in, then the quality of the writing and the pace made me suspect that the senior editors had polished up those first twenty pages and quit, handing the rest of it down to the interns. Maybe they figured that once a reader is hooked, she won't put a book down. Fuckers are right, too, at least in my case.

The book is a fictional interpretation of angels, fallen and otherwise, and how they interact with the human world. Published this year. So I have to read it, to stay current and know what to rip off and what I can't, what works in terms of theory and application and what doesn't.

Parts of Angelology made me cackle, and not in a way that Trussoni would appreciate.* At the same time, I am breathing a huge sigh of relief that her take on fallen angels and the Nephilim (their progeny) digresses from mine in several major ways. Also she's hooking her concepts into a big good versus evil/end of the world kind of thing, whereas I just want to write a good love story.

That's another thing that distances me from this novel – it lacks the emotional depth that, for me, translates into the ephemeral quality of soul, of heart. And there are great passions described in this novel, human and “Nephilistic,” but they are described, not evoked. There's a ton of telling and not showing. I kinda thought that wasn't a good thing? Then again, I don't think emotional involvement is what she's going for; this is trying to be a thriller more than anything else. But hell, if I'm not going to get emotionally involved, I'd just as soon read Wikipedia.

Angelology is well-researched, much more so than my paltry efforts, and very imaginative. But the narrative devices, not to mention the names, strike me as more than a little contrived, and I don't really give a shit about any of the characters, not even the ones I want to like. This is uncharacteristic for me. Could be me, could be the writing. Either way, I'll be glad when it's over. Which doesn't really recommend it much.

I didn't mean for this a book review. I was supposed to segue very smoothly into a mention of one of the writer's blurbs on the back cover, you know, where other writers gush about the book in hopes that you'll trust them enough to give it a shot.

Four quotes down is a blurb by Raymond Khoury, author of The Last Templar and Sanctuary.

Goddamn it. Another one. William Faulkner published his potboiler Sanctuary in 1931. Way different from mine, but there it is. Then there's the TV show, which is straight-up sci-fi and has not exactly made enormous waves, critically speaking, but it's been renewed for a third season so apparently it doesn't entirely suck, which is entirely beside the point anyway. Khoury's thriller is actually called The Sanctuary, and I'm actually tempted to read it if only because I can't distill the idea of it into three or four words.

The main problem, as I see it, is Nora Roberts. You may have heard of her. Her Sanctuary is a romance, but, happily, not a paranormal one. There's a town called Sanctuary that's featured in the book, is all, and I haven't read it to find out how meaningful the word is.

It is profoundly meaningful to me. I had some godawful title picked out years ago, thinking, well, this sucks ass but it'll do for now and surely something better will strike me eventually. I can't remember when Sanctuary popped into my head, but as soon as it did, it stuck fast.

A lot of it has to do with the fact that the word is so flexible. In one sense, it means safety, a place of refuge. The other sense is a consecrated place of worship. For my story, it works on both these levels, because there's such a strong religious background to the thing. You can hardly escape it if you're writing about an angel and a witch, and I have no desire to. It works in the other sense, too. My MCs come to find sanctuary with each other, realizing that physical walls can't keep you safe any more than they can define a place of worship. Only love does that.

And ain't that just the cheesiest shit you ever heard? Fucking A.

But damn it, there's no other word that says safety and worship at the same time. I've looked. Extensively. And I've toyed with other cheesy titles, more traditionally romantic, that are so wretched I can't bring myself to repeat them to anyone, let along on a public blog.

Also, I had the names of the next two books picked out, both of which are single words beginning with S. Sanctuary, Serenity, Salvation. I mean, shit, how much simpler can it be, right?

But there are other things to worry about at the moment. For example, the soon-to-be-published fantasist in the critical writing group has mentioned in a crit for another person that using a random homeless person or bum as a plot device is almost a cliché. So, fuck, there's another scene that will need tweaking. Not a big deal, really, it's making me flex my muscles, imaginationally speaking (new word, you like it?).

Then there's the mention of a John Travolta movie called Michael, where the angel smells like cookies to a particular woman. One of my critters mentioned that a while back, too, so I'm having to work in a slightly different direction to keep that original.

Individually, these aren't hard to manage. What worries me is that there are more that I'm missing.

And sometimes I just have to throw up my hands and say, well, fuck, there are reasons for the cliches and they're called goddamned archetypes, you know? Scary things are underground, in basements, dungeons, caves, and catacombs. New York City is a backdrop for so many stories because it's bursting at the seams with them – anything you can possibly imagine has happened in New York City, and probably a lot of shit you can't, or would prefer not to. Homeless people make good stand-in characters because they're so far out of the norm you can make them do anything and it doesn't necessarily have to make sense immediately. Pull in a homeless person, a bum, a lunatic, and you immediately tap into the idea of the fringes of sanity and society, the absence of rules, the absence of safety. The element of chaos, in other words. And deathbed revelations happen because people often try to tie up their loose ends before they die. There's a reason we cherish last words.

Maybe it's not just cliché – maybe it's commonality, a language of story that we all understand. I don't know. Whatever.

It's not slowing me down, it's not messing with my motivation or making me doubt the work or the writing, it's just annoying. That's all.

Hope this post finds you both well, and looking forward to Halloween, even though some evil fucker scheduled it on a school night.

~Andi

*I am basing this on the sometimes pretentious writing, not to mention the author photograph on the inside back jacket. Maybe she does have a sense of humor – but if so, it doesn't show in this book.

Superfly (Ball)

I'm a bitch in the fall -- October, anyway. You might have gotten a sense of that from my last post, but I'm actually deadly serious. The baseball postseason renders me useless, foul, and heinously cold to those who love me. I don't care. I mean, I don't care that I'm like that, and I don't care about you.

I don't know what that says about me. Normally I not only consider myself highly empathetic, I pride myself on that quality. The baseball playoffs send all that sensitive crap out the window. For one month, I don't give a shit. I just want to soak up all the baseball I can before winter arrives and there's no baseball and there's no swimming and I'd rather just hibernate, but no one gives me that fucking choice, now, do they?

I've said as much about the playoffs and about October, here and elsewhere. Andi astutely noted that I can also be useless during the major tennis tournaments but, trust me, it's not the same. I'm kinda sorta out-of-touch during the Grand Slams. Baseball? I'm another person.

I've made that absence plain over the years. Once, my BF told me we were hosting a party during a playoff night. I told him he could either reschedule or understand that I would not talk or mingle or even cook during the game. He didn't reschedule. I didn't acknowledge anyone's presence until the game was over.

Another time, the constant ringing of the phone drove me mad. So I recorded a new message for my voicemail. "Hi, this is Kelly. You didn't really think I'd answer the phone during baseball playoffs? Leave a message and I'll get back to you in November."

So...I don't know if I have a point. But that's how it is.

writing on the wall

Last night Aeryn and I went to our local library to see a two-woman play called We Can Do It, about notable female figures in American history. It was a little heavy-handed at times, but it had its moments, especially in their portrayal of Susan B. Anthony, who did a lot of pissed-off hopping around and bitching that her amendment extending voting rights to women didn’t pass until forty-two years after her death. Elizabeth Cady Stanton replied, rather archly, “Yes, but you were the only woman to ever be on American currency. I got a stamp.”

Then there was the dialogue between contemporaries Clara Barton, who founded the American Red Cross, and Elizabeth Van Lew, who was a spy for the Union during the Civil War. The take on Van Lew was very funny – she did a lot of slinking about onstage and saying mysteriously, “I might be… or I might not!” Clara Barton was an effective straight man to Van Lew’s outrageousness.*

During the play, the actors pointed out the quotes written on the walls of the set – from Elizabeth Cady Stanton to the aforementioned Clara Barton to Eleanor Roosevelt. And towards the end, they started talking about what their own contributions to the world would be.

Specifically, one asked, “What will you write on the wall?”

A chill crept up my back.

The other looked at her partner with wide eyes and said, “Uh. Er. That’s a huge question. I have no idea!” Which I thought was a damned honest answer.

The first actor said, “Well, you don’t have to answer now, do you? Many of these women didn’t come into their own until later in life, after they’d lived and learned and experienced so much in the world.” She went on to note that Clara Barton founded the Red Cross when she was sixty. Sojourner Truth delivered the “Ain’t I A Woman” speech when she was fifty-four. And Laura Ingalls Wilder didn’t publish Little House on the Prairie until she was sixty-five years old.

See, I don’t want to cover the wall. I just want a little square inch that shows people transcending what they believe to be their essential dichotomies and differences, through couragelovetrustcompassionhonestyimagination. You know, that shit.

And I want to raise my daughter so that she uses her extraordinary emotional intelligence and charisma to make the world a better place. To write her own message on the wall.

I’ll be forty in December. The point was obvious, even to me: It’s not too late to write on the wall. It never is.

Help!

I haven't written anything since last spring. Seriously, I can't think of anything, other than blog entries. It all stopped around the same time - my dog got shot, my hard-drive crashed, then the kids were out of school for the summer. It all added up to no writing for me.

I work really hard at being a good parent, so much so that I ignore my own needs. And I'm talking about basic needs like sleep and food, forget about my creative needs. But let's not forget about them. They are important. I need to remember, and to focus.

But when it comes to writing, I really feel like I need a new project. I want a big project, something I can really sink my metaphorical teeth into, but I need help forming a plan. How does one write a novel? What do I want to write about? I need an idea, a plot, some characters. I need to come up with a few good characters and put them in a room together, let them talk it out.

See, I'm really fucking lost here. For a little while today I considered going back to one of my old projects but I get stuck. I don't want to be stuck there, I want to go out into new places, explore new ideas. Or at least put new ideas into the old places.

It seems so cliche to me, but I keep going back to New England in my mind, the way that so many writers tend to write about the place where they grew up. I want to write about the crisp fall air and the brilliant leaves and halloween and the scary movies of the early 80s...I want to write about sneaking out at night and creepy old New England houses...the unsolved serial murders of teenage girls in the town next door...

I just don't know where to begin.

Bittersweet October

It rained tonight, the first real rain in nearly a month, and reminded me again that October is so fucking bittersweet. Not like bittersweet chocolate, an awful lie (that shit is mostly just sweet), but truly bittersweet, in a way that can close your throat with joy and tears at the same time.

Why must you do this to me, October? Let me count the ways...

Summer is over. Oh, it's still been pretty warm here, eighties and even ninety in the past week or so. But a chill creeps into the late night air and I know winter is around the corner. There is no exuberant display of autumn leaves, unlike my childhood home. It always looks the same in southern New Mexico. It's gorgeous desert. But there's not even that payoff. Fuck you, non-existent leaves.

The pool must be drained. I always put this off at least two weeks past a reasonable point. There's no way I'm going swimming again. But the water looks so lovely and inviting, shimmering under the brilliant sun. I mourn its absence even while it's still there. Don't leave me cold and dry!

Baseball -- the post-season -- so exciting! The White Sox didn't make it this year, but any baseball is good baseball. But after the World Series...nothing until spring training in March. Oh, fuck you, baseball, why must you go away every year and leave me all alone?

Halloween, my favorite holiday since I was old enough to grasp the concept. What could be more delightful than to cuddle in an old (or new) York Beach sweatshirt after the sun goes down and fall into the seductively evil embrace of a Christopher Lee Hammer films marathon? I love you, C-Lee Dracula!

Oh, October, my own secret abusive boyfriend. Fuck you, October. I love you so much.

Have you heard the one about...

First of all, I would like to thank Kiki for bringing this news story to my attention. You know, the one about the woman, the dog, the bear, and the zucchini. One of the funny things about this is that it took my friend from another state to tell me about something that happened just a couple of miles from my house. And no, it was not me, but it sure sounds a lot like my life.

We have seen bears on our property out here. One young male got chased up a tree by our dogs, then came down and chased the chickens. My husband went out there with a camera at first (the footage is mysteriously lost) until he realized a gun might be more appropriate. When the bear came close to the house, he shot near it to scare it away. We didn't see him again, but last year a very small  young bear (probably out on its own for its first season) right outside our front gate. When we went outside to look at it, it ran away. And one time my husband nearly ran into a mama bear with two cubs, who actually charged at him. Kind of a "worst case scenario." But he managed to get away unscathed.

Lately I have been spending more time at my lovely home out here in the forest, enjoying the quiet that you can only get here when everyone else is at school or work. We've had beautiful autumn weather, crisp and sunny. I've been harvesting my garden and making lots of great food with the fresh ingredients. Yesterday I made jalapeno applesauce, spicy salsa, and spinach soup. Zucchini bread has become a staple around here for the boys. I also like zucchini baked, fried, grilled, roasted, and in potato pancakes (shredded zucc, shredded pre-baked potato, egg). 

Now I can add "self-defense against bears" to my list of "the many uses for zucchini."

Black bears are pretty common around here, and this time of year they are taking part in the harvest as well, out there trying to fatten up for the winter. It is just their nature. And it is in the nature of dogs to protect their homes, and people to defend their dogs, and bears to defend themselves.

free-floating anxiety

There's a whole lot of that swirling around me at the moment - or rather, in me. It's a very odd physical sensation and not at all pleasant - it's like the feeling you get right before you go down the other side of the rollercoaster, except not as dramatic and much more mysterious and disturbing.

I know part of what this is about. Ditching Blackwell, or relegating him to the back burner, is a huge step towards casting away the last bits of what this novel was years and years ago when I first started writing it. A little scary. Kinda feels like jumping off a cliff, which, of course, would explain the feeling.

But then some of it has to do with my progress. It's not like there hasn't been any - I'm working steadily and regularly, but when I get my daily updates from the critical writing board, I feel terribly anxious that I haven't offered any crits (not that there's a minimum or anything) and that I haven't posted anything else since the third scene.

And the only thing that helps is to work. So off I go to do the shit I have to do to make this weekend work. Finish shopping for the party, bake and frost the cake, clean the house so our visitors from out of town can at least have a clean toilet to vomit in should the need arise, and still slap some lunch together for Aeryn.

Then I can work. And then, hopefully, this awful sense that I'm plodding slowly down the road while everyone else is catching up with the ice cream truck, so scared that there won't be any left for me by the time I get there. It's almost like preemptive grief. Or disappointment. Or something.

No rest for the wicked, right?

Right.

Will someone please tell me...

... how to write this fucking book without having the priest's POV? Because he's a real pain in the ass to write. The male and female protagonists are coming along nicely but writing Blackwell is like pulling teeth.

Damn it. It's a paranormal, for crap's sake. SURELY I can figure out a way to get enough hints in on what's going on without having to bore the fuck out of a reader in these scenes, because they're boring the SHIT out of me.

Maybe... I don't know, a telepathic connection? A little more information from her mother? A misplaced ribbon? Damned if I know. But there has got to be a way out of this; I'm terribly, awfully sick of slogging through these scenes.

Pardon the vent. It's late. However, now that I've put my brain on this path, it might take a few stumbling steps while I'm asleep. Once I wash the water bottles. And other stuff. Damn it.

Prompt: Six Degrees of Separation

"Six Degrees of Separation" refers to the idea that everyone is at most six steps away from any other person on Earth, so that a chain of "a friend of a friend" statements can be made to connect any two people in six steps or fewer.

Here's my thought. Write something that illustrates this idea. That's all.

We've not had a prompt in a while, so I thought I'd throw it out there for your consideration.

Catch you later, ladies.

~andi

Jalapeno Applesauce

• 6 medium apples, chopped (I prefer Granny Smith or McIntosh)
• 1 cup water
• 2 jalapenos, finely chopped (don't seed & vein unless you're a total pussy -- in which case, fuck off and forget this recipe)
• sugar to taste
• vanilla to taste
• dash of rum (optional)

Bring all ingredients to a boil in a pot with a tight-fitting lid. Reduce to a simmer, cover, and cook for 20 minutes or until apples are soft. Mash as much or as little as you like. Serve as you like. Good for a side dish, breakfast, or snack. Try it spicier. No, spicier than that. No, spicier!

Rain Dance

I haven't posted in a while -- not so much because I'm uninspired (although being unable to SURF in the desert is a problem) but because I've been so busy since I returned to New Mexico. It's mostly everyday life-type busy, and I'm job hunting as well.

Last night a storm rolled in close to midnight. It began with gusting winds. The smell of wet creosote began to crowd the humid air, telling me that the rain was nearby. Finally the storm broke, but not heavy -- soft little drops. I tossed my clothes and danced around the pool until the lightning strikes came too close.

Sleep was easy to achieve, but difficult to maintain -- the lightning was all around, illuminating the dark, crashing and reverberating, sounding as if the next strike might be my room. I was jumpy and excited and exhausted all at once. When morning came, and I heard a crowing quail and saw that the sun was out, I felt a crushing moment of depression.

Rain, come back! I love you!

Woman, Uninterrupted

I don't mean to brag, but, my life is awesome. Today anyway. The day that I have dreamed of for seven years has finally come; both of my kids have gone off to school, and I am free to do whatever I want. I don't think I've ever so looked forward to a chilly, rainy, September day.

For so many years of my life I have been programed to start something new in the fall. Elementary school, high school, college. Today I am looking forward to doing whatever I want, UNINTERRUPTED. Sure, I need to start looking for a job. But today I am free.

Today I can listen to morning news on NPR. I can listen to whatever kind of music I want to, really listen, loudly if I want. I can burn incense. I am free to clean, uninterrupted, and not have things get messed up right away. I can take the puppy out for a walk or go for a run and I don't have to schedule it with anyone.

I remember now, I used to be such an independent woman, before I had children. I have come to accept the dependence that our family unit has on each other. It's ok. But this whole time as a full-time stay-at-home mom (FTSAHM) I've been holding back and I can't wait to let my wild horses run free again, if only between the hours of 8:30 am to 3:00 pm, Monday thru Friday.

Surfing Goat Haiku

Surfing goat on waves --
horizontal pupils glow.
My goat is gnar-gnar.

Go With It

Yesterday morning I woke up feeling hungover from exhaustion – groggy, headachy, slightly nauseaous. I'd tried to get to bed early, really I had, but the evening routine took longer than I expected – it always does – and I puttered around for too long. I did manage to get to bed before midnight, which was an improvement. But the damage through the week had been done, and it all caught up with me yesterday.

It took an Espresso Doubleshot and a big travel mug of coffee to finally wake me up, but wake up I did, even managing to get to work on time. Struggled through the morning, sneaked outside for my lunchtime nap, got some work done in the afternoon, and dragged my sorry ass back to the house.

Brian made dinner, bless him, and we all played a game of Sorry that was ruthless and vindictive and great fun. Combined with Aeryn's rediscovery of her kid-sized video camera, the evening was full of laughter and happiness and I couldn't have wished for a better end to a really fucking long week.

The giggles and another cup of strong coffee woke me up enough to start working on a troublesome scene, only to find that the paltry efforts I'd made earlier in the week had been eaten by Open Office. This is the first time OO has failed to recover a document.

I wasn't horribly disappointed, which tells you something about my progress and the quality of the writing, both of which pretty much sucked ass. So I started over, and found that it was easier going somehow. No idea why. But at this point I don't question; I just go with it.

The final collapse into bed was heavenly, and I felt like I'd earned it this week.

Cut to this morning. Woke in Aeryn's bed, although I barely remember how I got there, at eight-thirty, more than two hours past my weekday wake-up call. Brian had made coffee my way – in other words, ridiculously strong – and I made the blueberry-banana muffins about which I'd been fantasizing for several days now. They were every bit as good as I'd hoped they would be.

It was the best morning I've had in a long time.

So this inconsequential, relatively drama-free post is based on nothing but a rare feeling of contentment. It will pass, as everything does. I'll see Sheba and be reminded that her leg isn't healing quite as well as I'd like; I'll go to the Apple Festival and be jostled by crowds and screaming kids; I'll have to watch the pennies this week because blah, blah-blah blah blah. Doesn't matter.

At this point I don't question; I just go with it, grateful for every second.

~Andi

I sound like a housewife, I think I'm a housewife

I never intended to be a housewife. Shit, I remember a time when I didn't think I'd ever get married or have children. Then I decided that someday I might have kids, but forget about a husband. Then one day I decided to get married, but not have kids. Then, unable to ignore the loud clanging of my freakin' biological clock, I decided to have a child. And after you have one, you may as well have two...

However, my timing was a little bit off. I should have both established my career and had children probably ten years earlier than I did. And so I find myself, over 40 years old, sending my youngest off to school. Hi, nice to meet you. I'm a housewife.

While it is tremendously exciting to think of having so much time off to myself (six whole hours a day, five days a week?!), I know that I need to use that time to find a way to make some money. 

WTF do I do with myself now? Can I find a job between the hours of 8:30 and 2:30, where they don't mind if I take off all school holidays and anytime my kids are sick? Stay tuned and find out...

Random

Today I've been looking after Satan's minions, a.k.a. my sister's lovely children. Sis and BIL went to a wedding in Mass, will be back tomorrow early afternoon. The kids were great overall, and we had dinner with our friend Leila and her own little minions.

I'm going to try to surf a time or two again before I get on Amtrak this coming Tuesday. The surf report looks good for late Saturday and most of Sunday and Monday (i.e. waves we can probably handle -- between two and three feet -- I'm really not a fool; I just play one on this blog). My multiple surf bruises, elbows and knees, are even more spectacular than when I got them almost a week ago, incidentally. I love having surfing injuries. It makes me feel pathetically cool.

I'm suffering my usual ambivalence about the end of my summer trip. It's time to go home, to soak up the desert sun, hug my boyfriend, kiss my cats. It's time to stop freelancing and take a job that gets me out of the damned house. But it's always depressing to leave the lovely family embrace of J, R, and the kids. Why can't we have it all?

On a more positive note, I'm glad to see posts from my gorgeous and talented co-bloggers. Keep it up, ladies (and I do use the term loosely).

Finally, why blond, Bobby V? I'm shaking my head, totally perplexed. Still love you, though, and the fact that the baseball season is still going strong! Come on, White Sox!

What I Learned On My Summer Vacation

Note: I spent entirely too long writing this, and while I am ashamed that it's not nearly as interesting as what else has been going on here, I'll feel like a total loser if I don't post it.

It's been a while, hasn't it? Not as long as the hiatus from my first blog – which I've never resumed – but, what, three months, four? Jesus, I don't even want to look to find out; it's too discouraging.

The details of the dramas happening in the Allen household are numerous and probably interesting only to myself and my immediate family, so I'll skip over that shit in favor of talking about What I Did On My Summer Vacation.

Seriously. Really, it's important. To me, anyway.

This year we took our first full week-long family vacation to Sunset Beach, North Carolina, where my husband grew up and where we got married. We shared a really sweet condo with his sister, her husband, and her two girls, 5 and 4, and discovered early on that the small pond behind our place was inhabited with at least three baby alligators and enough turtles that those fuckers started to creep me out after a while. The alligators didn't – at least not until I saw how fast those bastards could swim – but those turtles were just spine-chilling.

We got busted the first night there for the girls' dress-up shoes stomping across the ceiling of the woman downstairs. The men grumbled, but I thought she was actually pretty nice about it, all things considered. And having the girls relinquish the shoes on the tile for the rest of the week wasn't necessarily a bad thing.

We went to the pool, where Aeryn finally got over most of her nervousness about water. We went to the beach and splashed in bathwater waves. One afternoon when the tide was going out, I dove into a good-sized wave, tumbled around a bit, then surfaced to find myself surrounded by millions of tiny bubbles on the surface of the receding water. They tickled my legs as they disappeared back into the ocean. It felt like I was in the biggest bubble bath ever. With fish.

We – the adults, that is – went out a couple of times. The second night we went to a reunion of sorts at a local bar that was thankfully within walking distance of the condo. There was beer involved. A lot of beer.

I texted Brian's dad Skipper, who was watching the girls (sort of), to see how everyone was doing. His reply: “Sold 1. Fed 1 to gator. Other real quiet.” My favorite Skipper moment ever.

An old friend showed up with a fat joint, and after that I only remember a lot of giggling and a drunken shamble through the golf course to get home. Brian and Jimmy took the lead because Christie and I were incapable of self-navigation at that point. Jimmy pointed out that the fastest way back to the condo was over a ditch and through a small copse of trees.

Brian lost a perfectly good pair of Speedo flip-flops when he found out the ditch was wider than it looked. And I don't think we've yet gotten the mud out of that shirt. Somehow, we made it back with no further incident, although I was told the next day that what I thought was giggling was, to everyone else, raucous cackling. Go figure.

After about a day, I began to understand that only one person was going to make sure I had a good vacation, and that was me. No one else was going to say, “Hey, Andi, why doncha run off and go to the beach for a while?” or “That king-sized bed in there is just screaming to be napped on.”

One crucial point: Allens are notorious for their refusal to plan anything. “Why bother?” Brian says. “Shit's just gonna change anyway.” My argument is that whether or not it changes, I feel more comfortable with a plan, even knowing it's going to change, especially when you're working with three Allens, three girls under seven, a Yankee, and a bipolar.

So I started making my own plans, although I was happy to adjust them as long as I eventually did what I wanted to do. It sort of worked.

And twice, I took what is, for me, a radical step – I said no. Both of which involved social situations where I was going to be stuck with heavy smokers in environments saturated with old cigarette smoke and rotten beer. The first time, it took all of five seconds for me to walk in, look at Brian, and say, “Sorry, sweetie. Love ya. See you later, call me if you need a ride.” And that was that.

It was slightly harder to escape the second time, because it was a larger family gathering at Skipper's place. There was a lot more second-hand and third-hand smoke involved, and I couldn't get away from it, even outside.

Brian checked in with me at one point and, after a brief exchange, said, “You've made an appearance. You're good. Leave the car seat and go on back to the condo.” I must have looked desperate at that point, because he hugged me, and said, “It's OK. Just go.” Between the two of us we managed to blame the heat, humidity, and a fried oyster I'd eaten earlier in the day. Fuck if it mattered; I was outta there.

I went back to the condo as ordered and took a long, hot shower to get the sweat and smoke off, then snuggled into my new Eeyore sleep shirt, put on a mindless DVD, then settled on the couch to enjoy the peace and quiet. Three hours of peace and quiet. Fucking sublime.

The next to last day, it poured buckets. Brian and I found a place about a half an hour away with indoor black light putt-putt, an arcade, and a bar for the parents to escape to occasionally. The families split up on the ride home, and Aeryn, Brian and I got to the condo before Christie and her people. For a few minutes, it was just us.

The rain had stopped, and the temperature had dropped to about 90. I told Brian and Aeryn I was going to the beach one last time, and I asked Aeryn if she wanted to come with me. I fully expected her to say no – but she didn't. She got her stuff together and we trundled over the dilapidated bridge to Sunset Beach, where we watched pelicans feed, made sand... somethings, looked for shells, and let the waves toss us around a bit. She said, “Mom, I am SO glad I came with you! This is the best day ever!”

Yeah. I know – she's six-soon-to-be-seven, and it's often the best day ever for her, but it meant a lot to hear her say it, especially when it was just her and me, on a beach at sunset.

We drove the little blue crock pot back to the mountains, and things got batfuck crazy in the space of twelve short hours.

I lived through Friday – which is about all I can say for it – and when Saturday rolled around, I realized that I had not forgotten the most important thing I'd learned on my summer vacation, which was, essentially, how to go on a vacation. It's pretty simple, really. Figure out what you want to do – not what you have to do, or what you feel like you ought to do – figure out what you want to do, and do it in such a way that you don't neglect your fellow vacationers too much.

So Saturday we got back from wherever we'd gone that morning and I said, “OK, I'll take you to the skating rink. But first I'm taking a nap.” And I did. Eventually I got up and took her, as promised.

Sunday we came home from the most perfect breakfast ever – a huge Greek omelet with sinful cinnamon toast made from the restaurant's homemade sourdough bread and good strong coffee – and I was really, seriously sleepy. Odd, because I'd had enough coffee to give a bear the jitters. I decided I wanted to curl up in the recliner (aka the Mama chair) with my book and a soft throw blanket, and if I felt like going to sleep, I would. So I did. Eventually I got up and took Aeryn to the pool, as promised.

At the beach, I kept thinking, this is the only week of vacation I have taken since I can remember. I have no idea when I'll be able to do this again. So I would not waste one second doing something I sincerely did not want to do.

It worked pretty well, all things considered – as far as I know. And I'm certainly happier and much more patient with la famille when I don't feel cheated out of vacation time. Which shouldn't be restricted to vacation.

I think that's What I Learned On My Summer Vacation.

Oh, and also that ditches are usually bigger than they look in the dark, and that alligators don't like white bread because it gets stuck to the roof of the reptilian mouth.

Domestic Goddess Seeks Part-time employment

The school year hasn't even started yet and already I'm considering cleaning and reorganizing my spice cabinet in order to have some project to do. While mixing ingredients for morning muffins, I searched through the old baby food jars of spices, on the shelf cluttered with bags of nuts and bottles of sauces, a jar of peanut butter and some dried seaweed I never use. I have plenty of thyme. No ginger though. And lots of nutmeg, but that isn't as ironic.

I am excited about the possibilities of the year to come, with both kids in school all day. Now I have time. I can get things done around the house, exercise on my own schedule, work on projects, write, even get a job if I can make it fit with the kids' schedule. They are still my top priority. If I got a job, we could have more financial security, maybe be able to do more than just pay the bills.

But for the past five years I have been out of the work force, a full-time stay-at-home mom. There is a big blank space at the top of my resume. I find myself at parties saying: "I've just been home with the kids," when they ask if I work. I know that it is much more than that. It is a very important and challenging job. I have had to use many of the skills I've learned over the years from previous employment and education.

So I've decided to try to write a comprehensive job description for the position I have held for the past five years, highlighting the skills required. The all-encompassing title for this position is: "Domestic Goddess." Including, but not limited to, performing the duties of mother, wife, lover, friend, Household Manager, Nurse, Wilderness First Responder, Care-giver, Life-skills Teacher, Travel Agent, Secretary, Activity Coordinator, Adventure Leader, Baker, Cook, Gardener, Lawn Maintenace, Maid, Chauffeur, Geisha, Laundress, Waitress, Servant, Animal Caretaker, Conflict Resolution Manager, Toy Repair Specialist, Referee, Hostess. etc. etc.

Can you think of more? I bet you can.

Surfing in the Desert

After reading all of Kiki's posts about surfing, I can't help but feel a little bit sad to think of her going back to the desert. Sure, she could move to the coast. But not really, because she has a home, a life with her partner, numerous cats, and friends there who love and need her. She can't up and leave any more than I can leave my husband and two sons to go do a yoga training for three months or go on an archaeological dig for the summer.

So how do we reconcile the lives that we are living, that we have chosen, with the lives that we wish we had? I wish that I had a velomobile and could ride it everywhere. But I live outside of town on a dirt road with a steep and winding hill, and no one wants to buy our house. How does one surf in the desert?

Sisters

This picture is a perfect snapshot of me and my sister together. Always laughing!

Launched

There's been a storm front blowing in up here for the past day, and the waves at York Beach were crazy yesterday -- mostly big (up to five feet) and goddamned unpredictable. I got munched so many times. Thanks to my shortie suit, my elbows and knees are destroyed; all the colors of the rainbow. My right knee looks like a brick-red football, and my left elbow is stippled blue and black from where the surfboard fin smashed into me after I got launched.

Tonight we couldn't even consider going out; the last surf report at York had waves almost ten feet high. My sister and I are hoping that the huge surf sticks around for a day or two more, so that we can at least go and watch, maybe snap some pics. And then when it dies down again, we'll be back out so she can demo a few more boards and I can catch a few more waves before I Amtrak back to the desert.

In the absence of rideable surf, we're going to watch "Point Break" tonight, drink a really huge petite syrah, and probably laugh our asses off.

Let's all laugh so we don't cry
Let's all lift our glasses up to the sky...

--Jack Johnson, Red Wine, Mistakes, Mythology

Stoked

So here's the surf round-up.

My sister and I are going surfing Thursday evening. We also plan to spend some time in the morning at a surf shop, where she will price beginner boards and suits. She's even more into it than I am. Of course, the lucky bitch does actually live on a coast (fucking desert).

We're going to try to surf as much as possible before I leave at the end of the month. I'm going to need a lot of ocean water to get me through the next year.

We watched Blue Crush tonight. The movie is slight as hell, but it has some nice surfing sequences. And, you might have guessed, any surfing (any water) is better than none.

We read Greg Noll's "Da Bull" recently. Noll is one of the very earliest big wave surfers, and an even bigger personality. I discovered him in the documentary Riding Giants and totally fell in love. Need a granddaughter, Greg? Adopt me! And my sister!

I forgot a couple funny stories about our surf lesson at Rye. My sister's friend R came out of the shop wearing her wetsuit backward and unzipped. In case you don't know, they zip in the back. So R's extremely large chest was bursting out of the front. "Is this right?" she trilled. The South African instructor managed not to laugh as he said, "No, it's backward." An hour later, in the surf, she was paddling out to the break. "Are you trying to do tricks?" the instructor asked. Her board was pointed backward. R is such the good sport! Or perhaps such the sly cougar compared to the rest of us.

Okay, time to check the surf forecast. Again.

Why Not?

Another day, another surf session. My sister and I had planned on surfing this (Saturday) morning. I got up early and began to study surf reports for the area. It was discouraging -- almost flat seas. Honestly, though, I wasn't too depressed -- it was fucking cold here, not much over fifty degrees at seven a.m. So we pushed our plans back and set 6 p.m. as our goal.

We showed up at Long Sands, York Beach, Maine, just the two of us. I pulled on my new Roxy wetsuit, simultaneously shy and proud, and we hit the waves. It was a funny day: seaweed choked (how do those little red bastards get inside a wetsuit?), with relatively small, two-foot sets followed by vicious four-plus footers.

We were thrown around a lot when the sets alternated, and it took a while to get used to the smaller boards. We've only used the smaller boards once, and they were very tippy. This time I took a while to acclimate, but I quickly lost my fear that I would tip over to one side or the other. In fact, I lost most fear today. I'm not scared of the water, or even the waves -- I guess I am just afraid of not doing it right. That washed away, somehow, in the beauty of the steely, cold waves, and I just went with it.

As the four-plus footers rolled in, I turned my board around and yelled at my sister: "Why not?" I glimpsed her horrified face as I caught the wave and popped up on my board. And wiped out about two seconds later, max. Well, fuck; I wipe out all the time. No big deal. So we kept trying, even though the waves were mostly too big for us, and we were the only two newbies at that point, at the end of a line of experienced surfers.

We caught another Sister Wave -- a big one, and we just had time to smile at each other before we wiped out simultaneously. It was fucking awesome.

I don't measure my surfing success by the length of rides or the number of waves caught. I know I'm learning, and it's all good. Even if I don't catch a wave, I'm in the water. I'm salt-kissed. I'm bouncing off swells. I smell the iodine ocean and taste the breeze. I'm with my sister. There's no better time or place than now and here.

Mini Me

I've mentioned before that my three-year-old niece Vivian sometimes feels like my own daughter; my sister just happens to be the one who gave birth to Vivi.

Vivi adores me. I'm not totally sure why. I mean, yeah, I'm cool, I'm the crazy aunt Kiki. We sing and dance and embrace our silliness. We share a certain whimsy and a rock-bottom crass sense of humor. But it feels deeper than that.

At nap time, Vivi wants me to sleep in her room, or to sleep in mine. At night sometimes I will wake up and find her tucked in beside me with a sleepy smile.

Recently Vivi has started twirling her hair. The first time I saw this, I asked my sister if it was new behavior. My sister smiled at my obliviousness: "She does it because you do it." It's true. It doesn't matter to Vivi that she has a lovely, straight little bob of light brown hair and I have a fall of dark, messy curls. She looks very serious as she twists her hair around her finger.

She asks me to wear my pink flipflops because she has a pair too. She notes when we're wearing the same colors (although I was unaware of the critical distinction between light pink and regular pink). I got her a purse that looked like mine and she immediately began to fill it with little odds and ends, making sure that she had similar things in hers as I had in mine. She found an old cell phone and carefully put it into the same zippered compartment where I keep my own cell.

Today I asked her, "Vivi, why do you love Kiki so much?"

She looked at me like I was a fool. "You burp a lot!"

You can't make this shit up. And you can't help but appreciate having such an awesome little Mini Me.

Roxy Baby

This is the Roxy wetsuit that I bought. People have suggested I might have done better with a full suit, but I didn't really find the full suit comfortable. I can't even stand to fasten the neck; I was never a turtleneck type. I also find it irritating to not be able to push up the sleeves, and to have the tightness around the ankles. I don't think the lower limb coldness will be a problem. Also? This suit is wicked hot. I know I'll love it.

Yeah, I live in the desert ten-plus months of the year. But I hope to make some surf trips to California with my BF. And I have another use for this suit: it can extend my pool season! Why not swim in April and October, like a happy black-and-purple seal? This motherfucker is going to change my life.

On a totally different note, we've had a lovely rain in Durham this evening. I've missed the summer monsoon in New Mexico and, oddly, New England has been totally hot and dry during my trip, until tonight. I love the desert rain, but I love this rain and humidity too: my hair curls damply against the back of my neck; my skin is shiny but glowing and youthful; the air is impossibly dense and redolent of pine.

I love this place.

Surfing Rye

This morning I went surfing in Rye, NH, with my sister and three of her (our!) friends. We had a personal lesson with two really nice instructors who happened to be totally fucking hot as well. My sister's friends were sooooo drooling. I myself was cool and collected as usual.

It wasn't the best day for surfing -- high tide, and very intermittent waves breaking disconcertingly close to shore. We also used short boards for the first time. They're not just shorter but also a little narrower, so they're easier to handle, but much harder to balance on. I caught a few good waves, but there weren't nearly enough of them.

Three of us are going out again (back to York, Maine) on Thursday.

I just bought a Roxy wetsuit.

I am so hooked.

Larkiness

"a dream of irresponsibility, lethal larkiness and, above all, mobility..."

I'm re-reading (after many years) Peter Benchley's The Island, a pretty good yarn, and I came across the quote above. The narrator says it's a line from a book about the Spanish Main, but I think the author made it up, because I didn't get any Google results. Never mind; I love it anyway. I didn't even know larkiness was a word!

Something about that quote calls out to my restless heart, or brain, or spirit, or whatever. I have no desire to be lethal, particularly, but the rest is a damned good summation of a certain type of person, always looking to the horizon, who might need to be reminded, occasionally, to live in the moment as well. Or is that covered too?

I'm gonna go work on my larkiness now.

Owned

Well, the surfer girl update isn't all good this time around. Joce and I rented boards and wetsuits at York Beach, and we got totally owned.

The surf report was for 2.3 foot waves, but by the time we got out, they were more like four feet. That in itself might not have been a problem, but it was a very stormy sea. There were frequent diagonal waves coming out of nowhere, and also a very strong current parallel to the beach that whisked us north at an alarming rate of speed.

The result was that it was almost impossible to keep our board noses pointed in, and we kept tipping over as soon as we attempted to pop up. The waves hit us viciously when we returned to the break, throwing our boards against our bodies (I can't wait to catalog the various wicked bruises and soreness tomorrow, and our toes look heinous -- is this a problem for all surfers?). Every now and then there would be a particularly high wave and I felt like "The Perfect Storm" as my board went almost vertical as I climbed the swell.

Ironically, the water was the warmest it's been so far, and for the first time I didn't lose all feeling in my feet. We were exhausted within an hour though, and while I refused to give up, we never really got any good waves. That's okay, though. We're learning all the time, and just being in the water, bouncing over the swells and pushing salt-soaked curls out of my face and screaming in exhilaration was plenty good enough for me. I have to store up lots of ocean love to get me through months in the New Mexico desert.

Thank you, Jocie, for my blue crush. Life will never be the same...

Summer

I love summer: the warm sunny days playing in the river, pond, pool, etc. But how does one get any writing done when there is so much fun to be had? Because I am a stay-at-home mom, my summer is filled with activities to keep the kids busy. By August, I find myself missing the structure that the school year brings to our lives. I don't miss the rushing around in the morning to get there on time, or our short evenings together filled with homework and rushing them into bed so that they get enough sleep. But with the structure, it is so much easier for me to find a place to fit in the things that I want and need to do for myself - like exercise and writing.

I find myself questioning the whole idea of summer vacation. Why do kids need 3 continuous months off? I know the original reason for scheduling this huge break: our agricultural past demanded that the kids be available to work on the farms during the summer. But now kids can't find work - many adults can't either. So then we end up with all these kids out there with nothing to do for the summer. If they are lucky, their parents either don't have to work (maybe they work in the school system?) or can afford to put them in various camps throughout the summer. But a lot of kids are not that lucky. Their parents have to work, but they can't afford to do much for the kids. Looking into our future, I wonder how we will swing it. 

When I was a kid, we spent summers at our grandparents' camp on the lake. We'd play in the water all day, or play games on the screened in porch. We were bored a lot. But looking back now, I see that we were some of the lucky ones. Now I am trying to raise my kids far away from any family and I see how hard that is, and how much easier it would be if my parents lived in the same town, and were retired with a lake house.

Another problem with summer is that Kiki always goes back east to visit her family and I don't hear from her nearly enough! How are your summers going? Do you find time to write? What do you think about summer vacation?

-Lori

Goals

If you're at all interested in music or Tim Roth, find The Legend of 1900. It's a glorious film - a little slow around the 5/8ths point, but maybe I was just tired and needed a nap. It's about a man who was born on an ocean liner and becomes a beyond-brilliant pianist. Never thought of Tim Roth as sexy, but seeing him on the piano - sometimes sweaty, sometimes so poignant it made me feel like a voyeur - well, let's just say it aroused me in all kinds of interesting ways.

Just as charming is his attitude to things he doesn't like; simple and direct, which of course reminds me of our beloved Kiki. When he's a child playing the liner's ballroom piano in the middle of the night, the captain and not a few of the passengers come in to listen. The captain stares for a moment or two in shock, then approaches the boy and says, "My boy. You must know that this is against all the regulations!" The boy stops for a second and says, "Fuck the regulations." Then he keeps playing. This is a recurring phrase, which is endearing.

On to the primary message of this post. We have in the past discussed goals - their importance, or lack thereof, etc. I am having problems with goals, and it seems to come down to the relatively simple error that I think I am capable of more than I am. You can probably imagine how much that pisses me off.

It's not just in Sanctuary. It's at work, too. I can usually meet the critical, high-visibility deadlines, but when I walk into work saying, "ok, I'm gonna finish two internal audits, follow up two corrective actions, and submit five revisions" it sounds perfectly reasonable to me. And it Never. Fucking. Happens.

Fuck the goals.

In the same vein, it seems reasonable that I should manage to write or revise 1000 words a night. That's only three pages. Is it because I start so late that I can't keep my eyes open? Friday night I worked up to around 700 and then sleep sucker-punched me and I was asleep before I even knew what happened.

At any rate, setting these apparently unreasonable goals - even though they sound entirely achievable to me - is creating no small amount of resentment on my part. I mean, if I can't meet these paltry goals, why set them at all?

Fuck the goals.

Obviously one less dramatic solution is to just adjust the goals so that they remain challenging but more achievable so that I establish a pattern of success instead of failure. Feeling like a loser every day is starting to wear on my self-esteem.

Fuck the goals.

PMS figures into this, I'm sure. And next weekend I'll be leaving for a week at the beach, which sounds glorious on the one hand and terrifying on the other. One of the critical methods I use to maintain some mental stability, on top of the meds, is to stick to the routine. Have a home base, to have something familiar waiting for me when I explore. In other words, "Don't ever get off the boat, man." If you've ever seen Apocalypse Now, you might remember the disastrous consequences of getting off the boat in the middle of a jungle.

I'm doing what I can in terms of planning to make sure I have familiar things around me when we get there - things I can control, because we'll be vacationing with my sister-in-law, her husband, her two daughters (ages 5 and 4), and my father-in-law. A lot of fucking variables.

That's not even considering the shit waiting on the other side once we get home. The day after we get back, my mother-in-law is coming for a three-day-visit, and she will be, no doubt, entirely grossed out by the state of my house, no matter how much we clean before we leave.

The day after she arrives, my dog Sheba goes in for major surgery to have a tumor removed from her leg.

Two days after that, Brian starts school.

The week after that, Aeryn goes back to school.

Yeah, things are going to be a little nuts. But that doesn't mean I have to be. And a first step is, I think, to make 800 words a night instead of a thousand. Once I get used to that I can push it farther. At any rate, I'm still working and still moving forward, even if it feels, as they say 'round these parts, like molasses in January.

Surfer Girl

I went surfing again today, with my sister and two friends. We got lessons from Liquid Dreams on Long Sands, York Beach, Maine.

York is a funny place for me. I moved around a lot as a child (five years divided between Maine and New Hampshire; four years in Maryland; one year back in Maine; two years in New Mexico; six more in New Hampshire -- and all this before my wanderlust college saga). It's hard for me to pick a home state, let alone a home town, on some levels. If I picked one, though, it would be York. My beloved maternal grandparents lived there for years, and I remain more familiar with it, and nostalgic for it, than any other place I've been. Last year, for example, my sister and I were driving along the labyrinth of back roads behind Long Sands and she asked which road to take. I answered without thinking, choosing a road that I might not have been on in several decades -- and it was the right road. Yet I can't remember one single thing from high school chemistry class. Funny how the mind works.

Anyway, it just feels right that I'm surfing Long Sands. The instructor gives us few pointers, reasoning (probably correctly) that we can't think of too many things at once anyway. He occasionally positions a surfer and shoves her forward in a wave at just the right moment. I refuse this service; I've got to learn how to do this on my own. As gregarious and social as I am, I like to figure things out myself.

The water is freezing, maybe 65 degrees if we're lucky. The wetsuit is fine, but it doesn't do shit for my feet, and I lose all feeling in my toes within thirty minutes, though I stay out almost ninety. Wet, salty curls hang in my face. The waves surge and disappear unpredictably, maybe two and a half feet high on average, and I wish they were bigger, though I have no idea whether I could handle bigger.

I catch a wave perfectly sometimes, cruising in, focused on nothing but the board and the water. It may be the purest thing I've ever done or felt. Sometimes I wipe out, sometimes spectacularly, but that's the price, and it's totally worth it.

Surf words explode in my brain like an awesome saltwater fountain: gnarly; radical; dude; hang ten; point break. I am K-Dog, bobbing on the water, waiting for the perfect wave, and sometimes I find it.

I am alive; alight; incendiary.

And I can't fucking wait to do this again.

Downtown Portsmouth

Okay, the title is a lie. I'm not going to talk about downtown Portsmouth (NH), even though I just had a fabulous evening there with my sister and our friend L, including Japanese food, minor shopping, good wine, and better company. I'm just rambling because (so I've heard) that's how I roll.

It is fucking hot here. Keep in mind I live in southern New Mexico and we know hot, and not just the chiles. It seems insanely ironic that while my (adopted) hometown enjoys 90 degree weather and monsoon rain storms, we're sweltering in the region of my (original) hometown. It's hitting 90 here too, unusual in terms of how many days it's done so, and it's humid as fuck. It's nice for those fine lines, and for a curly girl, but it's wicked awful at night when you can't face sweltering in your sheets. Hence I'm up late, doing laundry, dishes, anything to avoid the oven that is my bedroom.

I am dreaming of surfing. The Maine ocean is unforgivingly cold, but that seems like a small price to pay tonight -- possibly a blessing, in fact. Let me just catch some waves tomorrow, please do, Karma -- or Magic 8 Ball -- or whatever passes for spiritual in my brain, which is actually nothing. I'll go with the Magic 8 Ball. Anyway, I'm keeping busy, especially tonight, when a bed seems like torture rather than release.

I try to be a really good helper to my sister during these summer visits. I stay a long time, often around six or more weeks, and I know I am lucky to have a brother-in-law (or anyone, really) who doesn't mind such a houseguest. We all love each other. I try very hard to improve the running of the house. I look after the kids (and adore them). I load and unload the dishwasher. I take over the laundry, completely, and I mean completely. It satisfies the OCD in me (what's your number? and if you didn't get that, you don't get that. Mine is 5, incidentally). I cook as often as possible, which usually means most dinners.

And I don't do any of this because I should, or must, or am asked to do so. I do it because I want to. I do more here than I do in my own house. I laugh at my boyfriend when he comments on my long "vacations," because while it is, it also isn't. And I love every fucking moment, or at least most of them, and what else can you ask? How much better can it get?

My sister is wicked cool. She's smart, and funny, and savvy, and I have never and will never know anyone with whom I laugh more...belly laughs, the kind that hurt your abs in the best possible way.

So this couldn't be a better place to be. I am so fucking lucky. I need to remind myself of that on a regular basis. Who doesn't?

Liquid Dreams

I surfed yesterday. It was fucking radical.

That. Is. All.

For the love of water

Ah the smells of camping: bug spray, sunscreen, camp fires, outhouses, musty old tents you should have aired out before packing but didn't take the time...these smells bring back memories of my youth. And now I get to share these things with my boys. Of course, as an adult I now realize how much work is involved as well.

So we camped out last weekend but it wasn't really your typical camping experience. We were visiting a friend who is in the process of building a house and we stayed out there on his property, in a little travel camper. He has an outhouse and a spigot for water. He even has a refridgerator and a television. But the place is a total bachelor pad. This is the friend from whom I first heard the sayings "Comfort kills the soul," and "pain is weakness leaving the body." So, you can imagine...

The place is way out of town on a (very dusty) gravel road with few trees around, and summer decided to finally strike this weekend. It was blastingly hot, with very little shade. However, it was near a river (hence the massive mosquito onslaught) so we were able to go swim a couple of times. While there, I cleaned out our friend's camper and refridgerator. I felt like it was the least I could do. My husband says I do things like this because I like gross things. (In response I always say, yes, I do like YOU.) On the contrary, I like CLEAN things, THAT is why I clean up gross things.

I am no clean/neat freak, no, not at all. I just love running water and a relatively comfortable place to be. I mean, I have two boys (three if you count my husband), I am used to a bit of mess and chaos. I'm also used to cleaning it up. So, at times like these (camping out in a hot dusty place) it is the running water, the indoor plumbing, that I miss the most.

I didn't even realize (or maybe I chose to ignore) just how dusty and dry we all were until we got home. The first thing I did when we got home was a neti pot. Then a shower, and tons of moisturizer. Made the boys bathe too, fed them and put them to bed. Washed dishes, started on the laundry, watered the yard and garden. I looked around at our lush green yard and all the tall, lovely, shade-creating trees, and I was thankful for what I have. A bit of deprivation once in a while really helps me to appreciate the comfortable life I have created for myself.

So here is what I've been thinking: a comfortable life is all about water. Not only do we need to drink tons of water to be really healthy, but we also need it to grow food or livestock, we need it to stay clean and comfortable...water is life. Water is wealth. The majority of the surface of our planet is covered with water. Water is fun to play in. All weekend I found myself thinking about Aquatic Ape Hypothesis, a theory of human evolution that says we evolved into what we are today not from running across the hot dry savanna after wicked fast prey (competing with huge cats as predators), but through our proximity to water. Living near and often in water, eating fish, helped our brains grow. Looking out at the hot dusty dry land did not make me feel like running. In fact, I had planned to go for a long run in training for a fall marathon, but it was way too hot. If I had ever gotten hungry enough out there to go running after an antelope, I would have passed out from heat exhaustion long before I got close to one.

So imagine two proto-humans, one who runs off into the sun after meat, another who follows the water, eating occasional fish and plant life growing along the shore. Who would survive? Who would be richer and more comfortable? Who is the smarter one? I know what direction I would go in.

Girl Got Rhythm

I always knew that being an aunt would be cool, but I had no idea just how cool it would be.

Today I had some one-on-one time with my niece V, who turned three last November. We had the following conversation.

Me: I love wild girls. I'm a wild girl, and you're a wild girl.

V: Kiki burps and I burp!

Me: V dances and I dance!

V loves music, and she's got a really tight sense of rhythm, both in song and dance. So I brought up YouTube on the computer and we rocked out.

First up: "Hit the Road, Jack," vintage Ray Charles. V loves that song, although she's been known to sing "Hit the road, diaper!" instead of the original lyrics.

Then I tried a couple new (to her) songs on for size. She listened politely to Little Milton's "We're Gonna Make It," but only because I told her it was a song that she and I had enjoyed together when she was a tiny six-month-old baby.

"Piece of My Heart" by Janis Joplin seemed marginally acceptable; at least V moved to it. I thought she'd like it because, much like her aunt, both V and Janis have deep, husky smoker's voices. Or maybe whiskey drinker's voices. (Obviously only two of us actually do/did those things, but give V time.)

V seemed bored by both Def Leppard's "Pour Some Sugar on Me" and the Public Enemy/Anthrax version of "Bring the Noise," but didn't object. She then requested "Ice Ice Baby" by Vanilla Ice -- I cringed but complied. She's got to have her own taste, after all, much as I might like to influence her.

I like to joke with my sister that she had my baby for me, because V and I are so much alike.

I can't wait to watch her as she continues to grow into her own fabulous self.