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Updates!

You might recall that back in May I wrote about my endometrial ablation. Endometrial ablation is when a woman is put under general anesthesia for a half hour, given a D&C, and the lining of her uterus is scorched out. The purpose is to stop or greatly lessen the monthly bloodbath.

A few of you asked me to report my results. The results? They are freaking sweet.

I can leave the house whenever I want now! I no longer feel flu-ish for 72 hours out of every 24 days. In fact, besides the spazzy irritability that hits once a month (yeah, that doesn't go away), I barely notice when it's that time.

Seriously. Novasure is the best invention since PopTarts and I will be happy to answer questions anyone may have.

***

Claire learned to tie bows last week. She worked and worked until she got it. So, Saturday, we went and bought her lace-up shoes, size 2. She's extremely proud of herself and I'm proud of her, too. Mostly because she's a persistent girl who doesn't give up easily. If there's one thing I most admire in a person, aside from kindness and innate talent, it's tenacity. Tenacious C. will do well. Go on, my girl. Tie shoes! Yank out loose teeth! Learn to ice skate! Get back up on that bike! Study hard! Find love! Pursue your passions!

***

I have finally finally finally made the decision to publish my YA novel Spectacle as an ebook. It took me forever to come around. I've done a lot of research, talked to people in the biz, read this blog until my eyes crossed, and realized that epublishing is the future. I don't know exactly how the industry will pan out or how my little book will do. But it's clear I can't ignore this opportunity. I'm excited! I love the idea of control. I get to design and choose the cover. I get to say what parts of the story stay and what goes, I get to price it and keep 70% of the royalties (assuming someone besides my mom and sister buy Spectacle).

It's the first time in a long, long while that I've felt sparkly instead of discouraged when I think about my writing.

I'll let you know when it's up on Amazon. My team of beta readers, editors, and designers are working on it as we speak (which means my online buddy Kristy, my proofreading friend Betsy, and an outfit I'm hiring for $50 to format my manuscript). I would love whatever support you can give me once it's released. Kind words. Shares on Facebook. Tweets. Anything you can do.

More to come...

Maurice Sendak on Fresh Air – If this doesn't do it for you, I don't know what will

I drove downtown tonight to meet my friend for drinks and apps. On the way, I listened to what was, perhaps, the most moving interview I've ever heard. It was Terry Gross from Fresh Air chatting with 83-year-old Maurice Sendak.

He knows he's facing the end of his life, he's sad, he's athiest, yet he's full of wonder and love for the world.

If you have 20 minutes, go here and listen. It's so worth your time.

Since I saw you last

I've floated this household across a sea of corndogs and Ore-Ida Fast Food french fries, made cookies, constructed gingerbread houses, put up and taken down a dead fir tree from the corner of the living room, wrapped and opened presents, gone snow tubing at Snoqualmie pass, snapped at my children, hissed violently at J. for doing the same, turned 43, started reading a book on a Kindle, considered e-publishing my "quiet" YA manuscript Spectacle, begun planning a solo trip to China for next October, consulted with a plastic surgeon about my wrinkles then decided that I am a map and a storybook and for now will stay that way, eaten my weight in salted chocolate, got drunk on Jolly Roger Christmas Ale, and hid in the stairwell when I couldn't take being around people for another second.

It's been an eventful few weeks.

Constant motion

Perfect, oyster-translucent skin. Ribs that heave as you breathe. Your arms bent, legs taut, ready to run at me.

You all but puff steam from your nostrils. When you charge, you try to knock me over, but your eight-year-old body isn't substantial enough yet. You are angles and bones.

Your torso rams into mine and I purposely fall back. I know that in a few years you will be able to take me down, but for now you are still a small boy.

Earlier you looked at yourself in the bathroom mirror, arms up, studying your biceps. "Do I look strong?" you kept asking.

"Yes," I said, even though you just looked skinny and cute.

You are energy and exuberance embodied right now. You exhaust me. 

 

 

But you also give me so much more than you know.

Miscellany

Max got in trouble last week for writing "You are a dumbo," on a classmate's math sheet. The sheet belonged to Max's friend and Max was trying to be funny and make his friend laugh. On our way out of school, Max's teacher confronted him about it in the hallway. Claire and I watched Max's face turn crimson. He almost never gets in trouble. Once in first grade for crawling under his desk during Music. This time, I wished his teacher had pulled him aside and talked to him privately rather than shooting questions at him where anyone could hear.

***

Some kids at school are making fun of Claire and I can't quite figure out why. It has to do with a game and the others telling her she's not good at it so she shouldn't play. I want to go up to each of these children and flick them on their small heads. I won't, of course, but the meanness...it starts in first grade. Damn.

***

J. is working like crazy again. He hates it. I hate it. It negatively affects the family dynamic in a major way.

Every time his work consumes him like a licking, snapping house fire, I fear that everything we've built will disintegrate into a pile of fluffy ashes.

***

Claire was home sick two days last week. We had a decent time together. She stood with me, shivering and feverish in her thick winter coat while I strung lights on the two tiny shrubs in front of our house. I made her french toast, which we can never have when Max is home because of his egg allergy.

At the end of the second day Claire felt good enough to pluck tags from her school's giving tree and go with me to Target to buy the presents. We went a little crazy. Because when I saw slips of paper that said One pair of boy's black socks, size large and Sleeper for an 18-month-old and A pair of girl's leggings, size M, and Hygiene products for a 22-year-old woman, I couldn't not take them.

I had to stop reading the tags. I shoved them into my purse and dragged Claire out before I swiped them all.

***

More rejections on Spectacle. I feel like a massive loser. Still, that doesn't stop me from pathetically starting a new project while I continue to seek representation for my finished manuscripts. I need to be stopped before I start slapping them all up into Amazon's e-books site while frothing at the mouth and gulping chablis like water.

***

Max wrote a school report on Ireland. This was his chapter on Food and Drink: 

There are many foods and drinks that Ireland likes. Some foods Ireland likes are potatoes. Some drinks Ireland likes are beer. That is all the stuff Ireland likes.                  

And this, despite our shitty, shitty mornings, is why I like being a mom to these two goofballs.

Six

It was the worst day ever

she says as she rounds the corner

Lips drawn down

Eyes pale

You have lots of worst days ever

I remind her

She shakes her head

And offers up a small award she got in gym class

See? I raise my brows at her

This is not what she wants

She wants to believe, right then, that everything is awful and bad and wrong

The most horrible

Ever

She lies on the floor of her room like a deflated balloon

Unwilling to tell me why

This is what it’s like to be a man, I think

Momentarily, I pity the other sex, trying to figure us out

I give up and leave

She'll talk when she's ready

Or not

We are in the fecund pool locker room

She changes from her wet suit into dry clothes

Nothing is ever fun

I wither

because I swam through blue-yellow water

teeming with kids

for her

I understand this is payback

But that doesn't stop it from being 

hilariously dreadful

Besotted

Some things I am currently loving:

Pictures drawn by my kids. Especially when they illustrate their love for me.

 

Shopping carts with cup holders. It's the only thing that makes fetching groceries endurable.

 

The holds section at the library. Seriously, I'm hardly spending money on books at all anymore.

 

Matches. My big, plastic candle lighter ran out of juice, and I've rediscovered the simple pleasure of lighting a match. The scratch, snap, and sizzle.

 

My new slippers. I finally had to trash my beloved old standbys, which were embarrassingly ratty.

Repetition repetition repetition

Claire wanted to visit her old preschool teachers this last week. Since her elementary school has been on Thanksgiving vacation and her preschool has not, we snuck in Tuesday morning to say Hi.

They all crooned to her in staggered rounds, "You're so tall!"

The refrain: TALL, tall, tAll, taLL.

A song scratched across my eardrums like a dusty record.

Later in the day we ran into friends we hadn't seen in a while. It was the same chorus. Claire, you're so tall. Look how tall you are. You've grown so much.

Claire, for her part, didn't seem fazed.

I try as hard as I can to make Tall seem positive for her. Tall is great! Tall is cool! You can reach things and see over heads!

But inside, when Tall dribbles out of people's mouths like blood, I writhe and gnash.

She's also brilliant! I want to cry. She's funny and spirited. And look at those dimples and that thick, chestnut hair.

Of course, though, Tall is the first noticeable thing about her.

I just have to give in and realize it is one of the themes with which we live. And understand that the world likes to exclaim the obvious.

Work in progress

Did you notice how I neglected to post yesterday? I blew Nablow.

We're busy over here cracking shelled almonds.

I let Max eat his first one yesterday. Paranoid kook that I am, though, I only allowed him a nibble. Then he had to wait ten minutes before he could gobble up the rest of it. Half hour later, when I was pretty confident nothing terrible would happen, he popped the second one in his mouth.

Today he ate another two or three.

I think all is well and that, truly, he is no longer allergic to almonds.

Which is strange. Strangely good.

He keeps saying, "I can't believe I'm eating nuts!"

This morning he, Claire and I were hanging out in the living room, me on the floor while Claire shoved a million sparkly barrettes and clips into my hair, and Max lying across the couch.

He was thinking about death. Or, getting deaded, as he still calls it. "I don't want to die," he said.

"I don't want you to. I don't want to either."

We do not, around here, have the comfort of saying But then you'll go to heaven. And we'll all meet up there. Because that's not something we believe. I wish it were. Believe me. I fucking wish it were.

As my therapist used to say, death is the big one. The enormous issue with which we all grapple.

When I was in third grade, Max's age, our school system decided we should be taught classroom lessons in death. Not necessarily how to deal with it, or better yet, how to avoid it. Just...that people die.

My teacher showed us a movie. It was about a dying girl named Mary Ann. She had an unspecified illness and spent all her time in bed. Her mom spoon fed her ice cream. Then Mary Ann died. And she was shown, in blurry filmstrip haze, skipping through heavenly meadows of wildflowers.

That stupid movie shook me to my eight-year-old core. It had something to do with the matter-of-fact way the death was dealt with. The brilliant summer weather during which a girl my age had died. The awful distorted sounds of the seventies filmstrip.

We then, as a class, read a book about a boy who was picking blackberries with friends when he was stung by a bee and killed.

Good elementary school times.

Anyway, probably not as a direct result of my third-grade teachings, but I'm someone who thinks about death and dying a lot. More than the average person, I suspect.

Of course, I wonder if Max is heading down that road too, or if he is just at the age where he's realizing it all has to end at some point.

"I mean," he said, "how can the world not have ME in it?"

Just don't think about it is the best advice I know. Find your passion and your pleasures and focus on those.

Poor baby.

We're all just processing.

Bring on the almonds

Maxwell had his annual food allergy testing today. These particular appointments used to push my sanity to its limit. Sitting in a tiny, hot room with two little kids for hours while Max was pricked and then we waited. To be blandly given the news that peanuts and tree nuts could kill him.

Now it's easier. I've been through it eight times. I know the drill. I know that peanuts, pistachios, cashews, and walnuts will be deemed lethal. I pretty much get that, as much as I want him to outgrow his dairy and egg allergies, this won't be the year. I don't expect much.

So, today, when he tested negative for almonds, Max and I grinned at each other and then we both burst into tears. He apologized for crying and buried his head in my lap. I didn't let myself think about all the high positives still ticked across his chart and enjoyed the moment. Almonds! Almond extract in cookies. Roasted almonds as a snack and new protein source. Granola bars with almonds. Almond milk.

"We'll start with a sliver," I said. "Tomorrow. During daylight."

He nodded and we high-fived.

What a sweet development for us.

Little by little

When the kids were toddlers, we canceled our Sunday paper subscription. Trying to read it while Max and Claire destroyed the house was too hard.

Burying myself in the newspaper, before having children, was a highlight of the weekend.

There's still not a lot of lazy time, not the leisurely perusal while sipping multiple cups of coffee that I used to look forward to. But we've started the paper back up again.

It feels like a milestone.

15- word fiction

You know how I love the super short fiction. Here are a few vignettes. I say vignettes because, with maybe the exception of the last line, I couldn't get them to read as full stories. Ah well. It got the juices flowing, anyway.

 

She rubbed her temples and looked up at the sky. "I feel it," she said.

***

Her pants didn't fit well anymore. It was because of him. And his mother.

***

He strummed the guitar like his life depended on it. Which it, in fact, did.

***

She wrapped her baby in the ratty blanket and set him on the concrete steps.

***

The mouse ran from the house to the tree. It sensed a shadow above. Shit.

 

Cat video Friday

This is ridiculous. But amusing. Happy Friday!

There are some things I do kind of right

Max and Claire just started piano lessons. It's hard to convey how happy this makes me.

The lessons are a huge investment of both time and money. And in some ways it makes me feel like just another upper middle class mom over-scheduling her children.

And yet...I love that they're going to learn music. I love listening to them plinking the keys and singing along. In some ways, their taking piano makes me feel like I'm doing my job well. Like I am enriching their time on this earth. Which is important to me.

When I was growing up we had an upright piano brush-painted blue. I remember desperately wanting lessons and asking often. Had I actually gotten my wish, I'm sure I would've balked at the practice. But I never got the chance. Back then, I didn't realize how expensive piano lessons were and my parents, on a teacher's and nurse's salary probably weren't in a position to shell out the bucks necessary. I totally understand and don't begrudge them. When I was sixth grade, they rented me a trumpet and I sucked at it and didn't practice and generally decided I wasn't put on this planet to make music. Later, I picked up the guitar and worked at it for about six months before setting it aside for more fun things, like drinking with my friends.

My lack of musicality was disappointing to me. Especially because my dad, my sweet, sweet dad had a crazy awesome musical streak. He taught himself to play piano, guitar, and banjo. I also remember bongo drums, recorders and harmonicas around the house. He loved music and was pretty good, too.

He used to have a reel-to-reel tape recorder and these massive microphones on stands, into which, every Christmas eve, my sister and I would squeal, excited by Santa's imminent arrival, and sing carols and talk about school.

The reels never completely erased, so that if you taped over something, which we often did, you could still sort of hear whatever had originally been recorded. In the background of many of our Christmas Eve tapes, which still exist but which I can barely stand to listen to, you can faintly hear the hippy singing of my dad, mom, and several of my dad's high school students.

The reels have been transferred to cassettes. But the remnants of early 70s harmonizations remain behind my sister's and my youthful musings.

I don't know if Max and Claire will take to the piano. I don't know if they'll show any sort of musical inclination or if nagging them to practice will just become too much and we'll all collectively sigh and say, "Screw it."

But I want to try. I want to see what, when we give them the opportunity, comes of it.

I'm boring myself to tears

I woke in my overheated hotel room at four this morning and slapped off the alarm. I felt surprisingly decent, though, as I rushed around showering and throwing clothes into my suitcase. I attempted to slam coffee (Diplomat brand, I know you wish you were me), but wasn’t able to ingest as much as I wanted before I had to dash to the front desk where, despite my incessant bell-ringing, found no one to check me out. I tossed my key down and left.

When I was finally able to find a Starbucks in Detroit, I proceeded to over-caffeinate myself until my arteries thrummed and my heart pounded double-time.

I was sure I’d be catatonic all day, but on the plane I turned into a Tasmanian devil of productivity. I tore through a lot of electronic filing, photo deleting, and writing. I did a fair amount of thinking, too, and am happy to report that I’ve come up with several possible solutions to the literary conundrums I’m facing…(I guess I'm not as "done" as I thought).

Also, for my new YA manuscript (I’m still working on submitting the old one, Spectacle, and have an agent who would like to read The Mating Habits of Fireflies, so I’m trying to polish that, as well), I’m following the guidelines of the brilliant Alexandra Sokoloff . Her premise is that writing like a screenwriter (somewhat formulaically) with three acts, well-placed climaxes, setpiece scenes, etc., will suck readers into your story like a Dyson.

We’ll see how that goes. I have to admit that thinking in terms of the entire manuscript rather than just blindly typing is forcing me to plan more, to outline, and to hopefully create a more compelling narrative arc.