allrighty then

I don't think I sat on this one long enough. I'd cut two lines and two words if I could.

And while you're there, read this one. Isn't it lovely?!

The kitchen sink

I'm thinking back to when I started blogging and how conscientious I was about posting regularly, leaving comments on other blogs, and lord. I do so suck now.

But you know what I'm doing? I'm writing a book. For really and truly. And it's kind of awesome. (Not the book, necessarily, but the writing of it.)

What will become of it? Who knows. Does it matter? All I know is this: That feeling I've had for the past 10 years, that feeling like you get when you leave for vacation and you think, "Crap. Did I leave the stove on? I bet I left the stove on. No, not the stove. What then? What did I not do? What what what?"

It's gone.

We're staying afloat so far with the freelancing, which is just fine, considering that it's only 6 months in and that I'm pretty much supporting four people with only a fairly modest amount of child support. I've had a few pieces published here and there. I have picked up several writing jobs and some new editing clients. I may have an opportunity to return to full-time work, and I may take it, but who knows?

I haven't been very good about writing here, because I'm writing not here. And I'm trying to decide how to handle the necessity of blogging as a writer. Do I disappear and suddenly pop up somewhere else, living out my bloggy life under a new name, like a virtual Elvis? With less sparkle, of course. Do I manage two blogs? Should I point from here to things I'm writing (which as of now are also under pseudonyms so wouldn't likely threaten my anonymity, but would make it likely that people could trail back here)?

So these are the things I think about, and then I think about the stack of editing waiting for me and that damned first draft that is waiting to be finished. And I wonder how everyone is and I try to catch up reading a few blogs but don't have time to leave comments or write here and that's a little bit of what's happening and why things are quiet.

Just so you know.

Who said that?

The Boy understands attribution. You read a quote; you read the name of the person who said it. "Grown-ups never understand anything for themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them." Antoine de Saint-Exupery.

We're in church, and there's a Whitman quotation up on the on the side screen. He reads it out loud. "That means Walt Whitman said that," he tells me.

"Yup."

He thinks for a moment. "Say something by Shakespeare," he asks.

"Uh, okay... 'To be or not to be, that is the question. Whether 'tis nobler to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune--"

"Shakespeare. 'I don't understand anything you just said.' Boy K."

RIP, Psycho Kitty

The best cat in the whole fucking universe. Rocks wept.

Can't...breathe...

I realize most of you have probably already seen this, but if you haven't...treat yourself. You deserve it.



Brilliant.

Thank you sweet little baby Jesus

Nothing makes the day a little happier than an acceptance letter. Except TWO acceptance letters. That makes it happier.

This just in: It seems I am not a complete hack. I might be mostly a hack; the jury's still out. But for now, less-than-total is enough.

Foiled again

So, the Girl. She does this thing that I did at her age. She doesn't like to sleep in her own bed.

She starts out there, more or less. But somewhere in the wee hours, she wakes up. And that's when my bed shines with the light of Mecca, beckoning her to its warm embrace. Someone once wrote about how sneaky a similar Scorpiolette had become in her nocturnal wanderings, which had prompted me to inform the Girl that if she was very, very quiet when she climbed into my bed, so quiet that I didn't wake up, I wouldn't be able to put her BACK in her bed. This worked like a charm at the time, my priority being to get some damned sleep. Now that my priority is to get the kid to sleep in her own bed? Not so much. Plus, she's sneaky getting in, but eventually she sticks her feet in my ribs, which means I wake up every morning, around 3:00 a.m., which really throws off the whole sleep cycle thing.

So I've vowed to haul myself out of bed when she comes in, take her back to her bed, and lie down with her there until she gives up and just figures the extra walking isn't worth it. Some day soon, I envision a full night's uninterrupted rest.

The other night, I managed to get both kids to sleep without falling asleep myself, lying next to one or the other. The reward: A hot bath, that rarist of luxuries in this house.

But damn, the thing wiped me out! Maybe I made it too hot, maybe I stayed in too long, but when I got out, I collapsed into bed. I seem to remember thinking, "Well, at least I'll sleep well."

Which I did, I guess. Until I woke up, around 3:00 a.m..

In the Girl's bed.

No idea how I got there. But she was sound asleep, so I guess I was sneaky.