An Inauspicious Anniversary

Today is the 7th anniversary of the day we found out our baby boy Zackery had died. I still want to kick myself for not having some sort of ritual or tradition or remembrance, but nothing ever worked or felt right. I'd give just about anything to have a grave to go to. But that's a whole other "keg of worms" as my mother would say.

So I'm thinking of my baby tonight. He would have looked just like Xander. But who would he have been? Someone too good for this world - that's all I know. This is the picture that I've chosen to represent him. A picture of where he is now.

I've waited another year to hold him. And I'll keep on waiting as long as I have to.

Thinking of Suey's Book Thoughts...

A list of book series' whose sequels we are waiting for with baited breath.

1. Twilight (of course)
2. Eragon
3. Grimm Sisters
4. The Chronicles of Ancient Darkness
5. Mistborn
6. Alcatraz and the Evil Librarians
7. Boston Jane (hoping she will write some more)

That's all I can think of at the moment, especially without getting off my butt to walk around the house.

I try to remember that patience is a virtue. Sigh.

What To Do?

Through no fault of our own, our lawn this year is rather healthy. We are required to mow it frequently or it takes over the world. And it is actually green. Sigh. It's not that I don't like green grass...I just don't expect it in my yard. And I hate taking care of it. (Or rather, paying a kid to take care of it, or bugging my husband to take care it of it, cuz I don't do lawn mowing.) But here is the real rub -- we now fit in on our street. Ouch. That's what I think. I derive a certain kind of embarrassed yet tickled pink pleasure from thwarting our neighbors' efforts at perfection. Sad, I know. But I'm just sick that way.

My question...how do I now fight conformity? Scott is not on board with putting a pumpkin patch in the front yard. Party pooper. So what? While I was pondering what I could put in my front lawn (pink flamingos...grave stones...picket signs with naughty phrases...) I realized I was fighting conformity for the sake of fighting conformity. Is this the proper method? Shouldn't I have a reason, or a motivation to express myself, or something more noble than a "stick my tongue out at all you hard working lawn Nazis?" Hmmm.

Big metal pumpkins? The leaning tower of dirty diapers? I'd go with zeroscaping, but that is expensive. Signs about ADHD? Or maybe just a big tongue?

Timing Is Everything

A friend that I haven't seen in nearly 3 years (I think) stopped by on Sunday because they are in town, and it was lovely timing. We had arrived home just hours before - after driving through the night - and I was crashed on the couch. I don't know about anyone else, but I was hoping when I saw my friend to look like life had been good...and I was already self-conscious about my recent weight gain...

So here's how it goes...I was not sleeping lightly, mind you, but "where the hell am I am?" sleeping, so I was especially crumple-faced. I hadn't found my conditioner and my hair was frizzy-fly-away. I was wearing some barely modest, certainly not flattering, actually paint covered pajamas. No makeup - which isn't a huge deal except that I've just been through a week of sun, wind, desert, and hard water which makes me look like I have a special type of zit covered leprosy. I was not thought conscious! I mean, words did not make sense, and words did not come out of my mouth making sense. And I couldn't even walk straight!

That's how things go, I guess. At least I was clean.

A Writing Blog

While discussing my reservations about taking a certain tempting creative writing class at BYU, I found I stumbled onto the right words for my quandary. I've had this ethereal fear for some time, and have no way to substantiate it yet, but... I fear I am a word crafter and not a story teller. This might seem a slight distinction, but I assure you, it is not.

This is why I have always loved poetry - the challenge of the exact right word, the exact right meaning, the exact right meter. And why I love picture books, whose length, close ties to pictures, and indeed, internal poetry, make them more word art than plot. So what will this mean for my dream of writing middle grade and young adult novels? I don't know.

Fear is a paralyzing thing.

I have this fantasy in my head of starting such a novel and completing it on the sly. Then I whip it out *BOING* to the astonishment of my sweet and supportive husband. This fantasy has nothing to do with quality, only completion. I know the first (at least) novel is practice. But this would let me practice in private - no kibitzing. But how would I write a novel, crappy or not, without plotting help?

So do I stick to poetry, my first love? Well, there isn't much "market" for children's poetry. And it isn't that I'm looking for money, or even fame...but I want what I write to be read.

So what am I going to do? Start writing poetry for adults? No way. I could not, and would not, keep up with a collection of academia that specializes in writing and publishing their personal brand of babbling that makes sense to no one but the writer and other members of academia who congratulate themselves on interpreting such things, pontificating on the symbolism espeically as involves some certain group of oppressed minority that they themselves have studied in depth, but all it really boils down to is how it works through their own experience of thinking they are superior to the average, limited, and in point of fact, stupid, lay-reader who likes movies, fantasy, entertainment, and gasp words that makes sense together. (Sorry to sidetrack to a sudden endorsement of the Reader's Response critical theory, but I have always been delighted by a "critical theory" that at once makes sense and defies analysis.) Those poor adult writers whose work is actually readable, are often labeled as simple and obvious. I'm sorry dear The New Yorker, you prestigious beast, you have failed to seduce me.

I must pause and interject that there are some exceptions. My poetry teacher at BYU, Lance Larsen, is an adult poetry writer that I admire. And I remember loving Wild Iris by Louise Gluck.

Word crafting versus Story telling. The best writers are both. I'll be doing some internal searching and hopefully, someday soon, bypass some of that fear and try. What story do I have to tell?

Lady and the Tramp

Aspen is in a puppy movie phase. And not even a dalmatian one. She likes Lady and the Tramp and we watch it endlessly. This morning I decided to search out the actor that did the voice of Tramp because, well, I just really like that voice. I wasn't very successful in securing a picture (I don't have a good attention span) but I found a wikipedia article that made me laugh. Here is a segment:

Naturalism

The movie is cited by many legendary Disney animators, including Walt Disney himself, to be the first Disney movie (and so far only) to have a suggested "sex scene." This is when the title characters wake up in the morning, cuddled together in the park, and leaving a knowledgable viewer fully aware of what they were doing the previous night. Furthermore, since they were not "married," this means the film managed to show sex out of marriage positively (albeit with consequences) which was prohibited in the Hollywood production code. This is further complicated by the fact that Lady apparently comes home pregnant, and the dogs next door are aware of it as well, whispering about the courtesy of proposing marriage to her. This gives further meaning to the junkyard dogs who chase Lady through the alley as well, which suggests she is in heat. These gentle suggestions were possible in the 1950's only because the characters in question are dogs. The next scene has Jock and Trusty proposing marriage to Lady to explain the scene to children.

Hahaha! I must confess I was completely naive about the whole thing. I don't know if it is because I still watch it through the childlike eyes that I first saw the movie, or maybe because I'm not used to such subtlety...but either way, I never put two and two together. I thought Jock and Trusty were proposing because they saw how sad and lonely she was! And the scene with dogs chasing Lady has always confused me -- I mean why where they chasing her? If if was territorial (which is what I assumed) then they wouldn't be working together. And is she was in heat (which occurred to me later) again, they wouldn't be working together.

I am just amazed the Disney would put all that in! And if he did, wouldn't Lady be called something other than "Lady?"

Classics

Classics I Have Never Read and Don't Even Feel Guilty About

1. Little Women (I tired)
   
2. Grapes of Wrath (and anything else by John Steinbeck)
   
3. Moby Dick
4. Around the World in 80 Days (and anything else by Jules Verne)
5. Treasure Island
6. War and Peace
7. Gulliver's Travels
8. The Hunchback of Notre Dame
   

Classic I Have Never Read and Feel a Tad Guilty About

1. anything by Charles Dickens
2. Huckleberry Finn

Classics I Almost Want to Read

1. Frankenstein
2. Dr Jeckyll and Mr Hyde
3. Lord of the Flies
4. Robinson Crusoe
5. Kidnapped
6. Dracula
   

Classics I Want to Read but Haven't Yet

1. To Kill a Mocking Bird
2. The Count of Monte Cristo
3. The Three Musketeers
4. Wuthering Heights
5. Sense and Sensibility
6. Farenheit 451
7. 1984
8. The Scarlet Letter
9. A Brave New World
   

Classics I Have Read (or Mostly Read) and Deeply Regret

1. The Jungle
2. The Invisible Man (not the SciFi one)
3. Heart of Darkness

Any recommendations or reasons a book should be moved to a different list? What are your regrets and your guilt-free neglected list?

The End of a Really Horrible Kyra...I Mean Day

You know what I have been thinking for the last two hours? Just that I would HAPPILY go straight to HELL at this very moment (and probably will considering my behavior) because it would mean a likely 70 years...WITHOUT KYRA!!! But even if it was only 10 minutes...that is still 10 minutes Kyra-free...and that would undermine the very point of Hell. Bring on the eternal burning!

Every minute of today with her has been awful and I had been hanging by a thread since 4:00, but when we brought home dinner, the end was within sight. Oh, if we could only sprint! (Ha! Kyra sprint? when I want her to?) It was just Kyra, Aspen and me, and after the normal amount of cajoling and screaming and tongue bitting and food spilling EVERY-FREAKIN-WHERE, I left the kitchen to distance myself before anymore nasty things popped out of my mouth. I returned to find Kyra had moved her eating spot, again, this time to under Aspen's high chair. Yes, she was lying on her back in a bed of thrown food, dipping her nachos in the liquid cheese positioned above her head. And Aspen, of course, was dropping even more food bombs down on her SPECIAL NEEDS sister.

This is where I literally collapsed on the stairs in one of those fits where you can't tell if you are crying or laughing. Oh Sweet Hell, where is thy comforting, warm embrace!

My life (and hers) was spared because Scott returned at that moment from Xander's school play. I am off duty. I am in search of some serious drugs. Anyone have any they could share?

A First

Now I know what it is like to hold a check made out to me for something I have written. Incredible. I am a published, and paid, author. It might be just one little poem, and a very small check, but...I did it!

This is making it harder to "wait" until a better "season" for me to get serious about writing again. Success is a heady thing. At least I know that sometime in the foreseeable future, there is another poem coming out in another issue...and another pay check.

And now I get to spend the first income I have ever made doing something I like. I'm gonna blow it on completely ridiculous and useless things -- like stamps or dies for my cuttlebug. Yipee!

Shoebox Swap

On Saturday May 3 I went to a shoebox swap in Centerville. For the swap, I had to design a card and bring all the cut pieces and supplies for all the other ladies to make the card too. They would do the same, so when we got together we would all make a bunch of stuff to take home. It was tons of fun, and I got to learn new techniques. We also had a card swap of completed cards, a name tage contest (which I won), and door prizes (if you bring a door prize you get to pick a door prize when your name is drawn). There was a potluck lunch.

It didn't show in the pictures well, but the jack-o-lantern on my name tag lights up thanks to a tiny LED light. The plates are glass etched. I wanted to put them on here because I worked so hard on it all.

I had a great time and am looking forward to the next one that will take place here in Utah county. Since my friend Amy is hosting, I'll even get to help plan!