Before Dawn on a Saturday Morning

I was awake before dawn this morning. On a weekday morning, that is just my normal schedule: up before the sun to get kids off to school. But this is Saturday. I’d planned to sleep in. Instead I was awakened by a combination of bio-rhythmic patterns, a mewling cat who’d managed to shut himself in a bathroom, and my daughter’s alarm going off endlessly. (Time to have another conversation about “please set your alarm for a time when you actually plan to get up instead of letting it go off every ten minutes for two full hours.”) With alarm off and cat freed from his trap, I crawled back into bed, but sleep was not to be reclaimed. My brain was full of thinking instead.

There is plenty to think about. This has been an eventful week full of repairs, expenses, doctors appointments, book release work, and emotional management of a teenager in (maybe) crisis. Strange how “crisis” can sometimes be hard to measure. It sometimes takes an outside mental health professional to point out that the thing you and your child have been managing for months-on-end is actually something which should be treated as urgent to the point of upheaving many of your life routines. This included new medical intervention, the acquisition of a new therapist, and a major sorting of possessions to transform a bedroom. The process is not done. Won’t be for an additional months-on-end I think. But I also think that it will only take another week or so to settle into the trajectory shift.

Mixed in with all the home and human maintenance, was work on the latest Schlock book release. I hauled 1500lbs of books into and then back out of the house with Howard signing all those books in between. I then hauled almost 2000lbs of books into the house to await signing and sketching. I had assistants for some of the hauling, but as I was the only worker who participated in every hauling batch, I did a large portion of the physical work. Days later, I’m still physically tired. The physical work continues with hefting books out for Howard to sign and putting books into packages so they can ship.

The sun is up now. The ground outside is coated with a hard frost. Soon I’ll need to venture forth, there is shopping to do for the bedroom transformation in process. Also groceries. And perhaps an hour or two at the warehouse assembling packages. I’m not sure yet how the day will play out. I just know I won’t run out of things to do before I run out of energy to do them. But first I need to go eat the yummy breakfast that Howard is making.