Sandra Tayler

Conventions, Family, and Making Choices

By / August 13, 2013 / 2 Comments

Shipping day, booth set up day, and post-con accounting day are when I discover which out of hundreds of things I failed to adequately track. That is the not fun part, when I realize that I’ve failed to do some simple thing and because of it life is more complicated. The problems are usually small and often easily resolved, but there is a voice in my head which berates me for failing to anticipate and prevent the problem. This is one of the reasons that I was glad that events conspired for me to take a break from being with Howard at major conventions. I had to figure out how to disconnect that angry voice in my head. Once the event is in motion it does not matter whose fault it is that we’re about to run out of tape. What matters is sending someone on a quick run to the store to buy more tape. Problem solved, on we go.

After I dropped Howard at the airport (he’s headed to GenCon) I came home and sat in my hammock to think. It was the first real pause I’d had all day. As part of our preparations for the three big conventions, we got to talking about the big events we have scheduled for next year. Worldcon will be in London next year, and the conversation made clear that Howard assumed I’d want to go. In my mind I’d been assuming that I would not be going. I’d love to go. We could come up with the money somehow, but childcare is the issue. One a daily basis I don’t have to seek out babysitters anymore, but if I’m going to be gone for a week or more, I have to make sure that my kids are cared for. There are three events in 2014 that I would like to be able to attend, I’m not certain which of them I’ll be able to manage. I thought about that as I swung in the hammock. And while I was thinking about the professional things I’m giving up in service to my ongoing parenting project, I also spent some time thinking about what family things I would have to give up in order to attend all the professional events that interest me. I have to choose. I am fortunate to be able to choose between things I want instead of having only bad options.

Howard is at GenCon where he will work hard, be with friends, feel exhausted, laugh loud, and come home with stories. I am a little sad that I am not there. I’m a little sad that it makes sense for me to be the one to stay home. I feel cliche about that sometimes. In two weeks Howard will be at WorldCon. Again he will be surrounded by friends and I will be home making sure the kids settle in to their school routines. I will be participating in the booth running for Salt Lake City Comic Con, but the exact schedule and extent of my participation has yet to be determined. I’ll get at least a partial professional event this fall.

On the other hand, I’ll be spending this final week before school with my kids. We’ll get to go on a final outing (if Gleek gets over her sore throat and fever). I’ll be here to sit with Kiki in church on the last Sunday before she departs for college. I’ll get to organize and clean, prepping back packs and school schedules. I wouldn’t want to miss any of that. There are so few days left. Part of me wants to slow down and savor. A larger part wants to jump ahead because things are going to change and we might as well get the change made so we can settle in.

I thought about all of this as I swayed gently in the warm evening. Then I thought of nothing much at all, because today began with a half day of shipping, was followed up by last minute convention-preparation, and then a 90 minute drive to drop Howard at the airport. I was tired. I am tired. Bedtime needs to be early tonight and all the rest of the decisions and things to do can wait until a different day.

Some Days Earn Grouchy

By / August 12, 2013 / 1 Comment

I was extremely grouchy this afternoon. It was the sort of grouchy that resents the adorable multi-generational family in Sam’s Club who are obviously having a pleasant evening, yet I resent them anyway because they are blocking the aisle with the cart and grandma’s wheelchair, particularly when I’m on my third pass along the aisle searching for an item that turns out not to be there. (Seriously Sam’s Club? You carry krill oil pills, but not chewable vitamin c tablets?) Then I’m grouchy all the way home because it is rush hour and I have to be on the freeway with all the other cars. Mostly though I was grouchy because the morning was so nicely efficient, then Gleek started being sick, then she spiked a fever, then two hours vanished without reducing my task list. Then we started to configure the new iPad 4G we bought to be our point of sale device, but it refused to connect to cell service because it claimed that it had been reported stolen. So then I had to call the seller and packages the thing back up and send it back. Odds are good that we’ll get a functioning iPad without too much trouble, but my brain spins alternate possibilities and even the best case scenario means I have fewer days to get comfortable with the point of sale system. Hence all the grouchy.

Tomorrow morning will be spent shipping packages. My house is jumbled up in preparation for this. By tomorrow afternoon the packages will be gone, Howard will be off to the airport, and hopefully I will have evicted the grouchy as well.

Odds and Ends on a Sunday

By / August 11, 2013

The form of the conversation was Kiki telling me about her concerns related to intellectual property theft in relation to her artwork. The true content of the conversation was her feeling that the world is a big, scary place and she’s about to venture forth in it solo. Hugs and chocolate helped.

We all sat down at the dinner table together. We don’t have any regular patterns for when we’ll all sit down together, at least not lately. It is more likely to happen on Sunday afternoons, and definitely more likely during the school months than during the summer. We passed around food and I made announcements to the kids about the coming week so that they would know what to expect. Mostly that we’ll have influxes of people the first three days of the week and that the last two days we’ll flee the house and go on outings. There was some debate about where the outings should take us, but a compromise was reached. I think. Link did a really good non-responsive 15-year-old face. It is hard to get all four enthusiastic about the same trips in advance, but I’m pretty sure we’ll all find things to enjoy while we’re out.

I’d just finished showing Howard the packet of GenCon papers. These include this year’s sales tax license, proof of event insurance, hotel reservations, and an explanation of how he may need to go to the hotel of our booth help in order to make sure that the bill ends up on our credit card. Earlier we’d spent time going through iterations of convention flyers and packing his suitcase. I’d assembled a list of errands for me to run tomorrow to make sure that all the pieces are in place for GenCon. I sat in a chair in his office and he sat across from me painting.
“Know what is nice?” I said. “It’s nice that I know all the things to do in order to get this ready. I don’t have to feel panicked that I’m forgetting something.”

“What’s nice is that you’re amazing.” Howard replied, because the evening had demonstrated how many preparatory tasks I’ve managed and solved without him needing to think of them at all. Some days I get it right and can tell that I have. Tomorrow’s task list is full of things, as is Tuesday’s, but for once I feel competent to accomplish it all.

Time’s Up

By / August 9, 2013

It feels like time’s up. The schools have begun calling and emailing me with announcements for the coming year. Howard’s departure for GenCon is mere days away. I still have things to do to prepare for the oncoming events. Summer feels over even though we’re still in the first half of August. I suppose that is the natural consequence of school starting on August 20, summer vacation ends a full month before summer weather does. There is no time left for me to take the kids on enriching outings. Or for me to do a better job of summer gardening. I must let those intentions go and move forward to supporting them in school and trying to do a better job of fall gardening.

Today I perused the calendar, very familiar activity.
Look at this week: almost gone.

Click: next week has postage printing, shipping, Howard leaving for GenCon, watching my sister’s kids for a day, and hopefully a last family outing with the kids.

Click: The week after is when the beginning of school unfolds over three days. Monday, Gleek’s orientation day. Tuesday, First day of school. Wednesday, I drive Kiki to college and leave her there. I assume that Thursday, Friday, and Saturday will be divided among reactions to the previous and preparations for Worldcon.

Click: The week of WorldCon. Quiet at home.

Click: Return from Worldcon followed immediately by Salt Lake City Comic Con.

Most of my calendar perusals have stopped there. Surely that is enough. I can’t be expected to think of anything beyond all of that. Yet today I clicked onward and the weeks that follow are …empty. No events, just regularly scheduled days all the way into October. I am not so foolish as to think that emptiness is actually empty. We will be busy, but for the moment the illusion of being less busy is nice.

I really thought my kids would have meltdowns before the beginning of school. I braced for it. Then I was the one who had a big emotional reaction to the beginning of August, because it feels like we’re running out of time on this summer.

Back in June when I looked ahead across the hot months, I pondered what I should do for my family during that time. What should we set our minds to accomplish? An answer came to me clearly: Rest. So we rested instead of pushing. The kids played nearly endless hours of their favorite video games. The ones who love to read, spent time with books. The ones for whom reading is a chore touched none. No math was practiced, no skills worked on. Howard and I focused mostly on the work that we had to do. It was nice to let some of the things go. I don’t regret it. I only have the vaguest sort of guilt that perhaps we should have done something else. Instead we rested. I can only hope that we rested enough, because whatever comes next is coming in about a week.

Stress is not Logical

By / August 9, 2013

I woke up this morning stressed. I was stressed yesterday, but not at a drive-all-my-thoughts-and-actions level. Somehow the fact that it is Friday and I have almost run out of week tipped me over. There are all these things I need to do with various due dates.
Today
Contact the GenCon hotel and arrange for pre-payment
Count invoices and boxes to make sure we won’t run out of anything on Tuesday

Before Monday
Design flyers
Prepare house and yard for clan home evening (guests in the house)
Do all the laundry
Pack Howard for GenCon

By Tuesday
Set up the new 4G iPad, hopefully it’ll arrive in time to make the trip to GenCon. (Except I may need it here to set up Worldcon Point of sale system. Make a decision.)
Transfer my old iPhone to the Kidphone number (Maybe? think about it. It could be a credit card terminal at GenCon.)
Restock from the storage unit
Fill some wholesale orders of books
Ship the wholesale orders
Prepare the paperwork for GenCon (informational papers for on site folks)

Before WorldCon (Aug 27)
Sign up for the point of sale system
Buy peripherals for point of sale system (in time for them to be delivered and tested)
Set up point of sale system
Test point of sale system

Very important, Do as soon as possible so you don’t forget, no specific deadline looming
Weekly accounting
Finish setting up my phone (I need those contacts back)
Email people regarding the Jay Wake Book
Work layout for the Jay Wake Book
Call Adobe and shake a license number out of their customer support personnel because there is a snafu with Kiki’s product registration

In writing this post I am able to sort and categorize, but this morning all of those things were pounding in the front of my brain and jockeying for position. It seemed like I should start with the Must Be Done Today things, but my brain wouldn’t settle. So instead of trying to figure out what should come first, I asked myself which of these things was causing me the most stress. The answer was Accounting. We’ve spent a lot of money in the past few weeks between convention prep, a new HVAC system for the house, various medical expenses, and the college tuition/housing payment. My rough math told me we were covered, but my brain would not let it go. So I sat down and did the accounting. This is when I discovered that yes we are fine, BUT I really needed to make some payments to the credit cards today because while we have funds to cover things, both cards were nearing their limits and nothing would be likely to cause more stress in the next couple of weeks than the temporary inability to use a credit card. Logically accounting could wait until later, except for that one piece. Bills are paid, all is clear. And now I’m able to look at tasks by due date and proceed.

Interestingly Howard was feeling similar levels of stress this morning. It was also because a lower priority item was the one causing him the most stress. Brains are weird.

Busy Brain Day

By / August 7, 2013 / 3 Comments

My brain has been hopping through business tasks all day. I spent much of the morning looking at possible Point of Sale systems for our business. We’ve managed at conventions with a sort of cobbled together system, but it would be nice to have an integrated one that tracks everything for me rather than me having to figure out bits and pieces after the fact. Unfortunately this sort of analysis and decision making wears my brain out. Then my inner financial squirrel starts to make noises about the expense and don’t we really want to hold on to the money anyway. The financial squirrel likes to keep as much money stashed away as possible. But the storekeeper and accountant portions of my brain like this Point of Sale system very much.

I’d almost settled on a system when Howard needed to talk through some business things for upcoming conventions, so that required me to switch into booth manager brain. We also discussed the need for new headshots, a contract negotiation we need to undertake without offending the other party, and a contract that I really should have written and sent a week ago. So I ran downstairs and pulled out my contract writing brain. I was not quite done with that when it got to be time for my scheduled phone call with a publicist. We’ve never been very good about advertising Schlock. We comprehend the principles of marketing and branding, but I’ve never managed to figure out where and when to send out review copies. So spending an hour picking the brain of someone who does know was a very good idea. But I had to pull out my marketing brain.

Then I had pieces of all these different brains all taking up space in my head. Wait, that sounds way stranger than I thought it would. Rephrase. I had fragments of thoughts about Point of Sale systems, convention set up, marketing tasks, and contracts. So naturally I took my head full of fragments and went to buy a replacement for my seriously out of date phone. I have a new now, though I have mixed feelings about having it. The financial squirrel is not pleased at all, and the nostalgic part of me feels sad to part with my old one, it was a good companion for a long time. Yet as I’ve been setting up the new phone, it works so much better, so much more smoothly, that I’m losing my sadness very quickly. I’m going to be able to work and communicate on the go with far more capability. This is a good thing. If it were only a personal phone, I would have kept muddling through. Now I have a fully functional work device that I can carry in my pocket. Which was the point.

Now it is bedtime and there are lots of loose thoughts to mop up and tasks to put to bed. Or maybe it is me I need to put to bed so that I can finish tasks tomorrow. I think I’ll go with that plan.

Contemplating Shipping

By / August 6, 2013

We shipped out half of the Body Politic orders today. The process made me think about how our shipping events have changed over the years. We used to haul everything down to Dragon’s Keep and throw the doors wide for as many volunteers as wanted to come. Sometimes we had as many as 25 people working simultaneously. It was high intensity and the work got done fast. Sometimes in half a day. These days the shipping is spread out over several days. We run it from our home and usually only have four or five volunteers at a time. Some of those changes are driven by the changes in postal regulations and my postage printing software. All packages have dates on them and so we can’t print all the postage a week in advance the way that I used to do. Some of it is that I now have a group of volunteers who’ve been coming to help for years. I don’t have to explain very much any more. They know how this works and that makes a big difference. Shipping from home was not possible when the kids were younger because they would have been constantly distracting me. Now they help out too. I wonder what shipping will look like in another six years. All I can be certain of is that it will be different than it is now.

And that is about all the thinking I can manage on a shipping day. My brain is tired.

20 Years

By / August 5, 2013 / 21 Comments

The other day I looked at Howard as he was gazing out of window. The light was hitting his face at one of those photographically perfect angles to highlight all the best features and I wished for a camera so I could capture in an image exactly what I see when I look at him. He was quite handsome, despite the fact that he was wearing a green shirt I’d made the mistake of buying for him without quite realizing that it exactly matches his car.

Oops. All day he wore that shirt and I kept feeling like he was wearing his car around the house. But I watched him anyway because I often do even though I don’t say anything about it.

This is us together 20 years ago today.

I can’t say that our wedding was the best day of my life, because it was far too full of various agendas, rejoicings, and stresses to be peaceful. I can say that choosing to marry Howard was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. It is one I keep making over and over as we muck our way through the various stresses and joys of sharing life, household, children, and a business.
As you can see, Howard took this wedding business quite seriously.

Very seriously indeed.

At least I had some inkling of what I was in for.

I have a smattering of photographs in between those wedding pictures and the green shirt picture above. I thought about digging out an array of them and creating a (probably cheesy) Howard-through-the-years montage, but the albums are currently buried behind boxes of merchandise which I had to move out of our storage room because the air conditioner repair guys needed to have more that two square feet of work space. Then I thought about drawing forth some larger meaning from the pictures being buried by work, but really that is just life. Things get shifted around to take care of problems and then they pass through organized before being jumbled up again for some other reason.

The important thing is that twenty years in, I don’t regret it. Not a bit of it. Not any of the dumb mistakes (see green shirt above), or the grievous mistakes (investing in real estate in early 2007), not having four kids, or buying this house, or planting all those trees half of which died. (Okay I regret planting that one maple in that one spot, but it is nothing that a saw can’t fix when we find some time.) Most importantly I don’t regret sharing all of it with Howard. I’m glad that we leaped together into creative work. I’m glad for all of the things I’ve had to become (stronger, less afraid, an accountant, a graphic designer). I say all of this even though this past weekend has been one of Howard’s worst-ever depressive episodes. For a little bit things were heart-wrenchingly, achingly hard. I don’t regret that either. He makes me laugh even when I want to cry, or even when I’ve already been crying. He’s brilliant and clever. He just keeps getting better. We keep getting better together.

Twenty years, that’s a good start.

Before the Beginning of School Anxieties

By / August 4, 2013

My children look to me to create the rhythms of their lives. They do not watch clocks, they wait for Mom to call them for lunch. Sometimes they pay attention to calendars, but usually only when there is a holiday or birthday to anticipate. In the summer they are even cast free of the school schedule, each day shaped very much like all the rest. I watch clocks and calendars. I track appointments and set alarms. Which is why I am very aware that school starts in only two weeks. On August 19th the changes that have been roiling and causing anxiety since last February will solidify. We will have things to deal with instead of things to worry about. But we are not quite there yet and I’m not looking forward to the moment when the kids figure out how close we are to that day. When they do, there will be emotional reactions and I don’t know what shape those emotional reactions will take. In fact part of my brain is convinced that one or more of the kids will melt down into major anxiety which will snowball causing stress and emotional upheaval for all of us that won’t resolve until sometime in October.

It is possible that the kids aren’t the ones I need to worry about with the before school anxiety. In fact all current evidence suggests that I am the one who is going to be stressed and fretting during the next two weeks. I’m already there. And I am trying very hard not to signal any of my anxiety to the kids. We’re not going school shopping. I haven’t scheduled before-school-starts haircuts. I’m not trying to do a few last outings before the summer is gone. As much as possible I would like this week to be summer-as-normal. Next week is soon enough for all the other things.

Taking Care of People and Things

By / August 2, 2013 / 1 Comment

The people come first. They should always come first, but sometimes I get enmeshed in all the things to do that I forget to focus on the people. That reversal never lasts very long because people in need of care tend to draw attention. They request attention even if they are not aware that this is what they are doing. On a day like today I have very little temptation to care for things first.

Howard is working on the sketch editions. Sketching season is always a time when I rearrange my schedule to support Howard’s efforts, because doing 1000 sketches is really a marathon effort. Marathon runners could not accomplish what they do without a crew. Howard can’t do the sketches without the other members of his household providing support. This time the onset of sketching coincided with one of Howard’s depressive “I can’t do all of this” swings, which increased the level of support necessary.

Kiki had four wisdom teeth removed today. We made the appointment two weeks ago and then did all in our power to forget about it, because the thought of surgery made both Kiki and I very nervous. Today she was as jittery as a junebug, which I assume is really jittery since I’ve never actually seen a junebug. I watched her walk away with a nurse and remembered the last time that I’d seen her walk away with a nurse for anesthesia. She was two back then and needed ear tubes. This time it was a removal not an addition. Everything was routine and I rejoined her in the recovery room where I learned that recovering-from-anesthesia Kiki is very chatty. Most of the thoughts that came through her head were spoken, but short term memory was not being written into long term. She was awake and alert, asked reasonable questions, but she repeated them about every five minutes because she didn’t remember the answers. That effect wore off about half way home. Now we’re helping Kiki through post surgical recovery. So far the pain has not been particularly bad for her, which I’m glad about. Hopefully in another day or so she’ll be back to normal.

I’ve taken to hovering over Gleek’s shoulder as she plays online games. She’s on public servers and has made some friends there. Making friends is good, but it is my job to make sure that Gleek learns how to stay safe. Also, I’ve realized that at twelve she does not have a comprehension that just because someone has always been nice does not mean they’re safe. So I am hovering, and mostly being bored by it, because the chatter is primarily about blocks, building, swords, monsters, and giving instructions to new players. Yet I’m getting a feel for the social context of the game so that I can offer advice for when a player seems dodgy to me. Bit by bit my kids gather experience for normal online interactions so that they are able to spot the ones that are out of the ordinary, like someone being too nice because they want something later.

My mailbox is full. Three of them actually, since I manage my mail, the Schlock box, and the box for the Jay Wake Book. Each of those messages represents a person. It is easy to think of email as things to do, but on the other end of my replies are people. Today the email people are going to have to wait an extra day, because the in-my-house people get my attention first.

Patch spent most of today at cub scout day camp, so he missed the return of loopy Kiki. But he doesn’t mind because there were boat wars, pringles, cookies, rabbit fur, slingshots, and hours in the sun. All he needs from me today is for me to listen to his adventures for a bit.

Link spent the afternoon playing Metroid Prime Corruption for Kiki’s entertainment. He beat the game with 100%. Apparently my son has gotten quite good at video games. Naturally he started playing all over again on a harder difficulty setting.

Monday is the twentieth anniversary of when Howard and I got married. Sometime between now and then I’d like to find some deep and important thoughts on the topic. At the moment I just see the date coming and know nothing in particular is planned other than postage printing. Monday will be a work day, which is in keeping with our family tradition I suppose.

Dishes, laundry, clutter, bathroom grunge, these are all things, though they are things which affect the moods of people. I wish I had the energy to solve them today. Or rather, I wish I’d had the energy to take care of them yesterday so that they would already be done today. Instead I see them and feel a measure of defeat. Another day I will find laundry victory.

One thing I did succeed at doing today: I kept refined sugar and white flour out of my diet. I’m not going to be rigid, but those things need to be the occasional treat not daily fare. So that is a success. I also ordered banners for GenCon, made some arrangements for WorldCon, re-ordered the Writing Excuses DVDs, approved TOH for reprint, accepted delivery of shipping supplies, began accounting, and communicated with several people about Jay Wake. So I did some of the things today, I just wish I’d done all of them.

People before things.