Author name: Sandra Tayler

Gleek Makes Friends

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Gleek climbed up the rail right next to the sign forbidding rail climbing. She stretched out one finger toward the butterfly wafting on the slight breezes blowing through the rain forest exhibit. A bird swooped past us, on some feathered errand. Two stories below swam catfish the size of toddlers. We are inside the Steinhart Aquarium in San Francisco. It is much grander than I remember from my childhood visits.
“Come on! Lets go!” cried Patch.
He had already run ahead, tailed by my father. Gleek did not move, her whole being focused on the butterflies. She was not ready to leave. Patience was rewarded after about 10 minutes. A butterfly landed on Gleek’s out stretched finger. Only then could we move on.

The snake was huge. It lay submerged, but we could see it underwater through the glass. Gleek and Patch kneeled down on the floor to get a better view. The snake head slid toward them and they watched in facination. Gleek touched her finger to the glass. The snake focused on it, bumping its nose against the glass. Gleek slid her finger to the side and the snake followed it. Back and forth went finger and snake. We asked Gleek to give Patch a chance, but the minute she removed her finger, the spell was broken. The snake was not interested in Patch’s finger. It slid back to rest again.

The penguin dove under the water and bobbed up again. He swam around the tank, but always returned to the corner where Gleek and Patch sat. Penguin and children viewed each other through some water and some glass. The penguin bobbed and the children giggled.
“That one is named Dunker.” said the docent.
“I know why.” Gleek said confidently. “It’s because he is always dunking.”
Dunker dove again and bobbed against the glass. Gleek pressed her hand against the glass.

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To Grandmother’s House we go

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I don’t like flying very much. I like getting to go places, but the thought of climbing into a metal tube and hurtling through the air miles above anything solid is not particularly soothing. I’m not afraid, but I like to spend my flight time distracted by a good book so I don’t get too thinky about how things could go wrong.

My flight tactic do not work well when I am seated next to two small people for whom this is the Best Ride Ever.
“Hey Mom! When we go up, I feel heavy!”
“Why are they spraying that stuff on the wings?” (De-icer)
“So is that where the air masks come out?”
“Is there a life vest under my seat too?”
“Why is the plane bouncing?”
“What is that noise?”

There were moments during the trip when I looked over at my quietly occupied children and was really glad that I get to bring them on this trip. Their delight and fascination with the whole process helps me remember that modern flight is truly a wonder to behold. There were other times when I had to encourage them (yet again) to keep their voices down and not kick the seats in front of them. This was when I rummaged in my back pack to see if I had anything more interesting than the plane itself. (Not really, no.)

Patch has flown before, but he was a baby so he does not remember. Everything was amazing to him. Gleek was three the last time she flew. She has a few fragmented memories of the experience, but she waved those fragments high as the resident flight travel expert. Except she was as delighted and amazed as Patch was. They both charmed the flight attendants by exclaiming “Oh Wow!” as they entered the plane.

The thing they did not expect was the quantity of waiting which is involved with air travel. They had to wait for time to leave for the airport. Then wait during the drive. Then wait to board the plane. Then wait to land. Then wait on the drive home. Gleek burst into her Grandma’s house with utter relief. She took a deep breath. “Ah yes! This is right. That’s the smell I remember. It’s Grandma’s house. I like that smell.”

I breathed deep and agreed.

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Seussian Rhyme

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Per my usual birthday tradition, I am posting a short story. This is one I wrote last year, but hasn’t seen the light of day outside a small writing challenge contest. I was really trying to stretch myself in a new direction. Some of it works, some of it doesn’t, but it was fun to write.

Seussian Rhyme

The upload machine had uploaded my brain
into the computer, but now I’m in pain.
Five year old Suzy just wanted to look
Cause I was too busy to read her a book.
The AI was able to read it just fine
Now I’m trapped in a world made of Seussian rhyme.

The visual data has also gone strange
Full of bright flood fill without the full range
Of shades and tonations to which I’m accustomed.
The eyes I have work, but I hardly dare trust em.

I find I have feet, both a left and a right.
They’re pointed and furry, but even that sight
Gives me some hope I can find my way out.
So I start walking and send forth a shout.
I’ve no way of knowing the sound can be heard
Outside the edge of this virtual world.
How long have I been here? I really can’t tell.
Thinking in rhyme is like living in hell.

The wild wiggled roads lead me straight to a town
With houses and towers that all should fall down
Lopsided and curving, a construction nightmare
And all filled with people who don’t seem to care
their town is insane. So I turn to one chap
“can you direct me to an exit mayhap?”

He walks right on past me and says not a word
Neither will anyone on else. It’s absurd.
This town’s full of people and not one will talk
Hours go by on the rickety clock.
Would that this place had some food I could eat
That wasn’t wrong colors for eggs and for meat
The smells are just fine and they’re always served hot,
But they’re unappetizing cause Sam I am not.

I started to think about the things that define
A virtual world. This one had to rhyme
It also had rhythm laid out by the master
This meant I had power to get me free faster
I knew exactly what I had to do
The course I must follow, the path to pursue

I must find the right Seuss to get me loose

I needed a fox, but where should I look?
Wearing blue socks, he had his own book.
A book with few rhymes, where rhythm was sparse
Perhaps in those rules an exit would parse
As if he were summoned, the fox did appear
I spoke clear and loud to make sure he could hear.

“help me kind fox. I’m truly perplexed.
I need to find some way to exit this text.”
“close” smiled the fox, “but not quite right.
The perplexing text exit remains out of sight.
The easiest way to be done with our game
Is really quite simple, you must name a name.”

I puzzled again til my puzzler was sore
What tang toungled name could I use for a door?
Ah of course, what else should I use
The name of the man which created the whos.
I spent a long hour putting words into place
Then I spoke clear with a smile on my face.

“A man once wrote of snoozing juice mooses
And also of gooses a-guzzling juices
The juice guzzling gooses also wore shoeses
Which lead to attack from jealous mooses
For lack of moose shoeses some very sad gooses
Had to fight loose of some nasty nooses
Then shod mooses fled for fear of reprisal
Of such wrote the man Theodore Geisel.”

I end triumphant. The fox shook his head
“you’re clever, but you don’t get it” he said
The meaning and matching, the mixed up word play
Only matter when someone can hear what you say.
That someone is small and will hear with delight
The rhythms and words you read her at night.

Like Derwin of Didd I was fearful and shaking.
Stuck in a mess of my very own making
My little girl Suzy and her special book
She’d asked me and asked me to sit down and look.
I was too busy. “I’m working” I said
And so she asked the computer instead.

“Oh Suzy.” I said “I’m sorry as can be.”
With this last rhyme, I find myself free.

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Travel Anxiety

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Last year I decided that this year had to be different. I decided that some important family events had to go onto the calendar first. So I took my permanent marker and wrote down some family things in red. I followed this up by making airline and hotel reservations which could not easily be canceled. It is a good thing I did. Because I am approaching the first of these red lettered events and the back of my brain keeps flooding the front of my brain with hundreds of small reasons why I should shift or cancel the trip. The front of my brain pats it gently, says “there, there,” and gets on with the business of preparing for the trip.

So I’m leaving for a trip on Wednesday. I’m taking the younger pair of kids while leaving the older pair with Howard. They will get to have adventures in doing daily routine when mom is not there. I will get to step outside my regular routine and do something different.

(“But we like our routine.” moans the back of my brain. “Routine is what makes it work and we’ve just gotten it going after all that holiday and Howard being sick. You’re disrupting every thing and Howard won’t be able to get his work done.”
Pat. Pat. We’re going anyway.)

Gleek and Patch are thrilled about this trip. They’ve been counting down for the last month. They get to fly on an airplane! And go to an aquarium! And play at Grandma’s house! And miss school!

(“It is all going to cost so much, and the next pre-order won’t open until April.”
Pat. Pat. We budgeted for this.)

I will get to go visit with my parents and with my Grandmother who is turning 90 on Saturday. I will have time to do some writing while the kids play with Grandpa’s bag of toys. I will also get to go to the aquarium and be fascinated by the creatures which inhabit the wet portions of our planet. I will relax.

(“At the very least you ought to do a business event. There are people you could contact. You should make the most of this opportunity.”
Pat. Pat. The point of a family trip is to get away from work, not bring it with me.)

Kiki and Link are less thrilled that I am going, but they are reconciled because we intend to take them with us to GenCon in August. I think they will discover new responsibility and possibly a new appreciation for all the invisible tasks I do for them that neither they nor I notice because it is so habitual.

(“You’re abandoning your children. You’re going to miss that scheduling meeting for Kiki. Patch is going to miss his 100 day celebration. You should have scheduled this for a different time.”
Pat. Pat. I can’t move my Grandmother’s birthday. It will be fine.)

I’ll admit I am not looking forward to the air travel itself. Keeping two kids entertained in an airport and during a 2 hour flight is a high energy activity. I need to do some advanced planning. Not only that, but the back brain has an abundance of worst case scenarios involving everything from minor inconvenience to major tragedy.

(No. Just stop. We’re thinking of something else now.)

But come Monday I will be back. I will be glad to be back. I will be glad that I went. I will have a head full of new thoughts. I will have spent time where the weather is warmer and the ground doesn’t have snow. When I come back it will no longer be January. It is going to be a good trip. The back of my brain will shut up once the trip has begun. I just have to make it through until time to go.

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Snippets from a Sunday Afternoon

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Kiki did not go to her church youth class today. Instead she stayed with me to attend the adult class. Of late she has been feeling a disconnect with the youth group. She has no close friends there, and she is far more emotionally mature than most of her peers. It was nice for her to get to listen to adults talking about spiritual struggles and topics so that she could see how mature people handle these issues, rather than having to deal with the way that immature people avoid these issues. I got to see how much she really does believe in the same things that I do, once they are separated from conflicting emotions about peers. Also she drew a beautiful picture which encapsulated the lesson, a testimony in an image.

I leave for California on Wednesday. I’m not ready yet. But today I finally wrote out a list of things I need to do to get ready. It is not all that long. Now I just need to do them. Then I get to escape my regular round of things-to-do for about 5 days. It will be good to get away. It will also be good to come back.

Kiki is having yearbook dread. She is on the committee and they have reached the point of looming deadlines. She also has some assignments which require her to interview and photograph peers who are not her best friends. These things are outside her comfort zone and she does not want to do them. My job is to listen and sympathize and help her see that the only way out is through. She chose this experience and she is going to learn a lot about how projects work. If she quits now she will only have the hard experiences without having the joy of completion.

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs is a very well written movie. It does an excellent job of fulfilling the promises it makes at the beginning of the film. I laughed out loud many times and I generally don’t laugh out loud at entertainment. I also love how instead of the geeky girl being a pretty girl in disguise it was the other way around.

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Life the Universe and Everything Symposium at BYU

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The Life the Universe and Everything The Doc Smith Science Fiction and Fantasy Symposium is an annual event held on BYU campus in Provo UT. This year it will be held Feb 11-13. It is Free to attend. I highly recommend it to anyone who lives nearby and has an interest in genre fiction. I know most of the people who will be presenting and they are all highly skilled professionals who are happy to share what they’ve learned.

Howard and I will both be there for most of the symposium. Howard is on 9 panels, so there will be plenty of opportunities to hear him speak. You can check the schedule online for details. I wasn’t put on any panels this year, but I’ll still be around talking to people. I can’t stay away from such a large gathering of people with whom I love to hang out. Howard may drag me up to participate in the Making a Living as an Artist panel at 5 PM on Saturday, but that panel is already heavy with qualified people, so time will tell. I should note that most of the panel topics tend to serve as jumping off points for fascinating and nuance conversations about various subjects.

Come by and say hello.

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Getting ready to print

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Our printer called us this afternoon. They were worried about us because it has been over six months since we printed books with them. The call was to see if they could win back our business. We assured them that we are completely pleased with their services and that we intend to be printing again come the end of February. I shot off a formal request for a bid via email once the call was over. And so the process of printing Resident Mad Scientist begins.

We seem to be chronically behind our intended releases for books. In theory we’re releasing 2-3 books per year. We’ve never yet managed three. Tub of Happiness was solo for it’s year because I had to learn how to do layout to put together the book that followed it. That took time. Teraport Wars shared a release year with Hold on to your Horses, but then Howard had to re-color before he could release Scrapyard. Last year we did put out two books, but one of them was XDM, not a Schlock book.

I feel like finally we have a system down that will work. Finally we have Travis doing the re-coloring so that Howard can focus on bonus materials and cover art. I have high hopes that we can finally maintain that 2-3 Schlock books per year which will allow books in print to catch up with the online archive. This is the brass ring we’ve had our eye on ever since we first printed a book. Every year I do some math and think that we could achieve it in two years if we really work hard. Then we work really hard, but the goal is still about two years away. Life kept throwing us unexpected obstacles and opportunities. Our plans shifted. Looking back, I can see that we’ve walked the right path. We’ve made the right choices. There is nothing to regret. But I still want to grab hold of that brass ring.

I opened up the InDesign file for Resident Mad Scientist which has lain idle for nearly two months. There was no need for me to spend time on it while we were waiting on Travis for the coloring. My attention was needed elsewhere. But the time has come. I need to pour creative energy into this project. I need to find the right margin art. I need to construct footnote boxes. I need to organize and copy edit. It feels good to be picking up these skills again. They are familiar now instead of stressful. I’m looking forward to getting Resident Mad Scientist done.

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Roller Skates and Falling Down

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My knee hurts today and it makes me glad. I scraped and bruised it while attempting a one footed turn on roller skates. The injury doesn’t prevent me from accomplishing anything I want to get done, which is good. Instead feel the twinges and think “Oh yeah, I got to do a fun thing yesterday.”

I didn’t expect the roller skate outing to be as much fun as it was. I was one of three adult women shepherding a dozen girls ages 8-11. I expected to be bored while watching the girls skate. But then we walked in and the rink was almost empty. And the music was playing. And sitting still seemed like a silly choice. So I ponied up my dollar and put on a pair of skates. Then I rolled.

I had a roller skating party for my fourteenth birthday. My three friends and I huddled and giggled while examining the teenage boys who were also present. We even spoke to the boys once or twice. I remember rolling on the skates, feeling beautiful in my new peach colored sweater. I skated carefully, so as not to fall down in front of those boys or my friends. I gave one of the boys my phone number when he asked for it. He never called.

More than 20 years later I rolled skates on concrete again. I didn’t have pretty new clothes or anyone to impress. Other than being available to pick up a fallen girl, I had no obligations. So I rolled. And when the music was good I danced a little while rolling. And I attempted tricks I would not have dared do at fourteen. I am far more confident in myself and my body than I was then. I have figured out that half of looking good is not being afraid to look silly. So I did some tricks. And I fell down and scraped my knee.

That moment, the falling moment, was a bit of a reality check. I over balanced. I could not catch myself and I saw the concrete coming. Uprighting myself, and examining my knee to assess the seriousness of the damage, I realized that there are other differences between fourteen and thirty-six. Children and teens are far less likely to be seriously injured after a fall. Their bodies have elasticity and resilience which fades with the years.

I’ve been skating several times in between my fourteenth birthday and yesterday. I’ve been skating several times in the past couple of years. Our elementary school has monthly skate nights and the kids frequently beg me into going. So I went. And I wore skates. And I skated carefully, slowly building confidence. And I was pleased with myself for not falling down at all.

I stood up in the rink and flexed my injured knee. I could tell it was not broken. I knew it would be colorfully bruised. Only later did I discover that it was scraped under the pants. I had been given a reality check, and I had a choice. I could skate to the side. I could stop attempting tricks. Or I could accept the fact that falling down is part of learning. My body is no expert on skates. I have not had much practice perfecting basic skate moves. If I want to get that practice, I have to be willing to fall. Then I have to be willing to get up and try again. So I did.

I fell once more before the evening was over. I spared my knee by bruising a hand. I did not seek to fall down, but I did not let fear of falling prevent me from trying new things. I did better with each thing I attempted. When the time came to leave I was tired, but triumphant. So each time my knee twinges today, it reminds me that I got up and went on. It reminds me of the graceful flying moments which were all about the wind and the wheels and the music. The true measure of triumph is not in avoiding the fall, but in getting up to try again after it.

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Home Alone

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“Mom, do you ever get lonely when Dad leaves and we’re all at school?” asks Link.

I glance at him in the rear view mirror. In a few moments we’ll be at the school and I’ll drop him off along with his two younger siblings.

“Sometimes.” I answer “But other times I am glad to have the house to myself.” More often the latter than the former, but I am not yet sure why we are having this conversation and I do not want to make my son feel unwanted.

“Oh.” Says Link.

“I remember a time when you left me and Patch alone together. It was a little scary.” Interjects Gleek.

“Yeah.” adds Patch.

I smile a little. They were only alone for about 10 minutes while I ran to pick up Link from school on a day that they were home from school sick.

My children live in a very different world than I do. They are sheltered, protected. For all of their young lives there has been a larger person nearby to whom they could turn in times of distress. They don’t get to be home alone until they are much older, as Link is older. He is old enough to stay home by himself. He is old enough to think about what Mom does while he is gone at school, and to wonder what my experience is like. “Home alone” is delightful for me. I rejoice in the freedom to choose my pursuits without interruption. For my children, being home alone is a frightening responsibility. The sheltering cover is removed and they feel exposed.

“I just thought you would be lonely.” said Link.

“I like to have the house to myself for awhile, but then I am glad to have everyone come home.” I answer, even though he has not really asked me a question this time.

Link nods and we arrive at school. Three kids climb out through the front passenger side door since the sliding door is unendingly broken. Someday I’ll take it in to be fixed, but today I’m glad that I can give each of my kids a hug as they climb past me. They are off to have their adventures at school. I’m headed home to be alone so that I can be glad when they return.

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The year ahead

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I’ve been re-reading blog entries from last year and it is making me feel stressed. I did a really good job of catching the chaos of book shipping and convention attendance in words. When I re-read, I remember how it was to scramble to put a book together, to scramble to organize and ship 3000 books. I remember these things and know that I have them ahead of me this year.

Then I stop and remind myself that this year is not last year. Last year was full of new experiments. We printed boxes for sets. We printed a black and white, text-heavy book (XDM X-Treme Dungeon Mastery.) We also did our first re-print. Last year was all about shifting and experimenting. This year will be about stabilizing. We will be busy, but we will be busy with familiar processes rather than new ones. This is good because I got mightily exhausted from hiking up learning curves.

I have a plan for this year. I have attempted to balance the family schedule and the work schedule to make they co-operate. I have scheduled the necessary child-care for the trips I will need to make. (My guilt at leaning on my relatives twice per year so I can attend conventions is a post unto itself.) Our year has spaces in it, which last year did not. But I still worry, because I know how quickly needs and deadlines can shift in crazy ways. I also anticipate, because so much of what we have ahead of us is going to be fun as well as busy.

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