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Approximately 20 years ago my two-years-older brother came home from middle school with a new friend in tow. The friend’s name was Andy, and all personalities considered, it was probably Andy towing my brother because in Andy’s wake came a whole crowd of new friends, Casey and Jeff being the most prominent of the crowd. This influx of teenage boys added a whole new dimension to life at our house. It was kind of like having a noisy forest with elephant feet move in. (They were all so TALL).

It was all fun and games for the first year or so. I got to be the tag-along sister and join the fun. Then puberty hit. I’m not sure whether it hit me or them, but it hit pretty hard and the relationships got a little more . . . complicated. I couldn’t easily be the tag-along sister anymore because we all became very aware that they were a crowd of boys and I . . . wasn’t. My mature and reasoned response to the new complexity in relationships was along the lines of “AIEEEEE RUN AWAY!” So I started hiding in my room a lot. This meant I missed out on night time laser tag in the backyard, making a movie about a remote controlled robot, creating a role playing game called Exploration, and a host of other fun geekish activities. I would have loved playing the games, but to my loss, I simply wasn’t mature enough to handle the relationships.

When the herd of boys two-years-ahead graduated they pretty much disappeared from my life. I’ve thought of them occasionally, but never with the intent to look them up because in my mind they were complicated people to know. Somehow I never took into account that we’ve all grown up somewhat in the last 20 years. Then a couple of days ago Casey popped up in my Live Journal as Deyo and pointed me at Andy’s webcomic Casey & Andy. http://www.galactanet.com/comic/index.htm It’s a surprisingly addictive strip. I read one and thought “eh” then another and another and then I found myself smiling, then laughing out loud.

Suddenly I was forced to re-evaluate because I realized that “That herd of boys” would all fit in wonderfully with the online crowd I now hang out with. In fact they’ve already been fitting in wonderfully for quite awhile without me even knowing it. Apparently they’ve been Schlock fans for years and just figured out who Howard Tayler’s wife is.

I guess the point of this whole meander through memory lane is to say Hi Casey! Hi Andy! I’m glad to know you again!

Two days ago I filled up my amazon wish list. Today it is nigh empty. I’ve got somewhere in the range of 20 packages coming. My mailman is going to hate me.

It seems unbelievable that so many people I’ve never met would send me stuff. . . . and yet it isn’t. The schlockers that I have met both online and in person have been wonderful, kind people. In less than 24 hours they changed my upcoming birthday from the smallest birthday ever, into the biggest birthday ever. I was prepared to be happy with a homemade birthday cake and my kids singing to me. (out of tune) Instead I get gifts, and more important that the gifts themselves is the evidence that there are lots of people out there who are rooting for the success of our “living on cartooning” endeavor.

“Thank You” doesn’t seem to say enough, but they’re the only words I have.

Howard Open Lettered my upcoming birthday and amazon wish list. I have mixed feelings.

Yay! Maybe someone will send me something! I need to go add stuff to the list!

But I don’t really NEED anything.

Awww. Howard LOVES me!

Why should Howard’s fans send stuff to me? They should save their money for HIS birthday next month.

Should we really be begging for birthday presents?

All these thoughts and others roll around in my brain changing places and vying for supremacy. Howard tells me that already some people have ordered stuff. So instead of being a really small birthday it may be largish. I’m already feeling touched and grateful. I think the best gift of all is the tangible evidence that there are people out there who care enough about Howard and I to spend their time/effort/money on us.

The best “Thank You” I can think of is to continue to do all I can to make Schlock keep happening.

This morning Howard was browsing my wish list at Amazon, apparently pondering what to get for my birthday at the end of the month. He turned to me and said “Honey, none of the stuff on this list is for you!” My first response was “Of course it is!” Then I went and looked, and it wasn’t. The list was full of things that I’d be happy to have for the kids, but not an item on it was just for me. I’ve fixed that now. I left on all the kid stuff because it’s a convenient place to point relatives when kid’s birthdays are drawing near, but I added a bunch of stuff that is just for me. Or at least primarily for me. With money so tight I don’t expect to actually be able to get any of the items on that list anytime soon, but maintaining it is a small exercise in being Sandra without also being Mommy.

In the spirit of “Sandra Time” on Friday I plan to ditch Gleek and Patches at their Aunt’s house (Kiki & Link will be at school) while I go and see the movie Phantom of the Opera. I got to see the play a dozen years ago in LA and I’ve listened to the CD set many times, so I knew it was a movie that I wanted to see. I really want to see it on big screen with big sound so I’m splurging $4 on an earlybird matinee and calling it an early birthday present to myself.

While I was busy making my kitchen spotlessly clean, Gleek toothpasted the bathroom. Argh!

I figured out a reason that I have done so little writing in the past 5 or 6 years. I’ve been doing lots of reading. When my imagination is tangled up in someone else’s story there doesn’t seem space for my own stories to develop. My imagination has been captured and I can only free it by finishing the book. Unfortunately without a book in process I end up feeling at loose ends and bored. What I need to realize is that boredom is not a bad thing. When I have no book to read I have to exert myself to find something to do. When I have no book to read I do more sewing, more organizing, more creating.

What all of this indicates to me is that I need to shift my book reading behavior. Rather than racing through books to get to the end and then grabbing another book, I need to savor a book. I need to make rules about how much reading I can do in a day. I don’t need to be checking out stacks of books each time I go to the library, just one or maybe two good ones. In short I need to regulate my reading so that I have more time in my life for other things.

It is a matter of prioritization. I need to decide which things are most important to me and do those first. Reading a book is rarely going to rank at the top of that list. Unless it’s Lois MacMaster Bujold. Pretty much everything goes on hold when Bujold has a new book out.

We finished Buffy Season 7 tonight. Now I’ve seen all the episodes and I’m glad. I have to confess that Buffy herself kind of annoyed me during this season. She went all serious. The character arc I really cared about was Spike. From the moment that he started on his path toward redemption his character has fascinated me. The idea that love for another person can cause someone to shift their whole Self for the better is incredibly powerful. I want to be the kind of person who inspires that way. I want it and I don’t. It could be a huge responsibility. Although most people won’t have Spike’s stalker/creepy/demon issues, so I guess that would make it easier.

I guess the idea of being so beautiful and so good that a hero is ennobled simply by loving me has always had an appeal. Maybe I should have lived in the days of courtly love when everyone felt like that was the ideal.

On the other hand, the closest brush I’ve ever had with someone veiwing me that way was in early teenager-hood and was much closer to a creepy-stalker experience than anything beautiful. Perhaps the only kind of person who is so willing to shift for another is an obsessive person. Hmm. . . not a happy though that. I think I’ll stick with Howard who laughs and talks with me and shares my life. And instead of inspiring a single person to change his whole Self, I think I’ll just try to be the kind of person who might possibly inspire lots of people in very small ways. That’s more balanced because there are people who inspire me all the time.

About 8 months ago I gave myself an assignment.  I wanted to write a complete short story.  I also gave myself a deadline (early June).  But then the story refused to be as short as I wanted it to be and life events forced the setting aside of literary aspirations for a while.  But recently I was inspired by Rowyn’s completion of her novel and I wrestled my story to an ending.

There are so many things I wanted this story to say, but the only way I can find out whether it actually speaks to anyone but me is to ask people to read it.  So I am now inviting anyone who reads my journal to visit the link below and read my story.  Anyone who wants to comment is welcome to do so.   I’m actually hoping for some feedback. You can leave it either in the comments section below, or you can email it to Howard via the Schlockmercenary.com site and he’ll forward it to me.

Thanks in advance to anyone who bothers.

http://www.tayler.com/Sandra/bethansgarden.html

Feb 20, 2005 Edit: The above link has been updated to a final version of the story. People are still welcome to read it and comment.

It began at 3:30 am when Gleek called out. She’s been sick and needed some comforting attention. Unfortunately her call woke Patches as well. I was going to snuggle Gleek first before attending to Patches, but she told me to go take care of him. So I scooped Patches to tuck him into bed with me figuring that was the fastest route back to sleep for everyone.

Then Gleek realized that she’d sent Mommy away and I wasn’t coming back anytime soon. She cried. Fortunately Howard was awake enough to respond to her and I stayed snuggled in with Patches hoping to get him back to sleep. When Patches is sleeping he is fun to snuggle, warm and soft. When he isn’t asleep he is all elbows, knees, and feet. Not snuggly at all. After an hour of being variously poked, jabbed, and bonked I tried putting him into his crib. This lead to 30 minutes of hysterical screaming. (Which by some miracle all the other kids slept through.)

Howard and I realized that sleep was no closer with him screaming than it was with him wiggling, but with wiggling there was much less chance of waking anyone else. And we felt guilty. He’s little. All he wanted was to be with the comforting adults in his life and they’d abandoned him. Howard rescued him from his crib and tucked him back in bed with us. After a momentary spurning-of-mommy he snuggled up and fell fast asleep. It was one of those heart rending sleeps where the sobbing breaths don’t stop until the child has been asleep for 45 minutes. I didn’t stay up to wait for the sad breathing to stop, I slept too.

Morning came far too early and yet I was running late before I even dragged myself out of bed.