Day rearranged by water

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True friendship is calling 8 AM to ask for help with the unexpected flood underneath a laminate floor and knowing that the person you call will not mind. Instead of being a focused day, it ended up being a social one. Our friend came over, helped us remove a plank, and spent hours visiting. I also spent time visiting with neighbor friends and friends who don’t happen to be neighbors.

The discovery of the flooding (new washing machine will arrive on Friday) knocked the day off course and it never really recovered. I’ve been scattered and tired most of the afternoon. But my two critical items for the day got done. I attended Gleek’s activity day and I required Link to type up his revised essay. Hopefully tomorrow I will find my ability to focus and stay on target.

Despite the day being knocked askew, it still feels like a good day.

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Working, chasing squirrels, and sitting in the sun

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Thus far it has been a week of lists, emails, contracts, layout adjustments, essays, homework, and chores. I’ve been running on high energy and getting lots of stuff done. It is fun to start the day with a long list of tasks and to check them off by mid-afternoon. It is also tiring. Days like these tend to run long and so I end up short on sleep.

Today this meant that my brain fizzled out by 1 pm and I lay down for a nap. Unfortunately, fizzled out is not at all the same as relaxed. I lay still, hoping for sleep to arrive, but my brain was like an over-excited puppy in a field full of ground squirrel thoughts. It would chase after a thought, yapping happily, until suddenly the thought vanished and I was left staring at a hole where the squirrel had been. But the field was full of thought squirrels to chase, so my brain was never still for long. There was lots of running, and at the end there was nothing to show for it. Not restful.

What was restful, was wandering outside to sit on my neighbor’s front porch in the sunshine. We all sat and talked for an hour while the children flocked from house to house. I do not think it is a coincidence that I found my happy effective mojo just as the weather turned sunny and mild. I love spring.

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Homes and Places

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The discussion of Place in Native American culture was brief, a mere footnote to an undergraduate lecture on Native American Arts. But I was fascinated by the concept that some locations are more than a set of coordinates or a landscape. Some locations have a spirit to them which makes them sacred, or the opposite. These locations become places. Many different belief systems incorporate similar ideas. Catholic churches have hallowed ground where the sinful are not allowed to be buried. Moses removed the sandals from his feet at the site of the burning bush because the events there made the ground itself sacred. My own religion dedicates temples and churches to their purposes. Even secular organizations acknowledge that the events of a particular location make the spot special. This is why there are memorials at sites of great triumph or tragedy. This is why we have the 9/11 memorial, Tours through Dachau, and Abraham Lincoln’s home.

I was fascinated by place because I believed it. I had seen the way teenagers on a tour through Alcatraz prison became subdued, their moods affected by the feel of the island. I had stood at the Vietnam Memorial and touched row upon row of names which impressed upon me the weight of events that took place half a world away. I looked up into the giant stone face of Abraham Lincoln and walked the steps of the capitol building and pondered those who had gone before me. Most of these places were very consciously created. Structures and memorials are arranged specifically to affect those who visit. The intention in no way diminishes the power of the created places. I can not think of a more consciously created place than Washington D.C. Every thing about it is planned. It declares in art and buildings that it matters, that what happens there matters. Washington D.C. declares importance. I felt that when I visited, even before I learned about place as a concept.

I witnessed the power of place just a month ago when Gleek and I visited the Oakland temple grounds in California. She dashed her way through the visitor’s center, touching every display, pushing every button. She teased and tormented her brother as usual. But when we climbed to the terrace of the temple, her steps slowed. My Gleek, just nine years old, the girl who constantly bounces, sat on a bench and was still. Then she lay down on the stone bench as if she wanted more contact with the place. Sitting wasn’t enough, she wanted to feel the cool stone with her whole body. Her chatter dried up and her steps became reverent. No amount of scolding or coaxing from me can elicit this behavior from her. The place somehow got inside her, changed her. Patch was not as affected. He jumped and climbed and laughed. Gleek just sat, and felt, and looked. She did not want to leave when it was finally time to go. She took a blade of grass and wrapped it into a ring around her finger. She wanted to take the calmness with her.

It is human nature to adjust our surroundings to our comfort. We paint our walls, and pick our furniture, and hang our pictures. We are striving to create a space that is comfortable and pleasing. But some take this a step further, they don’t just decorate a space, they try to create a place which affects the minds and hearts of those who enter it. This is the basis for the design principles of Feng Shui. It is also what architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright hoped to achieve when designing houses.

When Howard and I first set up housekeeping together, I realized I had a chance to make our home more than just shelter and storage space. My actions and choices could turn my home into a place which could positively affect all those who entered it. I wanted our home to be a haven of peace, love, beauty, prayer, and safety. The prospect was both exciting and daunting. I did not know how to go about it. We could not afford to rent or purchase a place that was already aesthetically beautiful. Our first apartment was the basement of a tiny house. Our first house was a glorified wooden box with windows in it. Even our current home is a tract home, nearly identical to a dozen others in our neighborhood. At first my plans for creating a place centered on a time when we could build the home we really wanted. But then I started paying attention when I went into the homes of others.

Sometimes I walk into a home and I am instantly comfortable. My comfort is not related to the décor, or to the level of tidiness. I’ve been extremely uncomfortable in spotlessly clean, beautifully decorated homes. I’ve also been in very messy houses where I would not hesitate to stay for hours. I can’t really say where my reactions come from. It is as if all the hours of living, fighting, loving, yelling, and laughing soak into the walls. I usually can tell if a home is a place I want to be within moments of entering it. I am fortunate that I’ve not often felt the need to flee.

So while beautiful architecture and careful decoration can contribute to the making of a place, what really matters is what happens there. The Lincoln monument is awesome, not just for its size, but because all the lingering awe of all the people who have stood there. Alcatraz is grim because of the hopelessness that dwelt there. The temple gives peace because of all the people who come seeking it, and find it, and leave some behind. This means that if I want my home to be welcoming, we need to be welcoming people and our home will absorb that. If I want my home to be happy, then we need to live our lives in ways that promote happiness. All the things I want my home to be, I need to be. As with most things I want to accomplish, the solution starts with me.

Since one of the things I’d like my home to be is orderly, I should probably go clean up now.

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Reading Aloud to the Kids

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Lloyd Alexander’s Chronicles of Prydain are fun to read aloud. The characters are distinct and the character descriptions suggest different voices I can be using. It is fun when I’ve done a voice enough that it falls into place automatically when the character has dialog. Alexander is pretty good for this since the characters have distinct speech patterns. Pratchett is also good. One of my very favorite books to read aloud is Larger Than Life Lara by Dandi Mackall. The first person narrator has such a fun voice. Even reading silently you can hear it in your head.

I’m not sure whether my reading aloud is actually good by an outside measure. I know it is not professional quality and I am fine with that. I just need to be good enough to hold the attention of my kids and to not be completely dry at the occasional author reading I may do. However I have noticed that the reading is more fun for me when I’m doing it smoothly. I found Mary Robinette Kowal’s series on Reading Aloud to be an incredibly useful reference to help me learn new techniques which make the reading even more enjoyable.

Enjoyment is the key. I love the moments when the kids are all staring directly me at me and they’ve stopped chewing their snack because they are so enthralled by the story I’m reading. Unfortunately the opposite also occurs. I’ll be mid-sentence and enjoying the story when one kid turns to another and begins a random conversation, or someone gets up and wanders around the room, or one child pokes another. I confess to being a bit cranky at those moments. I don’t like having the flow of the narrative interrupted that way. It takes some energy to put myself back into the characters and voices. If I have to do it more than a couple of times, I’ll just declare myself done. This too is part of the experience. I accept it and pick up the book to read again the next day. It goes well more often than not. And it is a ritual that we enjoy.

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Sets and Eras

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The first five Schlock Mercenary books are a set. We even sell them as one. They represent the early years of the comic when Howard was still figuring out how to draw, and script, and who his characters really were. They also represent our early years in publishing when we were figuring out how to design books and arrange for the printing of them. It is interesting to note that final book of the set ended just a few weeks prior to the day when Howard quit his corporate job to be a cartoonist. So that first set of books also represents an era in our lives, the years when Howard split his time between day job and comic.

The book we are working on now, Resident Mad Scientist, will be the first book in a new set. This set will be much more uniform in size and content. It will contain six books, starting with RMS and ending with the book which is currently airing on the web, Family Anti-Matter. The set will span the era of our lives when we were scrambling to make cartooning work, and the beginning of when it finally did. It is going to take a couple of years before we have the set in our hands, but I am looking forward to that day.

This morning Howard and I spent an hour talking about design changes for RMS. We want to get it right because the decisions we make on this book need to be carried through the five that will follow. Howard sketched out the things he wants to be different. I countered with alternate proposals. Then I came away with a list of changes to make so that we can see what they will look like. I walked down the stairs excited and interested, but not afraid. I spent most of the 8 months we worked on Teraport Wars terrified that I would accidentally break the book. It is nice to feel confident in my ability to tackle what must be done.

Next week will be full of lay out. I’ll be executing the design changes, placing margin art, and fixing typos. I look forward to this work because when we reach this stage the book is almost done. It starts being something we can see, touch, and anticipate rather than just a looming task which much get done.

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The Bright Spaces

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Our pear tree has gotten tall. It is out-of-control tall. This is presents a problem when it grows pears and we want to be able to pick the pears. The tree needs to be pruned. It needed pruning last year too, but I never found the time.

The pom-pommed scotch pine has gotten tall too. This is a tree that we deliberately shape into twisty branches with poms of needles. We have to prune it yearly to keep the shape attractive. I think we last pruned it three years ago. This year’s pruning will have to be drastic to get the plant back into control.

The wisteria vine along the back wall is falling off. It used to climb up the wall and drape over the top. But then the landscaping company on the other side of the wall came along with a buzz saw and trimmed everything. The vines over-balanced and are now laying heapishly at the foot of the wall. I need to prune them back to give them a chance to grow straight again. While I’m doing vines, I should do the grapes too.

I can see all of these things from my window. They are clearly visible in the bright sunshine which is trying to fool me into believing that the outdoors are actually warm. It is not warm out there. Warm remains elusive. I thought through my schedule, trying to figure when I can get outside with my saw. I decided to make tomorrow an outdoor day, but then I glanced at the weather for tomorrow. Rain. Cold rain. Possibly snow.

I used to schedule my life around the good gardening days. I watched the weather and planned. Every remotely sunny day in early spring found me outside messing with plants and dirt. Last year I missed Spring almost completely. I spent the season in my windowless basement office, scrambling to do the layout work on XDM. This spring is also going to be busy. I suspect that many of our Springs will be busy in the coming years. It seems to be part of the rhythms of the business in which we work. This means that if I am not careful I could miss my favorite season year after year. I could miss out on seeing the blooms grown from the bulbs I planted last Fall.

Today I have a bright space, a sunny day, even though it is not truly warm. Today I could go outside and work in my garden. I could also go back into my basement and do more layout work. There is always work to do. I need to plan my schedule so that when I happen upon the bright spaces in my life, I can drop work and go enjoy them. Because bright spaces do not wait for me. The joys of my young children will not wait for me. The moments when my teenagers need help will not wait for me. I must organize my life so that I can seize these moments when they arrive. Then I run outdoors to work in the sunshine.

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Come What May

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There was a fish in a bowl on my kitchen counter this morning. It was the first thing I saw when I flipped the switch to light up the pre-dawn darkness. I was blearily trying to process this new object when a flash of blue caught the corner of my eye. My finger nails were blue. With sparkling glitter. I haven’t been a wearer of fingernail polish since the early 90’s. Even then, blue was not a color I wore. That was some party. The thought drifted across my brain. Then I laughed at the idea of myself attending a wild party during which I did wild things. Only apparently my version of “wild” extends just far enough to paint my nails blue and bring home a goldfish. My life is pretty tame. Responsibility will do that to a person.

There really was a party. It was a mother daughter luau. Kiki stayed for the dinner, then bailed for Home. Gleek and I did all the activities. We had our picture taken, made a flower hair clip, made a picture frame, and painted finger nails. The fish were in bowls on the tables as decorations. This meant that at the end of the evening dozens of girls were begging to take fish home, and dozens of mothers were pondering the implications of adding a fish to their lives. We brought ours home in a little plastic cup. I warned Gleek that fish die frequently. She wanted the fish anyway. She cradled the cup in her lap on the way home and named it Silfer. I was glad for her to have this little living thing to care for. She would love to have pets, and I am allergic to most of them.

The fish was still swimming in the morning. So I began my usual round of morning things, starting toast, pouring cereal, making grits, doling out medication. Then I went to wake the children. I found Gleek in bed with Kiki, two girls snuggled together. I have lots of pictures of my kids sleeping, particularly when they are sleeping near each other. They used to do that a lot when they all still came to climb into bed with me. These days it is rare. Gleek called out in the night, and Kiki, who also had a bad dream, invited her for snuggles. I slept through the whole thing.

Gleek went from barely conscious to downstairs looking at her fish in less than a minute. I rummaged around on the top of our cupboards to unearth a decade old can of fish food left over from the days when we owned fish tanks. Gleek carefully placed one small flake in the water with her fish and watched intently to see if Silfer would eat. I went upstairs to poke the boys awake.

Gleek hung up the phone just as I re-entered the room. I stopped.
“Did you just call Bestfriend?”
“I wanted to tell her about Silfer.” Gleek answered. “Bestfriend will want to know I got a fish.”
Gleek was right. Bestfriend really would want to know. However I was certain that Bestfriend’s parents would prefer that this information not be conveyed via telephone at 6:30 AM. I glanced out the window at my backyard neighbor’s house where Bestfriend lives. All the windows were dark. Our phone rang. Caller ID means that Gleek’s early phone call was not anonymous. Our neighbor called back to see if there was an emergency, or a change in carpool arrangements. Because they are kind people, they talked to Gleek about her fish and only gently mentioned that later in the day would be a better time to call. Or so I inferred from Gleek’s half of the conversation. She was the one who answered the phone.

The odd kilter of the morning has continued throughout the day. Howard finished the bonus story yesterday, so he was due some vacation. We rented a movie and had a morning movie date on the couch. With popcorn. I like watching movies with Howard. Once the movie is over when have lots of fun picking at the plot holes and spinning possible patches for them. In this case the movie was 2012 and there were holes a plenty for our amusement.

The kids arrived home from school abuzz with excitement about the assembly where a guy used Yo-yo tricks to talk about practice and perseverance. Naturally the guy also sells yo-yos to interested kids. My kids were all very interested. They came home and conferenced, pooled their money, then walked back over to the school to purchase three yo-yos. I expect frustration and broken strings in the near future, but I love the way they all worked together to make it happen. I also need to make sure that the older siblings pay back the money they borrowed from Patch. He was the wealthy one this time around.

So my house is full of the smell of popcorn, a goldfish in a bowl, blue sparkling nail polish, and flying yo-yos. Had I made a prediction yesterday, it would not have included any of these things. I plan to take what comes and run with it. Although I think I’ll be running sans the blue nail polish. It’s too distracting.

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School Registration

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Link tromped with me into the Junior High building. It is a familiar place to me, because Kiki has been attending there for three years. For Link, the building was new. It represented a new and exciting chapter in his life. He took his map and navigated us around the school for a bit. We located the lunch room and the math rooms before the novelty wore off and he was ready to go home. At that point we’d already seen most of what he cares about. I worry for Link attending junior high, and I am excited. I love having the ability to select his classes separately. We can put him into advanced Math and resource English. He signed up for Clarinet. I don’t expect him to like it any better than Kiki did, but I think he will do better with it. He is better at practicing than she was at the same age.

Kiki flopped across my bed and thrust a hand full of papers in my general direction. It was the registration papers for high school. I sat with her and we combed through the class listings, trying to figure out what would be the best fit for her. Next year’s course load will be heavy. We have it on good authority that the Chemistry teacher believes in lots of homework. She’s also taking three honors classes (English, History, & Art.) The Honors classes will expect more from her, but I think she will enjoy them more because the other students will also be focused rather than just filling out graduation credits. The most startling realization for me was all the information on Driver’s Ed. Kiki will be fifteen in May. At that point she will be eligible for a Driver’s Permit. We’ve talked it over and the best fit for us all is for her to take Driver’s Ed next summer, so we have a brief reprieve. It still feels really soon.

I can feel the shifts. Both Kiki and Link are looking forward, selecting classes, making plans. They are both enthusiastic and optimistic. Picking new classes was always one of my favorite parts of school. The possibilities lay right in front of me and the challenges were only theoretical. In the not too far future, Kiki and Link will both reach a day when they are feeling trepidation for things to come. Next Fall will bring days when they feel overwhelmed and buried. The road ahead of us is long. We are going to get tired. But I am excited for them as they contemplate what is coming. We are all standing at the beginning of a path, wriggling our toes inside our shoes, anticipating the first steps.

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The Working Desk

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Desks are surfaces on which one piles Things To Do. My piles of things always begin as neat stacks, but the stacks quickly encroach upon each other. New layers are constantly added to the top, while the lower layers are slowly squished into the paper equivalent of sedimentary rock. In theory desks are also used as work space. I should be able to lay things out around me while I am actively using them, and be able to write notes using the available clear spaces. Usually my available clear space is about the size of a post it note and I have to slide the keyboard out of the way when ever I need to put a signature on a document. Eventually I have to have a day when I scrape the whole mess off of the flat surfaces and sort through the archeological layers of my business life. Then my desk functions as it is supposed to for a brief period of time.

Working Memory is the desk of the brain. It is the place where ideas and thoughts are processed before being used. It is where stray thoughts are organized into cohesive sentences. It is where numbers are added and multiplied. It is where images are mentally transformed. Like a physical desk the available space varies. Fatigue and distraction fog out the edges so that the working space is smaller. At these times it is literally harder to think and organize. Other things can clutter the working memory space. To Do lists, relationship shifts, and any other stress you can name all act like piles on the edges of the desk. They eliminate chunks of the working space and distract the attention.

Of late my working memory desk has been extremely cluttered. The result is that I feel closed in, unable to focus, and frustrated at my inability to process things efficiently. It is time for me to scrape the desk clear and sort through what is there.

Work:
I’m still trying to be in talent wrangler mode, but it is wearing on me. Howard doesn’t need full attention as much as he did early on, so we’re shifting this to a more balanced state of affairs. There is still lots of work to do. Howard is almost done with the RMS bonus story. Then he’ll have to catch up on the buffer, create a cover, and help with the last odds and ends on the book. I am also coordinating arrangements with 3 conventions. We’ve also gotten started on some necessary preliminary work for some of our summer events.

Family:
I’m in the process of getting Link registered for his first year in junior high and Kiki registered for her first year of high school. Both processes involve learning curves for me to hike. I’m also attempting to be more consistent about homework times and dinner times. In theory this structure will help provide a framework so the kids can succeed, which will lead to them feeling better about themselves and thus reducing conflict. So far the results have been various.

Community:
I’ve been a bit of a social hermit. All the stress causes me to draw back and conserve my energy. Unfortunately this also has the effect of reducing some of the contacts which provide me with energy. I need to be getting out more because I think it will make me happier when I am at home.

Spirituality:
I attend church every week, which gives me hope and energy. I have not been doing so well at regular scripture study, which also helps me gain perspective on the other parts of my life. This is my center of balance. If I do better here, everything else will probably fall into place.

Me:
I have not had much time for the things which matter to just me and I can feel that. I need to get outside. I need to garden. I need to walk. I need to get to the gym. More writing would be good too.

As usual, once I clear the desk and toss the stuff that is just clutter, I find that my piles really are not all that big. I don’t have too many things. I am not buried. Now I just need to get stuff done.

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