Things to Do When Home Alone for a Weekend

• on account of being too creeped out in empty house to go to sleep, stay up till two a.m. reading a novel about ninjas
• watch a bunch of school orientation stuff
• practice the heck out of a couple of musical instruments:

Our friends left town and bequeathed us their piano.
I shot out my voice last night singing Evanescence to my own
accompaniment. It was thoroughly enjoyable.

• give t'ai chi a try, with coaching provided by YouTube
• do a week's worth of housecleaning
• clean out the refrigerator
• trim bangs and take selfies with Dante, Dostoevsky, Paolini, and Debussy:

Also, the corner of the piano.
Did I mention that I love this piano?

• accidentally lock the priest out of the parish office (sorry, Father! I don't know what I did to the door...)
• contemplate cleaning old clothes out of dresser drawers
• contemplate the meaning of life (42) and sanity (the number's probably somewhere in the same range)
• contemplate labels, goals, and other forms of life organization
• spontaneously spend an evening listening to Nikki Yanofsky with birthday-girl sister and her family

• do the laundry
• listen to Enya, because seriously, Enya
• listen to random CD bought off random guy on street corner during Lent because he "wanted to have a voice"
• get a hard lemonade and a pint of chocolate gelato and start in on Buffy, the Vampire Slayer
• procrastinate on nearly all of the above by blogging
• contribute to the internet's ever-insatiable need for cat pictures:

I miss Lou a lot, but at least I'm not bored. Cheers, everybody! I miss you, too....

Birthday Entertainment

It's Harry Potter Book Club day, but nobody's posted. Christie's trying to manage two jobs and an almost-three-year-old, and Masha's trying to keep a particularly bitter Maine winter out of her yurt. Life happens. And when it does, I don't have anything to respond to. Sometimes, as you may have noticed two weeks ago, I even go silent myself.

Besides, it's my birthday. I'm 36. Mozart is 258. High five, Wolfgang Amadé.

Lou and I are going out to dinner tonight, and I'm going to wear a new dress I got thrifting; I'm very excited about that. Till then, I am celebrating by:

1. Registering to take the SAT.

I'm now officially twice the age of the usual college entrant. Whether that thought will be helpful or hinderful when my number two pencils and I are pitted against a series of lettered orbs in a roomful of teenagers, I'm not sure.*

What I do know is that I desperately need to give myself a refresher course on algebra. I shut my Advanced Math book on my seventeenth birthday with the same fervent glee Anne Shirley displayed in thumping Euclid into a trunk before she got married. I am not, however, willing to be like Peter:

Some of these never get old.

Registering for the SAT might be harder than the actual test, especially for people who were homeschooled eighteen years ago. I had to click "I do not wish to answer" on "What's your GPA?", not because I got bad grades, but because I have never had a GPA. "Not Applicable" was not an option, and neither was not answering the question. But now I'm afraid that universities are going to think I'm trying to hide something.

2. Taking the Firefly personality quiz.

I KNEW IT. Now, if only I could use my wealth and intelligence
to correct some quizmakers' grammatical ambiguity.

3. Working on A.D.'s story.

Writer's holiday: working on the novel that's not under contract.

4. Signing up to take six piano lessons. (Thanks, Lou and Mom and Dad S.!)

Because I am willing to be like Tony.

Someday you and I will rule the world, Tony.
Or—well, we would if we wanted to.
Ruling the world is a tough job for shy, hypersensitive artistic types.
Source.

And if I can get a job that will allow me to afford school and take lessons, that will be awesome.

5. Listening to Mozart.

Here's a Mozart piece I loved before I knew I loved Mozart.



And now I'm off, because I really do need to go study for the SAT. Wish me luck. I got very good grades on my GED.... in 1996. I am currently scared spitless.

* I'll try not to give in to the temptation to put rings on the little orbs so they look like Saturn. Wait. The SAT is still taken on paper, with dots to fill in, right? I'm assuming that's the reason for the number two pencils I was ordered in no uncertain terms to bring along.

Old Year, New Year

By way of Christie (I know there weren't many rules, friend, but I think I broke all of them! Oops! XD):

Technically, I'm not supposed to use words, but I don't work that way. ;)

1. Me and the final Wheel of Time book
2. Screenshot from the tumblr Title2Come; this happened at least four times
3. Maia and me at the piano
4. Flying to Florida to visit my grandparents and uncles
5. The St. Benedict medal Sarah gave me
6. The Harry Potter Book Club
7. Apples by the million
8. The editorial letter for the fairy tale retelling, under Maia's paws
9. The computer backdrop I made in commemoration of Lou's and my fifth wedding anniversary
10. Peaceful scenery at huckleberry picking
11. Overenthusiastic jelly-making
12. The hymn arrangement I wrote, in my Christmas choir notebook, complete with directorial scribbles (and dropped pine needles... what?!)
13. Our Christmas gifts to family, made from garden produce

* * *

Number 11 is more important than it might look; it's a tiny representation of the mental event that shaped 2013 more than anything else to me. This was the year I overdid, over-thought, and overreacted to everything.

Originally—I think—this was due to a reaction to a (doctor-prescribed) vitamin supplement. The mood shift happened on January 2, just weeks after I started taking methylated folic acid (not methamphetamine; I'm not that much of a Bellinghamster :P), and I didn't come down till mid-March, when I ran out of it. Even then, I only came down part way, and it's pulsed back up by day or week or month ever since.

I'll spare you the details, except to say that it involves things like racking up a huge sleep debt without seeming to need to repay it, alternating between various degrees of nervousness without respite, and stirring from a dark reverie in the middle of the kitchen in the middle of the day and feeling the way you feel when you wake at three o'clock in the morning from the kind of tragic dream that haunts you for weeks. Your emotions wind up getting stretched like a set of guitar strings tuned to the highest possible pitch and then strummed with a hard pick.

This puts a threat on 2014: according to Newton's third law of motion and my own past experience, elevated mental and emotional states are followed by equivalent mental and emotional crashes. That's not something I can afford. Therefore, my first goal for 2014 is to allot my mind and feelings some rest.

* * *

Crazy phase aside, it was a quiet and happy and likable year overall. We were mostly spared serious trouble, thanks be to God; up until just before Christmas, things went easily enough. Other year-shaping events of 2013 included:

• saving A.D. and her story
• learning to appreciate some modern literature and music
• going all Gandalf on a series of threats to our little choir's life and health
• making hard decisions about what I'm not willing to do in order to have children or to feel better
• unsettling wonder

* * *

The days surrounding Christmas included Katie's wedding, wherein I unexpectedly wound up directing the prelude choir and Lou braved the dance floor with me once just because he knows I love it. There were four days of more natural beauty than I've seen since a Crescent City sunset ten years ago: thick frost on tree branches poking up into white fog, puffs of mist drifting over slate-gray river waters.* I've had time with all of our nieces and nephews, whose ages range from the days-old baby niece, who slept for hours in my arms, to our college-junior nephew, who roomed with us at Katie's wedding and talked football and music with me.

It's been fun, but there's been so much going on that I've had to resort to hiding out in the bathroom and staying up into the wee hours to get introvert time. And that same stretch of time included the praying of two painful novenas simultaneously: St. Peregrine for someone with cancer and Divine Mercy over a suicide.

I've spent time crying over Nick's death, letting things slide out of sheer exhaustion, falling asleep at family gatherings, not caring about anything this Christmas season wanted of me, and yet—always at the last minute—I've been given the strength for what matters, one day after the next.

* * *

I barely knew you, Nick; the one evening we spent together, we were both too shy to say much to each other. But I remember you making me laugh, the last time I saw you. I know you were a bit of a loner, and I know there were reasons I don't know much about that kept you angry—but you were loved. I hope all is forgiven. I hope you're feeling divine mercy like a faithful father's love, and like a friend's.

* * *

The new year came without me being ready, and I'm comparatively goal-less. Mostly, I want to focus on art and prayer and sanity. These aren't S.M.A.R.T. yet; they're a little discombobulated and unfinished, sort of like me right now; but here's what I want to work on in the coming months:

• not dreading prayer as an invasion on my time
• writing A.D. till she's whole and who she was meant to be
• fledging E.E.
• learning to tell myself no: limiting my link-hopping off Facebook and Feedly, thinking realistically about required investments of time and energy when setting work goals and saying yes to various opportunities
• avoiding wanting to jump off a bridge when the crash comes
• spending more time in our garden
• immersing myself for a while in studying sightreading
• taking a little piano, and going on playing every night
• knowing and loving the ways of music and literature better at the end of the year than I do at the beginning, just as I know and love them better now than I did a year ago
• being present and affectionate and ready to help whenever someone needs me, no matter how small or great the need.

I want peace, hope, beauty, and love for you in the coming year. Thanks for reading.

* It was a bad weekend to forget the camera.... but there was just. too. much.

Five Things: A Replay

This week's top ten topic,

Top Ten Books I HAD To Buy...But Are Still Sitting On My Shelf Unread

...is one I've already done.

By my count, I've got another five or six of these Top Ten Tuesdays that aren't more or less repetitive. After that, I'm going to have to find something else to do with Tuesdays around here. I have one idea I like very much, but to really do it up well probably means sketching, which I haven't done in years.

For today, Christie has tagged me in one of those say-five-interesting-things-about-yourself memes. I love those so much that, upon research, I discover I've already done some version of this at least four times on this blog. I suppose that makes me a narcissist. It would also seem that I have now told ALL THE SECRETS.*

But I still like to visit the warmer lands.

Like Christie, though, many of you are comparatively new friends and haven't seen those old posts. Since hardly any of you were around in January of 2007, when I posted the first, I'll replay and expand upon that one. Five things you may not have known about me, then:

1. I have been chased by a headless snapping turtle.

And stepped on a snake thinking it was a garden hose... and, with my family, been pursued by a water moccasin. And we won't even talk about alligators. There are reasons I don't live anywhere near the tropics now. The turtle, anyway, upon its decapitation at the hands of my uncle, took off like a beheaded chicken and came straight after my sister and me. Beth was a toddler and I wasn't much older, so you can imagine the screams and the panic as the dead reptile followed us—presumably unintentionally—in a circle around the yard.

2. I have never conquered my irrational childhood fear of swimming pool drains.

Hot tub jets and bathtub drains also give me the willies. In the last year or two, I read an article explaining how swimming pools work, hoping to get over the silliness. But the article claimed that the drains are left open all the time, which I hadn't known before, and I now have very little interest in ever going swimming again.

3. The author’s genes kicked in early for me. When I was about five or six, I used to do my own narration in third person, for instance: “She walked down the stairs and turned on the light.”

Nerd. The word is nerd. My friend Bradley once pointed that out. "All you ever say is she, she, she," he complained, which embarrassed me terribly, as he was eight years old and adorable. "No, it's not all I ever say," I said. Unfortunately for me, in inspiring his original comment, I had given him a ready example to quote back to me.

4. Instead of taking a teddy bear to bed with me as a little girl, I used to take my Breyer horses.

That might not be the main reason that they always had broken legs, but it probably contributed.

5. The first two songs I ever wrote were both written solely because someone else I knew had written a song, and I figured “What the heck—if they can do it, so can I.”

And I am way too much of a narcissist to ever sing those terrifically bad songs in public. Ever.

Now, I'd love it if you'd all tell me five interesting things about yourself in the comments. Or post on your own blog and link back so I can read it. :D

* No, I haven't. Not all. But it would require some serious and time-consuming excavations of the soul to come up with interesting factoids that you haven't heard and that I'm willing to share.

100 Most Favorite Movies

...because I can never resist a challenge. Want to join in? You can take the challenge yourself at Nathan Bransford's blog.

I didn't think I could come up with a hundred movies, but proved myself wrong in just 24 hours. Goodness only knows what I've missed by not taking a month to do this.

Artistic and literary favorites:

1. Everafter
2. Les Misérables (Hooper)
3. Phantom of the Opera (Schumacher)
4. Much Ado about Nothing (Branagh)
5. Pride and Prejudice (Colin Firth/Jennifer Ehle version)
6. Persuasion (Ciaran Hinds/Amanda Root version)
7. Sense & Sensibility (Ang Lee)
8. Emma (Kate Beckinsale version)
9. Life is Beautiful
10. Bella
11. The King’s Speech
12. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
13. The Scarlet Pimpernel (Anthony Andrews version)
14. Cinderella (Rodgers & Hammerstein; Brandy version)
15. My Fair Lady
16. Fiddler on the Roof
17. Mr. Holland’s Opus
18. Chicago
19. Moulin Rouge

Geekfests:

20. Star Wars: A New Hope
21. Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back
22. Star Wars: Return of the Jedi
23. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 (it was the only one I liked)
24. The Fellowship of the Ring
25. The Two Towers
26. The Return of the King
27. Stardust
28. Back to the Future (I like the first one best, but they were all lovable)

Old favorites:

29. Casablanca
30. Hot Lead, Cold Feet
31. It’s A Wonderful Life
32. The Happiest Millionaire
33. The Apple Dumpling Gang
34. The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again
35. Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
36. The African Queen
37. Support Your Local Sheriff

Rom-coms:

38. Return to Me
39. While You Were Sleeping
40. Anne of Green Gables
41. Anne of Green Gables: The Sequel (but do not under any circumstances watch the third)
42. A Walk to Remember
43. Sabrina
44. Sleepless in Seattle
45. You’ve Got Mail
46. Elizabethtown
47. 10 Things I Hate About You
48. My Big Fat Greek Wedding

Drama:

49. The Man from Snowy River (the sequel's likable, but not as good)
50. Frequency
51. Remember the Titans
52. The Shawshank Redemption
53. The Pelican Brief
54. Castaway
55. Little Women (Winona Ryder version)
56. Slumdog Millionaire
57. Save the Last Dance
58. Polly (the one starring Rudy from The Cosby Show)

Comedies and dramedies:

59. Galaxy Quest
60. A Knight’s Tale
61. Blast from the Past
62. The Gods Must be Crazy
63. The Princess Bride
64. McClintock!
65. Napoleon Dynamite
66. Hook
67. Surf Ninjas
68. The Kid
69. The Replacements
70. Sneakers
71. Sister Act (even though the writers knew absolutely nothing about the Catholic Church)
72. Scrooged
73. What About Bob
74. The Truman Show
75. Liar Liar
76. Elf
77. Stranger than Fiction
78. Office Space
79. The Wedding Singer
80. Spanglish
81. Mr. Deeds
82. Robin Hood: Men in Tights
83. Spaceballs

Favorites of my inner child:

84. Aladdin (Disney)
85. Robin Hood (Disney)
86. Tangled
87. Toy Story 1
88. Toy Story 3
89. Finding Nemo
90. Pete’s Dragon
91. The Muppet Movie
92. The Muppet Christmas Carol
93. Honey, I Shrunk the Kids
94. The Horse in the Gray Flannel Suit
95. The Sandlot

Favorites of my inner teenager:

96. The Princess Diaries
97. Raise Your Voice
98. Twilight
99. New Moon
100. Eclipse

I have yet to see The Artist, anything by Miyazaki, or Singing in the Rain. I know. Scold if you must. But what else have I missed? And what would you pick?

Advent 2012—Christ the King 2013

This might be the ignorance of the anecdotalist speaking, but it seems to me that the average new year's resolution fails because people hope to conquer besetting vices with a burst of enthusiastic will that is guaranteed to last no more than two weeks.

On account of which, I save my attempts at conquering besetting vices for Lent. Advent works better as a time to take stock, to contemplate direction and make adjustments as necessary, settling the ideas by the first of January.

So, I've been contemplating and taking stock, and there's been a lot to this year. There were blue pimpernels and giant pumpkins, sweet peas and strawberries and tomatoes, homemade liqueurs and three months of sunshine. Lou and I chanted from the choir loft together and sang Mozart and The Hallelujah Chorus in ensemble; the latter involved practice sessions with a vocal coach, which enabled me to recover more of my voice than I'd thought possible.

There were also... weeks. There was the week I got the most painful critique I've ever received and then nearly lost three members of my family. There was the week I gave up the family cradle. There was the week divided between a courtroom and a funeral. There were others.

For me as a writer, it was honestly a hard year. Most of my original goals got set aside; I spent more than half the year struggling with my first book and eventually lost my vision for it. Be it for good or be it for ill, however, I am thus far unwilling to give up that story—it's too dear and too unfinished. Many a spare moment in the last week has gone to hunting down and securing my original vision: the bright, simple, beloved thing, unencumbered by secondhand doubts or undue weight belonging to What Is Popularly Considered Acceptable. I want the story whole and at rest, settled and finished the way it was designed and intended to be.

We'll see what happens. A new year may look like a blank slate, but at nearly halfway to seventy, I've discovered I'm not the only one writing on it.

For this year, then, I have a few quiet hopes and plans. If possible, I'd like:

to sleep more

to devote myself daily to Mary

...and to Lou

to learn to love the rain

to read at least fifty-two books, at least four of them retold fairy tales for children

to go on developing home and garden

to finish revising and publish the fairy tale retelling

and to settle—and if possible, to finish—A.D.'s story.

There have already been times during the perpetual chilly and wet twilight these last few weeks that I've thought the rain beautiful.

Happy New Year!

P.S. I am sure the formatting on this is thoroughly scrambled in every view except for the ordinary blog post as it appears in Chrome. I'm terribly sorry. The pictures seemed like a good idea until I discovered, halfway through, just how much format hacking was involved. And now it's too much work to get them back out. :P

Blogalectic Holiday: Random Q & A

In honor of the holiday, Masha gave us an easy topic: a list of questions to answer. To veteran bloggers, listing comes almost as naturally as speaking, and I'm thankful for the comparatively light work after a cheery Thanksgiving weekend that was rather too busy for much blog prep.

1. If you could escape into just one story, what would it be?

Escape? I'm usually my own biggest problem. Finding a way directly into a story wouldn't be likely to change that. :P But if I just need a vacation in a fictional world, well—I've already answered that one.

2. What book do you think should be mandatory for writers?

People write and think in an immense variety of ways. Therefore, I say: go find your own mandatory book. For me, it was probably the Harry Potter series, but it'll be different for everyone.*

And no, I don't often read books about writing. For me, they've never proven quite as helpful for writing fiction as has the generally more enjoyable act of reading fiction.

3. What movie do you think should be mandatory viewing for writers?

See above. Only I'm no film connoisseur, and off the top of my head, not one movie of my acquaintance has had a noticeable impact on my writing. Several TV shows, on the other hand, have been influential. The Gilmore Girls is great for dialogue. The Wonder Years is great for narrative. And The Dick Van Dyke Show is great for comical character interplay.

That said, I like artsy but accessible movies like The King's Speech or the Ang Lee Sense and Sensibility. They're beautiful enough to inspire me artward, and might fairly represent the sort of novel I'd like to write: lovely storylines and scenery, thoughtful characters and relationships, happy endings. They're only missing the magic and unicorns.

4. Do you ever take drugs, smoke, or drink to ‘encourage’ your imagination while writing?

Hah. I'm at my most creative when all my faculties are present and accounted for, thank you very much.

If I need wackadoodle inspiration, I can always go to sleep. Of course, I've not got a lot of use for psychedelic Big Birds, tone-deaf people in denim singing in a porch swing at Mass, impossibly large house parties with the drinks table arranged according to the color wheel, and the zombie apocalypse, all of which have figured in my dreams in the last few weeks. But I most definitely do not need any stimulant to provide me with more such dreams.

5. Why does the world need books?

Because so many of us love them. And for other reasons, which are far too many and too complex to bother listing right now. That question could probably inspire its own blogalectic series.

6. What part of the [writing] process do you find most difficult?

Marketing, even to agents and editors. My default emotional position reads as follows: if perchance someone sincerely wants to hear from me, they'll ask. This is not a comfortable way to go about life, let alone marketing.

7. What books have scared you the most?

The single most terrifying book I've ever read, at least in recent years, was Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None. Closely following on its heels (creeping silently through the jungle, peering at it with a giant eye) was Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton. Horrid books, both of them, as far as I'm concerned.** I might never have forgiven my first boyfriend for making me read them if he hadn't also loaned me all his Harry Potter books and introduced me to Nobuo Uematsu and Orson Scott Card.

* * *

All right, that was fun. What about you? Feel free to answer any or all of the questions in the combox or on your own blog.

* Disclaimer: This presumes, of course, that writers have studied a fair helping of the classic works in the language in which they intend to write.
** Yes, I'm being a little tongue-in-cheek. And Then There Were None was a fantastically structured murder mystery. Jurassic Park was at least an engaging story. I'm still thoroughly sorry I ever read either.

The Strength of Samson and other stories

Once upon a time, a Very Tall Peasant decided that hair down to her waist was too much work to wash and dry, so she cut it.

* * *

Of course, the only thing to do when you cut off fourteen inches of hair is to send it to Locks of Love. Unfortunately, I couldn't take a picture of this because I forgot the packeted ponytail at my parents' house. I'll have to mail it next week.

* * *

As you may know, I've kept my hair long because of fantasy fiction. It's a lot of fun to attempt Danielle's hairstyles from Everafter, or Arwen's intricate braids, or Nynaeve's "wrist-thick braid to her waist" (my hair was that long; the braid itself came a little short, though.)

But then I realized that not every woman in fairylands and fantasy worlds has waist-length hair. There's always the brilliant and powerfully magical Hermione Granger:

"bushy brown hair, and rather large front teeth"

...and I never got the sense that Moiraine Damodred or most other of the Cairhienin nobility had excessively long hair:

I couldn't make my blue pendant work, so I had to use white. Sorry, Moiraine.

And I know Aviendha didn't.

I had way too much fun taking this picture.

So, unlike Samson, I've decided that my superpower isn't entirely in my hair. I may go for waist-length again someday, but for now it feels just lovely to be able to pick up a blow dryer and finish in ten minutes or less. The Pacific Northwest is too cold for constantly wet hair.

* * *

Writers' link of the week: An interesting post on being realistic from author Athol Dickson. Favorite line, which has little to do with the main point of his post: "All I know is, like most writers I just want to write, and anything that interferes with writing is annoying."

* * *

Music of the week: Apparently it's Gryffindor Pride day! And while I've not gotten my letter from Pottermore yet, and have not been Sorted (and could end up anywhere... but not Slytherin, please not Slytherin, I don't want to live in a dungeon under the lake with skulls), I do love Gryffindor. Take it away, Jason Munday!



* * *

Funny of the week: Okay, I think I've linked Hyperbole and a Half at least two or three times lately. And everybody else on the internet has probably read every last one of her posts, but I'm still catching up... and I have to dedicate this to my best friend, MissPhotographerB. Spiders are scary. Apologies in advance for the swearing in this post, but spiders DO tend to bring out the worst in people.

* * *

To Do:

• Clean house
• Find a way to cover tomato plants before it rains tonight
• Get some writing done
• Go sing karaoke for a friend (I got out of it by fainting last time, but I think tonight I'll actually have to do it)

Happy weekend, everybody!

Little House with the Big Yard and other stories

At last! As promised! House pictures. Forgive me for not having a full-on front shot of the house. Chalk it up to paranoia regarding revealing of locations on the internet.

I love it. None of the inside doors will stay closed, and the toilet runs, but it's comfortable and adorable and light and it came with gardens. The strawberries were a surprise, buried in a mass of clover and grass. And I made a cobbler the other day from blackberries, though none of the canes are anywhere I want them.

* * *

Maia's reaction to the new house has been to go nocturnal. In the day, she sleeps behind the couch or burrows into the bedclothes. At night, she rampages. On her first free night, she managed to throw the kitchen sink drain basket through a stack of glass Pyrex containers. Last night, she got us out of bed by playing with a cucumber in the laundry room. Then there's always cardboard to shred, which is startlingly loud in a quiet house.

I don't know what to do about this, apart from bury my head in the pillow and tell myself she can only do so much damage.

* * *

Callie Kingston tagged me with this, so in the spirit of sportsmanship, I’m going to tell you ten things about me. Ten more, because I’ve already done this sort of thing a few times on the blog. Ah, the internet... celebrating random acts of narcissism. I get such a kick out of reading other people's, though, that I don't feel too guilty for making my own.

1. I don’t wear a lot of jewelry. It’s just one more thing to put on in the morning, and I figure pants are more important.
2. I know how to card and spin wool, and in fact, have a spinning wheel.
3. Like a child, I tend to dream about scary things I read about or see on television. Most recently: cryogenic freezing. Last night. After reading Beth Revis’ Across the Universe.
4. Also last night: I woke up and fainted after apparently twisting my leg wrong in my sleep.
5. I’ve also fainted: while standing still to have my hair braided, while standing in line at school, off the back riser during a choir performance, under a parked car after bending my thumb backward, while standing around a family living room chatting, after hitting my hand wrong setting a volleyball, and after twisting my knee standing on the couch.
6. That’s not counting the times I’ve blacked out at a sudden fright, which number at least two: sledding into a six-foot-deep irrigation ditch lined with rocks and ice, and swimming a river rapid called "Suffocator."
7. When it comes to throwing things, I am a significant danger to anyone in the near vicinity.
8. I once threw a rock, aiming at the ocean in front of me, and hit my sister, who was standing a few feet to my right.
9. If I had all the time in the world, I’d join the Society for Creative Anachronism. It sounds like fun. It would be more fun if you could endow your character with magic powers, though. Maybe I should just get into RPGs instead.
10. I don’t understand why the world is so dismissive of rainbows and unicorns.

Tagging five people (no pressure, but you know I’d enjoy reading it): Masha, Mr. Pond, Shallee McArthur, Lindsey, Sarah... and you, O reader. Link back in the comments if you do, and I’ll read it. Or post in the comments, if you don't have a blog and still want to tell me about yourself. I'll gladly read that, too. :D

* * *

Writers' link of the week: Nathan Bransford's "On the internet there is no such thing as a brand. There is only you." His blogging philosophy is mine as well.

* * *

Music of the week: David linked this for my benefit over a week ago, and ah, readers... it gives me chills. There's not a lot of music I love better than a good book-based song. This is an arrangement of "The Hanging Tree" from the Hunger Games series.

As David noted, the video's a little distracting... you can listen and look at something else. :)



* * *

Funny of the week: as you might have noticed from the rest of this post, I didn't sleep well last night. So I'm finding myself staring vacantly at a lot of supposedly funny things on the internet. But you can try this.

* * *

New house to clean! I'm off. Happy weekend!

Giving and Receiving and other stories

Tonight, it's raining.

This week, I've stared out the window at snow on the ground, sung myself hoarse in pre-Easter practices, sent my first query, read my novel initsentiretyinhardcopyandoutloud, read Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and received my first-ever blog award.

First-ever Blog Award! I got totally excited.

The nomination came from new friend Kiernan, whom you may have met in the comment box. It comes with two simple rules: 1) post seven interesting things about myself, and 2) pass the award on to fifteen other blogs. So. Here goes.

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The challenge: finding seven interesting things about myself that I haven't already told you here, here, or here.

1. After years of writing songs about God, boys, unrequited love, Lou, and Harry Potter, a couple of weeks ago I found myself writing a song about Nynaeve al'Meara and al'Lan Mandragoran. I finished it, too—just haven't recorded it yet.

2. Fantasy fiction is the only thing keeping me from cutting my hair to shoulder-length.

3. I would certainly have a pet bird if the sight of one in a cage didn't make me a little bit sad. And if I didn't have a cat.

4. From age twelve onward, I've wished I were graceful in a pair of skates on ice. And that I could jump a single axel, even on dry ground. I've tried, a lot of times, but it's harder than it looks.

5. It's possible that if I'd read Sarah Dessen before J.K. Rowling, I would have taken to writing contemporary fiction instead of SFF. It probably would have been the wrong choice for me. And Shannon Hale probably would have made me change my mind.

6. When I feel like reading randomly in the Bible (as opposed to going straight through a book), I almost always land in the Psalms.

7. I live in fear of the day when I'll look in the mirror and know that sparkly eye shadow and Old Navy T-shirts with butterflies on them are no longer a decent option.

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Time to pass on the Versatile Blogger Award! So: What makes a versatile blogger? Courtesy of Dictionary.com:

Versatile: adj. 1. capable of or adapted for turning easily from one to another of various tasks, fields of endeavor, etc.: a versatile writer.

We'll stick with definition one, not being zoologists or botanists or likely to award someone merely for having changeable moods. Pretty much all this means is that I've ruled out subject-blogs that never break from their theme. I've also ruled out group blogs and anyone with hundreds of followers, because I doubt they care. And I've ruled out anyone who never posts. So there.

Family and personal bloggers, special note for you: I've kept you off the list because your blogs seemed to me to be meant for the eyes of people who know you. But I'm sometimes wrong. Lindsey, Sarah, Lizzie Marie, if you want nomination, you have it.

This should take care of your links of the week. And yes, I am going to nominate a whole list of my friends. I like my friends.

A note to recipients: No pressure. Fulfill the rules on your own blog if you care to, or just bask in the glow.

I can't really nominate Kiernan, since she already has the award, but anyone who likes reading should check out her blog, Fire In Mine Ears. She also talks about music, Orthodoxy (as in, the Eastern Orthodox church), and whatever else comes to mind. Hey, Kiernan, thanks again for the award!

Leaf by Jana. Art, writing, life, and faith. Beauty in every corner.

Annie K. O'Connor. Mostly various philosophical questions, and every time I read one of her posts, I have to think much harder than the Internet usually requires.

The Paradoxes of Mr. Pond, mostly about fairy tales and writing, but also discussing George MacDonald and the occasional Over the Hedge piece. He's got a giveaway going on this weekend.

The Knight Shift, run by one of my first Internet-based friends, Chris Knight. He discusses life with bipolar disorder, politics and religion, and what I most like to read him for—Star Wars and other nerd stuff.

Cyganeria, by Masha. I don't know what the name means, but she writes beautiful poetic prose, mostly about daily life, sometimes about reading and belief.

City Wife, Country Life, although the Farmer's City Wife has gotten this award before. Her blog contains chickens, cooking, house-buying, and a suspenseful love story that she really needs to finish (HINT).

Books Kids Like. This is a stretch, because Kathy almost never posts anything not about books—but there's just so much to say about books. She also keeps up with various memes that give insight into bookish thought.

Eric Pazdziora. Music, various humor, evangelical thought, etc. Did I mention music? As in, sets George MacDonald poems to?

Carrie Pazdziora. Life, thoughts, and oh yes—music. This is not my first recommendation of hers, but check out this video of photography set to her song about living on the streets.

Chris Russo, who sometimes comments here. He gets this for two reasons: 1) this poem about cooking and reading, and 2) his classic defense of what happened to Susan Pevensie at the end of Narnia.

Zeitete Sophia. A true versatile, who posts about anything that comes to mind—from Greek text to wine facts.

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Shoot... that's not fifteen. I tried, honestly, but I'm out of energy. Hope I didn't forget anyone... Happy weekend, everybody!

Top Ten Lists, Writing, and Life

Monday posts can be challenging to write on time. And since I've never gotten caught up enough on life to try scheduled posting, I'm susceptible to days like today when my brain goes dead before I can get a blog up.

So I went onto YouTube to watch a few videos, hoping to clear my mind out enough to find some coherence, and found this:



Beautiful, no? Some of hers were so close to some of mine that I felt like sharing. In the spirit of Kristina's video, then, here are ten things I want to do with my life. Apologies for writing it in a list instead of doing it up in a lovely video with music, but I don't have a video camera, and I don't trust my webcam to make me look attractive. :)

Oddly, this is a little more terrifying at thirty-three than it would have been ten years ago. More personal. And harder. I've done some of the things I've always wanted to do—I've gotten married, recorded a CD, gone to Europe, written a novel, owned a horse... and I'm starting to think that getting fluent in a foreign language doesn't have enough of my priority... but my life hasn't ended yet, and neither has my capability to wish.

1. Publish the book I've written.
2. Write and publish another... and another... and more.
3. Turn around and help another author get published and get recognized.
4. Have or adopt at least one child.
5. Grow old with the man I've loved and married.
6. Find some way to make a lot of people's lives easier, happier, more comfortable, better.
7. Live up to the Beatitudes.
8. Give someone the encouragement they need to succeed at whatever it is they're supposed to do.
9. Help get Gregorian chant back into the Mass.
10. ...and one purely selfish one, just for the heck of it: Go to a big Harry Potter convention, like LeakyCon, with at least a couple of friends. HP is one of the most communal things I've been part of online, and one of the loneliest things I've ever been part of in person. Someday, I'd love to amend that last part.

It's not everything, and it's hardly in order of importance. But it's something.

What about you? It's a personal question, I know—but feel free to share as you wish.

And yes, I know I link Kristina Horner a lot. Also, that I'm doing a lot of lists of ten lately. The standard book-related top ten should post as usual tomorrow. :)

25 Things About Me

The members of my writing group have pledged to each write "from a prompt" and post it to our blogs by this Wednesday. This popular Facebook prompt was mentioned as an option, and since several people tagged me with it months ago and I loved reading theirs, I'll do mine now (here, because I don't get around to Facebooking much).

Technically I'm supposed to tag 25 people; for me, that's pretty much all of my Facebook and blogging friends. Tag! You're It.

Here are 25 things about me, randomly chosen for your reading pleasure:

1. To my very great surprise, I am not awful at decorating a house.

2. I adore houseplants. I put them everywhere.

3. Someday I want a bird feeder in my yard. Maybe a couple of bird houses, too. Birds fascinate me; I find them charming and cheery and delightful and hopeful.

4. Trees give me encouragement and comfort; I'm getting to know the ones in our neighborhood as friends. Looking up at blue sky through the leaves of a tall old tree is one of my greatest pleasures.

5. For a couple of years I tried very hard to be interesting and unafraid; I learned to climb rocks and got certified as a whitewater guide. I could not stop being afraid. Hopefully I have also not stopped being interesting.

6. Debate and conflict terrify me even more than whitewater rafting. Anything that resembles an impending serious argument can make me cry and shake till my whole body vibrates. I am not exaggerating.

7. When I was in sixth grade, I was the third tallest in my class. I was a year younger than my classmates.

8. I have a love-hate relationship with being tall. It's nice to be able to reach things on the top shelf, and it's nice when your girlfriends tell you that you look like a model. It feels weird to tower over half of all men, however, and with my enormous wingspan I am sometimes afraid to move for fear I'll hurt someone (or myself--I punched a low ceiling the other day). Also, I occasionally see cute little petite girls cower a bit when they get near me. I want to tell them that I'm harmless, but it seems awkward.

9. Until I was 28, no eligible--or even young--man ever told me I was beautiful. But I felt beautiful once: when my swing teacher used me as his dance partner while teaching swing dancing at Jade's wedding. Doug was a professional dancer and I knew just enough to follow. A male dancer can, by good leadership, make a girl feel all starry and graceful. I know.

10. Sometimes I do actually feel beautiful, and enjoy looking at myself in the mirror. It generally requires full makeup.

11. My husband will tell me I'm beautiful when I know perfectly well that no other person in the world would make it past the acne scars and the ponytail and the gangly arms poking out of an ancient t-shirt. It took me awhile, but I've come to the conclusion that he means it.

12. I honestly love being a girl and wouldn't trade it, despite the pain and mood swings and inconveniences, for the triumphs and tribulations and freedoms of manhood.

13. I am so grateful to have a husband--and so awed that he loves me in spite of my weaknesses--that I feel horrified when I say the slightest grouchy thing to him.

14. Writing forms such a thoroughly integral part of my life that imagining life without it is like imagining nonexistence.

15. The curse upon my writing is the tendency to overuse ellipses.

16. Part of what keeps me in the Christian faith is the tough moral teaching that everybody rails against. Call it what you will, but it seems necessary to the health of humanity.

17. Of all the things I've given away in my life, I regret my first doll, Mark, the most.

18. Most of the time I prefer silence to music.

19. I detest coarse language and the vulgar freedoms of modern conversation. When a girl says she "has to pee", or a couple says they're "trying for a baby", I recoil. Ew. Please. Do not make me picture that.

20. One of the highlights of my week is listening to John Derbyshire's Radio Derb on Friday nights with Lou. Seriously, if you're going to tell me the world is coming to an end, make it funny.

21. I live for sunshine, perhaps because I try to fill myself with light and warmth the way folks of the Goth persuasion fill themselves with severity and darkness.

22. I never thought I'd fall in love with a man who willingly wore slacks and ties and buzzed his hair. Now I find myself rather proud of my handsome, neatly-dressed husband.

23. Despite being shy, I am in danger of giving away too much information whenever I open my mouth.

24. The appeal of Christianity to my imagination is at least as strong, and possibly as important, as its appeal to my reason.

25. Many years ago--after reading George MacDonald's "There and Back", I think--I decided to hang onto childlike wonder all my life. Cynicism and depressive moments get the better of me at times, but for the most part I think I've kept it up so far.

Things That Come in Eights

Why eight? Why these questions? We may never know. But who said the fun had to be in knowing Why?

I have been tagged by Lindsey, so here are my eights.

8 Things I'm Looking Forward To

1. Seeing my hubby when he gets off work tonight
2. Working up Chapter 9 of my novel and getting more plot wrinkles ironed out
3. John Granger speaking at Village Books at the end of June
4. My godson's baptism
5. Mass on Sunday
6. Calling my best friend again
7. Getting through singing in front of people this Saturday, hopefully having sung audibly and well
8. Seeing Jesus and never being afraid any more

8 Things I Did Yesterday

1. Slept most of the morning
2. Took rubbing alcohol to all three of my fake tattoos (that's how you get them off)
3. Took a walk with Lou and stopped by my parents'
4. Got mostly caught up on my Google Reader after the weekend (I'm still not all the way caught up)
5. Did some reading for my writing group
6. Said my prayers and read a chapter in the Bible
7. Made dinner for my husband
8. Stayed up too late owing to having slept most of the morning

8 Things I Wish I Could Do

1. Make everybody happy
2. Be a mommy
3. Know what to say when I need to say it and not weeks or months or years later
4. Write books that people love and want to read over and over (I'm trying)
5. Not get so upset when people disagree with me or dislike me
6. Practice music without being afraid that I'll annoy the neighbors or that someone will hear me hit a bad note
7. Not feel like if I move about too much, my extraordinarily long limbs will hurt people
8. Bring about peace in the Middle East

8 Shows I Watch

I don't watch any! In lieu of a current list, then, here are 8 shows I used to watch:

1. American Idol. I voted for Anthony Fedorov!
2. What Not to Wear. I'm still not good at matching clothes though.
3. Lois and Clark. Dean Cain and Teri Hatcher will always be my ideal of Superman and his leading lady.
4. Full House. Whatever happened to predictability?
5. Home Improvement. "You know what Freud says: There are no accidents." "Well, obviously Freud never saw Tool Time."
6. The Dick Van Dyke Show (reruns on Nick at Nite or TVLand.) Funniest show ever.
7. The Cosby Show. Impossible not to love.
8. Jeopardy. I could always out-answer the contestants on Bible questions; unfortunately, not often on anything else.

The game is not complete until I've tagged someone. I'll tag any and all of the bloggers in my writing group that want to play (Brittany? Jana? Sarah? Miles? Did I miss anyone?), and Briana on Facebook.

Update & Humor Aggregation

In celebration of one month of being a homemaker, I write this post with my hair still wet. Spring having removed the need for the old furnace in the kitchen, and clouds having covered the sun, my only offensive weapon against the water absorbed by eighteen-plus inches of very thick hair was a blow dryer, and I found that a little too daunting for this morning.

I have something of a routine now. I have days for laundry and errands and the normal house scrub-down. Other days get special projects, like the tomato plants I have growing in the living-room windows, and blogging. I get some sleep. Instead of jolting out of bed at 6:45, I get up with Lou at 7:30; then, if I need a nap later, I can take one. It amazes me, now that the workaday adrenaline has mostly worn off, that it is possible to be this tired.

The list of "Things I don't have time for" has changed. I rarely get around to listening to podcasts. I don't listen to music as often. My stack of books to read has gone down a little, though it tends to replenish itself when I'm not looking. The Internet is still my primary temptation to timewasting, and I have to watch the tendency to do things like read antagonistic sites for the purpose of finding out why They hate Us so much (as far as I can tell, the entire business of politics is made up of smear and scoundrels.)

But I do have a limited regular blogroll, and in case anyone hasn't been reading the same stuff I have over the last few weeks, here are a few things that made me laugh out loud:

1. Remember my old posts about transparent angling ferrets and the song about someone who died the other night? Whether you do or not, you may enjoy finding that I'm not the only person in this world who likes to publish their problematic hearing of song lyrics. Check out CMR's examples, starting with "Big Ol' Jed Left A Light On". There are some good ones in the comments, too. I contributed, though I forgot about the Alanis Morrissette song. If I'd remembered that Edwin McCain sounds to me like he says "I'll be flabby when I'm older" instead of "better when I'm older", that would have gone in the comment too.

2. A favorite creative-writing exercise of mine has been coming up with book titles and absurdly appropriate author's names. Among my favorite creations are "The Ways Crime Pays by Rob Banks", "Discrimination and America's Top Universities by Sue Stanford" and "Give Yourself a Pep Talk by Ida Mann". The Internet Monk had some fun this week coming up with some book titles of a different sort. I got a big kick out of them, and comment #7 pretty much made me cry laughing. [Disclaimer: If anyone from Stanford comes by here, I picked on that school unfairly and did so only because the name was alliterative.]

3. Thanks to my friend Jana, I have recently rediscovered Jon Acuff's "Stuff Christians Like", an accruing satirical list of things we Christians enjoy. He puts up funny stuff on a regular basis and sometimes the comments are hilarious too. Among my favorite recent posts are "#521. Judging people that use the Table of Contents in their Bible" and "#515. Taking a sympathy scoop from the dish no one eats at the pot luck".

4. If you've gone through all of those and you can still breathe, there's always Dave Barry. Hat tip to Beth, who instant-messaged me with this one today. Get more out of your toilet.

Not Quite Crazy

I gave up a perfectly good job today. Not just perfectly good--the best job I've ever had, doing work I enjoyed, working with people I love. I quit despite the current economic turmoil, despite not yet having the usual reason (children), and not merely to write full-time (which would still be crazy.)

It was not an easy decision. It took all my courage and the knowledge of Lou's full support. It wasn't like my departure from YD, which happened naturally when they decided to move over the mountains and I decided to stay--this was a choice that no one made for me.

Two weeks ago I gave the standard two weeks' notice. I gave two reasons: the first, that my goal has always been to be a wife and homemaker; the second, that several years of stress have taken a toll on my health that can't be redeemed in two weeks' vacation in a given year.

Today I gave half my team to the care of one person and the other half to another. I packed my coffee mug and my snowflake blanket that I used to keep warm all day and the microwaveable rice bag that one of the administrative assistants made me a couple of years ago. I gave my philodendron to Brittany and brought home the pink roses my team gave me. I brought home my water bottle and my Hebrew notebook and my hand lotion. I shut down my computer and turned off all three monitors and gave my building key to my boss.

I'm looking forward to staying home--but I'll miss that job, and especially the people I worked with. I'll miss being with Lou around the clock--we've not been separated for more than a few hours since we got married. I'll miss the steady routine and the creativity of my coworkers and the affirmation given for good work. It's a good thing that I know a lot of those people outside of work, or today would have been much harder. It still involved tears, after it was all over.

The most commonly asked question is "What will you do at home all day?" The simplest answer is "I haven't been bored in at least twenty years. I don't expect to start now." There is a long list behind that answer.

Great Information

I have found myself. There might be as many as two paragraphs in that entire description that don't particularly apply to me.

Which of the Four Humors are you? (Caution: If you already know you're a phlegmatic, I must warn you that your personality type description was written by someone who doesn't like you.)

I have also found the best internet quiz ever:



I am Anne Elliot! Want to know which Austen heroine you are? Take the quiz here.

Raindrops on Roses

Beth suggested I make a list of my favorite things, as she has done a couple of times on Facebook. I got started and couldn't stop for a very long time. Here is the result:

Watching my husband, especially when he doesn't know I'm watching him
Kneeling in Adoration
Talking things over with my mom
Texting back and forth with Dad in Yoda-speak
IM conversations with Beth
Coffee with Melanie
Church bells
Mary
Love and affection, especially the cuddling sort
Books about wizards and vampires and talking creatures, oh my!
Litanies ... no, I'm not joking
White lilies
Wedding pictures, especially mine
Great-Grandma Reilly's ring
Relatives
Feeding the ducks
Writing: journals, fiction, music, essays, various bloggery
Love letters
Words, especially English, though other languages are fascinating too
Back rubs. Lou gives great ones; so does my dad.
Babies ... I want one
Cinnamon rolls and coffee with my in-laws
Gregorian chant
Lou singing in Latin
Lou singing Elvis
The Internet. Here's to research without using telephones or the inter-library loan.
Libraries. I'm trying to make home as much like one as possible, without the shushing.
My big bookshelf
Blogs. People are funny.
Long phone conversations with Briana ... though visits are better
Friends that are family, and family members that are friends
Lunch with friends
Funny or meaningful quotes
Lamps and candles and Christmas lights
Brahms' second piano concerto
Sunshine, oh, sunshine
Summer
Holidays from work
Spring
Ornamental cherry trees
Lilacs
Birds, birds, birds
The sky, in all its moods
Christmas
Family get-togethers
The Bible ... especially Psalms, the gospel of John, and Esther
Gothic steeples
Byzantine domes and mosaics
Alabaster angels
Lauds, Vespers, and especially Compline
Old books
Re-reading
Studying literature at Dante's four levels of meaning
G.K. Chesterton
Walking in the surf on white-sand beaches in Florida ... in February
Singing, especially rangey stuff ... I love being a soprano
Wrock
Over-commercialized "Celtic" music
Techno and electronica, especially in foreign languages
Drinking green tea and wishing I spoke Chinese
Cooking in a wok ... or at least my stir-fry pan, which is almost like a wok
Frosties and Blizzards
Easter
America, especially when I can forget about politics
Fairies and unicorns
Little babbling brooks
Being in and on water, even though it frightens me
Fresh-squeezed orange juice from fresh-picked oranges
Bellingham, WA
Airplane rides and road trips
Bozeman, MT
Statues
Jane Austen
Corona with lime
Mocha frappucino and similar things
Putting fun pictures up as backdrops on my computer monitors
My Korg Triton, old Guild guitar, microphone and mixer
Flare jeans and long, short-sleeved, fitted stretch-cotton shirts--especially if they're decorated
Things junior-high girls like: butterfly earrings, snap barrettes, turquoise and coral, Disney songs
Dancing
Good dramedies ... no, I don't mean dromedaries, although those are interesting
Bright colors
Houseplants
Home

The Good Old Days

So, the gig is that this is supposed to be filled out with answers about one's senior year in high school. I was homeschooled, so this might be interesting.

1. Did you date someone from your school?
There are laws against that sort of thing.

2. Did you marry someone from your high school?
See #1. My husband went to Bellingham High.

3. Did you carpool to school?
All the way down to the living room?

4. What kind of car did you drive in high school?
I got my license at age 19 and graduated at 17 ... but I did practice on my parents' 1978 Malibu.

5. What kind of car do you have now?
'95 Camry.

6. It's Friday night... in high school:
I'm playing the piano and the rest of my family is watching television.

7. It's Friday night... where are you now?
My husband and I are sitting on the couch, he with his Greek book and me with my computer and thinking cap.

8. What kind of job did you have in high school?
"Chores" would be a more appropriate term. But I did muck out stalls in exchange for horseback riding lessons.

9. What kind of job do you have now?
It's sort of a combination of editing, layout and design, and telling people what to do.

10. Were you a party animal?
If by "party" you mean driving half an hour to the roller skating rink for two hours of fun with the other homeschooled kids and their parents, then yes, absolutely.

11. Were you considered a flirt?
I sucked at flirting.

12. Were you in band, orchestra, or choir?
I also sucked at singing, believe it or not. Back then, if I sang something and asked how it sounded, people said "Keep practicing."

13. Were you a nerd?
Ha! I should post pictures. Taking the classic Hollywood stereotype, I'm not even sure I ranked that high.

14. Did you get suspended or expelled?
That would have required running away, and no, I never did.

15. Can you sing the fight song?
My sisters and I did fight every now and then, but I don't recall any of us making up songs about it.

16. Who was/were your favorite teacher(s):
Mom. She taught me almost everything I know.

17. Where did you sit during lunch?
Probably on my bed, with a novel propped open on my knees.

18. What was your school's full name?:
Home schools don't really come with a name, but we were members of the Gallatin Valley Home School Association.

19. When did you graduate?:
1995

20. What was your school mascot?:
Since my sisters and I didn't play football, a mascot wasn't entirely necessary. I think my volleyball team, made up of homeschooled girls, went by Cougars.

21. If you could go back and do it again, would you?
Homeschooling was great. I just don't want to experience my sixteenth year again.

22. Did you have fun at Prom?
I suppose we could have decked out the living room in a theme and danced around to the (early '90s) Christian radio station. But we didn't.

23. Do you still talk to the person you went to Prom with?
See #22.

24. Are you planning on going to your next reunion?
I never have managed to track down Jana H., with whom I celebrated graduation.

25. Do you still talk to people from school?
Briana and I took classes from each others' parents, and we talk all the time. I owe her a call, actually.

Thirty-one

There's nothing particularly milestone-like about a thirty-first birthday. It's just another in the string of no-longer-twenties. I have begun to see my age—in my hands, my skin in certain places, and in my face when I get tired or don't wear makeup. I find that strange, even though I shouldn't.

As a child, I don't think I ever thought about being over thirty. It seemed so old. I did think about being in my early twenties, and am now at least closer to what I'd planned for then. Which makes me one of the lucky ones from the girls in my generation.

Now the early twenties even seem young. Not extremely so, but still—at that age I thought of life as being mostly in front of me. At this age, I think of myself in the middle of life, with every day being precious.

The middle of life doesn't feel old exactly; rather, there's a staying consciousness of age and mortality that has only come to me, gradually, in the last few years. It still feels a little new and weird to me. But I can still layer on the eye-shadow and look in the mirror and see a girl's face. And as much as my habits and introversion may try to make an old soul out of me early, I plan to hang onto the childlike part of myself and anything else that might keep me from becoming a bitter old soul. We've all known those. I don't wish to be one.

My beloved husband has made a point out of making me feel loved today. He's going to take me to dinner and then I think we'll rent Ghost Town (I hear it's funny) and crash on the couch where we can be comfortable. I have a cold, so that sounds even more splendid than usual.

Journal

Sometime in fifth grade, I started my first journal in a little blue-and-pink book. I wrote in pencil and addressed each entry "Dear Diary". "Diary" became the only long-lasting "pretend friend" I ever had; once, I even imagined her coming to school with me. A year or two later, I got the quirky notion that pretend friends might be a little too close to familiar spirits, so I gave over writing to Diary and began a more narrative form of journaling.

It's hilarious and rather embarrassing to go back and read that first journal now; much more amusing than my high school journals, which ought to be burnt. I did stay an avid journaler, and probably have over a thousand pages logged in various notebooks and folders, but in the past few years that has tapered off into nothingness. Part of that is that love worth writing about has been more interesting to live and less needful of endless speculation. The rest has more to do with the fact that computers have spoiled me for writing with pens and pencils; I can keep up with my thoughts so much better with a keyboard, and I don't have to scratch things out and redo them in the margins.

For better or for worse, this blog has become the closest thing I have to a regular journal. It needs to be much more regular, of course, to fill that role, and--being public--can't quite be as sensational, and hopefully not as absurd, as the notebooks in my closet. But it's likely that the posts will become more thoughts and less commentary; I've decided that I'm a journaler, not a journalist.

Here's today's entry, then.

* * *

Sunshine

The sky is blue today. After growing up in Big Sky country, I think often about how much I miss the sky and the sun, and it's a huge relief whenever I actually get to see it.

The bright light coming through the stained glass windows at church made my eyes ache, but I didn't care. Mass takes on a special joy when the sun comes in; it feels a little like the difference between believing and seeing.

Lou and I took a long walk downtown after church. He bought me a coffee at Starbucks and we sat out in the sun and were quiet together. I probably didn't need to go for a grande caramel macchiato--it's made me a little jittery--but it tasted good, and the hot drink made sitting in the cold more comfortable.

It felt wonderful to get some vitamin D the natural way. Right now I'm taking a crazy amount of vitamins, trying to normalize my nonsensical overwrought body. But sunshine makes everything seem better.

Waiting

Not being a very patient person, I don't like waiting very much. Especially not uncertain waiting. I told myself I wouldn't cry this month, but why break an unbroken tradition? It feels silly for me to want something so much, when my life is so blessed and happy in almost every way, but I don't know what to do with the desire. It's instinctive, animalian. Feminine. And it's all so out of my control. The routine goes unchanged: pray, offer it up, and put my mind on something more likely to make me cheerful.

Wall-E

If I had to describe it in one word, I'd have to say "propaganda". But I suppose that isn't fair. Lou didn't get that feeling, at least not as strongly as I did. Maybe I've gotten a little over-cynical about anything that looks even remotely like an agenda from the left. Walking past one of those hideous sixties-style murals today, I saw the word "Excitement" and read it as "Excrement". Bah.

Admittedly, Wall-E succeeded remarkably for a movie with so little dialogue. It was quite creative, and Wall-E's pet cockroach made me laugh.

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The sun is still out ... and up for just a few more minutes. Lou and I are going for another walk.