Wrap your head with this material...

I wrote a book. I wrote it a long time ago. And it wasn't very good. But then I started getting my master's degree in writing in order to learn how to edit a book. And I learned how to edit a book. Check. So then I went back to my book. And that's how I knew the first draft wasn't very good. It wasn't terrible either. You'd read it through to the end likely. But it needed direction and to be more fluid. Plus, I'm a better writer now than I was when I wrote the first draft. So I tackled a lot of the focusing and rewriting this fall. The book's about a girl who is removed from her home and lives in residential treatment. I wanted a story like this to exist. I felt like people needed it to exist. So I wrote it. But I've felt weird about writing my book. I feel like someone might slap me across the face and yell "IMPOSTER" But the thing is, I believe in the story. And I wrote a good book. Those are important. And while I don't know ...

I made friends with my birthing class teacher. I did it because she is the kind of woman you can tear your pants in front of and not bother to change, the kind of woman you don't have to clean your house to have over, the kind of woman you can give birth in front of. It doesn't hurt that she's beautiful. I like having beautiful friends. And I have a lot of them. I'm spoiled like that. I hate to admit this, but I really like to have good-looking teachers. The truth is, if someone's teaching you, there's a solid chance you're staring at that person's face for a long, long time and it's nicer to do if it's a pretty face. I bet there's no research on that, but I bet it's true that all other things being equal, we like pretty teachers better. So I made friend with this pretty teacher lady and it's turned out really nicely. I also love her daughter who is a special class of spitfire. Anyway, my friend came over the other day to have our...

When I was a little girl, I befriended a little old lady who lived several houses down on our street. She was in her nineties and rarely left her house. I don't even remember how I met her now. I took to heart the lessons I learned in church and checked in on her from time to time. She was on Social Security and barely scraped by. She was very frail and could hardly walk to the end of her driveway and so the mailman came to her door. It was a small town and people did things like that. I remember the trouble she had lifting her arms to comb her long, silver-streaked gray hair. She had crocheted toilet paper roll covers that made her tissue into dolls with full skirts. Once, I "helped" her make pasta. I remember how she stood, her walker next to her and her table before her, and with slow deliberation, cut the layers of pasta. I don't remember how it tasted or what else we did with it. Just the act of her impossibly small frame leaning over the table to cut it. I wan...

Writing is an optimistic endeavor in which you are wooed by some bitch-ass muse who gives you an idea and floats a few bars of music ahead of you singing sweetly "I'm right here." And so you think you can write it all down and it'll be poetic and beautiful and fast. The grind of getting it all to work is the dirty work she doesn't tell you about. I could really smack her with the broomstick I'm using to chase all the details around with. If I win the battle, I'll be releasing "Between Families" sometime around Christmas. If the victory is delayed, it might not be until 2014. More on that later. I talk too much about parenting. I know I do it. I hate that I do it. I love that I do it. I want to be sure to be a person outside of parenting. A person you don't have to talk to about your kids or your sore spots in order to relate. I want to. But most of my life is parenting. Most of my mind is parenting. It's making writing pretty hard. Be...

A group of puffins is called a loaf. Ha! Puffin loaf. Whales tan. You're only supposed to space once between sentences when typing. Me? Twice. Trying to stop. it. 2 spaces wasted 13 pages of my first draft of my novel. Isn't that just the craziest? Dogs can smell under water. They use dogs to find people when they've drowned. They're called cadaver dogs. Eerily, I learned this just before all the flooding started in Colorado.

Why do people homeschool?Sure you think it's because they have religious preferences or are crazy xenophobes or have kids with specific learning needs or because the parents are concerned for their child's safety/well being at school where there gangs/drugs/sex/etc. But really? It's because they can NOT bring themselves to get the kids out the door every morning. They're getting away with something here. I thought you should know.

The smell of cardemom makes me want to cry. I picture being in my aunt's kitchen and the way the smells all mixed: cardemom and coffee and something cooked long and perfectly during the day. Onions and bread? I wonder if that coffee maker still sits in that kitchen, if my uncle uses it now that she's gone? I remember the yellowy stains on the white plastic of that coffee maker whose light always, always glowed red. It's a wonder the light never burnt out. I'm teaching GED in addition to Composition classes at the community college. I love it. It's in the basement with coffee and cookies. Which is good because it's past my bedtime and I need coffee and cookies after 8:30. I taught someone the shape of writing Monday. Some of the students need to learn how to structure writing or how to avoid a sentence fragment. Some were just kinda punks in school that have a test to take, but others... well I wonder what happened there. Others need to learn when to use a co...

Magnus turned 3 today. He's rocked my world in these past 3 years. It was just 3 years ago that we found out he was a he. Just over three years ago I had no kids. That blows my mind. Here's what I love. I love his enthusiasm. The other day, he called me into his room in an emergency kind of voice to announce that "The sky is BLUE." We stood at the window watching the clouds allow blue sky to peek out at us and I felt how exciting a peek-a-blue sky could be. I love seeing the world through his eyes. Some of our current favorite activities/games are: WrestleWrestle, him running the length of our house before knocking me over with a hug, puzzles, window-paint markers, dance party (where he gets to stand on the kitchen counters and dance,) and endless goo-goo noises and fake-sneezes at Gavin to make him laugh. He now stops before explaining things, even beginning sentences with a slight smack of his tongue against his teeth that tells you he's slowing things dow...

I was at a coffee shop today anxiously looking back and forth between my kids and the coffee and trying desperately to be aware of EVERY part of my surroundings (sometimes I'm over-the-top neurotic,) when I almost stumbled over a really good looking man in a wheel chair.  He'd obviously had his legs amputated.  With sandy blonde hair and an infectious smile, he was all-American good-looking, wholesome and all that, with a really beautifully developed upper body.  And I could totally picture what he'd look like if his bottom still matched his top.  He'd have been taller than me and I would not have met his gaze.  I don't usually make eye contact with good-looking men. We each stumbled around each other, politely excusing ourselves and I, for once in my life, did NOT say the dumb thing I was thinking which was "Do you want to dance?"  I'm working on my novel again. I wrote it in 2007 & 2008 and haven't touched it since.  Which is a weird thin...

The nice thing about having such a verbal child is that he even talks in his sleep.  So you get to learn what he has bad dreams about.  "I want to go over there." "I want to have my eggs in a bowl." "I want to eat the food on mommy's plate." "You wouldn't hold my hand." "You wouldn't let me jump in puddles on the trail."

I'm eternally picturing my kids' behavior as adult problem-behavior.  Like when Magnus was a baby and would crawl over and bite your toes, I pictured him as one of those weird people on the subway that grabs women and deepthroats their feet.  Yeah. So today, Magnus and Gavin and I are in the car waiting for Rob to grab condoms from the store and Magnus is chattering away.  He explains that he will grow up.  And when he grows up he will go in the beer store with dad and me and he will buy beer for daddy.  But Gavin won't come.  He'll wait in the car and cry. Then he tells me for the third time that he has to pee.  So I take him out of the car and let him piss on the wheel well of my subaru.  Instead he pisses all over his pants, hand, my wheel well, and the concrete.  He thinks this is hilarious.  And I picture him a drunk college kid, still driving my Subaru and pissing all over himself while a friend goes in to buy more beer....

Magnus is about to turn three.  He is well aware.  Apparently you're supposed to teach them to sing the ABCs while washing hands but I taught him to sing "Happy Birthday" instead.  He always knows whose birthday is next as a result.  And his is next.  He will have cake.  And ice cream.  And presents.  And friends.  And no you can't eat all his cake.  But he'll give you some.  I might be close to as excited about it as he is if I'm really honest about it.  My mom's got a foreign exchange student from Sweden and he and I were trying to teach Magnus to sing "Happy Birthday" in Swedish.  Magnus tried for a while singing "ja ma han leva" several times and then switching to "boring, boring," before returning to just singing "LA LA LA," at the top of his lungs. Gavin loves to sing.  He also loves to eat paper.  Correction, he loves to choke on paper.  He tears small pieces from pages and then you hear him hacki...

You ever hold a baby and think that baby's healthy body was anything but rad.  Well, I mean, not when it's shitting on you or spitting up or whatever.  I mean, a healthy sleepy baby or a healthy happy baby who's cooing and smiling and laughing because you just sneezed.  No teeth, squealing glee.  I don't care if you're a person who calls babies crotch droppings, that shit's unbelievable.  Ovary-melting goodness.  Even if there's something you don't like about the baby's face, and let's face it, if the baby's not on the cover of Baby's Poo Magazine, you think something is askew.  Eyes too small maybe, too far apart.  That baby would be cute if he didn't have that zit or he wasn't giving you a preview of his middle aged male pattern baldness issue.  But her body?  Gorgeous.  Chunkalunk rolly poly legs.  Long toes.  Dimpled knuckles.  Outie belly button.  Innie belly button.  Weird hairy back.  I c...

It was ten years ago now that I ran my first marathon.  I began training to run the marathon because of the loss of control I felt from having multiple seizures a day.  I once seized mid-stride and landed in a pile on the concrete.  I kept running.  Four weeks before the race, I was diagnosed with a stress fracture in my leg.  I ran under water. I ran the whole 26.2 miles by myself in a sea of other people with even more gripping stories.  I saw a firefighter running in full uniform in solidarity with firefighters who died September 11.  There was the man with the prosthetic leg for running that stood out so strongly in my mind.  I had thought I had a lot to overcome.  And I had.  The marathon gave me the control I needed to feel and made me feel strong.  It made me healthier and a better writer.  It marked the beginning of health changes I'm glad I made. When I crossed the finish line, I cried.  It still makes me te...

It's hard to say when labor began with this little guy.  Beginning nearly three weeks ago, I had irregular surges (hypnobirthing for "contraction.")  I'd have them in the middle of the night and think labor was starting and it was, but my body was really just chipping away at things.  Whatever work your body does now, it doesn't have to do during your "real" labor, right? My due date was 1/3/13, so when I woke on 1/4/13 with regular surges, and losing some pieces of mucus plug (pretty much the grossest term ever,) I figured it would be that day.  So I texted my doulah and hypnobirthing instructor to let her know that it was likely to be soon.  Then things stopped again.  I got up to get something to eat and do some work in the kitchen and things stalled out again.  My mom had planned to take my son Magnus anyway, so we just went with that plan and Rob decided to stay home for the day with me even though I wasn't sure he'd need to. We took a s...