maps

it’s just after 9pm on the next to last day of the year – the boys have banded together and claimed the big bed – i’ll sleep like the dead alone in adam’s twin, flat on my back surrounded by jack skellington, rabbits and foxes.

today the sun was out. for five minutes in the car, between errands with the sun hitting me in the face between buildings and singing hayes carll at the top of my lungs, i blanked and forgot who i was and where i was going. i haven’t gotten really lost in a moment for awhile, the temporary panic at the disorientation before i got back on track to cvs was completely worth it. i rediscovered i can forget myslef, and considering i’m trying to wedge a functional door open between myself and an imaginary world, it’s more reassuring than anything else.

i always think of the Subtle Knife. that’s the type of exact navigation i’m aiming for.

i have a lot to do and the need for some compartmentalization skills. i need to let go, let go, let go…. like right now. everyone is tucked into bed, and instead of opening a blank document and falling headlong into it, i have an open notebook of scribbles, and outline, thought of restructutres the television on, one ear tuned to adam and the other to the dogs on the porch, facebook running in another tab, guilt-part of my brain….

i like girls

christmas stuff (photos)

these days

I’m suffering from acute happiness. It’s almost 5pm, monday that feels like sunday, and I’ve been happy for days and days. I wish this weekend never had to end. The sun is so bright. Life is beautiful.

delicately drawn holiday (victorian christmas images)

Snow & Santa & Flying (photos)

sleep revelations

i slept. like the dead, like a rock, like as close to sleeping and not ever waking up again that you can get – and still wake up. at 7 adam woke and i got up with him, and eric got out of bed and said i could go back to sleep. i threw off the worry of residual guilt and the inherent have-to-do-everything-or-suffer-guilt strings and just went back to bed.

for three and a half hours i was completely unconscious in the most meaningful way. i feel like that entire time, my subconscious was working through every little and big preoccupation i’ve avoided in waking and sleeping hours.

dreamt i was a spy, dreamt heather was living at my mom’s and answered the phone when i called, i wasn’t expecting it. dreamt a million other things i don’t remember. woke at ten-thirty, flat on my back, arms folded across my chest like in the coffin, and felt like i’d just been unplugged from whatever vein to the universe pumps in the feelings of smallness and significance and simplicity and general enlightenment that can only be garnered when licking the iceberg.

i can’t avoid missing my sister and feeling cheated and dumped by her, by trying to manage and maintain everyone else’s feelings and brains and moods and therefore avoiding thoughts about my own. i can’t control the chaos of the universe by creating order in housework – no one i love judges me by the state of my domestic self and i won’t feel anymore in control with a spotless house.

at some point i have to breathe.

early a.m. ramble waiting for the “may cause drowsiness”

the christmas tree looks best in the middle of the night, when the lights are low and everyone is asleep and it’s the only warm thing in the room. huggable despite the white synthetic pine needles and wire branches. there are 4 metal bangle bracelets, a purple rubber Erase Hate bracelet, a pen on a string to hang around your neck, one of those plastic fake golf holes you put on the floor to put into, and a child-size stethoscope hanging from it, in addition to the ornaments.

this feels repetitive. i need to check my last post in case i mentioned this already – or if it’s just because i stare at the things adam has hung from the tree, looking for new things in the middle of the night, quite a bit.

nope. haven’t mentioned it. just a mind loop.

there are two nectarine-sized jack-o-lantern candles on the tv stand – the last of the halloween decorations i forgot to put away, i think. adam eyed them from the time they were placed there, and periodically asked to take them down and look at them. i let him. today i gave them to him – put one in each hand and said he could keep them. he was happy holding them, sitting on the couch half asleep with handfuls of orange candle, but at some point he put them back where they’d been. i wonder if i made some sort of tactical error, and he doesn’t really like them anymore since he can have them whenever…. or he just liked them there.

ten puppies on the porch, and one tired dog. she likes to lie in the sun by the dryer, away from them, and to play in the snow. she looks a little bored and a lot tired. she has that “this is my function”glazed look to her eyes. little mouths all over her. we make too much eye contact, i think. she’s waiting it out.

this is a ramble. i have no cold pills so i’m using benadryl to make the sleep come, and i’m going to type until i’m drowsy.

today we took adam to see santa. we picked him up from my mom’s at noon and headed in, he thinks snow boots make him ten feet tall, the child is invincible in snow boots. he was a little wary but went right up and hopped on his lap. said “i would like a fortress,” before he was asked and was ready to get down. then he stepped back to look at santa for a minute, and they made a little small talk, santa gave him a candy cane, they talked about bells, and adam had another go at the lap-sitting and was much happier about the whole experience. i got excellent pictures.

tomorrow i need to finish catching up on housework and try to get somewhat ahead, it’s “people are in town” week and i don’t want to think about laundry or clean floors. if eric and adam spend some hardcore playing time i can move around them, quietly productive, like a ninja housekeeper.

i think i will have most of thursday to myself, day-wise, and i think i’m going to turn off my phone and type until my fingers hurt. there will be no one else i’m supposed to be thinking about for a solid – well, from morning through about 3:40pm. i don’t know when the last time that has happened. the goal will be to keep the tv off and not spend the better part of the day napping and lying on my back like a bloated carcass, stinking and happy to remain at rest. if i can get my fingers in motion, they will be happy to stay in motion for the day… it will be a little christmas gift to myself. 6 or 7 hours of undivided attention to a world that only exists in my head. gluttony.

feeling a little sleepy i think. reptilian, but i always feel a little reptilian.  everyone’s moods are like little raw eggs. nothing can be maintained, it’s maddening.  circles and circles of assesment to see what everyone is feeling, what the moods are, what’s changed, is it the fucking barometric PRESSURE, i can’t control the barometric pressure… just trying to keep everything even and steady and not miss anything, not let anything get ruined. dance monkey, pour the tea, take the temperature, thumb in the wind, strngs on my fingers, bells in everyone’s hands, i need to stop passing out goddamned BELLS.

i’m not feeling grinchy. just, you know, like an uncooked egg, like everyone else. but i just bite down, or try to as much as possible. leak a little venom now and then and clean it up as efficiently as possible, throw some sugar over all of it to kill the bitter parts. leave no trace, you know.

maybe the benadryl has kicked in, i know i’ve stopped making sense.

just want the house clean so i don’t think about it. just want a little of the tension to ease out of everyone – this is a tense time of year, and that will never stop being bizarre. just want thursday to write. just want h- to go fuck herself for not even bothering to send so much as a TEXT since she woke up her first morning in louisiana. if you read this h-, merry christmas. just want an afternoon to myself. just want everyone to be happy for longer than ten minutes at a time. just want the kid to have a happy christmas – to be happy, excited, to enjoy himself. because after age 7, i think, it begins that descent to where i am now – maintenance. maintenance crew. and the maintenace crew just wants this to be over. just wants to SLEEP.

the past according to magazines….

i love Reminisce magazine. i never throw them away, i just store them and dog-ear pages with the intention of cutting out the best pictures – no idea what to do with them. some are perfect to be taping into my map/brainstorm notebook, some i could send to jane in a letter, some i could pin to the fridge with alphabet magnets. i love the old cars and family photos, the dolls, service photos, kodachrome color slides. the misplaced letters that led to marriages, the ice skates paid off on christmas eve, anonymously. i love the hearing aid ads, recipes, the section where people do nothing but inquire about the verses to a nursery rhyme or ask about cross-stitch patterns.

i don’t know what i’m rambling about. it’s closing on 2am and i’m watching Investigation Discovery and looking at Reminisce magazine at the same time. it defies logic. look at that little fire truck! what? her throat was slit?

there are a million dishes, and i can’t do a puzzle till i go through the mail and clear off the table. my sis feels far away, i can feel her sinking and re-absorbing into her family, i can feel myself and my son fade from the picture, like that photo marty carried around in Back to the Future…

eric is incredible. he hasn’t really commented on my lack of movement. he just offers love and room for me to stumble around.

christmas is closing in, and this gorgeous tree and gorgeously lit green skull are begging me to PLEASE stop being a big selfish baby and start wrapping some presents or learning to navigate word documents on the mac or clip out the pictures or go to bed – SOMETHING.

soon. one more day. i’ll have wednesday, and thursday i’ll shake this weight off my ankles and clean the house. but i need one more day….. 

Christmas Trees, Party, Puppies (photos)

puppies and christmas trees and other wholesome shit. and starfish.

christmas tree up. puppies born, all 10 of them. well, originally 11……

 i have numerous pictures of these things, which i will post at a later time, most  likely tonight or tomorrow.

i just want to sleep. amphibian in me. my bloodstream is filling with glucose, and soon i will freeze in suspended animation until… until…? huh. christmas eve? spring? maybe just tomorrow.

adam thinks china and vagina are the same word, so that’s making for some interesting conversation.

my greatest wish is for 48 hours alone, to sulk, read, sleep on and off, write, watch House of 1,000 Corpses in 10 minute spurts alternating with Memento and Titus, and the entire time i would have perfect assurance through telepathy that my husband and son were happy and healthy and having a fabulous time in Disneyland or something.

okay so that’s not my GREATEST wish, but it would be nice. it’s 2nd on the list. one girl knows what first on the list would be, but it’s a selfish and impossible wish.

dreamed the two of us went to the beach again, and there was snow everywhere – snow even on the beach, but the water that washed up was warm, melting the snow on the sand as it touched it. the air was freezing and the key was to undress and get into the warm seawater as quickly as possible. starfish were washing up in the surf and we were tossing them back in fast as we could so they wouldn’t freeze. there were frozen starfush, dusted in snow, scattered on the beach. the worst was when you stepped on one and felt it break and mash into the sand under your foot. so we stood, wrapped in towels after the swim, our breath visible, chucking starfish back into the water as fast and far as we could. it felt like a noble and pointless endeavor. like we were doing our best at accomplishing absolutely nothing, but unable to give up hope. we swam to warm up, then wrapped up and walked the beach for starfish, over and over. we were still throwing starfish in the blowing snow, in our bathing suits with blue feet, when i woke.

(photo from Smithsonian blog)

i miss you already, you bitch

Christmas Parade

saturday, december 4th

two black notebooks

back to school time at walmart i bought 2 blank cheapo notebooks, black, for 15 cents apiece while wailing “no wonder there are no trees!! paper is so CHEAP!!” and a package of good black pens, with no particular motive in mind, only knowing that clean notebooks and blank paper are amazing things to have and touch, and even better once they’ve been bled all over with nice slippery rollerball ink.

over the last few days, adam and i have been working together.

 in the front of MY black notebook i’ve sketched character thumbnails, chapter overviews, questions to myself, and at the back i’ve begun feedback notes. eventually this will meet in the middle in a huge and frustrating crash, and i will be forced to spend possibly a quarter for another notebook.

in the front of ADAM’S black notebook are pretend letters. he sits very carefully at his desk with a tupperware tray containing an assortment of his selected favorite markers, crayons and ink pens, and works. some of it is lettering, he tells me what it says, then he turns the page and draws powerpuff girls, and lakes, and dinosaurs, and mommy and daddy and heather. his pages are beautiful and colorful, while mine are SO monochrome.

but we do so enjoy working together.

it’s nice to be writing again. it’s nice to be working with beth again. it’s nice to attempt organization. it’s nice to read and discuss. simple thing, to talk about the thing you love, but i don’t know how often any of us do it. talk about it, or actually do the thing itself. i am shedding my sheepishness like an ill-fitting, itchy snakeskin – i’m tired of shrugging or mumbling about photography when people ask what i DO.  i fucking WRITE, damnnit. i’m memorizing everything you say and the way your hair is two different shades and looking at you in the eyes, because someday i will remember the names of those two colors and they could be useful. i will think long and hard about why you broke eye contact if you did, and that might also be useful.

i’ve been doing this since before they began to teach cursive writing in grade school, and though i never stuck with the cursive, i stuck with this – secretly,shamefully, furtively, squirreling away my notebooks and drafts and scraps of paper and printed pages as though it were my kit. i hid my notebooks as well as i hid bowls, papers, cellophanes, screens….

i will force eric into a kitchen chair, strap him to it with that roll of pink duct tape, and make him scroll with his nose until he’s caught up. the walls are coming down on our false language barrier, little by little our actual vocabularies are creeping in as opposed to our everyday everyone else vocabularies.

i have one week to make my sister read all this. maybe she will stumble across this and know that i plan to assault her with thousands of words….

Dollstar

the last one is of mine today, you can see that it’s red – i don’t have a picture of heather’s since she got the stencilling off it.

the night was one of those that actually felt significant – weird. most important things can only be felt in a nostalgic sense, but we felt the happy gravity of one of the few remaining “sister outings” while life is still somehwhat familiar. maybe a narrative will follow at some point later. maybe the pictures and keeping the memories to myself and heather is the way to go.