Lion and Magic Boy

At least, not a thought that’s printable.

But! (nice segue there) At least I heard back about the small claims court thing from last week. So glad I got dressed up for THAT one!

(Why yes, that was intentionally ambiguous, why do you ask?)

Oh! The NaNoWriMo thing. And the writing-ahead-for-the-two-new-jobs thing. And the Posting Queen at Strollerderby thing. All on hiatus! Apparently. Because, when something’s important to me, then I get all FUCK YOU IMPORTANT THING, I’LL SHOW YOU A THING OR TWO! And then I watch an entire season, okay half a season, of 30 Rock in one night. With popcorn. AND butter. I tell you, I know a thing or two about self-destructive behavior, I do!

Yeah. And then I went out and bought some Tic-Tacs.

So today? I managed to Not Write pretty much all day. Yay me!

Oh, and there’s no internet connection here.  I hate that.  I even unplugged stuff and then plugged it back in.  Still nada.  So thanks, Jennie, who is apparently a neighbor or something, for your wireless connection.

So I guess it’s time I show you my podcast.   It’s really quite awesome.

We’ve been waiting all day, the children and I. It’s often like this. I’ve mentioned before the erratic shared custody schedule, and there’s not much I can do about that. The court views The Ex’s job in all its erratically-scheduled glory as much more important tha anything I could hope to do, and as an extension more important than the children’s well-being.

Bitter I am not.

But still, there’s the waiting. All day, indeed all weekend, we have known that they would be going wth The Ex tonight at 6:15 (so he doesn’t have to give them dinner, even though when they are with him he doesn’t serve dinner until about 9 pm from what I am told), so all day there is that foreboding, that foreknowledge, that they’d be packing up some stuff and heading over there to tonight for a couple of days. Now, no one here views it as a bad thing, simply a thing that will take place, but it does put this weird spin on the day. Joint custody is hard on kids. I have read studies and whatnot that supports this, but short of every set of parents remaining married despite their difficulties and pain, I haven’t a solution. And that isn’t any kind of solution, and itself presents its own set of problems. But at the same time, kids should have a relationship with both parents. In an ideal world, this would be an amicable thing with always an eye toward the best interests of the children.

[sigh]

30 more minutes.

Serena has abandoned the sore throat that has kept her sidelined all day on the couch, and Nathaniel has abandoned his depressed surliness that kept him sidelined all day with pre-teen angst, and they are playing together in these last few minutes, the first time all day. Both have abandoned the Yoda-speak that has dominated their conversation throughout the past week. And Eric sits, beside me, abandoned as usual by his brother and sister, sidelined as a result, but using his time to finish his last few bites of dinner.

2500 words to NaNo tonight to keep on schedule. Bah. I just want to watch a movie over a glass of red wine and have a hot bath. However, I pulled 50,000 words out of my ass last year and I can do it again.

Not sure that came out right.

Posts. The good posts. There will likely be some this month. But I make no guarantees.

However, if you’ve forgotten, I am awesome.

Wait, let me repeat that with enthusiasm. I am awesome! I am!

(see what a little punctuation does?)

But that brings a little something up. The rationing of the good stuff. I have a history of that. In childhood I was totally okay with waiting for Christmas. I knew where the presents were stashed (hi Mom, you think I never looked in your closet?), but the anticipation was too delicious to forego by peeking. Besides, I did that one year and felt awful about it. And the present sucked.

Except, sadly, often the anticipation was greater than the actual gifts themselves (but not YOURS, Mom!). Which means now, hello, you’re going to be all disappointed when you actually come across a “good” post. Shit. How will you know it’s a “good” one? Should I tag them somehow? A gold star? Shit. This is getting complicated.

I think I need to consult the blogging hotline.

Shit.

So I convinced Nathaniel to sign up for NaNoWriMo too. The Young Adult version, since he’s still under 12 (though almost as tall as me dammit). He started writing yesterday and has a respectable 600 words logged in already (we chose a do-able total figure in line with his likely output, which you’re allowed to do if you claim to be under 12, which I may have to do if I don’t get to writing soon). I don’t think I’m allowed to read his novel, though. So I’d better keep pretending I haven’t.

When I was growing up, there was a phrase in our house: “baking cookies.”

Apparently, whenever there was something my mom didn’t want to do, she made cookies instead. Usually these were rock-hard chocolate-chip, but sometimes fork-tined peanut butter. Whatever. I didn’t care. It only happened a few times each year, but for whatever the reason, I was blissfully unaware yet eternally grateful.

I love how phrases arise in families that mean something other than originally intended. I am trying to think of how this applies to my own family but I’m just drawing blanks.

Procrastination, though, that’s something I can get behind.

My whole mind is a blank today. I’ve been unable to post at Strollerderby all day; everything I start writing just sounds trite. I’m totally into my NaNoWriMo project, though, and read an installment to everyone over dinner today.

Serena: You sound just like a real author!

Me: I am a real author.

Serena, astounded: Really? But you haven’t written anything.

Ooh. The bitter truth of a seven-year-old.

No worries.

But I’m dealing with the-glass-is-half-empty-syndrome today. Which leads me to believe I have been deceiving myself all this time. And have bitten off more than I can handle. And this is only Day #2.

A long month.

I’ve been thinking about change lately. Well hello, embrace me, Change! Why yes, I have, thank you. Actually, I have been enjoying a certain amount of staticness lately, and I’ve been really proud of how I have maintained all sorts of balance under various circumstances.

Which makes me think it’s all bullshit, and the whole house of cards is going to come tumbling down on me pretty soon. I can feel it, actually. I can feel an undercurrent of Things and Issues and Patterns waiting to bubble up to the surface again. I can only push them back under so long, you know? Because I really embrace change, I truly do, and I embrace self-awareness and growth and all that good stuff. So I am getting ready for the onslaught that surely will come, and why hello, you get to go on that journey with me! How nice! Because I am blogging daily regardless.

Word count NaNoWriMo: 1891. Was shooting for 2000, but this is decent. Only 29 more days of this to go.

And, oh! How about the monthly channeled message for November? You wanted to see that, right? I think I’ll just paste it in right here. And the whole year’s other messages are here; go see what a wonderful year you have been having!

Monthly Message November 2007

This indeed is a season of change for many. What began manifesting through natural events and through a sensation of transformation has grown into a much deeper experience for some. Old patterns are being unearthed and examined, laying the fields bare for new thoughts, responses and reactions to eventually emerge, leaving behind what has been discarded to be used as energetic compost to assist others in similar patterns of experience. Oh, do you feel you are the only one in the universe having this experience? Indeed you are not, and indeed there are many who share your experience, yes even THAT ONE, and it is through your undeniable connection that even allows you to acknowledge the truths of your own dark experiences, the ones you are just now coming to be able to shed light upon. It is this shared experience, this universal and human commonality, that forever links you, forever, and inextricably links you, to everyone and everything else. It can be no other way, do you see?

Think of yourself now, then, as but an atom in a field just recently cleared for harvest. One atom amid thousands, millions, trillions of others, all awaiting the sunlight, the rain, and time to bring what will eventually be much growth and then another harvest. It is an unending cycle, this cycle of clearing, waiting, growth, and harvest. It occurs over and over and over again, and no part of this cycle can occur alone, no part is any less than any other part, and each part relies upon each of the others. Do you see how it is all linked? And you are but one atom in this field of incredible transformation, one atom forever a part of every other atom, forever a part of the entire growth and transformation and eventual death cycle, one atom without which the entire system would be incomplete.

It is this unending hopefulness that we wish to bring you today, this assurance that you ARE a necessary part of a whole, that you ARE indeed a wholeness yourself, that you ARE acting out of choice in every moment. For all of these are true. There is no choice you could make at any time that would lead to disaster not chosen, no choice you could make that would lead to difficulties you are unable to move through. For you we wish to impart the thought that everything is simply a matter of perception; indeed, all change, all transformation, is only a difference in perception. And if you come to varying places in your ability to perceive, it will indeed feel as if change has taken place within your life, will it not?

In the next month, then, you will continue to perceive differences in your perception. How could you not? The act of simply breathing brings a change in your perceptions. Breathe in, breathe out. Life is no more difficult than that. In and out. Round and round. Change will occur around you even if you do nothing but breathe and stand still. For time will pass, even though time is simply a way of perceiving in itself, and your perceptions will change. And you will continue to feel transformation, sometimes wrenchingly, sometimes gently, but always present. By moving into this possibility, by accepting your every breath as an agent of change, you create additional space for the transformation yet to come.

Breathe in, then, and create your own space. Breathe out and prepare your fields. Embrace yourself, for you ARE the change you see in the world.

It just hit me today that I’ve publicly committed myself to posting here on a daily basis beginning in (whipping out the fingers for a quick calculation) three days. Three. Days. Not to mention the whole novel-writing thing, the paltry little 50,000 words I’m going to whip out in a month’s time. Ack. I signed up again today, though, for NaNoWriMo.

Plus, um, hello, I have a start date of next week for one of my new gigs (they made me a banner! just for meeee!), so there will be that. On top. Of everything else.

Throat feels kind of tight just now, what is that? Constricting. (WHO LET THAT FUCKING BIG SNAKE IN HERE?)

Maybe that’s what eating my words feels like, eh?

Plus, you know, redoing my website. That’s definitely on the list. And attending parent-teacher conference things. Two of them. At least. And hello Gmail, why are you sending me little bits about how wonderful it is to visit Bermuda this time of year? What have I done to you to deserve such taunting, Gmail?

[I have actually been to Bermuda, but if I ever go again it will be a completely different experience, trust me.]

I have, let’s see, one, two, three blog post ideas in the queue, still as of yet unwritten. Just ideas. And I can always plumb the depths of my cringeworthy life for a few things. And there’s always haiku.

So yeah, you’ll be seeing a bit of me in November.

Oh yes, before I forget, a new post up at Loving Awareness! (Even if you go just to look at the picture)

[Pardon me while I wipe away a wee tear caused by the endless amusement I cause myself with my clever plays on words.]

Ahem.

The other day Matthew took me to a bookstore in Vancouver. Not just any bookstore, and certainly not a big-box Barnes & Noble-type bookstore. This one had spiritual-type books, and only spiritual-type books, but of every description. It was wonderful, and I was certain I would find in it The Book, something that would Change My Life. Not that I was looking for a change, really, but more that it was the sort of bookstore that had that sort of book.

So imagine my surprise to pick up a book on writing. Writing Down the Bones. Yeah, I had heard of it. I didn’t know why I picked it up. I looked at the back. “Writing class…” Hmm. I am a writer already, what do I need this beginner-stuff for?

I started to put the book back on the shelf.

What are you afraid of?

I looked around. There was no one there.

Yes, you. What are you afraid of? What, you can’t learn anything anymore? Do you really think that?

Uh, no.

I kept the book in my hand, looked at it a little more. Maybe there was something in it for me after all. I decided to keep it.

I read some on the airplane coming home. A mix of Zen Buddhaism and writing wisdom. Rather a good fit. I’m sure there is something in it for me, even if nothing else than the lesson that there is always something I can learn.

So it looks like November is a writing month for me.

Several weeks ago I weighed my options. Last year at this time I entered (and won!) National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) in order to change my life. I did and it did. I don’t regret it a bit, although it was a bit daunting and exhausted my creative capabilites at the time.

Apparently I like working under pressure.

Last year I also entered (and won!) NaBloPoMo, which by comparison seemed minor, but truly, there is an art to blogging daily. And I weighed those options and decided that in addition to everything else I am doing, posting to Lion and Magic Boy every day would be more than enough.

But then there’s the whole working under pressure thing. I like that.

So when it became clear that my 2.5 year old project wasn’t writing itself in my wee cabin in the way northwest last week and the week before, I thought I may as well ride that current of November creativity and just finish the damn thing under NaNoWriMo. So yeah, bending the rules a bit, but every word I write will be a new one, so close enough, and if I come out in a month with my project completed I will be one happy girl.

So, to recap:

1. 50,000 words (only 1667 a day!) in a new-old project under NaNoWriMo.

2. A post a day. That’s all I have to do. NaBloPoMo.

3. Two! New! Jobs! Soon to be announced.

4. The already close to 50,000 words a month I write as it is in all my various locations.

5. I work extremely well under pressure.

Yay. [sigh] Now to actually FINISH the damn thing. Apparently either I’m horribly long-winded, or 50,000 words only goes so far.

Today I’m NaNo-ing like crazy, making up for days of procrastination, yet I couldn’t resist Evany’s Sleep Test. Here are my results:

Find your own pose!

I wonder which half I am?

Waked by his laughter
The smell of diaper contents
My morning begins

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Can’t eat the French toast
She’s too full from the cider
But brings her clean plate

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Basket’s always full
Machines spin and rock all day
Laundry is my life

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There’s no school today
Parent-teacher conference
So why are we here?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We put money in
Most days it’s the opposite
I still hate the bank

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A short appointment
dentists aren’t scary really
next time they’ll do work

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Brief reprieve is here:
we cannot get her x-ray.
No dentist today

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Some days it’s easy:
pasta, rice, or potatoes?
Nightly cooking plight

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

What’s joint custody?
Shuttle back and forth each time;
hardest on the kids

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

How’s your word count now?
Pressure’s on, the month soon ends.
NaNoWriMo sucks