A Little Over Said and Under Sung

I am thankful for my life, and the parents who raised me.
I am thankful for family, with all its twining and perplexing roots and branches.
I am thankful for my freedom, and the many who have defended it.
I am thankful for the blessing of education, and the choices it has given me.
I am thankful for love, and the growth it brings even in times of pain.
I am thankful for my friends, in good times and in bad.
I am thankful for my children, who make everything possible and despair irrelevent.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Does it make me a negative person that i am counting down instead of up? Or just very goal oriented?

At this point, the number of words left to write for NaNoWriMo are fewer than the words already written. Not much (24,692 to be precise), but from this point I can, if I wish, count down instead of up.

Having achieved that much...I'm going to bed.

For the first year we had fish, I took care of them perfectly. I changed their water, vaccuumed the gravel, washed the plants every week. Lately, I have been much less good. I have gone two weeks, perhaps a little longer at times, between water changes. The numbers of baby guppies and platies stayed stable (at too many), and the fish remained healthy. Friday, I discovered the other consequence of my neglect.

I hadn't counted our Cory Cats in a while, so while cleaning the fishtank I looked for them. One, two, three, four--all still fine--and then, near them, a little one a third of their size.

We have successfully bred Corydoras in a community tank. More remarkable, given that they're egg layers....

I was doing great for NaNoWriMo. Going into day 9, I was three days ahead of schedule. Then, on Day 9, came Migraine, which, on day 10, morphed into body aches and chills, and on day 11 progressed to actual, stay-home-from-work illness. I have written just over a 1000 words over those three days.

Tonight, after two naps totalling about seven hours, I am coherent, afebrile, and at about 80% of "normal". After belatedly resuming some responsibility for family and home, I have gotten the kids to bed, set crock pots heating for Veggie Bean Stew (vegan for Prophecy, meat added for home version per husband's pleas), washed the bowls and spoons for Prophecy,changed the water in the fish tanks, obsessed over the weather forecast, and found nearly everything I need for tomorrow nights LARP. Now I need to memorize 12 incantations, and go to bed. I don't think more writing is in the cards for the next two days.

I wonder how badly green face paint will run in the rain....

Last night, as I tried desperately to settle down and write my 1,667 words for the day, Leah got up to tell me something. Two minutes after I returned to computer, Joy got up and had to go to the bathroom. Five minutes later, Joy began shrieking at the top of her lungs because she believed she hadn't had a last hug and kiss. Two minutes after that was settled, Mother In Law came out and needed help with her meds.

Charles is away for the weekend.

I am very, very proud of myself that I still managed to sit down and write...eventually. My creative Lent continues; this is day 7 with no leisure reading (though, technically, one of Geoff's posts turned out to be fiction, so that's a slight bobble.) In addition to freeing up time, it also makes me desperate for text...even if I'm writing it myself.

I'm waiting for the wellspring to dry up, or insanity to set in, but so far, so good. Very rough, but that's the whole point of NaNoWriMo.

Took Charle's Mom into the hospital today for her new pacemaker; she got the 6:30 arrival time, first patient of the day, which means I had to get up at 4:45 AM to give her the second prescribed antibacterial shower. Stayed with her except during the 3 hours of the procedure, during which time I got tons of writing done in the Cardiac waiting room. She sent me home about noon, saying I needed a nap. (She was definitely right.) She comes home tomorrow, and all went well.

Of to pick up Leah from Girl Scouts, then I'll try for 560 more words tonight. :)

Tomorrow is Halloween, and Sunday starts NaNoWriMo. I may be back online before December, but no promises. Love you guys! Have a great month!

There's a really annoying trend in medicine called "Evidence Based". Annoying, because it makes us look at results rather than common sense. Annoying, because it proves that common sense is sometimes wrong.

Take prostate cancer screening. It turns out that men screened for prostate cancer have no decrease in mortality, but a big increase in incidence of impotence or incontinence from more aggressive treatment. It doesn't make sense--shouldn't finding cancer earlier save lives?--but it's true.

I've been thinking lately about this as it applies to the whole HealthCare reform debate. Will HealthCare reform save lives? Common sense says yes; just like with prostate screening, I can say that some people will live because of it who would have died. What I don't know is if, again like prostate screening, some people will die who would have lived. Will infant mortality go down? Hooray! Will standard of care in some disease states slip, as it has in Canada? Boo! But how will it all work out in the long run? We won't know until after it happens.

Certainly, people are now dying who could be saved by available treatments. Some of them have insurance, which just refuses to cover the measure that could save them.

Looking at the mess that Insurance Companies have made of everything, I am, with trepidation, reversing my stand on the Public Option. Let's face it...the government can't do worse than Cigna.

This next week is going to be hectic, as I prepare to immerse myself in writing. I'm pretty much committed to no housework, grocery shooping, laundry, and pleasure reading, so there's a lot to get settled. Need to set up orders by Peapod, clear counters and dining room table, put away the girls' summer clothing (which means also, Pack for Florida in December), and start warning people that I'm not going to be on-line much for the month of November.

Consider yourselves notified!

I've never really understood the concept of writer's block--I ALWAYS have something to say!--but it will be interesting to see if I run into it with the need to write so much on a single subject. My research has gone well, and talking at length to a friend from Kentucky has given me a lot of info as well as an additional chapter idea. I've got a basic outline, ten pages of notes, and a lot of enthusiasm for the project.

Read the book _Fairest_, by the author of _Ella Enchanted_. Incredible book, highly recommended, with a great heroine and no easy outs. If her next book is out, it will go on my Christmas List. I may try to sneak in a last book or six before November 1st; I've never gone 3 days without pleasure reading, so we'll see how this goes. Kind of an artistic Lent!

A while ago I made a whiny post about all the things I had had to do that day, and how overwhelmed I was. Pam commented to the effect "Way to bless your family today!"

What a great reframing; I hadn't been running my sanity into the ground in futile drudgery, I had been actively blessing my family with my effort and time.

Today, I had another blessing day, but I'm not nearly as stressed. I did a variety of time-consuming and tedious tasks, but they were all for people I love. (Even my mother-in-law.)

So, Pam, if you read this--you were one of the people blessing me today, even if it was in reflection of your earlier wisdom. Thank you.

What's silvery, pretty, weighs about 5 pounds, and costs about as much as a grocery run for a family of 5?

I gave in to...vanity? Avarice? A mid-life crisis?...and bought a maille vest online. It's from RingMesh (Azon), and it's comfy, light, and fits nicely even over my hips. Less authentic looking than traditional chain mail, much lighter, more comfortable, and just as pretty. And it cost a week's worth of groceries instead of a month's, which is also nice.

Yes, some women buy jewelry. Some buy shoes. I buy stuff for LARPs.

It is fashionable, among my friends and acquaintances, to disdain Stephanie Meyer. After all, her _Twilight_ series appeals to the hoi poloi, the common masses, that "less than us" segment of the population. We are above that, above them.

An interesting prejudice, particularly given the nature of her stand-alone novel, _The Host_.

The basic idea has been done before, by Heinlein and myriad imitators, and by Hollywood as well. Aliens take humanity over from within, wearing us like clothing. If that concept were all that this novel had going for it, it would be a pale and paltry thing. This concept, however, is only the premise, the background, for a novel about identity, about love, and choices, about memory, about the essense of humanity and conscience. She blurs the line between hero and villain, between protagonist and monster, and mixes cruelty and kindness, beauty and pain into an alchemical brew that is more than captivating.

It is not flawless; the heroine, being who she is, is perhaps too good a soul for us to fully identify with. The human characters are perhaps too realistically human, and flawed, for comfort. Still, picking up the book, now read twice, at any point, I am easily captured for an hour at a time, re-reading, re-empathizing.

I want to write like this.

Joy has pneumonia.
She's fine, recovering well with rest, antibiotics, and nebulizer twice a day, but it's still throwing me a little. Partially because she in many ways looks so frail--skin impossibly pale, eyes big, too slender for age as well as height. Partly, because this physical appearance is so at odds with her personality, which is forceful and vibrant and strong. Mostly, of course, because she's mine.

I have a working title for my NaNoWriMo novel-- Last Road Home--which replaces a few prior ones that didn't really work for me. "Edge of Green" probably the best of them, but the under-meanings don't support the story as well. Research is going well; I'm learning tons about Kentucky, the Ohio river, the 1940's.... Still need to research mountain lions, catholic schools, airplanes, radios.

Last night it rained torrentially, and I lay awake incorporating the rain into a scene...a clear case of "How could things be worse?". It's a little frustrating, waiting to write, but nice to be getting alot of the "scut work" over with.

Charles' Mom has a Cardiologist appt today, so we'll likely talk more about replacing her pacemaker. I'm going up to VT with the girls in 2 weeks (assuming everyone's healthy), then almost immediately going into Boston for the AAFP conference. Even though I'll be in classes 10+ hours a day, it really does count as vacation. Have to look into train schedules to avoid the high cost of parking.

November has the Oz LARP, which is going to steal serious amounts of time from NaNoWriMo. I'd better try to be ahead of the game by then! Then December is real VACATION. I feel like Tarzan, swinging from vine to vine, vacation to vacation....

A question out to all of you who know more about this stuff than I do:

Has anyone ever heard of a "junior" National Novel Writing Month? Leah is interested, and her language arts teacher supportive. I was thinking 5,000 words for middleschool, maybe 15,000 for high school? Is this a new concept, or is there actually information available?

OK, the connotations of that poem are not really what I'm going for here. Let's say "Home from FenCon VI!" instead.

I ran away from home for THREE nights. That's the longest I've been away from my kids since either was born. I missed them, and missed Charles, but I desperately needed this break.

One uncomfortable truth that I realized that during this trip is that I am a FanGirl. Not in the dreadful, "Won't you read my novel set in your Universe with your characters, Ms Famous Author?" way, but becoming awkward and struggling not to grovel in the presence of brilliance. This is particularly uncomfortable because, in general, I go through life with the sublime assurance that I match or outrank everyone I meet. I can talk easily with senators, chat comfortably with rich people, make conversation with world-famous lecturers. The twin qualifications of doctor and mother make me feel prepared to hold my own in any situation.

Almost any situation.

At a Convention, facing the author of some of my favorite books, I become a supplicant. My sense of propriety kicks in, notifying me that I have no claim on this person's time or attention. The cluster of clueless people who all expect the author to remember them from the time they met seven years ago all fill me with a horror of appearing to be like them. It makes any meaningful conversation almost impossible.

Despite this small revelation, the Con was a hoot. StarRise had our first annual leadership meeting in the hotel's hot tub; we passed 4 resolutions in happy comfort before kids invaded our spot. I got to see an old friend who is now a published author (and still looks 25), met Anna for the first time, saw Chantal, roomed with my college roommate and her husband, attended panels, bought 12 CDs, unnumbered books, and 9 pieces of art. And I got INSPIRED. I'm going to do NaNoWriMo this year.

The six hour flight was just long enough for me to devour _The Splendor Falls_ by Rosemary Clement-Moore. I actually missed the landing in Dallas, looking up somewhat dazed at touch down, then turning back to the book, finishing it just as the plane rolled to a stop at our gate. It was, thanks to that book, one of the shortest flights I have taken! Highly recommended.

I'm not actually sure what I accomplished today. Middle-schooler dressed, fed, back-pack ready and on the bus at 6:50, pre-schooler fed, dressed, entertained and delivered to school at 8:45, first load of laundry in at nine, MIL showered and her bed changed at 10, second load of laundry in before preschooler needed to be picked up at 11:20. Dishwasher emptied, sink emptied into dishwasher. Dentist appointment at 1pm, middleschooler's orthadontist appt at 2pm, home for her to do her homework and me to compile cell phone numbers, flight numbers, and reservation numbers for weekend trip. (58 hours and counting.) 3rd load of laundry in. Gather kids, go to chiropractor. Race home, humor MIL and go out to dinner. Get home, kids in jammies, do MIL's meds for the week. Fold MIL's clothes from second load of laundry and put them away for her. All beds now made with clean sheets except mine, which sits forlornly with the clean sheets piled on one corner. My clothes for the weekend trip into dryer, realized I forgot shorts. For Texas. Inexplicable desire to scream. Platy had 12 babies in breeder; realized I should not have put a fish in the breeder days before I go away. Plans for babies uncertain. Water change in tank postponed. Kids to bed, preschooler decides to cry 5 minutes later because she had wanted a fourth set of hugs and kisses. Denied, despite feeling of being an unnatural mother. Log onto LJ and vent. Middleschooler gets up to ask me to charge her I-Sing on my computer. Urge to scream increasing exponentially.

All in all, a pretty typical day off....

There are moments when I feel like I must have done something right as a parent. Like when Leah, years ago, asked me if boys could be doctors, too.

Yesterday, Leah's science teacher asked her class to draw a picture of a scientist.
24 of the 25 drew a picture of a man.

Leah drew a picture of a tall, blond, pretty woman in a green lab coat.

In two weeks, I am running away from home. OK, 2 weeks and 9 hours, to be precise. I am going to be gone for 3 nights, hanging out with two friends I haven't seen in about 15 years, some friends I only know from on-line, and--a last minute addition--my college roommate and her husband. I have been promised Tex Mex and Lois McMaster Bujold. With any luck, the hotel has either a hot tub or a sauna. (Of course, it's in Dallas, so for the sauna I could probably just stand outside for a bit.)

Work is going great, the latest issue of Out of the Blue (the zine for StarRise Weyr) came out on time and looking pretty, and re-reading my own stories didn't make me wince. Leah adores middle school. Joy starts town preschool next week. Life is wonderful.

I enjoy my kids immensely. I would happily trade the worst day as a parent for the best day before I became a parent. But...oh, the thought of that long weekend off makes me feel like I could fly.

Leah got on the bus at 6:50 this AM, returned before 3 PM bubbly and happy. She loves middle school, she was one of very few who knew how to work a combination lock for the lockers, and her teacher gave them a first day party. And she loves chorus, and having science twice in one day. She hugged me like she still thought I was perfect, and told me all about her day. And all I can think is that my little girl is growing up....