Doing what I think of as "performance pieces" in my main on-line journal, yes. But I haven't been doing much straight journaling in the last week or so. Actually, this is the only place where I regularly do regular journaling. I don't even keep an off-line journal all that often. I have hit my "junk" journal -- the place I go when I just want to run off at the keyboard -- once or twice, but no straight journaling.

I feel as though everything I write is either too personal, or too ridiculous. The inner editor seems to have woken up in a bad mood.

I had what counts as kind of a bad round with B. We never fight anymore, because we've learned that we can't fight constructively. We try to bring up issues quite a lot more calmly. Mostly it's good, but sometimes stuff gets swept under the rug.

I didn't quite believe that he was seriously planning to start taking martial arts lessons with the kids. Expensive. I caught on about a week before he actually signed up, and rather timidly brought up the issue of money. "I really need to do this," he said. Needs the exercise, needs the relief, needs something to do which will give him an outlet from the crap at the office.

I don't think I have ever had to go up against him on something he really, really wants. There isn't much that he really wants. Plenty of stuff he'd like, but very little that he can't live without.

I depend on him a little too much, emotionally. I have to admit that I was scared to take him on on this one. So I didn't pursue it until after he'd already signed up. I realized that I wasn't going to be able to live with this one unless I spoke my piece. So I did.

I am very proud of the fact that I can express extreme disagreement with him, including anger and frustration, without screaming. And I mean screaming, not yelling. So I expressed. And he was very quiet.

He was very quiet for several hours while we ran an errand, came home, put stuff away, and shipped the kids off to bed. Finally he came and sat down with me in the living room and put his head on my shoulder.

It took me awhile to figure out what to say (and even longer to figure out if I should say anything in the first place.) Finally, I said, "We're not easy with each other right now, and I don't know what to do about it." Then I shut up.

He finally started to talk about how he's been feeling. I knew he was under stress at work, and he hasn't slept well in years, but I didn't know it was as bad as it is. He's kind of private, and except for the occasional expression of frustration or anger with the kids, he doesn't talk about how he's feeling. Well, he makes it clear, very clear, that he loves all of us and that we make him happy, but unhappy emotions don't get much play.

I finally reached a point where I felt as though we understood each other well enough that I was comfortable with him making the call on the spending -- he knows better than I do what he can live with -- even though I was pretty sure that it wasn't going to go the way I wanted it to. I told him so. And we were easy with each other again.

That makes it sound easier than it actually was. We can be too careful around each other, him because he knows I can be very fragile, me because due to my mental illness, he has taken a lot of crap and still takes on more than his share of the responsibilities. I try not to add to that. It can be hard to get past all of that to where we can communicate.

At least we got there.

Once upon a time, during my young and childless days, I took a trip to Mexico. While I was there, I piled into a camioneta with an assorted array of other internationals and we drove along towards the coast, passing a town named Liberacion in which we could only see cows chewing the cud and came to the conclusion that only the cows are liberated.

then we reached the beach.

Boca de Ciel or Mouth of Heaven. You had to park the truck and take a boat across a calm body of water (bay? lagoon? Lake?) to get there. Once there, we asked the family of the nearest palapa how much it would cost to sleep under their thatched roof.

"nothing" was the reply. You can sleep here for free. All however-many-of-you-there are. The unspoken understanding was that, while we were allowed to sling our hammocks up under their roof, we were expected to eat all our meals and drink all our beers from their kitchen.

And we did.

The kids quickly adopted me. I'm not sure if they were all from the couple who ran the restaurant and under whose straw roof we were under, or if some of the pack came from other palapas. They couldn't pronounce my name right and called me "Chicky."

I often couldn't understand their Spanish, partially because the coastal accent, to my ears, sounded as if they were talking with a mouthful of gumballs (had they ever seen gumballs?) and partially because I was still so shaky and unsure of my own Spanish. Often, one of the other people had to translate what they were demanding of me.

We went swimming. Well, everyone else went swimming. I don't swim and so I stayed by the shore and took pictures. I let the kids use my camera too, with the only proviso that their hands be dry. They would cannonball and barrel into the water, come out dripping wet and reach for my camera. When I reminded them that they couldn't touch the camera with wet hands, they would lift their hands up and show me perfectly dry palms.

As dark fell, we climbed into our respective hammocks to read or snooze. The kids sat under my hammock. They asked something of me. I didn't understand.

"They want you to tell them a story!" one of my companions yelled from his hammock, where he was reading John Dos Passos for a college class he had yet to complete.

"I don't have any stories," I said. Which wasn't exactly true. I just didn't have any stories in Spanish and, with so many fluent speakers around me, I was hesitant to stumble through a story.

The kids stayed under my hammock and told each other stories. I let their words drift over my head as I lay back, tired from the heat and the day in the sun. One would finish and another would begin. "no, it's MY turn to tell a story!" another would interrupt. And she would tell her story instead.

Tonight, walking home with dd, we alternate telling parts of a longer story. I retell a fairytale I read in a book, about a prince who turned into a frog and the little boy who rescues him and tricks the evil wizard (who had turned him into a frog) into giving up the magic words so that he can break the spell forever. dd retells the Anansi tale she had read earlier that day at the library.

Sometimes paper is the only thing that will listen to you.

The walls were a classic institutional gray. Why gray? It would seem that purely from a desire to challenge unfortunate beliefs, the psychiatric unit in a hospital wouldn't have gray walls.
I was there because the anxiety and depression had defeated me. I couldn't say I didn't want to die and that was not the answer they were looking for. So they admitted me to the hospital so I would be "safe" and they could help me feel better.
One year ago. July. Summer in NYC and I am being escorted to my room on the 6th floor of a well known hospital to try to figure out this depression of mine.
I can't seem to stop crying. Both from the depression itself and the fact that it has led me here. I feel as though I am at the bottom of a pit. I am wearing a hospital gown and being led to my hospital room but I am not sick in the traditional sense. I am not here for a surgery or a series of medical tests. I am here to be tried on a few medications to discover if any can help alleviate the despair that has come to overwhelm me.
I immediately miss my children and cry harder. I do not want them to visit me in this place so my husband tells them I have gone on a trip for work. I will be back in a few days. And it is true because I am back home two days later on three medications feeling stomed and numb.
It is one year later. I am sad and anxious. I am amazed that a year has passed and yet the despair remains. It is almost August. I am not in the hospital and I do not plan to go back. I am still on three medications. One is different and the dosages of the others have changed. My psychiatrist continues to "tinker" with the medications. I continue to fear.

Regina
"Karma is a boomerang"

It's been ages since I've been around here. Life gets in the way sometimes. These days my life in particular has been a roller coaster of ups and downs and sideways and who knows where but I finally put my foot down and got my internet up and running. Even if it's just for two weeks, I am CONNECTED. And at least that is something. Not having it has-if nothing else, made me feel NOT connected, a has been, a housewife in the suburbs with nothing to aspire to... At least I think it helps me think when I can't make, so I decided it was a necessity.
Enough driveling. I've been teaching teaching teaching lately. I'm doing a sewing camp for 7-12 yr olds at a museum and it is fantastic. I'm really proud of it. The kids are really learning something and are having fun. It's been a great success. And my 4 yr old goes and has learned so much. He can sew now too- by hand and on the machine. It's so great. I'm also teaching art at a very exclusive private school day camp. It sucks. I'm doing a good job, but geez, what money can't buy. Basically just really expensive day care. I did it because my son goes free and I thought it would be a good opportunity for him. It totally isn't. He hates it. Well not totally. I think he's gotten used to it and it has turned out to be an adventure for the both of us in some ways. He's proud his mommy is the art teacher, but I won't do it again. They shuffle the kids from one activity to another to another with no breathing room. Hey, let's just give kids ADD! Completely the opposite from my sewing camp- relaxed time for kids to discover their own creativity- what a concept! I'm ranting. Anyway, gals, I'm still around and still trying to be a mama and make art. Some days I'm good at both.

I surprised a friend of P's the other day when I stated that, "I forgot," is not an acceptable excuse for not doing a chore. Man, my poor kids don't get away with anything compared to some of what I did to my mother. Or, more accurately, refused to do *for* my mother. Housework has never been my metier, and while I was sometimes an obedient, cooperative child about it, there were plenty of times when my mother, who had troubles of her own, didn't even bother to ask, because it wasn't worth the bother of twisting my arm and listening to the screaming to get me to do it. Hence the fact that I never scrubbed a bathroom until B and I moved into our first apartment.

Mom's not sure she approves of the degree to which the kids have to help out around here, but the fact of the matter is, housework is complex, and I don't cope well with complex things. My brain shorts out. B does more than his share, but he can't do everything, and if it depended on me to get the rest of the housework done, we'd be up to our hairlines in laundry, dishes, and just plain dirt.

Right now, I'm having a burst of major copingness, as a result of which dinner has hit the table every night for two weeks. This is a major event. I do not jest -- if B isn't up to cooking, and often he isn't, dinner is generally fend-for-yourself around here. I like it, and I'm keeping up with it, with plenty of help in the planning and prep departments from B (I wave the baton and he pumps the organ). I still feel precarious about it, though, as though this is a wave that will have to break sooner or later. Maybe it is, but for right now, I'm hanging ten.

I had to sit down and think to know what I did today. Things between about one and five are a little fuzzy; I should know better than to stay up past eleven, and last night I didn't hit the sheets until one. B let me sleep (which he rarely does, 'cause he's smart) and I didn't emerge until eleven. Even after that, I was incredibly fuzzy.

I know that until about one I was sitting in the living room chatting with B while he painted (a lovely creamy light blue-green, such an improvement over the old, grubby off-white,) and after five we had the kids at the beach, but the space in between is a blur.

I did get things done, though. I dropped P off for his D&D game. I drove my share of kids to the beach, since we had extras and no longer have a van. I made dinner, with lots of help as usual. Meatballs, even -- you know B helped with that one, because I might have run out of energy halfway through squishing the mix together, and never made it to the actual meatballs. I planned some dinner for tomorrow. Roast of beast, mushroom stuff (I swear, that's its real name), salad, random vegetable. Sunday dinner.

Tomorrow, once the extra kids have been picked up, P will babysit and B and I will go *out*. Nowhere special, just out. Get me out of the house; I tend to be sessile. Spend time together, because that rejuvenates me better than almost anything else. Maybe we'll go hiking.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, or whatever it is, arrived today. Theoretically, P was going to get it first, then B, then me, then V, then F. In practice, P hasn't been around today, so B has been reading it. P was supposed to go to an overnight Harry Potter thing with his youth group, but mixed up the dates -- not very surprisingly it was last night, not tonight -- so he's at loose ends. I suggested that B might hand over the book, but I think P is just going to have to wait.

"Pregnancy and childbirth is a young woman's sport." I remember that comment from my first OB/GYN. It was the culmination of a difficult pregnancy, long labor, and I was being wheeled into the ER for a c-section. I was exhausted and afraid and though I still considered myself young in age, I felt quite old and tired in spirit.
Lately I have been thinking about having a third baby. Perhaps it is my mid-life fear of the death of my fertility or perhaps it is a strange belief that the birth of another person will somehow extinguish my depression but whatever it is I want another baby a lot of days.
It is a completely unrealistic. It is a stretch paying the bills a lot of the time and emotionally I have been struggling so long that parenthood has been painful many days but I still want another baby. It is crazy and irresponsible. I am looking at my motives. I have two sons who I adore, why do I want another?
I am the youngest of four children. Growing up was often chaos in our single parent home. My mom suffered from depression too though she never sought treatment. She soldiered through as she was taught to do and raised us against pretty scary odds. I feel overwhelmed most days with just two children though compared to my mother, I am rich in resources. I have as much as I can handle. I know that. Why do I want another?
"Pregnancy and childbirth are a young woman's sport." I am not young anymore and I have never been terribly athletic. I think it is a fantasy or a wish or a desire for a self that could handle a third child. Perhaps I want to give birth to another version of myself. Or perhaps I really want another baby.

Regina
"Karma is a boomerang"

First very silly attempts at C#.

Yes. Yes, I *am* a dork.
Yes. Yes, I am a big dork. You all knew that.

The app:

What the app does when you click on Mah Bukkit button:

"Do not forget. Remember and warn."
-- Plaque fixed to the hollow shell of Sarajevo's National Library

I have "Banana Phone" on endless repeat in my head. It's better than whatever I had in there earlier today, which I can't remember, but was very annoying.

I've been playing around with an essay. It needs a lot of work, but I think the kernel is there. I've just had an idea about it, too. I should probably go work on it right now, but I'm feeling unmotivated.

I caught myself "should'ing" today. The past couple of days I've had really good luck about finding the energy and motivation to get stuff done, and I've been sitting here thinking I should get up and go do some more weeding. Not that weeding is a bad thing, but I am trying to learn not to use "should" as a club on myself.

I think I've gone and caught myself on a nail, sort of. Instead of "should" lists, I've been making "I did" lists, so that instead of feeling as though I haven't accomplished anything, I can sit back at the end of the day and take decent credit for what did happen. That's all well and good, but I think I've just transferred my "should" list to my "I did" list. In other words, I'm thinking I should always have something on my "I did" list. Honestly, I have to watch myself every second, or I'll come sneaking around my own back.

Besides, I went to the bank and wrote something that is not just a journal entry. How's that for an "I did" list? And I know what's for dinner, too. Including what's for dinner tomorrow night.

Across the street from our hotel in ATlanta were numerous horse-and-buggy combos. One evening, as dd and I walked out of the hotel room in search of dinner, the drivers called across the street to us.

dd looked over, but didn't seem interested in even checking out the horses. I explained to her that I thought it was cruel to hitch horses to buggies so that people could sit in them and pull them around the city. They had no choice in the matter.

Yesterday, at the playground, dd stopped rambling around the metal and wood contraption to tell me that at Victorian Gardens, which is not a garden at all but some sort of summertime amusement park at Central Park, there was a horse and buggy. She had stopped to look at the horse.

"And his mouth wasn't smiling! It was a frown," she said, pulling her mouth down with her fingers to illustrate her point. "And his eyes were sad too."

He didn't want to be pulling people in a carriage, she went on to explain. Too much weight. She didn't understand why the person didn't just use a bicycle for his "pennycab" instead.

This morning, walking against the humidity and mugginess trapped in the walkway between the J and 6 trains, after talking with an acquaintance about the Children's Social Forum and how I thought some of the activities went over her head, I remember that conversation. I also remember what another papa said to me on Monday, that it's not so much about what kids come away with immediately but it's the talking, explaining, introducing critical thinking and providing the space & encouragement for kids to think critically. It does indeed become part of their worldview and their understanding.

"Eventually maybe some thread will connect later down the road," he said. "It kind of all builds and piles on top of each other."

Like dd and the horse.

Lots of writing projects cranking around in my head. Now I just need to get them down on paper.

I've done no writing today. Well, this is it for writing. Yesterday I typed up my child's point-of-view of the Children's Social Forum and asked China to help edit it. Today, I sent it off. Then I spent the day entering cards, mindlessly checking my e-mail (no one e-mailed me today), and reading a YA novel by Julia Alvarez ("Finding Miracles"). In the back of the book is a Q&A with the author, in which she repeats advice I've often heard: WRite every day. "If you don't write for a week, when you sit down to write, you just don't have the same agility as when you are at it every day, even if it's only for an hour. Once you have developed the habit of writing, you dont' have to think about whether you are going to do it today or tomorrow or the next day. It's just something you do, like having breakfast or brushing your teeth or watching TV."

I usually don't have breakfast, don't watch TV and have occasionally fallen asleep (or passed out) without brushing my teeth.

But I should be writing. After all, I no longer have a soulsucking, energy-killing, time-eating job. I have my office job in which I am mistress of my own hours and even during the busy season can spend an afternoon engrossed in a YA book, stopping to enter a round of renewal cards only when the book's emotions threaten to become too overwhelming.

So I devise a schedule in my head as I walk from the water cooler back to my office:

tonight, while doing laundry (because I am wearing the same socks two days in a row and the last of my clean underwear), I will attempt to drown out the blare of the TV that is always on too loud at the 24-hour laundromat and do yet another revision of my monster article. (Note to self: dig out mainstream press articles for that parargraph that needs one more example)

Tomorrow: Start formulating how to write Children's Social Forum report. (This would be more helpful if I knew what I was going to do with it at the end of it all, but I don't. At least not yet) This also includes contacting the organizer and bothering her again about an interview

OR

revise one of my chapters to become one of the 2 sample chapters I'm going to send to the next publisher on my list

Thursday: Revise CSF report if that is what I started. If I did the other one, WRITE the CSF report.

Now I should go to the post office and mail this little packet before heading off for the day. My eyes hurt again. I need to find something to do that doesn't require my looking at anything.

Sometimes paper is the only thing that will listen to you.

I open the door and am struck by the smell of darkness and wet concrete. It has been over a year that I have been struggling with this depression and anxiety and the smell of the evening is the smell of that struggle in some perverted way. I make my way down the wet street in this hot night and I feel an oppression I have become used to though it strikes me now that it is all around me; wherever I go. The street feels narrow, the heat encases me and I am walking underwater against an invisible but powerful foe.
The convenience store is a startling contrast. It is icy and unnaturally cold and brightly lit and offers a cornucopia of choices though I have only one need and that is a container of milk. My 11 year old can't imagine how I could have forgotten milk and I cannot imagine how I remembered everything else during my last shopping trip.
I stand for a moment in the convenience store and feel the heat coming off my skin and doing battle with the false cold of the store. It feels good and since I have few sensory pleasures lately I revel in it for a time.
My 11 year old and my 6 year old. They are on my mind all the time. It scares me how much they mean to me. I have relatively few possessions but they are of me and my responsibility and I love them too much and that scares me at times.
I grab the milk and pay the teenager with the angry skin behind the counter. I hestitate before going out ino the wet, hot night because I know within a few steps the humid night will once again encase me.

Regina
"Karma is a boomerang"

Tomorrow I pick up B at the airport. I'm waiting for him to call right now, and I'm slightly melancholy. Just tiredness, I think, and the after-effects of missing my morning meds yesterday. I couldn't figure out why on earth I was so out of it; I slept all yesterday afternoon. It wasn't a disaster; there was nothing I really had to get done, and the kids were occupied with a friend, so they weren't upset, but I don't like it when that happens.

I slept in this morning, too, and when I finally got out of bed I saw that yesterday morning's meds were still in the box. No wonder I was out of it. Most of my meds have a slightly sedative effect; I need that major dose of Wellbutrin in the morning to help battle that.

It's nearly eleven o'clock, and B still hasn't called. I wonder what the heck he's doing, out there in Portland. I called his cell phone, and didn't get shunted immediately to his voice mail, so he has it on, but apparently isn't answering. I left him a message to call, but so far nothing. Partying? Not in the party-girl sense, but out for a couple of drinks with co-workers. No big deal, but it's surprising that he hasn't called.

I tend to worry if I don't hear from him, which makes me a wherry, because, seriously, what kind of trouble do I think he's going to get into? but I can't help it. He knows it, so I'm really surprised he hasn't called. On the other hand, he also knows I probably won't sleep until I've heard from him, so hopefully he'll come up for air and call.

P went with his teen conservation group on a bike ride this evening. I forgot that we'd be going through rush-hour traffic, and we got lost once, so instead of getting him there three-quarters of an hour early and taking the girls to class afterward, we got there just barely in time and the girls missed class completely. I told P that if I had realized that the girls would be missing class, I would have told him, "No," when he asked for permission, and he asked me to take them out for ice cream on his dollar. So I did. I bought a hamburger, too, and now I'm trying to decide if I should stick him with the cost of the hamburger, too. It was more my fault than his that the girls missed class, though; I'll probably pay for the burger myself.

I can proudly say that we cooked an organized dinner every single night this week. I may keep this in mind for the future: I dragooned the kids into helping. Knowing that I didn't have to do everything myself, knowing that I could even have the kids do most of the work, made it much easier to concentrate on dinner and motivate myself to do something about it.

Chores have been moving right along, too. I can't take any credit for that -- the kids have been doing it themselves. I can, however, take credit for the fact that the dishes are getting done in the evenings as well as the mornings. While we cook, I usually have the designated dish-washer for the day playing catch-up, which means I can have them handle the dinner dishes with a minimum of drama. Once again, this may be something that I can, if I care to, translate to regular weeks when B is home.

It's funny. I'm still beating on myself for the stuff I don't do -- M is so right when he says I hold myself to unrealistic standards and beat myself up when I don't measure up to them -- but when I stop and think about it, damn, I am doing well. I really am. Time to start giving credit where credit is due. Maybe I need to stop concentrating on what I can't do and start concentrating on what I can do.

Or stop concentrating on the "shoulds." I should be doing more housework. I should be getting up at a reasonable hour. I should be spending less time online. I should be doing something worthwhile. I should be supervising the children more closely. Blah, blah, blah. "Must not is a slave driver; ought not is a slave." I wonder, can I do that? I've spent most of my life feeling as though there's a whole list of things that I ought to be doing that I'm not doing. Big, big perspective change.

That's it. I'm going to call B again; I don't feel like staying up all night, and I don't feel like going to bed without hearing from him. He's aggravating me, and it's not smart to sit here and just be aggravated while feeling helpless. The phone lines run both ways, and if I catch him at an inconvenient moment, well, sometimes he catches me at ditto. Where's the phone?

I'm counting down the days until B gets home from Portland. It's not so much that I want him to get home sooner, although I do. It's that, if I don't keep track, I tend to feel as though we've gotten through much more of the week than we have, and then when reality crashes down I stop coping. "Cope" is the name of the game.

So far, there has been plenty of cope. Chores have gotten done, dinners have been prepared. Two days of dinners, and neither of them came out of the freezer already prepared. I have nothing against having prepared dinners in the freezer. I think it's an excellent idea. It's just that we never seemed to focus enough on this trip to get any there. So it's impressive that everybody is getting fed in the evenings.

I suggested a couple of times that we go to the local prepare-your-own-dinners place and stock up on half-a-dozen dinners. The food isn't blow-me-away amazing, but it is pretty good, and there is a lot to be said for knowing on Monday that you've just pulled Thursday's dinner out of the freezer and that all you have to do on Thursday is heat. Plus, it's fun to make the dinners; it's amazing how much fun cooking can be when someone else does all the prep and cleanup. We have discussed preparing doubles or triples of some of our favorite homemade meals and freezing them, but we need to get organized to do it, and so far it hasn't happened.

Of course, anything we make at the prepare-your-own place has the potential drawback of being loaded with refined carbs. Spaghetti and breadcrumbs are two of the major offenders that I can think of without even working at it. Around here, all of the spaghetti is whole wheat, these days, and a good thing, too -- pasta with sauce from a jar is my fall-back position. Pasta with sauce from a jar with some kind of meat added and a vegetable, usually a salad, on the side, is my I-have-some-time fall-back.

At first I was afraid we'd have rebellion against the whole wheat pasta, because the last time we tried it we had some pretty icky pasta. Whole wheat pasta can taste like raw wheat and flour paste if it's not made right. And no, I don't know what "making it right" consists of, but I have identified two brands that are completely whole wheat and which the family does not object to. I won't pretend that they taste exactly like white pasta, because the texture is different, but they don't taste that much different, and I suspect that after a while it will be like brown rice was. We'll be so used to the whole-grain version that the white version will taste slightly peculiar.

At the family reunion on the Fourth, I did a lot of picking around amongst the food everybody had brought. There was a lot of potato salad and pasta salad, and plenty of desserts. It was a minefield. My mother had consulted with me and brought some stuff that I could eat, and Cousin T had brought some shish kebabs that he was sharing around, with venison and some really delicious vegetables, so it was okay. I kept having to remind myself to stay away from the soda, because having a can of it, or three, on the Fourth has always been a way I've treated myself. And my dad didn't twitch when he asked how I wanted my burger and I said, "Without a roll."

I feel pretty peculiar having to be so careful about refined carbs. It looks to anyone who doesn't know like I'm on, what is it, the Atkins diet? The no-carbs one? But I'm not trying to lose weight, and it feels funny to have people think that I am. I don't think that way, usually. This is a blood levels thing. But maybe I need to relax about it and not worry about what other people think I'm doing. Easing off on refined carbs and going whole grain is a good idea no matter how you slice it. Although I do miss the occasional turtle sundae.

No word on my friend's husband. I assume that right now, she has more important things on her mind than keeping the rest of us electronically updated. I assume that he's physically okay, and I'm hoping for the best for his mental and emotional state. I just hope she isn't blaming herself -- it would be all to easy for her to think that if she'd just been more understanding, more patient, that this wouldn't have happened, and that simply isn't true.

At least not that I've found and I just googled it.

I'm supposed to be writing about the CSF from a child's perspective. AFter years of trying to write like an adult, I'm having a helluva hard time with it, even after interviewing dd about her experiences at the CSF.

I've realized that time is not really linear for her. In her mind, things that happened on Saturday become things that happen on Thursday. This may be because it was an incredibly jam-packed 5 days, with workshops and running around and LOTS of new people and whole days with not very good food (some moments she was vegan, like the afternoon that lunch was pizza. She promptly pulled the cheese off her pizza and basically ate dough and a very thin smearing of tomato sauce. Some moments, she was not, like when she decided that lunch should be goldfish crackers)

So I am trying to write about the CSF from a kids' point-of-view and not having a very easy time of it. Part of it is because I wasn't there and I'm not sure what they did. Part of me realizes that I don't need to put in so many details, that I *don't* really need to find a way to work in that one of the teachers for the 6 to 8-year-old group brought her 3-month-old baby with her and that his name means "to remember." I don't need to list every single activity that the kids did. It's okay that dd's memories are jumbled and so, in her mind, they read "The Rough-Face Girl" on Thursday and not on Saturday, which was the day that they focused on gender as (one of) the topic(s) of the day.

I should be able to work with that. I am, after all, supposed to be writing from HER point-of-view, not from mine. Or from imaginary, objective, 3rd person narrator.

Still, I'm stuck. And my eyes hurt from staring at a computer screen, even when I'm not actually staring at the computer screen. I think I need to get up and do something else, something that doesn't involve using my eyes. Not sure what that might be, espeically since it's 90 degrees outside and the air feels heavy, presses the heat into my skin, so taking a walk outside is out. Or, rather, it's not the most appealing option.

I have two books here that I could read. Real books, typeface on paper. But I don't feel like it. I feel like I should be working on this piece, especially since it's part of a larger collaborative piece of writing. I've never written collaboratively before (or at least I haven't in recent memory. I once tried to co-write a grant with ddd, long before there was even a glimmer of dd, and it was such an exercise in frustration that I don't think I ever wanted to write anything with anyone ever after that)

I did order food a while back. I'm sure it's ready by now. Maybe the quick walk to the sushi place around the corner will give my eyes a break. That and real food in my belly would help.

My gods. Oh, my gods.

A friend of mine's husband told her he didn't love her any more; then he got weird, then she finally kicked him out. They have a young child. Not too long ago. He's been trying to persuade her that he needs to "find himself," and that she should wait patiently for him. Possibly through him spending time with an unspecified other woman. She's been fighting for her equilibrium, and had decided that, the hell with him, she was going to start adjusting to a life without him. He didn't like it, and kept insisting that he wasn't being selfish, and she finally told him what she thought of him.

She was pretty much right on, in my biased opinion. She had been trying to "protect" him from the fact that she was damned angry and hurt, and she finally decided there was no point.

He just tried to commit suicide. I don't know any details, but he's apparently okay and getting help. She and his parents are with him. She has very sensibly decided that, as of now, absolutely everything is on hold. First they need to get him stable, and she can reevaluate then.

She lives about 1500 miles away from me, and our contact is electronic. There is nothing I can do except e-mail her and tell her that I support her and I'll listen if she needs an ear. I want to be there, to help her out with child care, to make sure she takes care of herself, to support her directly, to tell her that she is not to blame, but there is nothing I can do.

I reassure myself that she really does have a good real life support network around her, because she does, and I remind myself that sometimes all I can do for someone is let them know I support them and refrain from pouring out my feelings of helplessness on them. How I feel is absolutely irrelevant to the situation.

When I was young, I thought that if we all only tried hard enough to understand one another and to solve problems, that everything would, eventually, be all right. Now I know that life is messy, and it stays messy. It's like having kids. We can't clean up fast enough to catch up with the new messes that are being made. A lot of things you just have to wade through, doing whatever kind of thing you can manage to come up with, and try not to get discouraged.

Sometimes there are happy endings, there really are. But there are an awful lot of unhappy endings, and even more things that simply don't end. They just evolve. It doesn't mean that there is no point in fighting -- you may not be able to stop the tide from coming in, but you can help each other get far enough up the beach not to get drenched.

M2 is now rocking the pre-pox fever. M1 never got a fever with the c'pox, she got her traditional stomach ache. If anything bugs the girl, too much food, not enough sleep, stress at school, blah blah blah, she gets a stomach ache, that's just how stuff affects her. M2 is her own little person. It's interesting to watch how differently things affect them. It's also sweet to see how protective of M2, M1 is. You know, when they're not doing the sibling caged death match thing.

Feeling a little melancholy. I had hoped to have this whole housing thing taken care of by now. And yet, not so much of a whiff of an offer. I think we've got 10 days to find a buyer before we have to renegotiate our contingency on the house we want. Their agent took the house off the market, so I'm hoping they're willing to hang out and just wait for ours to sell... but one never knows.

Ah, & here's my hot little monkey girl. Whoo-hot! Looks like tylenol time....

"Do not forget. Remember and warn."
-- Plaque fixed to the hollow shell of Sarajevo's National Library

I don't know whether I've suddenly acquired weighty legs, or my underpants have suddenly shrunken, or what, but recently I can't sit down without my underpants trying to slice off my legs. It's old already.

It seems to be the consensus of everyone who cares to comment on it that I've lost weight. Given that my old shorts were literally falling off -- I could walk right out of them if the drawstring wasn't tied -- it's very possible, but I really wish folks didn't feel as though it's a topic of conversation. No one felt compelled to comment on my weight when I was slim, so how about we continue to treat it as though it doesn't matter one way or the other? I like how I look in the mirror, so what the hell does it matter?

We're on vacation, visiting family and friends in PA. Friday night we got together with K and his family (he and L will never get married, probably, because of financial issues with L's daughter's special needs, but aside from a piece of paper, they're married) and went on a riverboat and watched minor league baseball. Saturday we went whitewater rafting (class 1 rapids only, as we are not daredevils) with A and the whole clan of W's.

After that it was family all the way. Reunion of B's family on Sunday. My father's (somewhat delayed) seventieth birthday on Monday, complete with a visit from Uncle A and Auntie A. Tuesday spent hanging out with B's parents. Wednesday at my family's reunion, lo, even unto four generations.

And today ... Theoretically, we were going to spend today with B's parents again, but in practice, I spent it holding heads and cleaning up afterward, and B and P spent it doing laundry and going out to fetch provisions. They're out at a movie now, and I'm wondering when the hell they're going to get back, because they were supposed to be back an hour ago.

I always anticipate these trips east with a certain amount of dread, especially after last fall's little fiasco with my mother. I can understand her getting upset with me when I do something wrong, which I did, but I ended up carrying the can for something that had nothing to do with me and everything to do with my brother, and I can live without the irrational accusations, thanks. But Mom was a miracle of stability this year, even in the face of my father being more impossible than usual. I love him, but it's a good thing he's my father. If he were my husband, it would be homicide all the way.

The other part of it, of course, is that I rarely anticipate large get-togethers with any pleasure. Chances are good that in any group I'll be grossly uncomfortable. This time out, however, it's been fine. I know the majority of the people at the family reunions and I like them, and it's kind of fun meeting new relatives.

High point: My cousin M walking up behind me, putting my head on his shoulder, and saying, "Come on, you know you miss me!" I almost didn't recognize him with that long white beard! With the exception of J and M, though, I recognized everybody except for the last generation; the kids change too fast for me to remember who's who from one year to the next, and it's been six years since we made a reunion.

Aunt A is looking really fragile. She's using a walker, or two canes when she was walking on the grass, and she's very bent over. She's small, but she has always walked with terrific poise; it's very strange to see her this way. She's eighty-nine, and she's out-lived everyone else in her generation, now that my grandmother is gone.

Some of the K family actually made it to the reunion; that's a first in recent history. It was lovely seeing cousin R; last time I saw them, W was tiny, and G was about six. He's turned into a sturdy boy, and she's a very graceful fifteen. Unfortunately, R's brothers didn't make it (I knew E wouldn't, because the Fourth is his son's birthday) but their mother did. We're going to have breakfast with her tomorrow, and the kids will get a little more time with CJ.

After breakfast with Aunt M, it's up to Reading to see the W's again, or at least some of them. A may take the kids back to the old house to see the L's in the evening, but B and I won't be going. I won't stand in the kids' way, but I won't be going. Possibly I'm being petty, as I know there are no hard feelings on the other side of the fence.

The girls woke up from sleeping all day about eight; I shoved them back into bed, over protests, about ten, and they fell asleep almost immediately. I don't know how soundly they'll sleep, but F, at least, still wasn't feeling 100% while she was awake, so I was disinclined to let them stay up. I just called B to find out where he and P are; they're a lot later than I expected. They're almost here, so it's bedtime soon, I hope. Yes, I could go to bed without B, but I prefer not to, so nyah.

and, instead of going for Art World type places, like galleries and artworld websites, instead find a way to do shows in unlikely places, places that reflect the kind of work I do. Places that challenge the status quo, not reinforce it, attract people to WANT to be a part of the system, whether it be the Capitalist System or the Art World/gallery thing.

In Atlanta, I went to the exhibition at a center for Task Force for the Homeless. As opposed to all of the conference and hotel rooms, there was no air conditioning. I didn't feel chilled. There was some air circulating, but the air was also a bit heavy with humidity and heat and, well, reflecting the climate outside.

There was a sculpture of a tree in the middle of the floor. There were large color photos on easels--photojournalists' shots of prisoner abuse in Guantanamo and two women at a conference to sign up suicide bombers should the U.S. attack Iran(how did they get in to take these shots?). there were black-and-white photos on the walls depicting the effects of water politics. There were artistic altars for spiritual and mental healing.

It was a wonderful space. It wasn't polished, it wasn't finished. Later, I realized that I would have liked to have learned more about the place, what else goes on there, what else Task Force for the Homeless does. I guess I can look it up online tomorrow.

Tonight, looking at my negatives of the tree (I had asked the volunteer if I could photograph the tree sculpture. He looked surprised that I would bother asking and said yes), I had one of those A-HA! moments.

Maybe chasing after galleries and more-polished Art World spaces is the wrong track. Maybe I need to look at places that are doing the kind of work that I'm documenting, the kind of work that I'm doing, the kind of work I think is important in the world. Not too long ago, China wrote, "they are spirited photographs, of protests and places and people."

Perhaps such works do not belong in white-walled galleries where curators shy away from rough-around-the-edges people and politics. Perhaps what I should be doing is shows in non-traditional spaces like gathering places for the local homeless people (one of whom saw me and yelled, "Hey, take my picture!" He deliberated on several spots on the corner before planting himself in the middle of the street despite my protestations ("Don't get run over just to get your picture taken!") and posed, arms outstretched, for my camera.

I expected that he would want a copy, that he would ask how to get a copy. People usually ask. I have addresses written on the inside of film boxes and on scraps of paper in hidden nooks of my house of several such people.

"Take that picture to China with you!" he yelled after I lowered the camera from my eye.

I didn't bother to correct him. Instead, I yelled, "I will!" and kept on going up the hill.)

Just wanted to get that thought down in the whirlwind of processing I am doing about this past week. Before the madness of home and everyday life roars up again.

Sometimes paper is the only thing that will listen to you.

When I read their was a July 300 words, I thought it was July. June went by the fastest of any month, really. I didn't do that much. May I fell in love. (and established a new relationship that looks like its going to be a long standing committed mutual one) April my book came out and I toured. But what happened with July? And the big "next step" I looked forward to with my writing?

So I thought it was July, just based on reading the 300 words title. thought it was clever. When the next day came, I signed my paycheck (I fill out the check and the bosses sign it) July 2, because, you know, the other day was the first. Imagine my surprise to find out the truth! Tommorow is July 1st!

I say I wish us a good, no, a Great July. the second half of the golden pig year is year. I am floundering. Its like all my dreams came true and I went back to normal. And Its not what I want, but I don't know how to bust out into the next thing, and its all very strange. makes you question things. alot of things. its interesting.

I find myself wanting to write alot but not writing alot. not liking my job or where I live. wanting freshness. wanting to learn how to ride a bike. Loving my daughter sooo sooo much. Wanting to break out from self imposed limmitations. Thinking my next book will really not sell if the great and interesting and historical (sorry I think it is, so full of myself, but it was big) is not selling that much. Its like books don't sell too much in america. I never realized how much that was true. and writing is a weird thing. but its my thing. and i want to do it, soke into it, create another brick. the novel thats kicking around, I got a few chapters in. My kitchen smells like mouse and cleaning productt and that is really really depressing. we spent days trying to clean and fight the problem of mouse that were living in my stove. I don't know how to fight and win rodents. that is a sad thing. I don't knw. I'm just typing. There is so much to come. Its very interesting.

So much as changed within me, breaking through to love and be loved, the last step of anything I thought I would try again, and the book coming out, and how good that felt, and its kinda like after the ball, cinderella, and life.. and now what. and still. figuring out. I think perhaps an internal battle. I didn't think it would take this long to jump into the next writing project but I'm close to being right where I want to be. so I guess, its life like normal! Good luck for July - we are ready for it.

Geez, I hope July is better for you. I am so sorry for your loss. It sounds like so much has been served to you right now and I hope there is some peace coming your way soon. Selling a house sucks beyond belief, I've been there and I hope things work out for you. And to add chicken pox, to the mix, my god. I'd say "hang in there" but that really does not help while in the throws of things, does it?! A happy, healthy, and peaceful July wish for you.