it ended in halloween, corresponding with muffy bolding about old sicilian womens traditon of tending to graves, with thoughtfulness from corresponding with Naomi on the day of the dead traditions, (and an artshow she did with altars to remember the women killed in domestic violence.)

I think I *get* it all now, in a different way. I can't believe my daughter is as old as she is, and while she hasn't left me, as so many of my mama peers are going through.... she really has, hasn't she? In that I see her less and less then every before, she works 7 days a week, sleeps at her boyfriends house and runs over there ...that is a home to her. But she isn't ready to move in with him yet, either, to keep her own independence.

I feel I am moving further ahead in learning about my new , post-active mama role ... and in healing, its a long strange "letting go" process.

but I still can't believe sometimes, the new issues that I am interested in, that I am actually this "getting older woman"

but its a sad, yet exciting time. independence and age. soul power.

laying out mamaphiles and talking with other mamas has been so interesting, its a real october issue, with a secret under tone of loss, I think, of holding on and letting go, almost like an old spiritual song "coming home" refers to a little bit of death in there too, alot of stories are sad and deep ...but its complex.

not easy to sum up this issue. its been an honor to lay it out, although I'm not done and my skills are rather basic.

The whole summer - it sucked. nothing to remark about. April my book came out. It was all about being a published author for the first time. I am just now, digesting all that, coming into myself, to go on, into something new, and feeling more balance.

thank you october.

october is my favorite month, there's a sense of mystery and deepness about this month that i just don't pick up with the others. halloween is my favorite day. for the past two years, my friend red and i would go get a bottle of wine or sake and brown bag it while we walked around town, playing in all the fall leaves--leaf angels. but she moved to hawaii and i'm pregnant, so drinking a bottle is pretty much out of it for me. i dreamed about her last nite, that she made a surprise visit on halloween. my dreams have been pretty crazy lately. a lot of them involved the baby, in different stages of life. and they've all been good. the kid's been so smart and open minded in my dreams and talking and reasoning at a very young age. others of when he is a teenager, in this one he calls his dad by his first name. others involve the father who no longer wants a relationship with me. every dream entails him wanted to get back together with me, but i never believe him.
he told me a exactly four weeks ago. so i missed my favorite month to pine and be depressed over someone i thought i would be with for a while to raise our kid together. it's been hard emotionally. he still want s to be involved with the baby and our homebirth, but i wanted more. we work together and some day s are just worse than others. i miss him. my community has been GREAT. cooking for me, giving me massages, reminding me to put my feet up. and sometimes i can't understand how i feel so alone and unloved with so much love around me. they want to help and are just as excited as i am. i appreciate them more than words could convey. i'm the first mom in our community. (well, we have another one a little more on the outer edge about 6 weeks ahead of me, this will bring us closer i think). i think the best part of this month is that it's my sixth month and i've been able to really feel all the moving and kicking from 'peep' (in utero name for baby). he is SO active especially in the middle of the nite, and i think it's the best part of being pregnant, being able to feel him moving inside. we play sometimes he punches or kicks my hand and i poke and rub back, then move my hand and he'll punch it again, it's so cute. i can't wait to hold him in my arms.

After 5 years of publishing a 'mommy' zine I find myself wanting to focus on other things. A big part of this decision was the fact that my daughter turned 18 this year, graduated from high school, is now in college, and is moving out next year. As well as the fact that my two sons, soon to be ages 13 and 10, are much more independent than she was at those ages. They are constantly telling me, Cut the cord mom! I think I was smothering them out of sorrow over my daughter's adulthood...I knew it would hit me hard but not in this way. So I have been doing a lot of thinking and mulling over who I am really? besides being a mom, their mother. This past year has been all about personal growth for me. I'm edging toward my magazine being about personal development, personal growth, positivity, stuff like that. We'll see.

ultra magazine

Every human is an artist. The dream of your life is to make beautiful art~don Miguel Ruiz

new ones, taken just last week. some of the saxofon cuarteto playing in a museum named after a president, one of a pequena princesa applauding as the musicians finish playing, have bowed and are waiting for the applause to die down, quite a few of one of them signing autographs for an adoring public...

and then i have ones of the bocambilia tree in the park in atizapan, the pierced gotica en coayacan who wanted some pesos in return for having her photo taken, the child-sized calacas hanging from stalls because El Dia de los Muertos is rapidly approaching, a woman selling rag dolls at the punk rock flea market, two other goticos (one looking as if his padres might be from china as well, but when I ask he tells me he is from aqui) sitting on a curb, a self-portrait of me and juana la loca, two men holding gigante clown shoes at tasquena, a saxofonista cubano y su mama, titeres in the gallery the morning of my exposicion, a gas cannister topped with a crucified jesus, a very real calaca in a bridal gown in the Centro Historico...

Last night I only had negatives. This morning, I coughed my way through making proof sheets, six in all, and small prints of the quartet on fogged-but-still-usable Portriga paper (I actually like the effect the fog gives it. It has a nice brownish color) and a couple of larger prints of a detail of the mural in the museum, of campesinos (y un campesina tambien) armed with shovels and picks and pitchforks charging at factory smokestacks. As the morning progressed, my hacking picked up and I wondered if I had set my healing back a day (or more) by standing around and inhaling chemicals.

But now I have contactos. And I have made my first pop-up, of the quartet playing against the mural of the campesinos/as attacking the factories. It only took a few tries and I am very glad that I came across the zine with a pop-up a few weeks ago when curating the Art in Zines show. Funny what small things can lead to inspiration.

Now onto the rest of the book. I have contactos and I want to copy them, enlarge them a bit so they can be cut and paste into this old guidebook. But the boss is now in the office and there are people doing inventory right near the copying machine and so I have to be more surreptitious than I might have been earlier (when I was busy puzzling out the mechanics of doing a simple pop-up and talking on the phone while doing a bit of data entry). According to my notes, I should start first with Chapultepec.

I have ideas buzzing around my head for a new project and, if I can get it done and sent by the end of next week, a place to actually have it shown.

But I am sick sick sick and the idea of getting dressed, walking 11 blocks and then inhaling darkroom chemicals to develop those dozen or so rolls of film just isnt' going to happen.

Or rather, it shouldn't happen.

It's a bad time for me to be out-of-commission. I have to start making calls and sending e-mails about organizing our annual haunted house. Very little got done while I was gone and a lot of people that helped make it happen last year seem to be out of town or just not interested this go-round. I'm a little worried that this year the haunted house is going to fall flat on its face. And this may very well be our last year before renovations start.

Still, three hours at work yesterday showed me that I *do* need to realize that I can't just keep pushing ahead, despite pain and illness. If I;m sick, I'm not going to get better slugging through work or making myself do all the things that need to get done. I should just keep my sorry self in bed or as close to it as possible, read the zines that are sitting on one of my two kitchen chairs, and occasionally indulge in checking my e-mail one too many times.

Tomorrow I can start tackling that to-do list.

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

"Who cares?" That's my son's new favorite saying. He precedes each of his statements with it; "who cares, I'd rather have peanut butter for lunch." Or, "who cares, I like building with legos better anyway." I don't know where he picked it up, but it was getting on my nerves until I decided, you know, who cares?
I've also decided that it is beyond my control to worry about my relevance in the whole scheme of things. I'll do what I do and as long as it amuses me, who cares? After whining on my last 300 words about how I am never going to be able to shmooze like a younger person would, I found myself having cocktails with the director of a local arts council in my own backyard. She's friends with my neighbors. And she dropped by to say hi while we were hanging out watching the sunset. So who am I to say a stay at home mom can't meet the right people.
Anyway, who cares.

I want to make the rest of my plans for the trip at the end of October -- we're almost there. As in, a week away. Trouble is, I gave the friend whose feelings I hurt the chance to pick her day, and she hasn't gotten back to me. So I don't know what to expect. Whichever day she doesn't pick, I think we'll hit a museum -- probably, what is it, the Walker? -- which simplifies things. But I'd still like to know.

I called her earlier. She couldn't talk right then, but she should be calling back later. I'll have to figure out how to ask her tactfully. Among other things, I have tentative plans with my sister-in-law which will have to be cancelled if my friend picks Thursday. I'm trying not to be agitated.

I'm feeling kind of down and flat after the weekend of visitors. I loved it -- having my aunt and uncle come out from Delaware as a surprise was wonderful -- but it takes a lot of energy to let anyone who isn't from the immediate family into my space. I knew I'd have a flat day on Tuesday, but I didn't take time out on Monday when I should have, so I'm recovering more slowly than I expected.

I have some money, not a lot, but some, for clothes as a gift. I've lost so much weight that I need new clothes, but I don't want to buy any more until I know where I'm going to balance out. Or at least, nothing very expensive. A fair amount of what I have is pretty flexible, size-wise. For once in my life, I'm actually interested in shopping for clothes, rather than wanting my jeans and t-shirts and to get the hell out of the store. I'm sure I'll change my mind after thirty minutes of B picking out zillions of pieces of clothing for me to try on.

I had the day off, or at least, five hours of it, today. The kids were all over with a friend. I sorted the checkbook -- not terribly interesting, but it always lowers my stress level to know how much money is in there.

I took a bath with a book. A nice long one. Someone called twice in quick succession while I was in the bath. The first time I ignored it, but when it rang again almost immediately, I got out of the bath and sprinted, only to miss whoever it was. They didn't leave a message, and I'm not motivated to check the missed calls list. That kind of broke the mood, but I enjoyed the rest of the bath anyway.

I went to the bank to complete my day's financial shenanigans. Whoop. Ee. It's probably sloppy-minded, but the more I can do electronically without actually having to go in there, the happier I am. I could become a hermit.

After that, I went to the coffee shop. I spent some time thinking up a list of chores and fun stuff to consult those times when I find myself sitting around feeling at loose ends. Now I have a brass bowl full of little paper slips. We'll see how well that works -- I bet I avoid reaching in. In the spirit of optimism, I should add a few more, starting with, "Sweep and mop the kitchen," since it always, *always* needs it. That will at least get rid of the sticky-crunchies, although it won't improve appearances much. Who on earth thought that a white floor in a kitchen was a good idea? Whoever it was needs someone to straighten them out. And why it is that every house we buy has old white linoleum on the kitchen floor? Arghh.

No, the cares of the world have not come to rest on my shoulders today. My shoulders are narrow, these days.

The contingency on the house we wanted has expired. Our house, as of this morning, is officially off the market. I guess we'll try again in the spring.

It took the owners prior to us 3 years to sell it in a prime seller's market. It's not a seller's market anymore. I worry. Ohhhh, how I worry.

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

I had a dream last night that I was walking on the beach and I found a bunch of large bonelike rocks, all in a row. I started wiping the sand from around one of them and realized that they were not in fact rocks, but giant human teeth. I kept sweeping up the sand until I pulled one large molar from the ground, my arms wrapped around it. Then I woke up.
My body seems to be failing me right now. My dentist says my teeth are in danger of falling out. I have a lump on my breast. I feel like an old car that all of a sudden needs brakes, a clutch, and a new transmission. If I go down to the beach perhaps I could pick up a spare tooth...
I'm making a quilt right now of strange body parts- fallopian tubes with eyeballs on the ends, a quilted brain with odd, wormy things protruding below it. A polka dotted heart also with eyeballs extending out of the ventricles. A pin cushion breast. It's not very good but I am enjoying the solitary act of sewing. It is very quieting.
I layed in bed last night after my dream wondering about irrelevance. About my irrelevance specifically. Have I reached a point where it is dumb to keep trying to make art? One of my husband's clients stopped by with his girlfriend and they were so young, so with it. Hanging out in Williamsburg talking about who's doing what, who's making it big, who's doing this or that... I'm a housewife and a mother and I'm never going to be hanging out in a trendy bar meeting a person who happens to be a big shot gallery owner or something like that. Which is the kind of stories these kids were telling us the other night. How their friend just happened to be in the right spot at the right time, met the right guy and now he's at the Venice biennale. I came to New York to be a part of the greater cultural dialogue. I guess. I'm not dialoging with anyone at the moment except myself. Am I culturally irrelevant just because I'm not a young, single kid able to hang out with all the right people? Am I irrelevant just because I am a mother? Even when I was young and childless I was never into shmoozing.
Maybe it's my body getting me down. I feel old and I may need some new parts. But I refuse to not make art just because I'm not a hipster anymore. It means something to me. Is that enough?

My friend has graciously declined to have my hide. Inside, I'm still shaking. It's just plain weird; put me in the middle of a serious crisis, an injured people make decisions now crisis, I'm fine. In the middle of any kind of potential interpersonal strife, I dissolve into a puddle of terrified worry. It wouldn't be so bad if my reaction was just at a reasonable level, instead of being an over-the-top, barely controllable thing.

All right. Gear change.

If it's Friday, V and P have classes at the community college. They aren't college classes -- I don't think they'd admit a ten-year-old -- but classes that the college arranged specifically for homeschooled students. Anyway, Fridays from ten to three is school time.

It bores F to tears. She is too young to go, and she's not big on being left behind while her bigger siblings get to do things that she can't. Last week I arranged for her to have a playdate, but forgot to do it this week. Fortunately, she decided to entertain herself by cleaning her room. Yes, that's not what you would ordinarily expect a child to do, but she knew it was on her list of chores today, and she was in a mood to get as much as she could out of the way as soon as possible. She should always be so eager.

S came over to talk. Her daughter is in the same classes as V, so I drop everybody off in the morning, and she picks everybody off in the afternoon. Saves us both about half-an-hour of driving. We enjoy talking about all sorts of inconsequentials. No deep conversations -- she's a pretty dedicated Christian and knows I'm not one at all, so there are a lot of areas we just skip -- but it's still fun to talk to an adult.

We were over at our friends the W's house last weekend for A's birthday. They had various friends over to visit, and for once I wasn't upset by a crowd. It was an interesting bunch.

After dinner, the grownups sort of split without discussing it into a group of men and a group of women. (Before dinner, it was a free-for-all.) I have no idea what the men were talking about, but the women got pretty deep, given that some of us had only met the others that day. Talk about some of the deep issues that you get into if you raise daughters, and the related issues you have if you raise sons. Talk about spirituality, which was especially interesting.

I'm starting to have, I don't know, some movement of some sort in the spiritual end of my life. So far, it's pretty nebulous, and I really have no idea of what direction it's going. So I wasn't much part of that conversation, but it was deeply engaging to be there. One of the women is an agnostic, having left the church (or being thrown out, I no longer remember which) at sixteen. One is an extremely casual, very, very open-minded Lutheran. Open-minded as in, if you are, say, a Buddhist, she's going to assume that you have just as open a channel to the divine as she does. Very refreshing.

The third woman is a very, very liberal Catholic who is having some inner conflict over the church. She believes the basic doctrine of the church, albeit in a very open-minded sort of way -- I'm sure that if Rome knew how she thinks, she'd be out on her ass, effective immediately -- but she's really struggling with the way the Roman Catholic Church treats women. And it's a spiritual issue, rather than a political one. Yes, it's political, but it's really hitting her with the fact that spiritually, women in her church are expected to step completely behind and below the men. She's starting to have spiritual experiences that are really pointing up the true spiritual power of women, and she's in a lot of conflict. It was kind of interesting watching her coming close to just plain arguing with the agnostic. She's trying really hard to defend her faith, probably to herself as much as to others, but it's clear that her faith is under a lot of pressure. I'm kind of waiting to see what happens over the next couple of years.

Anyway, I suggested to S, who had hosted the whole thing, that we four women get together again. (Multiple times, I hope.) The other two agreed that it would be good, so hopefully some time in November. S will sort it out.

Listening, I found that I didn't want to talk about where I am for a couple of different reasons. For on thing, I seem to have landed in an extremely New Age position, and while I'm comfortable with where I am, I'm not comfortable being interpreted in that light. For another, while I'm sharing with online friends, I'm feeling protective about the whole business with real-life people. Last of all -- or maybe it's not last, but it's as far as I've gotten -- it's so new. It's like letting the Jell-O set -- I don't want to jiggle it yet. And I have no idea of where it's going, except for a pretty firm feeling that I need to just sit back and let this develop. I'll know where to go next when there is a go next.

You know what the funny part is? The phrase that keeps coming to me is, "I don't care." It's not negative, it's not rejecting anything else. It's just that after spending so much of my life in a passion about how religion should be, it has just taken such a small place in my group of priorities. So I'm really completely unworried about what other people are doing -- except for being cranky and supportive when people aren't allowed to do what they believe -- and for me? It matters, but it doesn't matter. Not in any cosmic sense, and in a day to day sense, it's like my garden. I pay attention when the spirit moves me ... but most days I just don't think about it. That means that my harvest is often kind of spotty, but I'm not growing the garden just to have a pile of tomatoes.

I am toting around my little amethyst goddess. I don't want to wear her as a necklace -- I'm not yet that deeply engaged in any of this. I can't carry her in a pocket, because amethyst is only a semi-precious jewel, and she'd likely break. So I carry her around in my hand, and she keeps showing up in odd places around the house. I want a little goddess of my own. I think I'm going to make one. Long-term, I want to take another ceramics course and sculpt one. I like the idea of the control -- I don't have to fit myself into anyone else's idea of "goddess." Short-term, I'm not sure. Somehow Sculpy doesn't seem like the right way to go! Ah, well, for now I'll tote my little goddess around the house, and we'll see what comes along.

At the risk of sounding either flip or, as I said, self-consciously New Age-y, it doesn't matter. It's really all okay.

I have let a friend down big time. I feel plenty bad about it -- I should have double-checked with her to make sure our plans were firm before making any other plans. The worst part is, a lot of people let her down. She has a severe chronic illness, and a lot of people just aren't willing to deal with it, so she's pretty isolated. I just played right into that, and she's really hurt. In her place, I'd be hurt, too.

I think that, to make it right, I'm going to cancel my other plans and go back to my original plans with her. There is an alternate date we can use, if she wants, but I'll let her choose. She can't right now, though -- she's in a lot of pain, and absolutely exhausted, and it's just too much for her to deal with.

I hope I can sort this out. Even if we go back to the original plan, though, the damage is done. I can't take back the way I've made her feel. I will have to remind myself that it's not fair to beg for forgiveness. I have apologized, and whether she accepts that is her decision -- she has no obligation to forgive me or to make me feel better for screwing up. I feel plenty guilty, but given that I was just plain wrong, guilty is exactly how I should be feeling.

How did this happen? It's already October. Wow.
I can't say I blinked and missed September because September was a tough slog. I'm still dragging my feet through the muck. I can't let the weight drag me down.
Remember the Phantom Tollbooth? Don't Get Stuck in the Doldrums.
I've been happily medicated since May, and for the first time in my life I don't want to go off of them. Finally, a medication that works for me!
What else is new?
Well I returned from Telluride on September 12th. Getting home was an odyssey. A drive to Grand Junction, an over night stay, an early morning flight to Vegas that made a connection in SLC. Then a 9 hour stay over in Vegas--luckily I stayed at a friends home--and then a late night flight home to Canada.
I started travel on Monday morning and arrived on the Wednesday around 3am.
Then, straight into school.
I am taking 5 classes (what the hell is wrong with me?) this semester. French reading comprehension, Feminism and Eating Disorder theory, Feminist Research and Methodologies, Third World Cinemas, and Contemporary American Documentaries (focusing in Political Docs).
It is a lot.
Ah well.
Eddie, our 9 year old Rotty was diagnoses with terminal bone cancer and we had him put down on the 28th.
...and then promptly went out and got a baby corn snake: Autumn.
I should have gotten a snake eons ago. It is soooo relaxing to sit there and let the snake slither from one hand to the other, back and forth...for hours.
It's hypnotic.
This month I have many papers and projects due, and midterms. It'll be pretty hectic, I'm sure it will FLY. Sometime this month we are hoping/planning to make it down to Calgary to sort out Harper's US citizenship and file my I-130, as we are planning a move to California in the early summer after Harper finishes the first grade...and I graduate (in April).
Lots of change this year. I'm trying to take it in bite size bits so I don't get overwhelmed.

I'm skipping the artist's meeting tonight. I haven't pulled together any writing that I want to share yet, and I'm feeling a little shy. Is this the moment to vow that I will pull it together for next month's meeting? I want to run down a copy of "Grandmother's Scissors" and take that. I'm proud of that one.

Things got done today. When we pulled out to go to the chiropractor's in the afternoon, I felt as though we'd gotten things accomplished. It even looks as though P will get his homework finished for biology class tomorrow. (He's had a week. He started today. If he doesn't do it, tomorrow's class work will make no sense to him. He's fourteen. I've decided it's not my problem.)

I made it outside and spent some time laughing with P. We discussed The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy -- he's only seen the movie, I've only read the books -- and spent some time giggling about ways you can swear without swearing. "Holy St. Francis on a polka-dot mule!" "Well, butter my butt and call me a biscuit." And a few that may or may not be swearing, but which are distinctly irreverent.

I keep having the feeling that I'm missing a step somewhere. This may be part of the reason I'm having trouble getting out of bed. No reason to get up. "I have to take care of the kids," doesn't do it, because the kids can take care of themselves until I get up. A lot of mornings, they'd actually rather have me stay in bed until they're ready to get up anyway, because they don't like it when I come in and chase them out of bed.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm missing a spiritual aspect to my life. I remember my church membership with deep frustration and hurt, and anger; I remember a lot of my religious activity as fraught with guilt. But I also remember feeling a connection with spirit. That, I liked.

I'm wary of trying to reconnect with any kind of organized spirituality, including causal "metaphysics" groups. (It's not metaphysics in the traditional sense!) My brief experience with them is that they're just as likely to be rule-ridden and narrow-minded as a mainstream Christian church, and just as likely to appear welcoming while simultaneously offering no real community. So if I'm going to reconnect with my spirituality right now, it's almost certainly going to be a solo flight.

There is a part of me that says that's not smart, that spirituality is meant to connect me to community as well as to the Ineffable, but I think I need to figure out who I am before I risk getting lost in a group. And maybe it will never be a group thing.

I'm deeply attracted to goddess worship, but I want to tread carefully. Among other things, I don't care to accidentally go lifting from spiritual traditions I don't really know anything about. And "goddess worship" means a lot of different things to different people. Once again, I'll be damned if I'm going to let my spirituality get all tangled up with what someone else thinks it should be. Possibly literally damned; it certainly felt like damnation before. So my spiritual thinking right now is, "Avoid; if you're not going to avoid, tread carefully."

I'm starting to think about what "goddess" might mean, and how it might relate to me. Worshiping a theoretically neutral but practically speaking white, male god left me feeling a little left out, and a little abandoned. If there was nothing I could do to save myself, then why wasn't God saving me? I sure needed some salvation. "It's God's will that you not be rescued yet," got mighty thin as my crisis deepened. And even though I was encouraged to see God In Me, I wasn't encouraged to see myself as part of God. That left me feeling, not excluded exactly, but as not belonging. I've spent too much time feeling that way.

Recently, I've referred to myself as a goddess a couple of times. Mostly only semi-seriously -- parenting goddess, and in reference to the fact that a bunch of my friends and I ain't models no more, if we ever were, as having the body of a goddess. (Spending a bunch of time looking at pictures of goddesses and seeing what different cultures have found attractive in a woman helped a lot when I was gaining weight like crazy.)

But I'm finding I want to say, "I am a goddess." Not physically, not sexually -- those I still have trouble taking seriously. But somehow, I want to claim godhood for myself. I want to be part of the club, not socially, but spiritually. I want to be god/dess, not just hope that god/dess is looking out for me.

I like my little amethyst goddess pendant; a friend gave it to me because, she said, "Mother told me to." Then she explained that amethyst was a healing stone. I told her that right then, I couldn't wear it; it would be inappropriate. But I hung it over the bedpost by my head. And sometimes, when I want a bit of jewelry, I pick it out. It's the only non-ring, non-earring jewelry I ever bother with. I eventually took it off the bedpost, because B complained that it rattled during sex (okay, I'll admit that I think that is tremendously funny, a goddess pendant speaking up during sex), but I want to put it somewhere significant.

I like the little universe spiral on her belly. It occurs to me that the stone in the center of the universe is an opal; my birthstone. Maybe I want to think about the possibly symbolism of that.

I'm still incredibly wary. My distaste for spirituality isn't just because of people, it's because of a terribly dysfunctional relationship with the power of the universe. So I have rejected the power of the universe. But maybe it's time to consider that I *am* the power of the universe, in some kind of embodiment.

You know what's funny? I'm thinking this is a solitary spiritual quest (and see how quickly I'm coming from some minor questioning to that conclusion?) but I wish I had somebody to talk to about it. B i out -- his spirituality is incredibly low-key, and when I've talked about spirituality it's always been pretty one-sided. My mother is out -- she's concerned that I've abandoned the spiritual side of my life, but I don't know how she'd react to the completely free-form approach I seem to be taking. S is out ... or maybe she's not ... because her approach to spirituality is pretty agnostic/atheist, and I don't know whether I could connect with her on this. Sti might be someone, but I don't know how to open the conversation. I should get back in touch with Sti anyway ...

On the other hand, recently I've been making "requests," and for whatever reason I seem to be getting a positive response, so maybe I'll just leave the door open and see who comes knocking.

I sent a link to Mom in 2 min 55 sec to my mother. I think she'll enjoy it. Come to think of it, I should send the link to my SIL, too.

Funny day, really. I kept checking on the kids and finding them doing everything they weren't supposed to be doing -- eating instead of school (I don't mind them eating when they're hungry, but every forty-five minutes, thirty minutes at time, is a little ridiculous), reading instead of chores, anything but what they were supposed to be doing. Somehow they managed to get most of what they needed done anyway, but my temper is a bit frazzled. I read them a polite version of the riot act.

V has been pouring candle after candle, preparing to sell next Tuesday. Tonight, B printed out warning stickers. She's excited about selling, although she double-checked with B to make sure she won't be selling on her own -- I think that's a little *too* grown up for her taste just yet.

War and Peace was pretty much a failure with P, which is about what I had expected. When he said he wanted to read it, I made sure not to tell him that I thought he was taking on too much, but I wasn't surprised when he finally admitted that he'd like to tackle something a little less dense. So I picked up The Three Musketeers and got him started on that. I also had him look up a biography of Dumas; because Dumas is French, a lot of people, myself included for a long time, tend to assume that he was white. I've been making notes to myself any time I think of a good book he'd enjoy reading -- anyone who wants to pm me with good suggestions, especially outside of the Dead White Male canon, would be greatly appreciated.

F just walked past me with fudge graham. I don't really want one, but in my head I know that they taste delicious, and for one evil minute I was tempted. But I've been sticking to the no refined carbs thing really well, and while I don't know about triglycerides yet, it's had some good effects in other areas. So I'd hate to screw it up.

Still, that fudge graham looked really good, and now she's sitting in front of me eating it. (She's not teasing me; that just happens to be where she's sitting, with her back turned to me.)

B and I went out and got wills and poa's today. The medical poa is reassuring -- B can have me hospitalized if I come unstuck but won't admit it. I'd be surprised if that happened, but I'm covered if it does.

My birthday is coming up in about a week and a half. So is B's. I really enjoy the fact that we have our birthdays together. It makes it much simpler when circumstances dictate that a birthday has to be skimmed over -- no one feels left out. And it's twice the fun when we do celebrate. (Except for last year, but since B was turning 40, I cooperated completely with what he wanted, and I survived the party just fine, if a little tensely.)

Birthdays, to me, mean having special food. Cake is irrelevant to me -- I'm not that fond of cake, although I do enjoy a good Black Forest cake. But it's nice having something special for dinner. I am considering what to have, since my parents will be out and we're eating at home instead of a restaurant. (Between my dietary restrictions and B's, it's really hard to find a restaurant that has things we can both eat.)

Steak or shish kebab is always my first reaction, because I was brought up to think of beef as being celebration food, but neither is really a good idea for B. Salmon, maybe. And asparagus -- put some aside for B without the sauce. Potatoes and I'll just skip them. Some other kind of vegetable, and a salad. It has occurred to me that Caesar salad is probably going to make a gracious exit from our holiday repetoir, because between the olive oil and the anchovies, it's bad news for B again. Maybe I'll get bleu cheese and we can have it on the side. Maybe I should think about some appetizers for the afternoon. There are some good ones in Moosewood Low Fat Favorites -- I love the stuffed mushrooms.

I need to sit down and plan some more practical dinners for this week. If I plan ahead, I can make up a shopping list, and then just glance at the sheet every night rather than having to think up yet another meal. Besides, if I plan, I can get everybody else's input on what to have. If I'm thinking it up as I go along, everybody can eat what I stick in front of them and be damned. I need to look up that one recipe, whose name I can't remember -- ratatouille, that's it, although I can't vouch for the spelling. I have an eggplant to use up, and since the stuff soaks up oil like a sponge, I can't fry it or broil it. Well, maybe I can in the future if I get an olive oil spray, but for this week, I'm not going to bother.