I think I can safely categorize the cold outside as "bitter." It was just below zero this morning, with a windchill twenty degrees below that. For once I had no question whatsoever about B turning on the car and letting it warm up for more than a minute.

We skipped the library and did school at home yesterday, for reasons that I can't remember (it might just have been that I wasn't moving quickly enough in the morning and surrendered gracefully to the inevitable). This morning, I knew in advance that we'd be working at home. School isn't important enough to go out in this kind of cold when we can do it just as well at home.

With this kind of cold, I feel like sitting inside by the fire with hot chocolate and a good book. I could manage the fire -- since it's a gas fire, it would actually warm up the room, which would be nice -- but hot chocolate is out of the question. So I'm skipping the lot, and made some Celestial Seasons Teahouse Chai. Chocolate Caramel Enchantment.

It amuses me. For one thing, by far the largest ingredient is carob, not chocolate. When I was a kid, my mother went through a period where she thought that Nestle's chocolate milk mix was evil (for nutritional, not political, reasons) and we had carob powder, instead. I like carob well enough, but don't try to tell me it's chocolate. The taste is quite different. And the carob powder didn't mix into milk the way the chocolate powder did. I was glad when Mom got off of that particular nutritional horse. (The stuff is banned from our house these days because Nestle is on my shit list.)

The other thing that amuses me is that it's called "chai." When I was a kid, my mother, who grew up in India, called tea alternately "tea" and "cha." "Cha," not "chai." She used to imitate the men who sold tea on the train platforms for me -- it's a very beautiful sound. "ChAAAAAaaaaa GARRRuuuuum! GaRRRRuuuuuum ChAAAA!" on a clear, high tone.

When shops in the US started selling chai, she commented that it was very much like the tea on the platforms: black tea, spiced and sweetened, with milk added. When she was a child, she and her siblings traveled by train from their home on the plains to their school in the mountains. They could buy tea or water on the platforms, but they always bought tea. The tea had been boiled, but the water wasn't safe. Nowadays, she drinks her tea straight, no sugar, no spice, no milk. So I find "chai" to be amusing -- perhaps the difference in pronunciation is a regional thing, as my mother was always in northern India.

The other thing that amuses me about chai is that it is like lattes were fifteen or twenty years ago. They had been discovered by the hip, and with-it people always had a cup in their hands. It was an artistic drink. If you didn't live in a big city with a significant bohemian population, you could still be cool if you drank latte. When chai came in, everywhere I saw it it was "writer's chai" -- let's position it as a hip, artistic drink right from the beginning. Amusing.

I popped popcorn and had myself two big bowlsful. I'll have to watch the next time the kids make popcorn -- I think they put on more butter, because theirs is better than mine. Popcorn means Friday and Saturday nights in the winter to me. Mom and Dad would light a fire, and we'd have hot chocolate and popcorn and we were allowed to stay up late. As in, instead of an eight-fifteen bedtime, we stayed up until the heady hour of nine o'clock. So it's special. And we don't make it all that often around here now, either, so it's still special.

I've decided that any time I spend time doing serious writing -- as opposed to journaling, which is important but likely won't get me published -- is worth a note on my chart. I don't do it often enough, partly because I don't take myself seriously. I see writing as playing around. I'm trying to encourage myself to put some effort into it.

The chart is helping. For one, I can look at it and confirm that, yes, I really did do some productive things each day. For another, I'm occasionally moved to do some extra stuff in the name of getting a couple more stickers. Maybe it's a child's motivation, but whatever works.

I'm in the middle of reading "Animal, Vegetable, Mineral" by Barbara Kingsolver. It's basically a political rant about eating only locally produced food and living sustainably. Which I agree with and admire but as an urban person I found myself at the grocery store yesterday just in a state of complete guilt. It is January. There is no local produce. I found some apples from PA and some carrots from Quebec. Not quite local, but at least sort of in the region. So I am enjoying the book and I'm looking forward to starting a garden in my new backyard this year. But buying broccoli yesterday at the grocery store practically gave me a breakdown. I do have to feed my family. Oh well, I can only do my best. Hopefully I can grow quite a bit this summer and try to preserve some to help make it through the winter next year. This year like it or not, we are going to have to eat CA vegetables. I do think that it is possible to be alot more sustainable than we are even if we do live in the city. I just can't do it all of a sudden here in January. Off to daydream about heirloom tomatoes...

there's an exhibition of art bags right now down the block from the center where dd and I spend a lot of time.

"Oh, can we go in and look?" dd asked as we walked past it.

The gallery owner was in the doorway on the phone. She likes dd. Perhaps dd is her only regular small visitor. We looked at the bags and she tapped dd on the side of her hood to say hello. She asked if dd still had long hair like mine. She asked dd which was her favorite (I think I had to repeat the question to her. Despite growing up in NYC and having spent her early yeras around kids who often didn't speak any English, dd still has trouble understanding accented English)

Then she asked if we would like to make an art bag to put up at the show. The bags were $3 each, a plain canvass bag, and we would decorate it and bring it back to be hung up (most of them were for sale for fairly cheap. $15 to $30). There were only a few more days left of the show, but no matter...dd was immediately enthusiastic about the idea.

"Do you have the money?" the gallery owner asked.

I didn't. I had a buck and change after blowing a whopping $6 on the vegan pizza that was our dinner tonight.

No matter, she said. Pay tomorrow when you bring the bag back. She spoke to her assistant in Japanese, telling him what the deal was with us. He went and got a blank canvass bag and she presented it to dd.

It took us half an hour to walk to school this morning from my house. This evening, with the bag in her hand, it took us about 15 minutes to walk that distance plus 5 blocks more. (dd was determined to get home and work on her art bag before I told her it was bedtime)

We got home and realized that, over time, all of her good markers had migrated to her dad's house and never come back. There were cheap, mostly dried-out markers from an art kit I bought at the discount store when she was 2.5, and a bunch of black sharpies, but no bright bold colorful markers like the ones she had left at her dad's.

Then I remembered that my friend, her former babysitter, had brought a box of dd's art supplies over before she gave up her apartment. I pulled out that milkcrate and went through it. We found a bag of scrap fabric and some markers that were actually tiny stampers rather than felt tips. So with those, and the little bit of Elmer's Glue that really didn't want to come out of the bottle, she designed her bag. Chinese brocade, a diamond patch of colorful diamonds that she cut out from a glove we had found after we had visited the gallery, purple velvet that she glued her diamond of diamonds on top of, some bead work from the cuff of pants that were getting a hole in the crotch, and then those marker stamps--spirals and asterisk stars.

(I think the gallery owner thought it would be a good mother/daughter project, but it really was a daughter project with a bit of technical assistance/nagging ("make sure you glue all four sides, not just 3. Don't be lazy about it or else that piece might fall off while it's hanging on the wall," I scolded at one point. I'm surprised that dd hasn't abandoned art and taken up videogames instead)

"Do you want to sell it?" I asked, wondering if it would be a hassle to explain to the assistant that dd didn't want to sell her bag.

"No," she said. Of course she didn't. She made a bag and it looked fucking fantastic and she was proud of it and she wanted to keep it. (I hope that Elmer's Glue stays. If anyone has suggestions on a better glue to keep the fabric on, please PM me. Because I think dd wants that bag to last forever and ever and, being the practical sort of girl that she is, will be using it for a while.

I suppose I should e-mail people and let them know about dd's exhibition. But maybe I should wait till after I drop off the bag and have ascertained that it being not-for-sale isn't going to be a problem.

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

oops, double post. Pirated wireless makes it hard to figure out what has gone through and what hasn't.

otra vez...

dd and I took a bag of blankets to the laundromat since an out-of-town friend is staying this weekend and I wanted to be able to at least give him some clean blankets). Not until we got there did I realize that those blankets had already been washed, and folded, and put in the bag at the laundromat. I had never bothered to take them out and put them away in the bins in the bathroom. So we trudged back, the 4 blocks, in 30 degree weather.

I was ready to call it a night, not go out again. But dd was disappointed that we were not going to be writing letters at the laundromat (whose 7-year-old gets disappointed by not being able to write letters at the laundromat?) and so I gathered up some dirty clothes and took the sheet and blankets off the guest loft (which hadn't been done in, oh, I dunno probably a year or so. Luckily my guests are usually punk rockers who don't care about things like clean bedding, so long as it's bug free) and we stuffed a laundry bag full and off we went, with backpacks with stationery and pens (and Hello Kitties).

I'm sure the lady was a bit amused to see us back again. Or not. Maybe this happens often--someone grabs the wrong bag to bring in, opens it at the laundromat and realizes it's not what she thought it was. Heads back home, returns 20 minutes later with the right bag.

dd helped me load the washing machine. She had strewn her stuff all over a plastic chair that was bolted to the floor (I wonder if they were thinking that someone was going to steal the chairs. Or that people would throw them at each other during the spin cycle). The chair next to hers was not only dirty, but looked like an uncomfortable place to try to balance my letter and backpack. I chose to take up a counter by the door instead. When she saw that, dd came over and joined me.

She wrote 3 letters altogether, short notes on Hello Kitty stationery about a quarter-size of a sheet of regular paper. Two were to women in prison (well one is in a halfway house now). A few years ago, before reading and writing kicked in for her, she had drawn one of them a picture of a window. The window had floated in the air and she had drawn an outside scene (grass, flower, sun, tree) around it.

I didn't quite understand the floating window. I think she meant to draw a scene of what one could see out the window (but not from our window or her dad's window or anyone in NYC's window. But she understands the concept of jail and I may have explained that they can't see things like flowers, sun, grass, tress, and so she drew what she thought they might like to see through their window, if they had one) So she drew a house around it.

The woman was delighted and drew her a picture back, of her and her cellmate, both wearing the orange jumpsuits assigned to that particular jail. She drew mountains and sun and greenery (or maybe the greenery is the mountains). The drawing is still on my fridge; I pointed it out to dd before we left for our first trip to the laundromat and perhaps this was why she was so excited about writing the two women letters.

So we wrote letters and did the laundry. I got distracted by SuperNanny playing on the first of the laundromat's 2 TV sets (the other actually looked more interesting, a Spanish-language telenovela set in the 1700s or 1800s, with almost all of the menfolk looking as if they had stepped off of "Pirates of the Caribbean" and women in gowns and low necklines. The premise was that a single dad couldn't manage his sons, who ran amok, didn't listen to him, had tantrums and actually kicked holes in the walls, hit, kicked, and were just monsters. Do people's kids really behave like that? I wondered. What the hell does it take for them to get like that? Did they spend their first 10 and 4 years, respectively, on a desert island and then suddenly get dropped into their dad's lap and that's why he has no clue as to how to deal with them? Did he leave them in the basement for the first 10 and 4 years of their lives, then one day realize, on his way home from work, "Holy crap! I have kids!" and fish them out?

In comparison, my daughter was a friggin' angel. She wrote her 3 letters (notes, really, since you can only fit about 2 sentences on each piece of stationery and she didn't seem to want to write more anyway). Then she said that she was cold and put her gloves on (although not her coat), dragged a stepping stool over to the washing machine and sat and watched the thing spin our clothes round and round. When it was time to move them to the drier, she insisted on helping me pull the clothes out of the washer, pushed the cart over to the drier, didn't bump into any person or thing, and helped load the driers (we used two in the hopes that everything would dry faster. While the 24-7 aspect of it is a great convenience, this laundromat has driers that require more quarters than the other one that seems to be changing management). While I went to get change, she loaded the second drier, climbing into the huge machine to make sure that the clothes weren't all bunched up (and thus would take longer to dry). She didn't run around or turn the laundry carts into go-karts or bumper cars. She didn't whine for soda (although she did polish off my water). She seemed pretty happy doing laundry.

So now we have clean clothes and clean blankets for the houseguest. I have one letter that I can mail tomorrow once I figure out how much it costs to send 8 sheets of paper, a strip of a contact sheet, a tiny Hello Kitty note and a 5x7 resin photo through the mail. I have another letter, this one only half-started, that I can send off once I finish it (maybe tomorrow at work cuz now it's getting close to midnight and I have to get up at 7 to drag dd to school).

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

Going through old letters and jotting down bits of information that I want to add to my book. It's a (relatively) thick sheaf of letters (and this is only from one woman!), but her letters were packed with information! They're also overwhelming at times, full of anecdotes about how prisons screw people over (how can you deny someone with Hep C treatment for her liver? How do you justify stripsearching a woman in front of a bunch of men who videotape the procedure? How do you justify doing that as prison policy?)

Last night, I was reading through some of those letters and trying to jot down information. My house is freezing (even this morning, after the heater has been on all night. At least it takes a bit of the edge off) and my fingers couldn't do it after a while. I thought about posting here, but the amount of effort it would take to type...again, my fingers just couldn't. So I climbed into bed with (yet another) book on prisons and detention, started reading, found some stuff that I would have jotted down if my fingers hadn't turned to popsicles, and instead turned out the lights and tried to go to sleep.

So I start again this morning, with my house and my fingers slightly warmer. But, as I said earlier, the content of each letter is really intense and so i have to stop, put aside the folder, do something else for a bit. I have that luxury, to not live with that reality 24-7, to have the luxury of putting aside these distressing facts to go check my e-mail, surf the Internet, eat something that *I* choose to ingest and not just the slop that's put in front of me. I can put it aside and not think about it (or try not to think about it) for a few hours, a few days, a few weeks, hell, if I weren't writing a book now, maybe even a few years. I have that choice. I don't have to live it.

Okay, I think I've talked myself into at least finishing the letter I am halfway through. Then I should brush my teeth (it was too cold to do that last night too) and get ready to head off the door, swing by the post office, go to work (which will hopefully be a lot warmer than here).

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

I'm in a good mood. I have coffee, I have garlic Triscuits, I've just realized that B has tomorrow off (I'm stunned that his job actually recognizes MLK Day, as he's never had a job that does so before). I have bread rising in the oven.

Now I need to research and see if there's anything going on locally for MLK Day. I hadn't bothered before, as the kids had art class in the morning and B had graduate classes all evening. It turns out that art class is cancelled (poor art teacher has a vicious sore throat) so I'm going to do some research and see if there's anything local going on. If we had a full day including the evening, I'd check on Chicago, but trying to get back in time for him to leave at 5:30 for a 6:00 class would be crazy-making.

Either way, I need to do some research, because I want the kids to study MLK this week. F and I read a kids' biography a couple of weeks ago, but P and V haven't done anything. I think P in particular will find MLK interesting, since he's studying Gandhi and Gandhi was such a strong influence on MLK.

School is going really well, I think. We spend three mornings a week at the library, and that covers about everything. P might need a little more time, but I'm not quite sure; his grammar book hasn't come in yet. (I'm getting impatient.) The kids have been responding beautifully; we finish off school promptly, they tackle chores as soon as we get home, they have the rest of the afternoon free until classes start, and they *cooperate*.

The thing I'm most pleased about is V and math. For ages she went zipping along in math, handling it conventionally -- write problems on paper, explain how to do them, turn her loose and help when necessary. Then she hit a real road block last fall. Part of the problem was that she didn't have a firm grip on her multiplication tables, which meant that everything else she tried to do was unnecessarily hard. She decided, not that she needed to learn multiplcation facts, but that math is hard.

I know better than to force her on it. She's every bit as stubborn as I am, and if I try to force her through to where she can understand, she'll hate math completely before we ever get where we're going. So I backed off of conventional math.

Instead someone suggested that we try the Sir Cumference book, the mathematical adventures of a knight of King Arthur's Round Table. That got her laughing -- the puns are really, *really* horrible -- and the math concepts seemed to make sense to her. I didn't bother trying to find out if she could make a practical application. Right now I don't care; I just want her interested, and getting the idea that math isn't always a horror.

I remember that (while I always liked math) I was always most engaged in math when we were doing things with it, not just writing problems. So I put my mind to remembering some of the stuff that was fun, and not dependent upon knowing multiplication tables. That leaves me hopping to make up new math for her every day, but I've come up with some good stuff.

One day I taught her how to measure angles with a protractor, and taught her about measuring a circle as 360 degrees. Most recently, I've introduced her to plotting coordinates on a graph, and made up plots that have pictures or messages. On Tuesday, I'm signing her up for a class on gears, which is geared (excuse me) for kids nine and up (she's eleven) and is very, very hands on. The class will introduce some of the math of gears. I think she'll like it.

Maybe I'll teach her to use a scientific calculator so that she can calculate areas of circles and so forth. Or, come to think of it, I can teach her how to scribe circles with specific radii. I'm thinking hard about the whole business. I need to keep one step ahead of her, but she's smart as a whip. If I don't stay alert, she'll get bored again.

The thing I'm best pleased about is F's reaction to her running Wednesday writing assignment. I check it for grammar, spelling, and punctuation, but Littlest has no idea that I really don't give a damn about her writing on this one. That's not what the assignment is for.

F can be very negative. She's easily overwhelmed, and when something bad happens it tends to erase everything good that has happened. Every Wednesday, she has to write three sentences about good things that happened in the preceding week. She sometimes needs a hint to get started on the first one -- I don't offer hints unless she asks -- but once she's started, she's generally off and running. She gets a lot of pleasure out of hiding the sentences from me and then surprising me with them. I'm hoping that it will help her remember and enjoy the good stuff.

As for P, well, at least we're starting to get in some decent work on writing. Right now, it's all note-taking. Note-taking, note-taking, note-taking. But that's what he needs. Right now, he can't take a decent note to save his life.

So I've been actually committing to 100 words EXACTLY per day.
the first few were roughly 100, but then i got stringent with my parameters of this under taking.
here is the month so far:

Je pense, aujourd'hui, je suis un peu plus Jeanne Moreau que Brigitte Bardot.
Yes, I am no Brigitte Bardot. That's just fine with me.
Flipping channels today I was astounded to find the loverly Mme. Jeanne Moreau on Inside the Actors Studio. She really is so lovely.
I've been using the word lovely quite a lot these days.
I find many things, people, places, ideas, gestures: lovely.
I'm all for simplicity right now.
Are you laughing at me? Tisk tisk.
Je suis drole? Comme un bouffon. Oui, je sais tu pense ca. Je ne suis pas un bouffon. Peu t'etre un clown mais jamias un bouffon.
Ah c'est bon.
C'est bon.
In little over an hour I'll be having the tender skin on my face soothed and plucked, pinched and potioned. Thank goodness for Christmas gifts that pamper.
And, hells yeh I deserve it.
Really a comparison between these two divine French wonder- women…I don’t know. Maybe someday I’ll be old and wise enough to come up with something on my on. For now, to quote suits me fine.
I find that the field of referents is so full; apt to be pliable to my needs. I get it, what else matters?

Werner Herzog describes himself as a sort of a strange creature in this civilization. He accepted his destiny, revealed to him at the age of 14, and knew he would make films and he would travel by foot.
He was so worried about his cast members getting hurt during the shooting of Even Dwarfs started Small, he promised he’d jump into a cactus patch—he did.
He also took a crew of 8 into the rainforest of Peru with the insane Kinski and real guns.
I have hugged this man.
There is something so pleasant about Mr. Herzog, I can’t put my finger on it.

There is not much more I can do for my own pleasure above and beyond showing myself Dawn of the Dead on the Big Screen. If you care at all about astrology, my horoscope says this year I am going to learn to find pleasure and delight in life for the first time. That’s my resolution: to be pleased and pleasant and delighted. Three comrades playing MST3000 at our private silly screening; making up new dialogue and heckling from the balcony. Laughing, singing the score, noticing the lighting, rejoicing in pie fights and zombies on escalators. So many details. Bliss.

On the 5th I worked at the movie theatre and then I made my way (sober and solo) to the Black Dog to see the return of Trent Buhler with band They Were (Might be?) Expendable.
I haven't been to a bar during the day, alone, and without a purpose or penchant for drinking, since the late 90's. As in, last century. I was nervous. I brought a book and stood near the door, close to the "stage" and that suited me just fine!
Somehow I didn’t find my way home until 3am. But that also suits me just fine! If you care about horoscopes, apparently this year I will find pleasure and learn to have a good time. Funny, that was pretty much my resolution. I’m off to a good start.
So really, if we want to get technical here this is a 200 word post because two days have blurred into one. But don’t get the wrong idea, I neither plan on staying out quite so late—in general—nor do I plan on blurring my posts. I really am trying to make an exact 100 words/day.
Today Harper and I built bears and saw a movie. Bueno Note.

It's grey and cold outside. Or from here in the chair, looking out the window, I can see the snow coming down. I think it started to snow a month ago and never stopped. There is a ridge in the clouds moving quickly across the sky. It's distinct from the grey blanket sky. It's not all one, but a patchwork of greyness. Even the grey is fractured.
I think today I should have stayed in bed. It all started out promising. Harper brought me "breakfast" in bed. Including coffee she made all by herself. But before I could even finish my cup she was off whineing about being bored. We were going to hang out and watch a movie. The malls are insane. We aren't going out.
My mom took her to McDonald's playland and worked on her laptop.
So I feel ridiculously useless today.
I should have stayed in bed.
Maybe tonight after dinner we can watch a movie and hang out. Read some books and stuff.
See now, I have made it so when she is home and I am not at work we spend time together. The computer stays off until bedtime. But what with vacation, she is home a lot...and she is bored of me.
I just finished 4 days of work. It's New Year's day. She wants to play on the computer, since someone (not me) gave her a webkin for Christmas. At least she'll be off to winter camp tomorrow and after the weekend, she'll be back in school. Soon the webkin will be a passing fad.
Which reminds me, we need to feed the snake today.

On this fine Monday afternoon, I get to ease back into the swing of academe. The halls are calling. The books beckon. But thankfully today and tomorrow I can slip in toe first because all my labs seem to come early in the week and we never have labs until after the first class. By Wednesday I’ll be up to my eyeballs, no doubt.
I only have 4 classes this semester, even though my Bio has 3 sections. I feel like it’s a lot, but I know it isn’t actually. I’ll be fine.
And what about next year? Oh snap!

From Jan 8th : Phew! Back to school and then straight to work makes Lindsey a tired girl. Though my dad is fabulous at helping out with Harper in the mornings--since he tends to be up anyhow—I think it’s most important to get up with her especially on the days when I won’t see her later in the day (when I get home after she is already in bed). It happens.
Despite the insanity of the first week back to the stacks, it’s a low-key week. Hopefully I’ll continue to have some easy, happy, syllabus gathering and little else.

Not sure how I feel about Serge’s “Les Sucettes” sung by someone who sounds about 11. It’s, um, a bit creepy. Not that Serge defies creepiness when he sings with Brigitte Bardot.
Ah, poor Serge.
Yes, we are entering the French 60’s Pop phase of listening. Harper enjoys the music, as well as the fact it is in French. I just have to be careful about the songs themselves. Some are pretty racy, which is OK in theory…but you know she asks me to translate for her. That is all fine, except for songs like “Je T’aime Moi Non Plus.”

How is it that it s only Thursday and I’m ready for a 3 month long sleep? I really have to get my shit together and go to bed much earlier. I was doing good with that in the fall, getting to sleep before midnight.
Must. Do. This.
Oh I am soooo glad tomorrow is Friday. I get Fridays off this semester! I need Friday, like, now! Please and thank you.
It doesn’t help to wake up to a monochromatic grey sky that swallows up everything between my bed and the forever greyness of a cold January morning. Need sleep.

“Fuck, cut out that ruckus. Cut that noise. Shit!,” Glen interrupted himself mid-sentence. They are hammering something fierce right above his head, in the apartment he lives below. He can’t figure for the life of him what they could possibly be hammering as all the units have the exact same layout.
At 27 St. Mark’s the girls upstairs made some crazy ass noises. Their torrid sex lives were a regular disturbance of our generally quiet days, but the rolling or bowling…that one is still lost on me. I still can only imagine what it is they were doing back then.

Said farewell to young Matty today, gonna miss that kid. Growing up, growing up. I’ve been hiding up in my room, in my bed, curled up watching TV on the computer, movies, listening to Hip Hop. Oh yes I am!
After dinner we took Harper out to the school yard to skate. She’s such a funny kid, I took some video with her flip and uploaded to youtube. One lesson and she’s already doing turns and figure 8s.
The weather turned nice; on Thursday it was so cold tears were streaming down my face walking across campus. Today was good.

This morning Harper made a cake. All by herself—Grandma turned on the stove—she used 2 eggs, some water and a package of cake mix, which she found looking for “powder” for the cake and she crunched up some powerbar for caramel. We all had a piece, made a fuss. She had even cleaned up her mess.
Last week she made me coffee all on her own. I am so very lucky.
Hannah came over and I got to stay in my room wearing a crown cackling now and again and sneering when they peeked, “I’ll make you into a soup!”

I’ll leave it at that.
Today Harper told me the most hilarious story, with a real punch line. She’s so smart. The stuff she comes up with blows my mind! Seriously. She is a very clever kid, very bright! That kid excels at everything that she does.
She’s into skating right now, I’m glad to finally have her in a regular activity (as in on a regular basis). After I am done school I want to do Shaolin Kung Fu with Harper and my mom at the JCC, as well as Capoeria with Harper. Tonight she danced with Papa J.

This happens every semester. I forget how to begin. I know I need to begin at the beginning, but there are so many beginnings, I never know which one to start with. I’m not scrambling to do my readings or anything. But I work until 11 tonight and have to write up a one page summary of the readings for one class at 2. Unfortunately I am missing one reading. I thought I was prepared to get work done between classes at school, but I’m not. I’ll get this sorted. Really. I need to get my desk at home organized.

I'm not obsessed with my sticker chart yet, but I will be.

Actually, I think I'll do better with it next week, when I'll be recording what I do, instead of just the fact that I did something.

I tried a cracker recipe today. Frankly, I think it needs more fat -- the crackers were a bit hard. They were reasonably tasty, but I think the recipe needs some tweaking. First tweak -- make only 1/4 recipe next time, until I get it right. They definitely need to cook for the longer time. The early ones were kind of tough, but the longer I cooked them, the crispier they got. They were good enough to merit further fiddling.

I was in a baking mood, so I made muffins, instead. Actually, it was more of a use-up-the-overripe-bananas mood than a baking mood. The result was the same. I got pretty good reviews on the muffins, although I was kicking myself for forgetting to read through the recipe before I got started. I've tweaked that recipe to allow for no sugar, but I didn't read my own notes and put in too much baking powder. I ask you, what's the point of being experimental if I'm not going to learn from it?

We shopped for food yesterday -- we're always better off if we make a menu and then shop to a tightly-prepared list -- but got to the store too late to get fish. We never made dinner last night, so instead of fish tonight, we had tuna wiggle.

Honestly. Tuna wiggle. Around here it's known as "casserole" -- just "casserole," with no identifier -- and in college one of my best friends referred to it as "Hangover Helper." I don't mind it, but when I have my mouth set for fresh fish, canned tuna is a disappointment. And while at this point I pick and choose what I boycott, because I can't keep track, I feel vaguely guilty about tuna anyway. The fish from the fish counter would have been farmed. Can't farm tuna. They're too big to fit in the furrows.

You know gas prices are starting to get truly ugly when it costs forty dollars to fill a dinky Honda. More than ever I wish we lived in a community that was hospitable to walking and biking. There is almost nothing within walking distance of us.

On the other hand, it's finally Friday, so I have two days of having B at home. The kids are spending all weekend doing all kinds of things; I wonder if B and I will get anything done? We won't have babysitting at all, since P is pretty much on-the-go straight through, and the one time he won't be, the girls have friends over and we can't leave them with him. (We could, but we haven't cleared it with their parents, so we won't.) I guess we'll just have to be productive around the house.

Today was is Friday, which means it's the toughest day of the week for getting out of bed. Monday through Thursday, there's something specific to get out of bed for; Saturday and Sunday B is home. Friday there is nothing. I made it out of bed, although the temptation to crawl back under the covers was nearly overwhelming. And I did crash on the couch for a while. I didn't need the sleep; I just didn't have enough stimulation to wake up. Do not suggest that I get up and take a walk first thing in the morning. Them's fightin' words.

Am feeling overwhelmed by reality. I can't motivate to do anything other than going through the motions of my day (and night)--get up, drink coffee, go to work. Be at work. Go to meeting that I said I would attend. Not have any input during meeting, but at least be one of 4 bodies there.

I really just want to spend a day (or two or three) in bed. Not doing anything. Being here is overwhelming.

I shouldn't complain. No paramilitaries are hacking up my neighbors with machetes. I'm not living in a community where the militia has to patrol every night and there is the threat of a government eviction with tanks and soldiers and lots of weapons pointed at our heads. Still my privileged self is overwhelmed by the mountain of dishes in the sink, the piles of laundry, the cold, the fact that a water main burst in my office and wrecked lots of stuff, including my work computer (complete with unbacked-up house files), and so a lot of the stuff I thought I could catch up on while on the clock, I just can't do now. So I spend my time at work sorting through water-damaged papers, figuring out what is tossable, what is too waterlogged to be kept even if I shouldn't toss it, what I can hang up to salvage, etc. We have one computer in the office which is technically my co-worker's. It can open 2 websites: myspace and g-mail, neither of which I use in my daily life. To check my e-mail, I have to go to the office next door. The people there don't mind, but there is absolutely no privacy there and, even though no one's looking over my shoulder, I feel uncomfortable typing long heartfelt e-mails (or even shorter, personal notes).

today, I had a bit of a breakthrough. My co-worker didn't come in until late afternoon and so I used her computer to type a form letter to each of the women in prison I correspond with, informing them of my big news. I tweaked each letter to make it a little bit more personal and then printed them all out, put them in envelopes, addressed the ones that I could and stuffed the rest in a folder so that I could look up the addresses here, at home. (Do I really need to add that right now I am not looking up the addresses from the bulging file folders in the four-drawer metal file cabinet that, once upon a time, a chico who said he was very much in love with me helped me haul through the neighborhood to my house? I am, instead, typing my 300 words and wondering when I will get the motivation to write again)

I outlined a gameplan for writing tomorrow, for taking advantage of my co-worker's absence, her computer and her computer's inability to allow me to goof off on-line. Maybe this will pull me out of this weird funk I've been in.

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

I'm feeling much better these days. I actually prepared and sent in a proposal the other day. I haven't done one in ages so it took me the good part of two whole days to do it, but I forgot how much better I feel when I am at least getting stuff "out there." It keeps my brain going, keeps me motivated to have some hope on the horizon. Odds are I won't get it, but who knows, maybe I will and at least that maybe keeps me feeling inspired. It's for a project in South Korea and I almost didn't apply because I thought it would be too hard to figure out the logistics of that; but then I decided- who cares?- just do it and worry about it later. And I did! Which is an accomplishment these days. A small accomplishment, but you know, baby steps... And it made me excited to apply for more things too.
In the course of preparing this proposal I had to update my website because I needed to have a good online portfolio so I also got a chance to see all my old work. And I realized that I have done alot of pretty interesting projects over the years. It would be stupid to give up on it after all that work. Some of the stuff I've done I look back on and wonder how I actually did them. Impressive, even for me.
I started a new sculpture too. At least, the seeds of a new sculpture. I don't have a studio now, so trying to figure out where to make it is challenging. But my resolution for the new year is to not let that get me down. I've been using the no space thing as an excuse to fall back on. Maybe if I fill the kitchen with suspended sculpture the rest of the family will get the BIG HINT that having a studio is important to me. Ha! I was reading an op ed in the ny times by Gloria Steinham this morning about gender bias as it relates to Hillary and she had some interesting observations. She said gender bias was much more tolerated in today's society than race bias because it was more hidden. Women are expected to behave certain ways because everyone just thinks it is "natural." I don't know exactly what that has to do with me not having a studio, but there is definitely some sort of gender bias going on in my house when it comes to who gets space.

Ever hear a friend tell you the tale of something they've done and want to smack your forehead and yell, "What ever possessed you to do that?"

Two acquaintances of mine are divorcing after being married for only a few months. Turned out that someone wasn't telling the truth. All very dramatic; I'm glad I'm not involved. My friend, who knows both parties well, made the mistake of making a public statement about it. Worse, the statement was in defense of the offending party. And she's surprised that friends of the injured party got all hot under the collar.

I'll listen to you talk about it, but for gods' sake, don't expect me to express an opinion, either on the original situation or on your response to it. I wouldn't touch it with a ten-foot pole. It might be different if I knew the warring parties personally, but I don't.

On a more local basis, getting to the library to do school is working very well. We'll see how it works when the science kits come in, since that's the one thing we can't do at the library, but everything else is coming along just fine. The new discipline at home is doing okay, too. And I'm getting up. Can't argue with that. We'll see how it goes, but right now it looks okay.

I need to recognize it when I do something productive. I'm taking steps to actually record what I do, since between my holey memory and my tendency to discount anything I do if it isn't really earthshaking, I don't give myself any credit. I figure that if I can get a handle on what I actually do accomplish, I can take a hard look at what I'd like to accomplish, and what I have to do to accomplish it. I need some goals, little tiny short-term ones, and great big over-arching long-term ones.

I still feel as though something is missing.

I screwed up with my birth control pills. I don't use them for birth control (I've taken more permanent steps along those lines) but to regulate the screwy things my meds do to my menses. I've never, as far as I know, had any sort of hormonal upset, but I think that screwing up the BC may have unbalanced me a little. I'm back on the BC properly again, so hopefully that will solve the problem.

I'm trying to do some serious writing. B thinks I should record serious writing as part of my accomplishments, but I'm not able to accept it that way. Partly, that's because I'm not coming up with stuff that would be good to include in a book, partly because I don't think of writing as being serious. Maybe I should start working on the manuscripts of the two unfinished books and see what happens. During NaNoWriMo, when I have a specific word count goal, I take my writing seriously, at least in terms of putting in time. I don't take it seriously in terms of thinking that my output is worth anything.

I want to get out of the house. Being in the library three mornings a week helps -- at least it's different walls -- but I want to be somewhere else, preferably somewhere where I can be outside a lot. I could be outside here a lot more, though, if I chose it, so I don't know if I'd actually be outside more if I was somewhere more salubrious.

F has gymnastics this afternoon, so I'll be taking my computer and books and working. I think I'll skip watching and go across the street to the library. The inside of the gym is really depressing, or at least the observer section is. At the library -- a different one from the one we go to for school -- I'll have light and color, and maybe even a comfortable chair to read and work in.

I'm thinking about what might make good rewards if I set and achieve small goals. A cookie would be wonderful! but most "reward" foods are out. Maybe buying the occasional avocado. A massage would be even better, but I think that has to wait to be a reward for a big goal -- my rewards have to be inexpensive, because my goals are small and we are not exactly running over with extra money. A chance to drag B out to walk in the mall, at least in bad weather. He doesn't much like walking in malls, but it's a good way for me to get a little exercise and, as usual, see something other than the usual four walls. I'll keep thinking.

dd came stomping in the house today, out the back door, up the steps, into my bedroom, where I was laying in bed reading the book I had read myself to sleep with, that I had picked up when I awoke, not super motivated, and was still there, with a donut and some chips, in bed at 11:30 am - and she said

"Its a beautiful day! You can wear a t-shirt outside! WE ARE going out to breakfast and then we are going for a walk!"

so I said "ok". I usually do to anyone with gumption and a plan like that, who comes stomping into the house. and I so rarely see my daughter, and don't feel in sync with her anymore, so it was a good offer

well....we winded up walking around, going on a walking adventure ALL DAY. we didn't get back home til 8 oclock at night, where we gave each other a hug, and parted ways, on the avenue.

We started by going to the art suply store - talking art all the way there - and just wound up getting inspired...by everything...and keep walking..and stopping in here and there for breaks, a cafe, a movie for free (the Joe Strummer movie - it was great!), to a boutique that deconstructs and reconstructs corsets, to the childrens section of the Prat Library, where dd remembered it (!) that we had not been to since she was a child, the beautiful goldfish pond, you know -

we walked all the way downtown and all around. It was great. very inspiring day. wonderful to touch base with her, and great to tell her stories of her childhood, and talk of future plans and share a special bond.

I guess it will be like that. I shouldn't be afraid if we aren't close sometimes, these days, it will always be there still and it will be great the times we do spend together. it was a nice surprise.

and the inspiring things. well, it was the kind of day you could write down all the little notes of what you did and saw ...but in the end, my goodness, you are actually just tuckered out and time to turn into bed, back to your book, with a smile.

- - - One plan is, if I don't sell the house, to totally redo the first floor and paint , paint , paint, inspired by a great painted floor in a tape book, tape graphti and stuff like that, tape clothes - - -

I like to dream outloud, to adventure, to explore, adn what great company! my daughter, who likes these things too. we trip people out, a little, how similar we look and sound, high on sunlight and iced soy lattes. :)

I needed that!

p.s. - I am totally feeling a zine brewing in me. I am tired of the virtual reality of the internets, yet I by nature do express myself in words alot, I want to create something that can be held with hands. Its a good feeling to have a zine brewing in ones thoughts. the next issue of tfg will be the "baltimore" issue :)

happy new years mamas!

This year, I have resolved to learn how to have a good time, how to enjoy myself, to find pleasure and laughter, to be stronger and less of a doormat.
I also resolved to write exactly 100words/day for the year, because I seem to have fallen off the 300 words bandwagon and I'm feeling bandwagonesque.
Jumping back on, in a structured and minimalist fashion. Can she do it? Aw shit you know I make up my own rules. Or somethingaruther.
I’m wasting way too much time on the new laptop. Hey! Let me off this crazy thing, called: the internet.

i heard the fire crackers thru my bed room window as i settled in on new years eve. everyone else was out at the bars. needless to say, 2007 passed uneventfully. there's been a lot of change the past year. i've developed relationships and then lost several...some for good reason, others against my wishes, tho i have to let go. i got pregnant in may and am going into my ninth month right now. i'd be lying if i didn't say i'm ready for peep to be here with me right now, but the pregnancy has been fairly easy and i've definitely enjoyed it. but my body tells me i'm ready. i'm still waiting tables--working five days a week, it is taking a toll on my body and i feel it when i get out of bed--i feel like an old woman who needs a walker cuz my hips/pelvis are so sore, sometimes i wonder if it will hold my weight. i've gained 35 pounds, which i'm happy about, cuz i kno peep needs it--i'm a pretty small person.

my brother's wife had a baby last month. m (baby) was stuck in the hospital for about a week and got to go home x-mas eve. c's (mom) water broke on the sunday the 16th, she called the hospital and they told her no, her water didn't break--w/o even bothering to check her or anything--so they didn't go into the hospital. she developed a fever on tues. so they went in. i was so pissed when i heard that because she put her and her baby's life in the hands of these 'professionals' and she got sick because she listened to them. she and the baby were stuck on antibiotics and they didn't allow her to breastfeed because of it.
i talked to my mom about it, cuz she has such reservations about the safety of a homebirth, but with 'professionals' such as this why in the hell would i want to go to a hospital? knowledge has a big thing to do with it i think. many parents-to-be don't do a large amount of research into what exactly is going on with a pregnant woman. they leave it in the hands of the professionals who tell them what to do. so many options are left quiet in a hospital setting. all i kno is if i went thru that--my water broke and they said no, i would've stood up to them and said they didn't kno what they were talking about, cuz i kno--i've done the research--extensively and kno that if someone is leaking something, than the staff should at least check on them. i kno it's a personal choice for everyone--my sister, mother, and other sister-in-law had good hospital births and that's fine for them, but not for me. my mom supports me, just not my decision, i hope she'll see when the birth comes.

the relationship with m (father) is still up in the air. tho he 'says' he wants to be an active involved parent, i've yet to see the action behind the words. i kno peep isn't here yet, but to me parenting starts before the baby gets here. i miss the support. of course i have TONS of support from family and community--i have 5 baby showers planned for me! but it's not the same as having the other half of this whole situation there for me. we work together, so sometimes it's hard--people hound him and wonder why he doesn't want to be involved and he says he does--but actions speak louder than words and people see that. i used to defend him more than anyone to people saying that he is excited and he does want to help and be a part of the birth and peep's life--but now, when people ask me about him, i just say i don't kno. i don't kno what he wants, what he expects, nothing, cuz he won't talk to me about any of it. i'm at my wits end, want to say fuck it, i don't need/want you around etc. but on the other hand, i want to afford him every opportunity to be involved in his baby's life.

just this past week, i've been getting into some interesting conversations at work. sat. night i had 2 guys ask me for my number--this confuses me and i wonder what they want with a pregnant woman. it was mildly entertaining for me. on the other hand in the same week, i've had men tell me that i owe it to my child to be married to the father and another comment regarding my pregnancy and lack of ring. when these people decided my personal life was any of their fucking business is beyond me, but i made it clear that i don't share their views. i owe my child a comfortable, stable, loving, honest, respectful household and relationship, not a marriage to someone just cuz we have kid together.

this year, i'm really looking forward to what mother hood has to bring me, i'm looking forward to the new tattoo i will be getting in celebration of that, i'm looking forward to the continued organizing etc. i will be involved in--to the dnc/rnc protests, i'm looking forward to not working and spending as much time with peep as i can.

I have two problems. One is that I find myself in the middle of the day, out of things to do and with no idea what might keep me occupied. Except for more housework. (When I commented on this to B, he said he could think up dozens of things for me to do, and I responded, "And how many of them are not housework?" He paused, and said, "Well, a few." Yeah.) I get *bored*. I can't believe I'm *bored*.

The other problem is that I reach the end of the day and I feel as though I've been useless. And even when I'm accomplishing things that I didn't used to accomplish, things that mean I'm getting better, I don't give myself credit for them. So I've been sinking into a morass of wondering what the hell I'm doing here, "here" being any random space I happen to be occupying, as well as the universe at large.

Not good.

As a first line of defense, I've bought myself a packet of foil stars and started a sticker chart. I'm forty years old, and I have a sticker chart. Every time I do something useful, I give myself a star. That way, I can look back at the end of the day and the end of the week and say, "I did things today." I may have to make up "I did" lists to go with, so that I know exactly what I did that was useful, but we'll see. That might help with the useless bit.

Next step? I think I need B's help on this one -- I have no perspective, so an outside eye is invaluable. I want to discuss the things that I avoid or that overwhelm me, and pick out one at a time to confront. And I want to set up a reward system so that I get a cookie when I achieve something. If I don't get a reward, some recognition that I've made a significant step, I'll just dismiss what I've done and concentrate on the negatives of what I haven't done yet.

I don't know what those goals might be, or even what rewards to ask for.

I'm also restless to get out of the house. I was out yesterday -- errands, which count, and dinner with friends -- and I'm restless to get out again today. I'm restless for something to *happen*. I can't decide whether this is something emotional or whether it's a new manifestation of the chemical nonsense.

I do think I'm depressed. I can't decide whether that's an issue or not. I'm cranky and angry about having bipolar disorder right now. I just want the shit to *end*. I'm stable, but I'm not as functional as I used to be. Damnit, I was blossoming. I was finally coming out of that box I put myself into when I hit adulthood, finally starting to risk myself, to stretch out. Then the episode hit, and not only did I lose all that progress, I regressed. Being afraid of the telephone? I ask you. I'm mostly over that one, at least. But I don't feel like being the limited person I am.

B suggests that I stop thinking of myself as "limited" and think of myself as "recovering" instead. Or, in other words, concentrate on that progress I haven't been giving myself credit for. The thing is, I'm sick and tired of being "recovering." How about I get to be "recovered" for a while? I don't mind being dependent on the meds, I really don't. I don't mind the constant sleep disruption. But can't I have my daytimes back?

I was restless when the kids were little, before my last episode. But I basically enjoyed what I was doing. I felt fulfilled. Now, I'm starting to doubt what I'm doing. Am I really going to be able to teach P what he needs to learn in highschool? Do I have to take a more organized approach and go for something closer to school-at-home? Wouldn't it be easier to just send them all to public school and be done with it, except that I don't think any of them would mix well with public school. And, in my secret heart, I fear that they're not well enough prepared to transition to public school. How ironic -- we're planning to begin P in some easy courses at the local community college next fall, and I'm wibbling about whether he could handle high school.

I'm whining. I'll stop. I've been wishy-washying back and forth recently about spending time each day doing serious writing, instead of just journaling. I'm afraid I won't be able to come up with anything to write about. I get a star if I do it, though.

Happy new year. From the looks of it, should be interesting. Already so much going on my head is reeling a little, but I think it's good. I certainly hope so. Knock on wood & all that.

It is also late & I need to go to bed because I have another early morning tomorrow morning & this morning tried to kick my ass. I'm *so* not a morning person.

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