A big smile and two big ears - that seems to be me.

I got to write this weekend, for 14/48. What a gift - to write, to have the impetus of a deadline, to remember how to flex those muscles. And 2011 will hold See Me Naked, and by golly I'm gonna write more.

I'd like to write now, but it's 7:33pm, and my husband is talking to me, and my son is talking to me, and I love them both - and I guess I could just transcribe what they're saying because I certainly cannot hear myself think.

Sometimes they talk and talk and talk to me, they can see me typing, but it's like the laptop doesn't exist for them. Sometimes I think I just appear to be one gigantic ear. Two gigantic ears, ready to listen to them forever. Maybe I'm smiling in their imagination - a big smile and two big ears. That's me, that's the mom and the wife.

I need my own goddamn house.


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Finn Judd's First Screenplay

Finn wanted to know if there was a Devil Duck cartoon movie. I said, “I don’t think so – why don’t we make one someday with the video camera? We’ll have to make up a story for it.” And he dictated the following story.


Finn Judd’s first Screenplay, as told to his Mom.

Title: Devil Duck Land

Once upon a time, a purple Devil Duck came, and she said, 'I love Devil Duck land!'

Then, a big mean Green Duck came and they were fightin'. Then, they said, 'I don't want to fight at each other!'

A big Mean Orange Duck came and he tried to kill Green Duck and Purple Duck. Then Orange Duck said, 'I Don't want to try and kill you!'

Then the big mean Red Duck came and he cried, 'I'm trying to kill you out of control!' Then he said, 'I Don't want to kill you out of control!'

Then a big big big spotted Devil Duck came and he tried to put Red Duck, Orange Duck, Purple Duck and Green Duck in jail. Then, the spotted Duck said, 'I Don't want to put you in jail!'

Then, the great big big Fire Duck came right over to Devil Duck land and he said, 'I want to put you in my mouth!' Then he said, 'I Don't want to put you in my mouth!'

Then a big big Pink Duck came running over to Devil Duck land and she said, 'I want to poke you on my horns!' Then she said, ‘I don’t want to poke you on my horns!’

Then a big big mean Clear Duck came running over to Devil Duck land and he said, ‘I want to put them in my squeaky!’

Then a great big mean Hapu (camouflage) Duck came running over to Devil Duck land and he said, ‘I want to put you in my beak!’ Then he said, ‘I Don’t want to put you in my beak.’

Then, a big big big Pirate Duck came running over the Devil Duck land. He said, ’I want to put you in my pirate’s treasure!’ Then, he said, ‘I Don’t want to put you inside my pirate’s treasure!’

(Cut to Mom writing: “Why are they changing their minds, do you think?” Finn: “‘cause that’s the movie I want to make up for them!”)

Then a Great Big Big Big Ginormous Green Devil Duck came running over to Devil Duck land and he said, ‘I want to poke you on my horns!’ and then he said, ‘I Don’t want to poke you on my horns!’

Then no Devil Ducks came running over to Devil Duck land.



The End.


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Writing...

I just spent 90 minutes writing.

And I wrote for 2 hours on the train earlier today.

Not grant writing. Not even journal or blog or email writing.

Not to denigrate those forms, they have helped sustain me.

But I have not written like this, for this amount of time, real creative writing, in YEARS.

And even this isn't entirely new, it's an article / story I'm working on for the class I'm taking, a memoir kind of piece about the making of See Me Naked.

But the primary point of importance here is that I wrote today, for 3 and 1/2 hours. Alone. Uninterrupted. Something I have not done since late spring 2004.

Five years.

I am humbled and saddened by that realization. Although I would not trade away one moment of motherhood. And I actually miss my little family, right now, now that the writing is done and only solitary bed awaits.

But I need to, must, need to know this and remember it and not, not falter -

I am a writer.

I am a good writer.

I love writing.

If it took a solo trip to get me started again, fine.

If I need to take a train ride once a month, fine.

Ferries are cheap, too, and the one to Bremerton and back takes nearly two hours.

I just cannot wait anymore. I have to do this, and what I need is chunks of time away from the voices of husband and son.

I love being quiet. I just love it. I love my family, too, and I bet I'll love them even more when I get to have my writing time. My dreaming time. My life.



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Lavendar sky updates...

I was going to call this post Twilight updates, but now that word has become less than it used to be. Too specific. Sad, that.

Just a quick school update, for friends who've been sending prayers. The State of Washington and City of Seattle, in their infinite wisdom and let's-focus-on-kids-first strategies, have declined to offer my son a spot in their subsidized get-ready-for-kindergarten ECEAP program. The sweet little school right down the street. He can't go there. Because he is FIVE YEARS OLD and OLD ENOUGH FOR KINDERGARTEN.

I finally got to talk to the head of the Department of Early Learning for the City of Seattle, after three + weeks of waiting. He can't go, because it's a "performance standard" and a "mandate." It's "legally binding" - whatever it is, this un-named rule that says he can't go to this free program that's supposed to help kids get ready for school.

We could pay for him to go. $560 per month for 4 afternoons - 12 hours - per week. Which we cannot afford. We qualify hands-down for this program in terms of financial need, no doubt.

So - that is my update on that.

But there is good news. We go tomorrow to visit the Capitol Hill Co-op preschool, where a good friend goes with her son. She'll show us around. We'll see if we like it as much as I expect we will. And hopefully that is where Finn will go to school. Much less money, and I get to work there in the classroom once per week.

We'll have to drive quite a ways - the co-ops closer to us are all full.

There is one closer, where another friend goes, and they do have an opening one day per week - so somehow, someway, I hope that Finn will be settled at a school by next week.

No idea how this will play out in terms of my work life. Other than I have to go buy a laptop this week. So I can sit in coffee shops and the Capitol Hill Library and work on my grant-writing and my novel.

If you need any grants written, shoot me a message. And check out my new blog -

Adventures of a Would-Be Novelist: www.would-be-novelist.blogspot.com -

and send me messages if you notice I haven't posted anything in over a week.

I need some help with this nose and grindstone business, I think.



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Elizabeth Gilbert and Me

She's wrong. Elizabeth Gilbert. She's wrong about that child thing, right at the beginning of Eat Pray Love, that part about the mom not caring about colicky crying but just beaming all the time because she loves her baby so much.

I kind of hate when non-moms write about what they imagine to be true about motherhood.

It tends to be simplistic nonsense.

I loved my son, love my son, sometimes swooningly - but light does not flow from his pores, I did not and do not beam every moment I am awake in his presence. I hated being tired all the time. I still hate being tired all the time.

On a daily basis, I mourn the loss of my solitude. I resent my descent into cliche-dom - the narrowing of my circle to these walls and these two males, the softening destruction of my body as my last big sweaty exercise fades into distant memory, the clouded and narrow quagmire that used to be a clear spiritual path.

And here is this Lady, this Liz, who got PAID in ADVANCE to TRAVEL the world and WRITE a BOOK about it. Travel for a YEAR. And now Julia Roberts is going PLAY her in the movie of that book.

I HATE.

I HATE that THAT is NOT me.

This is one of the refrains of my ill life, the unhealthy river that flows through my dark side -

"How did SHE get MY life????"

Envy.

It knows no boundaries. It has become my companion, again. I stopped paying attention to my spiritual fitness, rounded a mountain, and there she was. Here she is. Envy. She looks like illness personified, but one of those grossly attractive illnesses - Sharon Stone in Casino kind of ill, right after the glory and heading into the descent. Eyes glassy but still focused, smelling like expensive perfume put on two days ago, clothes still expensive but crumpled. Envy.

She is my best self made grotesque.

And when I am fit, she is a good teacher.

What and Whom am I envying?

For they do have something I want - something I am blocking, somehow, by not pursuing or by denying, by lazing or by....

I Want To Write.

I Want You To Read This.

I Want This To Be My Job.

I Want This To Earn Me Money.

Lots Of Money. Enough to buy a home, food, good schooling for my son, and travel.

I Want This To Be My Daily Work.

I don't know how. Or in what way - romances, memoir, novel, essays. I don't know how.

So I'll just write. That I know how to do. Like this.

And Open the Door to Having THAT Life.

I Write For My Living.

I Write.

I Live.





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OMG... Two Days In A Row?

And.... "OMG"? Did I really just write that?

I've entered the texting universe. I was at a work meeting yesterday with some younger folks, talking about scheduling things, and asked if I could email them some information. They looked at me kind of blankly. I pressed on, asking "Is that okay? Do you check email?" And they somewhat sheepishly said, "Well. Not really. We text."

So I guess maybe I will, too.

But that's a sidenote, a small tangent of sorts. It's not why I wanted to post. I came here this morning because I woke up wanting to write, talked myself out of it, glanced at my email, looked at my Facebook, thought Oh, what the hell, I'll look at my blog - and my friend Lisette had posted a comment. And that felt so good... to have been read. To have been heard.

I woke up with ENVY this morning.

That's what I was gonna write about.

I hate ENVY. It is my least favorite feeling, and one that plagued me through my 20's, and sometimes it comes back to visit.

It is enervating - is that the right word? It Takes my Energy, is what I'm trying to say. I leave myself, my world, my son, my husband, my life, to think about Someone Else's Life and long for it.

I was beginning to berate myself for my ENVY, labeling it a character defect or a sin or what-label-have-you, and then a quieter voice spoke up -

"What is your ENVY trying to teach you?"

And whoa. Quiet thunderclap. Of course - I envy because I long for something I think I want, I think I don't have - and maybe those thoughts are true.

I am missing something in my life. Something I want.

It might be dressed up in different colors, and maybe I don't ACTUALLY want to travel the world performing like Mike Daisey and Jean-Michele Gregory (although I do, kinda), and maybe I don't ACTUALLY want to be a surfing Life Coach living at Half Moon Bay like my friend Corrine (although I do, sorta) -

Whatever the exterior activities look like, I realize that I DO want, DO long for Creativity. I want to write and perform again. I long for new experiences, for travel. I long for independence, for self-employment freedom, for MORE FUN.

I have a really good gig. I must admit that. I have a job in the arts. I get to be relatively creative. I am relatively well paid.

But I'm not on stage. I'm struggling spiritually. I'm sliding sideways into dangerous habits of escapism, which I know from long experience means I'm ignoring some real need inside. And if I keep longing for escape, sooner or later I'll take a possibly dangerous step in a likely dangerous direction.

So, this morning, at least, I decided to write.

And now, on a hot Saturday, I'll go be a mom. Finn, my 4 year old son, has our whole day planned. We'll go to:

Mommy & Me Ballet class (us in our sweats with a handful of little girls in pink tutus with their moms in nice exercise clothes);
Starbucks (for our snack/treat)
The Model Train Museum in Balboa Park (to which we MUST ride the Park Trolley), then we'll
Walk Over the Bridge to the Cactus Garden, then we'll
Go to the Rose Garden, then we'll
Go to Another Park

And that will be my Saturday.

Not bad. Not bad.

First post, first step, all journeys begin...

here. Don't they?

So many moves, deaths and births in tandem, life cycles into Fall and the dying times while we, our family, me, head into the birth of a new life.

Sand Dollar, the name of this template. SD. Perfect. Sand, Dollars, Sunshine, San Diego await us.

While we pack up our lives, recycyle our lives, weigh and measure and remember our lives in Seattle.

A fitting place to write the first blog entry of the first blog I've ever had. In the same city that saw my first email address, first laptop.... first and only marriage, first and only child.

More to come. More posts, more movement, more words.

I LOVE words.