Skipping

Hey, it's DECEMBER first today...

NaBloPoMo is over, FINALLY over, and so I don't have to post today! I can skip it, skip a day, yes! Skippity, skip, skip.

Watch me skipping. Nothing up on the old blog today, nope not me.

But wait...

if I hit publish on this...

then I AM posting.

THIS will go up on my blog...

and it's a post...

so I'm not skipping a day.

But I feel like celebrating having made it through the whole month of November, the posting every day whether I "felt it" or not, the discipline of the daily writing.

And while that felt great? It's also a relief that it's over.

And I want to commemorate my accomplishment by skipping a day.

But I also want to TELL you I'm doing it.

And so by telling you that I'm skipping, here on my blog, I'm writing a post... and therefore NOT skipping.

So I'll just not post anything.

But I WANT to tell you that I'm skipping.
 
But if I DO tell you, then I'm not skipping.

AAAAAGH!

My head is going to explode.

Wait, this is sounding familiar... very familiar...

Yes, I believe that's it.

A classic logic paradox.

You're welcome and goodnight.


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I will always...

Ethan, at bedtime this evening was not quite ready to let go of the day. He was in a talkative mood, rare recently as he has been reading until deep drowsiness sets in, sometimes even falling asleep on the sofa, a seven-hundred-plus page tome of Harry Potter's exploits resting spread open upon his slowly rising and falling chest. A comforting weight, perhaps.

But tonight something had him stirred up, and thus my need to talk him back down.

"Mom, will you always love me?" he asked. (Not a chit-chat night, then. Alright.)

Although he has heard the answer a thousand times, he somehow needed to hear it anew tonight, for the thousand and first: "Ethan, these two things are absolutely true: I will always be your Mom, and I will always love you."

"Well," he says being practical about it, "we will love each other until whoever dies first."

(Love AND death. Stirred up, indeed.)

"That had better be me!" I tell him, "But preferably not until I'm an old, old lady."

"A hundred and two?" he suggests.

"Yes, that would do, nicely. And with plenty of grandchildren at my knee." (It's never too early to plant the seeds.)

I tell him the old joke: "Do you know how to live to be 102 years old? Get to 101, and then be very, VERY careful."

(Possibly one of the best unforeseen benefits of having kids: old jokes are new to them and considered hilarious; I get to trot out all my favorite shopworn groaners to an appreciative audience. Win!)

He laughs, but then I round the corner back to serious again.

"And also... you do know, love goes on after death. I still love your Grandpa, my Dad, and he is dead."

"Yes," he nods solemnly, contemplating his blanket, and then looks up, breaks out in a big grin.

"But hugs don't, so hug me now, Mama!" and he opens his arms wide. He opens his arms wide, to me.


In honor of today being the very last day of NaBloPoMo November, I decided to sift through my drafts, resurrect one more post from my zombie files. I had thought of this as a snippet, not quite a full post for wordy, rambling me. But reading it over I realized: "yes, it could be enough." 

And thus... it is done. 30 posts in 30 days. Goodnight!  


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Top Ten Reasons Why I Don't Make Top Ten Lists

Well, it's now exactly halfway through November, NaBloPoMo month, and so far I am still blogging every day. (Yay, me!) Fellow blogging friends have reminded me that two of the "easy" ways to get a post written when I'm in a hurry and have to toss one out are photo posts (Check! I do those on Wednesdays) and list posts. Hmmmm.

The "List Post" is supposed to be a handy tool in the Bloggers arsenal. (I know I've mixed my metaphors there - so what? It's *my* blog, I can do what I want.)

But you know what? I don't like them, hardly ever do them.

In general, they don't work for me.

Why? (you may ask)

Well, why don't I just make a list for you of my reasons? (Grammar police? Back off - I constructed the sentence that way for a reason. The reason? it pleases me.)

There are a myriad. That's a big number. But we don't have all day, so maybe I'll cut it down to size. Bite size, perhaps - how about 10, a nice even number (and the basis of our numeric system, to boot).

1. Have I mentioned I have ADD? We don't do lists. They're just so... orderly. And my brain is anything but. I'm allergic to lists. How do I get everything done in my life without them, you ask? Good question! (Hint: I don't.)

2. There is a very specific form and structure to "Top 10" list posts and for some reason (*cough* immaturity *cough*) highly structured brings up an oppositional, "you can't tell me what to do" voice in my head and I go into resistance mode. (Hey, I didn't promise these were 10 rational reasons now, did I?)

3.  There is no number three. Move on. (Told you these make me oppositional.)

4. I am not a short-form, bullet points kind of gal. I write long, am long-form, not direct and to the point (although the wonderful Elissa did once call me "pithy" and I so teased her about that), I am Queen of the Run-on-Sentence (with parenthetical clauses) after all. And those? Don't make for nice short punchy "top ten" items, you know what I mean?

5. OverdoneOverdoneOverdone. And can I add: overdone? I don't do overdone.

6. That the list post is supposed to be an "easy out"? Feels like cheating, like a short cut. And, unfortunately, I don't do those. I try, but they end up being long-way-rounds, not short cuts, every freaking time.  Take guest posts. These are supposed to be easy - hey, someone else is writing them!  But then I write these long essay-like intros and linky wraps that involve research and take hours. Also? I promise these are not the first 10 things that popped into my head as I sat down to write this here list. I went back and looked them all over thought "Are they good enough?" And changed them made them better. Because I just can't take the easy way out without somehow making it the hard way. (Fun being me - no?)

7. Tangents. I'm all about the tangents, and lists don't make space for them, you need to proceed right to the next item. Stay on topic. No time for delicious tangents, like the time I...

8. By this point? It feels like homework. I hate homework. I am already doing 4th grade homework every night with Ethan and the same damn 1st grade homework for the third year running with Jacob. Did I mention I hate homework?

9. I never put things in the right order, always think of the really important one after I'm all done.

10. I know I had more reasons. I just can't think of them right now. But I have to come up with one more, make it to 10 item for this damn "Top 10" list because only having 9 is just awkward and feels incomplete. So I'm just going to have to pull something out of my ass, to make up some stupid thing to add in to fill this space up and make it come out to ten. Oh, yeah, that's another reason - I hate "space filler" items. Passionately.

@@@@@@@

TEN! Yeah, I did it! OK, maybe this wasn't so bad after all. Maybe it's kind of fun. Maybe I should start doing Stasha's Monday Listicles linky. Maybe I should start doing ALL of the other list sort of memes on the interwebs.

Maybe that's ALL I'm going to do from now on! No need to try to create that magic "flow" or worry about that other writerly stuff, I'll now just list things in the random order they pop out of my brain in, and move on... Whoo hoo! I've been liberated from this "crafting" thing! I'm free! I'm free! I've been set free!

(The authorities have now been called to peel Varda off the ceiling. Don't worry, they will slap her around until she calms down, and her blog and writing will return to it's normal state by tomorrow.)

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Sunday Night Send Off

Today is the day this NaBloPoMo, this "posting every day this month thing" is finally biting my ass. And it's the 13th already, that means it's nearly mid-month. So really that's not that bad.

What is bad, however, is this: I got nothing today.

I just will. not. post. another. whiny. how-tough-life-is-with-an-autistic-kid. rant.

I. just. will. not.

Which is what you would get if I let loose with a Stream of Consciousness Sunday post tonight. Believe me, I live here in my brain, I know which direction it's going in; nothing good coming out of that tonight, trust me on this one folks.

So I'm going to take a page out of some other blogger's books and use this space to link up some of the beauty and brilliance I have found on the web this week, send you off to read posts on OTHER people's blogs.

Like Schmutzy does with her wonderful "Five Star Friday" weekly collection of wonderful posts (that I have had the honor of being linked up in, multiple times).

Or Kate from The Big Piece of Cake with her "Links I Love" posts on (mostly) Mondays.

Or Jenny, the Bloggess, with her weekly Sunday wrap-up posts containing the "Shit-I-didn’t-come-up-with-but-wish-I-did-because-it’s-kind-of-awesome" list. (In June 2010 Jenny generously linked to my "From Autist to Artist" post and I got over 1000 hits within a few hours, heady stuff.)

It's not because I don't like you and want you here, but because I DO, and won't just slap up any old drivel and call it a post. THAT'S not a post. THESE are posts (go. read.):

Stimey, over at her blog Stimeyland wrote another AMAZING "big thoughts" post about autism again. Read this post here: Not Even Wrong about her son on the autism spectrum and his wonderful teacher and about how important it is to NOT pound our square peg kids into round holes because, as she quotes from my favorite author Paul Collins book Not Even Wrong:  "Autists are the ultimate square pegs, and the problem with pounding a square peg into a round hole is not that the hammering is hard work. It's that you're destroying the peg."

Momo over at her blog Momo Fali writes a short, lovely, moving post about feeling lost, and then found. Read this: Rising Above and go give her a cyber-hug, please.

Anna of An Inch of Gray is continuing to rip out our hearts with beautiful posts about her lost son and surviving daughter. This one: Isn't it Ironic, is yet another that must be read. You will find her writing as astonishing as the depth of love that suffuses her blog.

My friend Alysia's beautiful tribute to her Father, now dead 13 years: The Rose

There is MUCH more that is wonderful out there, but four links is about all I got in me tonight. And come back tomorrow, OK, I won't bite (too hard).


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Mo or No Mo?

So, as those of you in the bloggosphere probably know (and with advance apologies to my civilian readers here) November is a special month for bloggers and internet-savvy writers and writers who blog (if there is such a distinction to be made) - it is National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo) AND - in response - National Blog Posting Month (or NaBloPoMo); a month where many are committing to writing copious amounts of words EVERY day.*

NaBloPoMo started as a November thing like NaNoWriMo, then the daily blogging part caught on so well that it became a regular monthly thing, and I participated this past July - and yes, wrote a post EVERY day. (See the little "31" next to July 2011 in my archive on the left?)

I enjoyed it, and it was good for my writing; a daily flexing of the muscle and guess what? It gets stronger (duh).

But... but.. it took time. Time that would have / could have been family time. Time that would have / could have been clean up the house time, deal with the mountain of paperwork time. You know the drill.

It was a relief when August came around. But also a bit of a let-down from the writer's high of daily posting. So I thought - November. The BIG month, the uber-NaBloPoMo... I'll do it again then, and planned on it, planted the seed in my brain.

But then October kicked my ass. With my elderly mother's hospitalization and subsequent recovery sucking all the time out of my life, I felt me family needed me. I needed me.

So I decided: I can't do this. As much as I can use my crazy life as excuse to not write, I can also use writing as excuse to neglect parts of my life. Especially the the unpleasant ones: housework, paperwork, etc.

I would be a liar to not admit the chaos factor in our home has increased tenfold since I really became committed to the writing life. Dealing with dust bunnies or crafting a memoir piece... there is NO doubt where my priorities lie. But when the dust bunnies get as large as the sofa? It's a problem.

So I decided to bow out, even prepared a preliminary post called "No Mo" to explain why. It's not that I wasn't going to write, but I was just not going to put the pressure on, make it so I HAD to every day.

But then... but then... so many of my friends were doing one (or BOTH!) of the writing challenges and were talking about it excitedly on their blogs. The Twitter chatter began. And NaBloPoMo's home based moved to BlogHer, MY home base, in so many ways, too.

In short: I started feeling left out. Started feeling resentful of "having" to give up something I had so been looking forward to.

So I signed up. I can still bail at any time during the month if the center just can't hold, if I find Ethan pouting in the evenings, complaining I "love the computer more than you love us!" again.

But the writer in me feels the need to give it the old college try. And I have some tricks up my sleeve.

You may see some very short posts here this month, mere wisps of thought that I would normally save up until I had three or four on a theme to weave into a "good sized and proper" post. But hell, I've noticed many daily posters often go short, so why not me, too.

Also, reading back through my post queue, I have found some very interesting drafts, things half, even three quarters written that I really would love to complete and send out into the world.  Some of them I abandoned, even though I really liked them, because I thought they'd lost their "timeliness."

So I'm thinking this is the perfect excuse to resurrect them, make them resurfaced time capsule type things (including one I can call "Lost Tales of BlogHer11"... yeah THAT post that I never finished).

And now I will end this (completely internal-thought-process, welcome-to-my-brain) post with a question...

Should I be doing NaBloPoMo this month and posting daily, or am I nuts to add that pressure to my life right now?  I have no clear perspective, I'm opening the floor to opinions. Thanks!


*I think I have just topped myself, with the longest opening sentence in a post of mine EVER - reaffirming my title as Queen of the Run-On-Sentence (with parenthetical clauses).


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Nearly There

It's official.

I've run out of things to blather on about today.

But I'm doing NaBloPoMo, committed to posting every day this month, so blather I must.

I *AM* going to finish this thing, and I am so nearly there. Four more days to go.

Actually that's not true at all, the running out of ideas thing. I have a million ideas, but what I have run out of, of course, is time. I have a dozen half-written posts, some of which I am truly excited about and am looking forward to finishing, but just don't have the time to do them justice right now.
 
Time, time, time. What I need, and have so very precious little of... time.

Between the boys' upcoming birthday (tomorrow! nearly there for that, too), the upcoming trip to BlogHer with all the childcare planning and other attendant preparation that goes into that  -- vitamin pours for Jake, playdates set up for Ethan, emergency contact lists to write, new babysitters to train, and oh, yeah, packing *my* stuff for the trip -- I am swamped.

I have really enjoyed writing every day, feel it's kicked my writing mojo up a notch into high gear, even. In fact, what I seem to want to do, most all the time right now, is to write. (And yes, I have a post about *that* half-written, sitting in the hopper.)

But also? I am looking forward to being able to take a break, a day off if I feel like it, or if my kids' birthday is the next day and there are cakes to make, presents to wrap, "To-Do" lists to write, check, curse at.

So why are there not enough hours in the day? Well, I am possibly not the most efficient person on the planet. Something's got to give, and lately it's been sleep. And that is never, not EVER, a good thing.

But I can't help myself. I have blog posts to write... birthdays to plan... blog conferences to pack for... friends to tweet with... playdates to schedule... a husband to (occasionally) talk to... blog posts to read and comment on... social stories to write for Jacob... an elderly mother to visit with, shepherd to doctor appointments... vitamins, supplements and medicines to inventory, buy and pour for Jacob... an elderly Aunt's care to oversee... breakfasts and dinners to serve, lunches to pack... autism research to keep up on... zombies to kill... bathroom conversations to have with Ethan...

And getting enough sleep, taking care of myself? Too often just falls to the bottom of the list. Forgotten.

Next month I am going to think about, write, focus on that: taking care of me, figuring out how to put my own oxygen mask on first (as the eloquent Stark. Raving. Mad. Mommy puts it).

But tonight I am going to wrap up this post, finish icing the GF/CF cupcakes for Jacob's in-class birthday celebration tomorrow, go over the next week's crazy calendar with my husband, and sink into bed exhausted, to catch what few hours of sleep I can before the alarm goes off at 5:45 and I get up and do it all over again.

G'night all.


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