Brain dump

I have too many things in my brain. I’m hoping that if I dump them all out, I’ll be better able to sort them.

I got a lot of responses to the gatherer/farmer post on writing. It interests me greatly that everyone who responded said “I’m totally a gatherer.” Supposedly the world is primarily filled with farmers, but I sure can’t tell by looking at the people I hang out with. Perhaps the hunters and gatherers accumulate in the eddies on the edges of a vast river of farmers. Or perhaps hunters and gatherers are about 50% of the population and it is just our society that is set up as a farmer’s world. I’m not sure which it is, but hopefully now that I’ve written it down my brain will be able to let it go so that I can concentrate on other things.

I watched a lot of movies while Howard was gone. The ones I’m gladdest about are Good Will Hunting, About A Boy, and Stranger Than Fiction. I really liked them. I highly recommend them all, but be aware that Good Will Hunting is heavy on language and crude jokes. They’re important characterwise, but be forewarned. About A Boy was marketed as a romantic comedy, but it isn’t. The movie focuses on relationships, but most of the relationships are not romantic. Even better, lying does not win the girl. Yay. Stranger Than Fiction I had seen before. I enjoyed it even more the second time through because I did not have to feel tense and I could see all the pieces that would come together in the end. This is not a typical Will Ferrell movie. He gets to do real acting instead of just acting stupid or silly. I never liked Will Ferrell before seeing this film. Elizabethtown was interesting, but it felt incomplete. There were many fascinating threads, but none of them arrived anywhere concrete. Real Women Have Curves had good potential, but the protagonist does not have a character arc. She drifts through the film without changing much. The cultural clashes were interesting though. Love’s Labour Lost is Shakespeare set in WWII and turned into a musical. It was deliberately cheesy. The cheesiness of it made me laugh with delight. And I loved the bright colors and the songs and dances. I need to watch some more musicals. I love them, but the problem is that I’ve already seen the best ones. That leaves me either re-watching over-familiar material or watching bad ones. Sigh. Bride and Prejudice and Bend It Like Beckham both offered a fascinating glimpse into the culture of India. I love the traditional clothing styles of India and their art fascinates me. Bride and Prejudice isn’t meant to be serious, just fun. Bend It Like Beckam was fascinating in trying to show the conflict between traditional cultures and the modern world. I wanted to react to each of these movies individually. I’ve got half-composed blog entries about them floating in my brain. I’m dumping these incomplete blogs. For now this will have to suffice. Perhaps later something else will come up that will connect back to one of these movies and I’ll write the blogs then. I can’t keep holding onto the half-composed stuff. I need the brainspace.

Through experimentation I have determined fairly certainly that Patches is lactose intolerant. I think Gleek is as well although I’m less certain about her. This complicates cooking because our family has always relied heavily on dairy. I love cheese. I have not yet wrapped my head around the ways that I need to change the family diet to accomodate for this. Instead I bought a big box of lactase pills to give to the kids to help them digest. Fortunately this is not life threatening or damaging in any way. If the kids get dairy while I’m not looking, they have gas, diarhea, and feel ill. They’re better after a few hours. I’m going to have to pack lunches for school instead of letting the kids buy lunch. Sigh. And I really need to get back into cooking healthy meals regularly. This requires preplanning and focus. Those things are easier to come by when our family has a regular schedule. Kiki has been sleeping at odd hours. Link was complaining that he always has to fix his own food. Gleek has been running hyper from friend to friend barely touching down at home in between. Patches is suffering from a lack of quiet time. They all need me to be more focused. They need me to provide a schedule for them because they aren’t good at providing schedules for themselves. Unfortunately neither am I. Daily schedule is a farmer thing. Anyway I need to take Gleek and Patches to the doctor to discuss lactose intolerance and to figure out if there is anything else I need to be doing to help them manage it. While I’m there I should probably mention that Link guzzles milk in the afternoons and evenings. He does this so consistently that I’m wondering if the medication he is on for ADD leaches calcium or some other nutrient out of his system. Perhaps I’ll even mention Kiki’s wonky sleep schedule to the doctor. She seems to be sleeping far more than she should be for her age. Maybe she is just growing. Maybe it just seems that way because she is sleeping and tired at odd hours.

School starts in three weeks. I’ve no clue who the kids will have for teachers. I know who I want for them, but if they don’t get the teachers I’m hoping for, I don’t know if I’ll kick up a fuss or not. I’m worried about Gleek transistioning into First Grade. So is she. It has featured in her bedtime prayers lately. The beginning of Kindergarten was so rough for her. Kiki will be starting Junior High. This isn’t just new for her, but for me as well. I’ve got a whole new set of administrators and systems to deal with. I don’t know how Junior High works, how to make sure she is properly registered, how the bussing works, how to pay fees, etc. I’m sure none of it is very complicated, but I haven’t figured it out yet and so it looms. Patches starts preschool too. I wonder how that will go. I haven’t done any school preparation and I don’t have time or energy for it until next week at the soonest.

It feels better to get all this stuff out where I can see it. I think I’m done now.