Uncategorized

I hear the sound of rain outside my window. It is a friendly sound, one that I like. Though it is strange to be hearing it while looking at pictures from friends who are buried in snow today. All of our snow has melted. It is possible we’ll get more, but right now we have rain.

It was a quiet Saturday. The kids occupied themselves. I did too, splitting my time between relaxing and working on Planet Mercenary. I never even got dressed, just changed from one set of uber comfortable pajamas into another set when I got out of the shower. A part of me thinks I should have spent my day differently. Mostly though, I’m fine with it.

Tomorrow I’ll have to leave the house. We have church in the morning. In the evening I’ll go fetch Howard from the airport and I’ll get to hear stories from his convention trip this weekend. I’ve bee twitter lurking and he appears to have had a good time. Sometimes when Howard is at a convention, I’ll feel sad that I’m missing the fun. I do feel a bit sad when I see pictures of people I know who I would like to be with. But over all, I’m glad to be at home this weekend. Routine is very attractive to me just now. I would like a bunch of it all in a row so that I can catch up on all the projects that have fallen behind schedule.

I have been very project focused in the past few days. At least I have been when I was able to focus. Unfortunately I spent some of this week dealing with brain zaps, which are a known side effect of discontinuing some SSRI medications. Some people never get them, others do even when they taper off the medicines slowly, as I did. This experience has me convinced I should never ever end one of these medicines abruptly. You’d think that having a new anti-depressant would reduce the effects of stopping the old one, but apparently not. Fortunately they seem to be subsiding, which is good because I have lots of work to do.

The Planet Mercenary project is the biggest thing on my desk. There is a massive amount of work that needs to be done to get it ready for print in March. On the other hand, some of the work is being really fun. Yesterday I was finishing up the latest iteration of the playing cards and they were making me snicker out loud. I love that they have little stories and that I can picture how they will work to make a game more enjoyable.

Force Multiplication is the next Schlock book, and it too needs to head off to print as fast as we can get it there. Fans have been waiting for it. Also I wrote the bonus story and I’m excited for it to see print.

I have the usual January accounting load. I’ve done most of it, but I still need to create 1099s for all of the contractors that we use through the year. This time the count has more than doubled because of all the art we’ve purchased for the Planet Mercenary book. There is quite a bit of set up work associated with this.

The 70 Maxims book also needs to go to print in March. This one will move more quickly than the Planet Mercenary book. It has a lot fewer words, no index, and very few images to manage.

I think the parenting project has (finally, after 3 years) hit a lull where I’m not having to do diagnosis or crisis management for any of my kids. I’m a little reluctant to say this because there is a superstitious piece of my brain that thinks saying it out loud will jinx it.

One of my current projects is teaching Link to be a good work assistant. We’ve put him on the corporate payroll and are paying him a bit over minimum wage for the hours he works. This means teaching him how to be willing to work on my schedule instead of his. He’ll also be learning about tax withholding and basic money management. I think he has the potential to be an excellent assistant. This will become critically important when we hit May, June, and July when we’ll be shipping out all the projects that we’ve been spending the last six months (and the next three months) creating. Fortunately Kiki will also be home to help, so I’ll have two trained assistants.

Organizing the house is a constant project. There is always something to sort or to clean.

As I’ve been feeling better, writing is coming back to me. The process is slow because so much of my available creative energy is being poured into Planet Mercenary. I’m actually doing a significant amount of writing for that project. I’ll be getting writer credit as well as editorial credit. I’ve been blogging more, which makes me happy. It is a measure of my escape from depression and anxiety. My novel in progress is still waiting in the wings for me to have time to open it up again. I know it is there, but haven’t yet decided to put my effort into it.

I’ve been reading more, which is another measure of the escape from depression. I pick reading over binge watching Netflix. Right now I’m trying to (finally) finish reading the last three books of The Wheel of Time series. Then I’ve got Furiously Happy by Jenny Lawson, Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert, Sister Mine, by Nalo Hopkinson, and half a dozen other books in my stack of things to read. I want to fill my head with stories and ideas.

I know I have other projects sitting around and waiting, but at this moment I can’t think of them. Which is fine, because I really need to do all of the above first.

Sometimes success looks like a failure to those who misunderstand the journey you’re on.

I’ve thought about this frequently as I watch Link take the reins of his own life and forge an educational path which diverges from the majority of his peers. I thought about it when I helped Kiki cancel a freelance contract. I’ve thought about it each time I have to advocate for Gleek and explain that drawing in class represents a triumph over the the other coping strategies that we’ve managed to extinguish. I thought about it when I gave Patch a high five when he managed to pull a D out of a failing grade. Each of these things was a personal triumph though they might look like failure from the outside.

I need to remember this when I look at my own projects and get ready to feel like a failure. Success can be redefined en route and it may look nothing like what I pictured when the project began.

I ran across yet another article that confuses correlation with causation. This time it is KSL saying Why You Should Rethink Your Netflix Binge There was a study done that noticed a strong correlation between people who watched a lot of television and those who had less cognitive function later in life. The trouble is the study has no way to show that the television watching caused the lower cognitive function. It could just as easily be true that people who have lower cognitive function are more likely to watch lots of television. I know that for me one of the biggest signs of depression is that I binge watch Netflix. When the depression backs off, I’m just not interested in watching that much. I’d rather be doing other things. For me it is definitely the depression that causes the binge watching not the other way around. One anecdotal example is not proof of anything, yet it may lead to a line of inquiry. What if we treated habitual binge watching television as a symptom? What if when we saw it in a person’s life and sought out where else they might need help or healing? Symptoms vanish without any work if the core condition is healed.

I met my friend for lunch. We hadn’t seen each other for several months and both of us had many things to tell. Over the next three hours we talked. I ended up taking home most of my food because talking was more important than eating. As I spoke I was surprised to realize how much good news I had to share. Somehow in the past few months many of my things have become incrementally better. There have been no major transformations, just an accumulation of days and choices that trended in good directions. I hadn’t quite realized this until I listened to myself talk to her.

Of course I also spilled my frustrations over the things that are still hard. This included the new, and still ongoing, situation with one of my kids. Yet even there the only real source of discouragement is that between where I am now and the point where it will all be fine again are an unknown number of emotionally charged conversations. I will have to navigate it all carefully and the thought makes me tired.

There are only a few more days between me and the launch of a new year. For me the year truly begins next Monday when we resume our regular school and work schedule. I’ve already mapped out the things I will be doing on the days in between. Those days will pass quickly. I’ll be taking them one by one, because that method has worked the last few months. And maybe somewhere up ahead of me is another moment when I can look back and see how much better things are.

On first glance it is just a box of chocolates, a nice gift. But this box was not purchased, every chocolate in that box was hand made by a great-grandmother assisted by her children and grand children. There are 55 different kinds of chocolates in that box. Creating them is a project that spans from September through December. Or so the note that came with the box tells me. This box came as a gift from a neighbor who knows we’ve been having a rough time. I feel honored that he chose to include us in what is obviously a treasured family tradition.

This is not the only gift that has come to our door in the past few days. We have kind and generous neighbors so there have been all sorts of snacks and treats. I am grateful for them all. Each is evidence of the goodness of people. They took time to think of us. I am especially grateful because other than writing a few Christmas cards, I haven’t had energy to think of Christmas beyond the walls of my house.

I look at these gifts and I’m once again astonished at the many forms that people use to express their creativity, gratitude, and love. Many of these people would be surprised that I use the word creativity in reference to their cookies or roll of wrapping paper. Yet even a hastily purchased candy bar with a note slapped on it is a creation. It seeks to create a feeling of connection and remembrance. It seeks to strengthen a friendship. The thoughts really do count for a lot.

We were only in the store because there was a birthday party. It started soon and Gleek needed a gift for her cousin. The store was bustling with Holiday energy and Gleek found many things that made her squee. We had gift in hand and were headed for the front of the store, when a cover caught my eye. I’d been moving so quickly that I had to backtrack three steps in order to take a closer look. I picked it up, glanced at a couple of pages, falling in love with the little round idea in its pages. I need this book. I felt it with certainty, so I did what I rarely do, I just added it to the stack and kept moving.

The check out line was, naturally, bracketed by items ready to be impulse bought. That was where we saw the 642 books. Again: I need this book. This time I considered longer. I had time since Gleek had to deliberate whether she wanted a 642 book or a craft book for herself. My rational mind had arguments against extra purchasing, but for once I listened to the child desire. More than child desire, it was as if a piece of me recognized itself and leaving the books at the store would be wrong. They came home with me.

My instinct was not wrong. What Do You Do With an Idea? is charming in all the right ways. The 642 book will help me on the days when it feels like I have nothing to say. Not that I’ll use ideas from it for the blog, but that it will help me practice writing regularly again, which has been harder this past year.

Acquiring a new picture book made me remember the other picture books I have that hold a special place in my heart. I’ve collected them together on the shelf. I went to run my fingers over the spines and I remembered how much fun it was to read them aloud to my children. I miss the nightly snack and story time. I miss putting inflection into my words and watching young faces react to the story. I’m certain that story times will come to me again. There will be young children in my life in years to come. For now I’ll just treasure the stories and read them to myself.

Maybe the doctor’s appointment made a difference, or maybe it was the extra three hours of sleep I claimed this morning. But this afternoon I was happy. It wasn’t big happy, just sing along with the music happy. It was the sort of happy that runs a couple extra errands and puts a few more things away because I can see that they need done and I can do them. Howard spent some time this morning putting up lights out in the yard. The tree is up and lit, though it still needs ornaments. We’ve lit candles which put holiday scents into the air and music plays. Christmas is successfully conjured in our house. I’m glad. And I’m even more glad that I can feel glad.

I am not working fast enough. This is what my brain tells me. It is hard to argue with the statement when I can look around and see so much more to be done. Everything interferes with everything else. Time spent helping Link emotionally process is time not spent doing business administration. Time spent on business administration means time not spent on design work. Time spent on design work means time not spent making Patch do school work. Everywhere I look there is evidence of how I could have done things better.

I have a doctor appointment on Thursday. It is time for my annual blood test and thyroid check. While I’m there I’ll discuss the status of my anxiety/depression. I’ll describe what is going on in my body and in my head. Perhaps all of this will lead to additional blood tests, perhaps to adjusted prescriptions. If nothing else it will set my mind at ease a bit. Because anxiety can take any symptom and imagine it into dire illness. The result I would like from the appointment is to discover why I’m functioning at a reduced capacity. I have been for a while. There was a brief return to self for a week or two in October, but it vanished again.

I feel worn out and burdened more often than I feel joyful and energetic. I’m going to see what I can do to change that.

In just a few hours it will be December. I’m finding myself in something of an odd place with that fact. I’ve been shopping for Christmas gifts, but that has more to do with the end-of-year financial planning that I’ve been doing than holiday spirit. Thanksgiving weekend came and went without us pulling the decorations out of storage. Usually they’re up the day after Thanksgiving. I see lights going up all over town and I hear Christmas music in the stores, but somehow it hasn’t made it into my house yet. I should probably do something about that in the next few days. We should put up the Christmas tree at least. We will. At some point the holiday will seep in and I’ll be on board with it. I’ve just got so many other things I need to accomplish with my week.

I am looking forward to Kiki returning home for her winter break. I’m looking forward to the other kids also having time off from school. Rest is a good thing. I guess the trouble is that creating a holiday in the house is a big project and I’m full up on projects right now.