The Enchanter's Theorem

Today, the Mouse went to school. She didn't get to go to her class, because they're freaks because her TB test is out of date.

But she went.

She's gone to get her stuff so she can go tomorrow, but it doesn't change the basic.

My Mouse, my darling girl, my star-dusted, solar child, is officially a Kindergartener.

Dude. How the hell do I have a Kindergartener?

I am awed and emotional. I've not gone all weepy, which is awesome. But I am very emotional. In many ways, for me, this is the official start of beginning to let her go out into the World and try her wings. Pre-school and Nursery were very insulated and protected. This is still very protected, but it's where it starts.

You should have seen her fly out of bed this morning. She was so excited.

I hope she keeps ahold of that, that desire and excitement to learn. It's my job to protect that for as long as I can, no matter what. If school doesn't do it for her, I will make it happen some other way. As Tammy rightly points out, school isn't a prison if you know your parents got your back and will pull your ass out if it's needed.

But for now, school it is. The Mouse is a social butterfly and it's an easy way to meet many different people with different backgrounds. We'd still meet them no matter what, but this is kinda right down the block. Literally.

Aiya.

Words. *beats them on the table* Can't make them capture it all. But right now, this moment, I put it right *here*.

Look out, World. Here comes my girl. I've no idea what she'll do or become.

How wonderful!

EDIT: Gods bless Dr. Efron's office. Got her hooked up, got her Yellow Card, and when the Ant got her to school to turn in the card, they said she could go straight to her class.

Which she did without a backward glance, just in time for going in to class after lunch.

Please give mad props to the Ant who made it all happen with no help. I couldn't go with and neither could the husband. She did it all, with babe in arms, much hysterical crying because of shots, and LAUSD bureaucracy. She's not feeling it right now, but she managed, even if she doesn't feel like she did.

*digs out*

Hi there.

Sorry about that. Birthdays buried me and so did small children. One more birthday to go.

Wish friendlyquark (aka the Ant) a most excellent and awesome birthday. Tomorrow is her day. As she continuously tells me, the Mouse was her 9 day early birthday present five years ago.

I got sunburned yesterday at D-land and have to make sure I put on adequate sun protection for our third foray tomorrow. Today, I'm digging through as much as I can and planning on a nap. The sun headache I still have is awful. But I've gotten through all my email, though I haven't touched all the news I haven't seen in a week and a half.

I know. Ignore it, you say. Except that a good 50% of what I write, make art out of, paint or photograph, comes out of my surfing. Jogs the brainmeat and gives me ideas. I need ideas desperately right now, as I'm trying to complete things before moving on to new projects. No new projects till I finish the shit I have now or decide it's not worth continuing.

Video to edit. Photos to edit. Novel to finish transcribing before moving on to the edit of book two, better known as Dark Lightning.

And I'm still battling bad brain chemistry, masquerading as panic/anxiety about shit I have no control over. Which reminds me, I need to take more allergy meds, so I can breathe and make the anxiety go away. Panic requires Vitamin D, fish oil and sleep. Seriously.

What else?

Gods.

Too much.

I only have six days left of my leave and then it's back to it. If you want to see me in a partially rested state, now's your chance.

In other news, I should have edited photos for you to see tonight. Yay!

I'm back to it.

*buries self*

To my vacation, and I'm already feeling a wee bit less crazed, but the family stuff is making me *headdesk*.

An almost five year old girl is a handful.  I love her beyond life, but right now I'm feeling like an utter failure of a parent.  She's gone huge into the defiance thing.  Supposedly it's a sign of how secure she is, but it's driving me absolutely nuts.  She's also treating people really poorly which is just no bueno.  The psych advice is to just ignore it, but my gut is telling me that that's just stupid.  Ignoring it doesn't teach you that it's not okay!

Anyway, not feeling it as the Momma today.  Wishing I didn't feel quite made of so much fail.

* * *

Finished the rough cut of the video.  Now to send it to one other place.  More as I can reveal it.

* * *

Today I'm going to do taxes and work on the photos.  If all goes well, I'll have the first batch up later today.

I also found a show that I think will be a great place for the photos to go to.  So I'm going to work on my submission for it.  We'll see how it goes.

* * * 

My fingernails are just ragged. 

* * *

Nothing else right now.  My gut hurts, I got no sleep and I need to put in my contacts.  Pray for me today.

This, even from where we were, was pretty damn cool as the circus band played the national anthem. I mean, seriously. How often does Old Glory get carried in by elephant back?

And the barding on the elephant! I've got a sideview I'll post on Monday. DUDE. Bob Mackie couldn't have done better.

* * *

Friday and it's hammered.

I've got the dentist at 3 pm. Banking to do. I've written my pages for the day, so that's done. Put together a composite card. Sew. Do taxes. Work on the house in prep for the descent of the Mad Model et al. Fix the bouncing Hunt Press email.

If I fall over dead, tell them I went down gloriously in battle. It'll be our little secret.

*vibrate*

Another conflicted weekend, but this time the good outweighed the meh.

Significantly outweighed the meh.

Today is also the 40th anniversary of the moon landing. It makes me sad today. 40 years and we're not off the rock. What the hell is wrong with us?

The next four weeks are hammered and then the year does it's annual death spiral towards the holidays and eating all my time. Even with that knowledge, I'm seriously contemplating putting together a more substantial annual Hunt Press Book & Art Party. Timothy at Black Cat Gallery has offered to help me out with promoting the current crop of books and I really loved showing at his place last time. Thoughts?

In the meantime, I have a long list of Momma tasks ahead of me tonight. Yesterday was spent in acquiring new sleepers for the Bean as she has outgrown the first batch. Tonight is a trip to Gymboree for Mouse clothing.

And I need a new pair of walking shoes. And I want purely impractical red ones. Because red shoes are what this year is about.

With that, I get back to it.

Well! I finished the photo brochure. Finally. Last night. Took me long enough, but it's done. All that remains is to get it uploaded to the printers and on its merry way.

Yup.

*looks around*

I should probably mention that I am in uber weird headspace and have been for the last few days.

In other news, the dentist appointment was a total non thing and went a long way to helping me deal with my phobia. stacymckenna, please to be thanking your friend. Awesome referral and I am going to heartily recommend Dr. Chen to everyone I know if they need a dentist. Good, good guy.

Edit on Strange Weather continues and I should be done sooner than later.

The Bean has also begun to officially outgrow her newborn/0-3 mos. clothing. There's something both wonderful and bittersweet about it all. Bean's my last baby. I'll only have these two girls, my Mouse and my Bean. It's only once that they're small. It's only once that they find me smiling and making funny noises at them to be the height of comedy. There might come a day when they find me the farthest thing from funny at all. I hope not. I hope to have a better relationship with my girls than I had with my parents.

I'm struggling with the passing of time.

Oh, and Contact was on the TV, right before I went to bed. Fathers and daughters and the search for truth and life and faith and love and how do you know what you know.

Small moves, Ellie. Small moves.

I better get back to it.

And a trip back in time. This is a modern art sculpture that was on the lawn in front of the British Museum the last time I was there, which was back in 1996. Don't know if it's still there.

The juxtaposition of it against the columns just made me go hmm?

Looking at it now, I find I like it a lot more than I did when I took it. How about that?

* * *

So. I'm getting ready to go back to the stock agencies. I had a bit of a wrangle with Shutterstock some time back and got super frustrated with how damn picky they were over images that I could find no problems with. I have since found other agencies and I mean to get my work out there. I have a lot that I think would do the trick, never mind the adorable small child photos I have.

My biggest frustration with stock is that everyone has different rules and the time commitment at the front end is fairly steep. But the photos don't do me any good just sitting on my hard drive. a) I want them to be seen and b) it'd be nice if they were earning at the same time.

So.

Stock.

I'm just tired, I guess. To quote Bullwinkle, this time for sure.

* * *

I am beat. Which I said. Last night was good/bad/indifferent and not full of enough time to get all I wanted accomplished, accomplished. The criticals got done, but there's a pile of work waiting for me, a large chunk of it of the paying variety.

I know that being the Momma takes precedence. I know that it eats time. But I don't like it when I start contemplating Children's Chewable Thorazine to get five uninterrupted minutes to have a full and complete thought and where I'm not raising my voice to say one of the three stock phrases I seem to have right now: "Leave the dog/your sister/the cat alone!" "Not so loud!" "Quit jumping!"

I don't like being that person.

I need a break. But then, don't we all?

We're going to the circus on Saturday. The Birthday Fairy made an early fly by visit. We'll see how that goes. And I'll take a ton of photos.

I just need more coffee. Clearly my mood is jacked up.

Or: Looking For The Thread to Bind Up These Bones of a Thursday

Which is a long way of saying that I'm in a philosophical frame of mind today.

I'm...tired.  I slept poorly.  I kept waking up angry, which is a poor way to wake up and a poor way to go to sleep.  I was allowing too many things to light me up, all of them out of my control and power.

But when I woke in the morning for the final time, I brought some insight with me out of the last foray into sleep.  And a bit of commitment. 

I don't want to give energy any more to these things that light me up.  It's a very poor way to spend my time and energy, both of which are within very specific constraints.  I won't say limited, because the truth is, my time and energy are not limited.  I'm the one wasting my time and energy on getting bent about shit I have no control over.  Better to spend my time and energy on what I can effect, what I can control, what I can change.  And that's only me.

I feel like I *just* ducked getting hit in the head by the Cosmic 2x4 for making this realization.  I feel like if I hadn't had this insight, She would have made sure to bean me hard enough to leave me hearing bells for a week.  She is Infinite Patience.  But She also doesn't suffer fools gladly.  We have that in common.

Sutra, in Hindi, literally means thread.  It's the thing that binds, sews up life and spirituality.  They are typically brief aphorisms or specific sacred texts, such as the Sutras of Patanjali. 

I make this sutra today.  I bind up my disparate fractiousness and sew myself back to focus and commitment.

Life's too short to do otherwise.

* * *

In other news, I'm learning how the Kindle works, so Hunt Press can release its books on that platform.  Yay!

I've triaged a year's worth of email on my new to me laptop.

I watched my wonderful/stupid dance show last night.  OMG, Vitolio and Asuka did it for me last night.  They better not be in the bottom 3 tonight, damn it!

Things are coming together, due to correct application of Planner Bonding.

Tonight, more stupid dance show and baths for the girls.  Pray for me.

Cleared by the good doctor to go back to work tomorrow.

I am conflicted.

It will be nice to have five minutes that are not devoted to being life support for the Bean.  It will also be hard to be away from my girls.  I spent a few hours today just holding the Bean and soaking up the baby vibe.  Smelling the top of her head.  Holding her little body against my chest.

It's hard being a working mother.  But it's also a life that I think is important.

My dream is that one day we'll live in a world where businesses understand that it's not a bad thing to bring your kids to work.  That spending money on company day care is a way to keep good workers and make for a great workplace.  That telecommuting and flex time are not evil, but ways to be competitive.  That people who choose to have children and take time off to take care of them are just as serious about their careers as the driven singles.

This is why I wish I could completely sustain my part of the family budget through my art.  As my own boss, I can give myself these things.  Flex time.  Work from home.  Take my girls with me.  Hell, the Mouse has become a great artist assistant.  She already draws better than most of the kids her age and I know it's because she's surrounded by art and has the supplies at her fingers every day.  It's not a once a week activity.  It's daily.  She takes pretty good pictures with her little camera.  She is starting to figure out what light does.  She tells stories non stop with her toys.  She loves the music that's coming back into the house through the agency of our musical friends.

It gives her, and eventually, it'll give her sister, a core of imagination and creativity that I see missing from her peers, whether they become artists or musicians or writers or not.

I wish.

So I keep swinging.

Back to the dayjob tomorrow.  But only for now.