phone call
licking panic off my lips
uttering the
swollen words I wish i’d said
when I talk
to you
i’m always stiff as yesterday’s cake
I sit here and eat the
silence
like sky and caramel
we’ve rotted in this embrace
and now you spend time
cursing in the corner
and looking up at the
ceiling as if it has all the answers
we’re sitting under this
plague blanket
brick bruises on our hearts
refusing to say the words we mean
and saying all the ones we don’t
——-
Lisa Holcomb 1998
It’s National Poetry Month…and therefore I must share poetry. Some days I’ll share my own and some days I’ll share famous works and others I’ll share works of lesser fame. Who knows what the day will bring?
Today, because it’s on my mind, a poem about adoption (I’m an adoptee and a friend called tonight to ask about my experience): (click on the image to enbiggen)
So out of the last six days, I had kids (one, two, one) home three days, I worked two days, I had events going on five nights and parents in town the last one, it was the first anniversary of a friends murder, AND I started Nanowrimo. So you’ll forgive me for not following up on the Biscuit vs. Scone bake-off. Maybe I’ll do that tomorrow. Nothing’s happening tomorrow, right? (Don’t tell me. I like being blissfully unaware today.)
Kids are well now, they’ve all had haircuts, they’ve had a sleepover (either at church or at Nana & Pa’s), and they’ve already eaten most of their Halloween candy.
I’m something like 5600 words into my latest novel for Nanowrimo. It’s going pretty well. This year I have Beta Readers, too, which is different and fun. I’m awaiting feedback. I think it’ll be nifty having a braintrust behind my novel. I’ve got an artist, a photographer, and a librarian reading my stuff. WHEE!
My husband is being sweet about all this. He said “You choose what you do with your free time. I watch football and drink beer. You spend time with crazy people inside your own head.” It’s all good. I still think mine’s better. 🙂
When I shut down my blog several months ago, it was because I just didn’t want to write any more. I felt guilty when I didn’t blog enough, I felt bad when I didn’t have anything interesting to say and I blogged about daily life anyway, and most days writing just seemed too hard.
I went several months without blogging. Life was good again. I didn’t feel the need to document every movement I and my family made. We just LIVED. I stopped taking as many pictures and lived through moments instead of seeming them through a tiny lens. It was wondrous.
It was also very, very weird. I’ve been blogging since before there was blogging. I’ve had a diary, journal, notebook, scrap of paper or something in my hands since I was a little girl. I noticed an uptick in Facebook and twitter posts. Then I started writing longer notes in my head that I never posted because they were too long for Facebook. I started writing in a paper journal again, only to realize that my hands are no longer up to that task. So I started searching for an app for journalling on my computer, but that wasn’t enough. I wanted input on my writing.
Which lead me back to blogging. So welcome back to the new Life According to Lisa. 🙂
“My ideas usually come not at my desk writing but in the midst of living.”
.Anais Nin
Sorry for all the cross-posting lately if you are someone reading all the blogs, but this is the way things are right now.
Last week I hosted a girls game night with my little group of friends. We never did actually get to the games, but we had a good time eating snacks, drinking wine, and catching up on things. 🙂 It’s a nice group of gals, most of us are some kind of writer or artist. 🙂 We’ll try an actual Gaming game night another time (soon, I hope).
The next night we had a Robert Burns Night with my parents where we read the poetry of Robert Burns (well, Nick did, but that’s because he had the best Scottish accent) and had some traditional Scottish foods (but not haggis).
Saturday I got the bad news about my friend and had a complete meltdown and stayed at home and cried and drank wine and watched movies all day. So cathartic.
Sunday the kids practiced basketball while I fixed up my desk area where the by-hand writing goes on.
It is tidier and makes the writing go better since I’m not scrambling for pens or notebooks. I’ve tidied up my computer so I know where the files I’m currently using are and I’ve set up a profile for everyone else so I can have mine be whatever I want and don’t have to worry about boy eyes on my things and them getting confused by the voice control setup that I’ve been using.
I have been writing this week. Lots of writing and writing related stuff going on. Working on two novels and a few sad poems. I’m enjoying flipping through old notebooks and files of writing from a couple years ago to see what I would’ve written had I not fallen off the writing track. It’s fun putting stories together again and for that I am very very happy with the universe.
Monday I got a call to work, but had stuff to do at home that desperately needed doing, so I said no and got all my stuff done. Tuesday I also got a call, but had to say no because I was taking David to Dallas to have his X-rays done again and to see if he needed another shoe lift or what. He doesn’t need a new shoe lift, he needs surgery. Oh yay. Probably next summer, but we’ll do another set of scans between now and then because it’s more data for the computer to look at and more data means more accuracy and more accuracy means a better outlook and that could mean putting the surgery off another year and another year could mean a stabilizing of the irregular growth, which could lead to no surgery. So we’re waiting.
Wednesday I was all ready for the call to work. I got up, made myself lunch, dressed in subbing clothes….and no call. Of course. So I did laundry, cleaned the kitchen, and let myself have 2 hours of lovely writing time. It was glorious.
Yesterday was my friends funeral. It was a good one, I think. I sat with my friend Dana. They had to add extra chairs on the sides to accomodate all the people. The first person who spoke was a bit conflicted, but Shannon’s sister and dad and regular pastor got up and said some wonderful, understanding things about the nature of depression and the challenges of living with this disease. It was all very heartening and uplifting. I couldn’t stay to go to the graveside service, as I had a PTA meeting. The meeting was very short, which was unusual for us this year. I spent the next couple hours doing work for the next months worth of activities and went to get the kids.
We’re trying out Choremonster.com for our chore rewards website right now. It looked fun and came highly recommended and the kids are excited about it, but I’m finding it very trying. I had to set up each kid separately with separate logins and separate jobs and separate rewards and I have to log back in every single time they finish something to approve it and it is constantly sending me emails telling me to “Hurry quickly!” like I don’t have anything better to do than use this clunky interface to approve each child’s chore. AIE. Plus there’s no calendar to look at or afix things to. You have to just know when things are going to fall on (plus there’s only a few options for days and I need a “every third day” option since I have three people).
Today is finally a regular day. Kids to school, library volunteering, lunch with Nick, an afternoon of chores and errands. *sigh* But I have two kids asleep on the couch and one asleep in my bed. So where am I typing from? Ben’s bed. It’s comfy. I have a dolphin pillow and my old comforter from college and extra blankies, too. Mmm. I might fall asleep here. 🙂
A less dramatical cross-post
1. I have exercised this week. I’m stretching each morning and trying not to fall on my face. I’m following the Workout Trainer App on my Android and while I’m not in love with it, it’s better than nothing for a free exercise course to get me started. Also, my friend Monaca and I agreed that we’re not getting any skinnier meeting for sweet rolls and floofy drinks, so we’re going to try walking in the future around Rose Rudman trails instead.
2. I have figured out a better daily schedule, but it includes me getting up at 5am. Umm. I’m not getting ahead on that plan, so I re-revised it and now I’m getting up at 5:30 and doing the aforementioned exercising in the comfort of my own room. Whee! I’m also writing a bit more, not fiction yet, but daily stuff and a little poetry that’s rattling around in my brain lately. Also taking care of the kids and trying to make life more sane.
3. I’m doing a Bible study off the YouVersion app and answering its questions. Not as good as going to one with other people, but way better for scheduling. For real people, I’m going to a weekly book study on Raising Resilient Children (that’s the authors website). It’s a really good book and has challenged me to respond better to my children.
4. Today I’m booking our trip to the UK for June. Thursday night Nick and I are discussing our hotel options and more detailed itinerary. Whee! (Two goals for the price of one?)
5. I downloaded the My Fitness Pal app for the iPhone, since the SparkPeople app cost a ridiculous amount of money for the update (it used to be free). So now I have two fitness pals (one a very skinny lady indeed and one person who I don’t remember at the moment) and I can track my food weirdnesses. Whee!
6. There is never going to be a #6.
7. Scaling back on the internet, I figured out how to add people to my acquaintances list on Facebook, so they practically never show up. It even suggested people. Some of them I didn’t acquantintize. Yeah, not a word. Whatever. Also, set all my newsreader subscriptions to Mark All Read so I’m not tempted to try to catch up and so am just starting over. I may dump some, we shall see. I also set my FB notifications to archive immediately so I’m not having to see them all the time.
From Twitter.
From twitter.
Lisa Holcomb 