I'm not hiding!

I've decided to finally merge the two mirrored blogs.

You can find Listeme here: Listeme

See you on the other side of the looking glass...

This has been a very long week -- perhaps 16 or 17 days, at least.

I have been offered -- and accepted -- my younger sister’s finished basement for the next year and a half. This will be a major cost-saver for me and a big help for her (she has two toddlers and is expecting a baby in August.) So that was a humongous start to the week.

My other sister and her teenaged son have had to make some really hard decisions. She gave me permission to quote her:

“spent yesterday at the hospital with my son. about eleven hours. sitting here writing and rewriting this entry trying to find just the right words. how to explain-- he is not healthy. he is mentally ill. he is not safe at home. none of this really covers it. so here's one image from the day. we walk into the east wing at maine med escorted by security. the very nice guard LOOKS like a skinhead but actually has incredible kindness and compassion for my snarly boy. he tells us gently that he has to check ian for weapons and sharp objects then helps him take off his shoes and waves a wand over him. he gives him some pants and a robe and shows him a room where he can change and tells him exactly how the robe fastens and sends him into the room to change. we wait. for a really long time. the guard finally has to go check on him. when he comes out, he looks as small and skinny as i have ever seen him. the pants are slumped all the way past his feet in a big puddle all over the floor. the robe goes almost to his ankles. he is a mash of patterns and dingy cotton. he swims in this outfit. his messy flyaway dry hair and his eyes (dark, wary, scared, waiting, young) look completely wrong with the garments. they do not go together at all.”

I want to believe in superpowers and magic wands. I want my “cape” to be more than a silly blog prop.

January 6.

I’m way behind. I have only ONE resolution for 2006 so far (no fast food), but I’ve reminded myself that resolving should be done more often than once a year. (I’ve also already refined the no fast food rule: soda through the drive-thru does not count, nor does Starbucks. I’m still undecided about Subway, but I’m leaning towards saying it’s okay.)

One of the stories I wrote at Odyssey was rejected on New Year’s Eve. I had a lot of hope in that story. Often rejections are something to file away, deal with, consider… and then I move on. This one was a real kick in the teeth. I’ve been really transparent about the writing and submission process with John. In the past I’ve been pathologically private about the whole process. So perhaps having him see it, see my flawed writing, see my vulnerability (he was beside me when I opened the email rejection letter) -- this was quite a stretching experience for me. And curiously, even though I felt quite raw at the time, talking it through with him continues to strengthen something really important in me. But the rejection still pains me, makes me doubt myself.

I gotta keep doing it. I have been doing a lot of soul-searching and agonizing and wondering about my goals. I write a lot of different kinds of things. I write privately by hand in a journal. That’s not for fame or fortune, obviously. I write in this blog. I still don’t know all the reasons I do this. I argue in forums. That is just for fun! I write weird little stories for money, very small amounts of money, barely enough for fast food.

Which… I am no longer allowed to have. It is the circle of life.