Day in the Life of an Idiot

 With my new book out, I decided to dust off my ancient website and update the information on it. What I SHOULD do at some point, is update the whole thing, but instead I am a stubborn old coot and have hung on to something I personally hand coded in 1999 or thereabouts. I mean, part of me, at this point, feels like the creakiness of it is perfect for a bunch of cyberpunk books?  But, it's not the best if a person is looking for information about...oh, I dunno, Tate's subsequent career in the modern era? 

I've had dozens of offers to upgrade and update. Feel free to offer your two cents, as well. After all, I think, since I lost Tate's domain, I will finally do something more modern for her.  Maybe a Word Press site or some such. Who knows, I might even hire someone to design something truly lovely.  

In the meantime, though, I spent the morning trying to remember how to do file transfers with CuteFTP.... which, I mean... yeah, wow. It was very 1999 here for a moment.

So, let's see, other news...  

It's sunny today and is supposed to eventually warm up into the 50s (approximately 10 C).  I'm hoping Shawn won't be too busy today with meetings and we can go for our semi-traditional, daily walk. If not, I may go on my own after 1:00 pm. I am going to have to brave the pet store (or Target) today because our eldest cat has decided that she no longer likes the seafood pate. Being 19, skipping meals is not the option it once was (or would still be for our 25 pound orange boy). Plus, I should buy another bag or two of kitty litter for the continued stay-at-home order.

Otherwise, I just have to make some bread for tonight's dinner. Vera is not quite ready for us to harvest, I don't think. But, my family is actually only so-so on sour dough, anyway, and I traditionally make my French loaves to go with something like the lasagna we're having. 

I've been thinking a lot about my inability to write and I had an epiphany when talking to my writers' group, Wyrdsmiths, last night on video chat.  Obviously, the majority of it is existential anxiety, no question. But, I think there's another factor that I hadn't really considered. There's, of course, a lot of talk about the hassles of having your office suddenly become your living room. No one is much discussing the fact that *my* office has now been invaded by my family, whom I love and get along with famously, BUT, with that has come additional pressure to provide.

It's no longer just, "Ima, what's for dinner?" It's become, "Ima, what's for dinner? What's for lunch? What's for breakfast? Are we out of x? Are you making bread/cake/cookies today? When should we go for a walk?" And, so on.  One of my love languages is feeding people, so, again, this isn't about feeling necessarily overwhelmed or resentful of all of this--in fact, I take a HUGE amount of pride in the fact that we are going on a month of stay-at-home and we have yet to repeat a single meal.

But.

I used to have several hours a day to write.

Alone. By myself.

With no thought about lunch, unless I was hungry or I knew a friend was dropping by.  

Also, with Shawn occupying the living room, even though we have the luxury of a lot of space to spread out, it's funny the extent to which her office stress gets filtered out into the rest of the family. So, that's new and different, too. And part of why I've shifted to doing things like quilting, because physical activity, for me, shaves off all that stress and puts it to use in something. 

Anyway, I didn't say it was a brilliant thought, but it was new to me. It's funny because our house doesn't really have the usual division of labor that comes with gender, but, since making the choice to be the stay-at-home parent, I have often ended up with the lion's share of the emotional labor of keeping a household together.  When everyone is home all the time, that increases exponentially. 

Again, I feel fortunate in that none of this is really anything I hate or find particularly onerous. I've just suddenly realized that these duties, if you will, now occupy the majority of the time that I used to set aside for writing. I'm going to have to go back to how I used to write when I had a full-time job... oh, wait, I used to just shirk.

Damn it.

;-)

Well, honestly? I can do that with this job a little, too. 

Because I've just finished revisions and am in between contracts (as I like to say,) I'm in that very weird place I find myself from time to time. I have no writing that I HAVE to do. Thus, I've been flitting between the Gaylaxicon story, brainstorming new series ideas, and re-formatting Archangel Protocol. (I'm on Chapter 12. Go me.)

Similarly, there's a lot that needs doing around the house (see yesterday's busy-day post, and all the things I left undone consequentally.) I don't feel like doing those thing either. That "meh-"ness I blame on the weater. It's snowing. (Horray!) But, the world is covered in that gray blanket of clouds, and the dim, hushed quality of light just makes me feel like snuggling deeper under the blankets and doing nothing for the rest of the day.

I suppose what I should do is get up and do the dishes.

Yep, any minute now.

Did I tell you fine folks that I'm planning on making it to at least part of WorldCON this year? It seems silly not to go since it's in Chicago (and not, say Tokoyo). Plus, erm, I got an invite to do programming from the con com folks, and I have to say that made me feel incredibly flattered. I'm not sure that RESURRECTION CODE is selling particularly well, but I do think that having a new science fiction book out this last year has caused a lot of people to say to themselves, "Hey, Lyda Morehouse... she's someone we can invite to our convention...." which is worth a lot more to me than royalties, honestly.

Oh, all right then. I guess I should go be "productive."

This morning, it seems, is about putting my house in order -- in all senses of that phrase. In the literal sense, I took a broken porch window to the hardware store to get it repaired. Our porch windows are rickity, and the other day I slammed the door too hard and down came the storm window and shattered into bits. Luckily, the S&S Hardware store on Fairview still repairs screens and windows, so I took it there and paid a whopping $40 to get it fixed (in about six days. Our porch windows are HUGE.)

Now I need to compose an email to my estranged brother-"in-law." We fell out several years ago over my right to parent my son. As in, he thought I didn't have any, and, well, the law (and more importantly the love that cements my family) says I do. I need to compose this email because I promised that as the holiday season approached, I would make a salvo, so that, at the very least, if we pass each other at a family gathering I won't be tempted to blurt out something out-of-contex and hurtful because so much has gone unsaid between us for so long. Also, he may show up in our backyard to pick up stuff of his that had been stored in our attic, which is now in our garage.

Oh, yeah, and I should probably mow, since the grass in the backyard is about a foot long thanks to the rain and the roofers.

When Shawn and I picked Mason up after dance class last night it was evident he'd been crying. Shawn stayed behind to talk to the community education assistant, while I took Mason to the car. All he told me, of course, was that he didn't want to do dance class any more. What Shawn found out was that he seemed to have had a great time (particpating, etc.,) until the end when she said "he just seemed done" and got very nervous about whether or not we'd remember to pick him up.

Shawn and I both agreed that Mason should give it one more day before we make any kind of decision about quitting. Shawn also found out from the community education assistant that there is a scheduled time for snack (a big concern because Mason usually eats an early dinner/4:30 or 5:00 and the class goes until 5:00) so today I packed him an extra snack to have (full of lots of good protein -- a chocolate milk and trail mix as well as some fun stuff.) We also promised to show up early so that he could see that we were waiting to pick him up. I also put a lot of notes of encouragement in his lunch box and snack bag.

Hopefully today will go better.

The funny part of this is that I think he really just hit a wall or something at the end of the day, because as soon as we got home he saw his neighborhood friends were out playing and he ran off to join them. So it's not like he was having some kind of regressive clinginess, I don't think. We had to call him back once dinner was on the table.

Out of curiosity, I asked him how many boys were in the Dancemania class and he shrugged and said, "Lots. Why?" I should have known better than to think that was part of the problem. He PREFERS the company of girls still.

Having enough protien can really be a mood-saver. I'm really hopeful that will help.

I managed to get my 2,000 words written yesterday, and, after trying to tell Shawn the scenes I had left to write, I realized I need to review my proposal. It's not that I think I'm too far off track, it's just that I don't quite remember how I'd planned to lead up to the big final scene. Sometimes my proposals are pretty clever. I should see what I'd been thinking. :-)

Lately I've had the most vivid dreams. I don't know if it's because I sleep more soundly in the cool, rainy weather or if the new 40+ women's vitamins I'm taking are charging up my brain, but it's been great fun. Last night involved running for office -- or maybe helping someone else's campaign, I'm no longer sure. But I can still picture some scenes, you know?

Anyway, I have to run home and get started writing. I also have to tackle a few dishes too or we're going to be like the guy in the picture book who never washed his dishes... and have to leave piles of them out in the rain.