When I was at the end of my fourth grade year (same age as Max now) and everything had burst out in green and yellow and smelling of fresh grass and bitter dandelions, I used to run to the bike racks after school, haul out my shit-brown-recently-painted-navy three speed, and, from the little kids' side of the building, grab my seven-year-old sister. From there we'd ride the flat streets home.

Every day, almost without fail, I wore my hair in Laura Ingalls braids. Not because I admired her braids. Though I didn't NOT admire them. But because that is how my dad styled my hair in the morning. I imagine it was quick and easy and kept me looking somewhat decent.

Once in June, my hair was without its plaits, kinky from having been twisted so tightly the days before.

As usual, I ran to the bike rack--unselfconscious and just wanting to get home. I remember pumping one foot down, ready to pedal away, when a popular boy and his equally cool friend stepped in front of me and grabbed my handlebars.

"Wear your hair down again tomorrow," he said.

If I'd had the language then, I would've thought, WTF?

I was taken off guard.

I did leave my hair down the next day and the same thing happened.

"Again. Tomorrow."

But to do that a third time would've seemed too acquiescent. As if I cared what the popular boy thought. And I might have cared a little. But I couldn't let him know it. I went back to asking my dad for braids.

Those couple of days were the beginning and the end. It took me another good year before I truly, painfully cared what a boy thought of me, at which time my caring turned into a six-year-crush that ceased only when I heard that the object of my tortured teenage desire screwed, at a party, a girl-whose-name-he-didn't-know. (He was better than that!)

As my fourth grade year waned, though, my dirty, sweaty, marble-shooting, tag-playing afternoons dwindled to almost nothing and I was introduced to the intoxication of nabbing male approval by presenting myself cleanly and prettily.

I sometimes shake my head sadly for the ten-year-old girl stopped in her tracks and told that a certain thing, a certain hairstyle, looked more attractive than another.

I'm Facebook friends with both popular boys now, as well as the one I spent so many days and nights thinking about from age 11 to 17, my longing leaving me breathless and nauseated.

I glance at their profiles with nothing more than a passing, flaccid interest.

I still care about being pretty and clean. I guess it was inevitable. But at the same time, I want to punch those stupid boys and their premature hormonal bossiness in their now graying testicles.

I want that braided girl back.

You check your Amazon stats a lot in the beginning. But when you do this, you are almost always disappointed by your lack of sales. So you stop. Then one day you look and see you've sold another copy. So you become overconfident and peek again and again. But...nothing else.

You decide to stop asking your ten-year-old son for hugs, pretend you don't care. Because how annoying is it when an over-the-hill lady, your mom or not, asks you to press your body up against hers with affection. Then one night, he comes up behind you when you're washing the dishes and wraps his arms around your middle and you burst from your PMSy sourness and grin to yourself, but try to not outwardly make a big deal of it.

You realize you are halfway between 44 and 45 and are making your writing a last priority. Partially because you hate to write. You hate it and you need it. Like a drug. You drive to your actual job for an actual meeting and wonder what would happen if you just quit trying to write creatively. How liberating would that be? You see parents who work and raise kids and clean their houses but don't have that otherwise restless gnawing you do.

But, of course, no. Writing is too much a part of you. No matter how good or not you are at it. It is for you and you are for it.

Still, you put it last. You grocery shop until your arms are about to fall off and your bank account about to cry uncle. You scrub the bathroom and post photos on Facebook and do your job as a classroom parent all before you'll open your Word document and lay down a single syllable. It is usually 2:45 by the time you do this. Less than an hour before picking the kids up from school.

The laying down of words fills you with short term joy and, when you think of it later, a longer lasting satisfaction. Even so, you know that the next day, should you be granted another full 6 hours with children otherwise occupied, you won't make time to do it until time is almost out.

You have friends with cancer. New cancer and recurring cancer, and some with other diseases altogether and so none of your creative angst matters. It is a luxury. It is a diamond ring. A Volvo. An abundant bouquet of gerbera daisies from Trader Joes.

So much snugness and smugness you have. None of it matters, really.

Saturday morning, in those early hours when your subconscious churns like a cracked out gerbil on a squeaky wheel, I dreamed that I was pregnant and it was the worst thing short of an ALS or cancer diagnosis that could've happened and I cried and cried and gnashed and tried to accept the news as best I could. I peed on multiple white wands and and everytime: the double pink line.

"I'm just now getting my life back!" I wailed.

This is exactly how I would react if I did get pregnant. Not that it's likely or even especially possible at this point, but I know a few women who are having third children, even as their first and seconds are closing in on ten-years-old. For them it seems to be planned and good news. For me, as much as I adore Max and Claire, it would be disaster. I would hate it.

You see, it is all I can muster to be "on" constantly for my two. It takes every sliver of strength and emotional energy I have. Back when I imagined a family, I didn't know. I didn't realize what it would steal from me. You can't until you do it.

When I woke up on Saturday morning, I gasped, "Oh my God!" and told J. my dream, breathless with relief that it wasn't real.

The past decade hasn't been without its beauty (just a few minutes ago I was saying goodnight to Claire and she reached up and began sliding her thumbs across my eyebrows because she knows this relaxes me), but I really do feel like I'm just getting my life back and I never, ever want to return to early parenting days.

Never.

Today was a sixty-degree, almost sunny day in Seattle. Around 5, just as bars and restaurants prepared for evening crowds, as UW students wandered up and down the Ave, smoking and lugging backpacks and thinking about their nights ahead, I was near campus. And I could feel the buzz. That high of being 19 or 20 with many long hours of darkness and mystery ahead.

I had driven to the edges of the U District because my seven-year-old was performing in a play, but for a few minutes I could believe I had just begun the journey. Everything, every single thing, spread before me–-an unsown field with its tilled rows pushing toward the horizon like greedy fingers.

It hurt, a little, to be 44 and done with all that.

Okay, it actually hurt a lot.

From a foot away, the waxy roses in their plastic cones of water look fake and are scentless until you stick your nose right up to the dusty stamens.

Some of the flowers have been shoved into arrangements with babies breath and unidentifiable greenery.

I finger a pink petal. It’s as soft as a cat’s ear.

“C’mon,” Dave says wearily. “The groceries aren’t going to get themselves.”

We grab a cart, still wet with rain from where it sat in a corral outside. We need so much food that I’m overwhelmed. Everything overwhelms me lately.

“You wanna take the produce and I’ll do the meat?” he asks.

Isn’t that always the way? The woman dallying among the carrots and apples while the man goes for the steak and whole chickens.

I shrug. “I want saltines.”

“Okay,” he consults our list, jotted on grease-stained paper. “You do the middle section then.”

Instead, I just trail him through the coolers of ham hocks, pork chops, ground turkey. “Stew,” I say. “That would be good.” I toss a Styrofoam tray of pink beef cubes into the basket.

Grabbing a plastic bag from a paper towel-like roll-–because now all our meat that’s already wrapped in plastic has to be shrouded in more plastic in case of leaks-–he seizes a pork loin and says, “Don’t you think we’ve spent enough time together lately?”

Yes I do. We’d fornicated every day, sometimes twice a day, often against our will, for months now. Almost a year, actually. But being with him has become a strange sort of addiction.

I shrug again.

I look at the stew meat I selected and my stomach churns. Quickly, so as to forget I ever picked it out, I put it back.

Dave glances at me over his shoulder but continues ambling along, pushing the rattling cart.

We never used to grocery shop together. He would grab a few things on his way home from the office, or I, driving back from whatever house I’d decorated for a local real estate agent, would stop for milk, bread, and Twizzlers. The necessities.

But there was something about spending hours a week groping desperately at the other person, hair plastered in strips to your cheeks, heart pounding hard with hope and resentment, that made you almost afraid to leave them for long. We’d become grumpily codependent.

I didn't even work anymore. The fertility doctor said our chances of conceiving would be better if I reduced my stress level, so I quit my job as a staging consultant.

In leaving, though, I found myself rattling around our three-level house obsessively straightening photos, vacuuming blinds, and snaking drains, my temples pulsating, my sense that if I could just make everything right and neat, all our dreams would come true.

Sometimes, when I was scrubbing the upstairs bathtub, I would actually shake, afraid to miss the ring from a shaving cream can or a curly hair caught in the filter basket.

Dave says, “How about some fish?”

I vomit onto Safeway’s shiny, white tile.

I am mortified, but the look on Dave’s face makes the public spewing worth it. His expressionlessness of late, his features that I can’t nudge into a smile or grimace even when I come up with a dumb pun, which we both normally love, or execute some strange dance move, arrange themselves into stricken concern.

He flags down an employee and stands with me, rubbing my back as I hunch over my puddle. “Oh, my God.” I dig a Kleenex from my purse and blow my nose.

“Ok, no fish,” he says, trying to make a joke.

“I, uh, I should tell you–”

“Twizzlers?” he says. “I know you like those.”

I nod, conceding this to be truth.

Maybe now isn’t the time to talk, anyway.

It definitely isn’t the place to tell him about my mixed feelings.

I saw a movie recently, What to Expect When You’re Expecting, based on the pregnancy manual, where when Elizabeth Banks’ character found out she was, indeed, expecting, she was so excited she ran right into a swimming pool waving around the white wands she’d just peed on.

That wasn't my reaction. Looking at the double pink lines three weeks ago, I sank to the edge of the bathtub and thought, Really? This is what it feels like? This is it?

A teenage boy wearing a pimply but impressive poker face, drags a mop and bucket on wheels toward us.

“I’m so sorry,” I say.

I can’t watch him clean my mess, so I head toward the cereal. Cereal. So comforting. Cheerios and Frosted Mini Wheats and Count Chocula.

I don’t know where Dave has gone. And, oddly, I am hungry again.

Ripping into a box of Lucky Charms, I devour handfuls of frosted O’s and fluorescent marshmallows. They are better than I remembered.

My parents used to let my sister and I eat whatever sweet cereal we wanted growing up. There was no limit to the Super Sugar Crisp or Honeycomb we could consume in one week.

It is truly amazing that neither of us ended up obese.

Though I soon would be. Or, at least, would swell significantly.

Dave finds me, our cart now full of crackers and cookies.

Starship plays through the overhead speakers. Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now. From that dumb 80s movie, Mannequin.

Looking down at the box of cereal then up into my face for the first time in forever, Dave says, “Do you have something to say to me?”

Without thinking it, without really meaning to, I say, “I just think we should cool it.”

His features bleed into smooth relief. “With the trying? Oh, me too. Me too. I’m so happy to hear you say that. I don’t…” he stares toward the oatmeal and PopTarts. “I’m not even sure this is what we want anymore. What I want. In fact I’m sure it’s not. I think we should just be us. Forget the kid, who will tap us dry anyway.”

Despite my earlier antipathy, I have known since the fish, have known deep down before the fish, that Dave and I are headed in different directions, down different aisles, if you will. His denial has fueled my desire, once again, to be a mom. “Forget the kid?” I say, a marshmallow sticking in my throat. “You don’t want it?”

“It’s always been your thing, Cas. If parenting is anything like the trying, if it’s anywhere near as frustrating, then I’m not cut out for it. I know that now.”

I nod, wishing I’d thought to grab a quart of milk to wash down the cereal. So this is it then, our priorities have diverged overnight.

“Dave,” I say.

“What Cas?” He looks suddenly exhausted, his eyes drooping, forehead creased again.

“I, uh…” I begin to back away. My voice vibrates with sadness and fear and clarity as I say, “I think we need to not be us anymore. I think we need to get separate carts."

On Saturday I took part in Write Here Write Now where I sat in a converted church nave with about 200 creative people and wrote. The organizers did their jobs well and based the entire day on a massive darkroom timer brought by Garth Stein. Timothy Egan ("I couldn't write in a place where the weather didn't suck") gave the initial talk. He offered us a prompt and we were off, fingers flying over keyboards, across blank sheets of paper, or along tablets (how do you write on those things?)

Most of the time I worked on my own projects: my new YA novel which is going well and a story about my trip from Shanghai to Beijing to the Great Wall, which pretty much went kerplop and I will probably not pursue further (but at least I know now)(I truly am a fiction girl).

After 45 minutes, the buzzer buzzed, another insanely illustrious author got up to speak for ten minutes, supplied another prompt, and set us free again.

This went on from 8:15 a.m. until lunch time, then resumed in the afternoon.

Throughout the day, the authors met one-on-one with us wannabes in pre-scheduled 12 minute increments. The powers that be assigned me to William Dietrich. 

Suckily, I was in the bathroom when my name was called, so missed most of my session. Slight gripe: It would've been nice to have a half hour for the one-on-ones. Also, William Dietrich is not a woman. I really needed him to be a female who writes contemporary fiction, preferrably YA. Ours was not a love connection, but he did offer me a useful tidbit* that I chewed on for quite a few hours after.

Alas, I attended Write Here Write Now mostly for the chance to write within a community of other writers and this I did. This I loved.

Here are some things I learned:

1. Timers are your friend. If you're prone to distraction like me (Facebook, Pinterest, GoodReads, etc.), you set the timer for 30 minutes, an hour, or whatever, and work like wildfire on your project. You don't check email. You don't answer the phone. You don't get refreshments. You just work until that timer goes off. Then you take a break and start over again.

2. Authors who've found success through traditional publishing routes don't think much of putting your own book on Amazon, as carefully as you may have crafted it, they don't generally consider it a viable path to success. Others may argue, but this seemed to be the pervading school of thought Saturday.

3. High concept might be as simple (not easy, but simple) as *"backing up a dumptruck of shit to your protagonist and tipping the bucket". You want to make them suffer. And suffer some more. My writing tends to be darkish, but in a subtle way. My task: to shovel on extra shit.

4. I want more. I'm greedy for creative stretches where I'm surrounded by others who seek the same thing. I want to concept and brainstorm, and then go into my little cave and create.

5. Writing fiction recharges me like nothing else except sleep. I left the Abbey on Saturday jonesing to stay up all night, to party, to talk, to write more. And I loved that feeling.

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I have so much to blog about that each thing sits in my brain as if in a pile of messily stacked books. The tower is too high and I'm too intimidated to know where to begin.

So, briefly: Max endured his first food allergy bullying incident where a boy in his grade chased him around the playground while eating peanuts and trying to "breathe" on him. Every mother of a food-allergic kid fears this moment, and I'm no different. I was furious, of course, and contacted everyone from the kids' parents to the school principal. The school was responsive. The parents got right back to me, too, but believed their son's BS that he'd forgotten Max was allergic to peanuts and didn't mean to scare him. Right.

Claire has been through a few heartbreaking episodes herself that shattered me a little. Just normal growing up things, though, that I don't think would be right to discuss here.

I dealt with a most heinous bout of eczema that covered almost my whole body and left me miserably stupified. I tried going the naturopath route and was prescribed massive amounts of fish oil, probiotics, and licorice tea. (I've only been to a handful of naturopaths in my life and they have ALL prescribed fish oil, probiotics, and some sort of tea). After a week I was no better and went to see my dermatologist. I felt completely vulnerable at both appointments, sitting there in a gown, my inflamed, rashy skin exposed in the square, white room.

I left the dermatologist (who could barely be bothered to say goodbye, unlike the hippies who spent an hour and a half with me) with a sheaf of prescriptions. Mostly steroidal. But holy shit, did they work. I'm now mostly tapered off the drugs and doing fine. I honestly haven't felt that physically grotty since I was pregnant with Claire and could barely move due to my thick, oozy skin.

This Saturday will be an altogether new experience for me. I'll spend the whole day writing. Without internet access. No distractions. Just me, a handful of super awesome famous authors and some other writers pounding out words. I'm 1 part anxious and 9 parts hopeful and excited. I've never done anything like this before and have always wanted to. Bonus that the workshop is only 15 minutes from my house!

And finally, I have a new offering up at Amazon. It is a book of short stories, some of which, if you've read All Adither much, you might have seen. The volume includes stories I had published in literary journals, some from this here blog, and a couple of originals. It's called The Poem Store and you can find it here on Amazon. I'd love it if you'd buy it, share it, or just send it positive thoughts.

I've been doing something really bad lately. Something born out of desperation. Something that is making my life so much better, but is really wrong.

I've been waking Claire up in the morning with a portable DVD player an and Angelina Ballerina show playing (not quietly) on her nightstand.

She eventually rolls over, props herself up and watches.

This is so much better than the poking, prodding, singing, tickling and Chatimal imitating I had been engaging in that I barely care I'm giving in to lazy parenting.

I'm tired of trying to do the right thing all the time. I tend to be an overthinker, an overworrier. Especially when it comes to my kids. So, on this one, I'm saying Fuck It.

***

I got a new camera for Christmas. I KNOW. How spoiled can one girl possibly be? It's a Canon 60D. I'd had my Rebel for four years and worked that thing into the ground. I mean, it's still clicking along fine, but I felt ready to move up and my generous husband made it happen.

Here is a preliminary shot with the 60D and my friend's Sigma 10-20mm lens that I'm thinking about buying from him (I sold my old Tamron wide angle to fund a new/used one).

Yesterday was partly sunny, crisp and melancholy in they way late December can be and I went to Fishermen's Terminal in the Magnolia neighborhood to see what there was to shoot. It was fun for me. Next time I want to take a macro lens to get some texture close ups of the peeling, rusting boats.

***

This is new year's eve! Already 2013 in some parts of the world.

I'm excited for the year ahead. I'm hoping for inspiration, amazing trips, yoga, as much love as I experienced in 2012, and balance.

I want the next 365 days to bring you whatever fills your tank and makes you happy. As always, thanks for reading!

I woke up crying this morning. More accurately, I woke up from a bad dream and began to weep. This is not usual for me, but the dream was so vivid and so, so sad. It had to do with family and infidelity and losing touch with Max and Claire and...and... I couldn't shake it all day.

After lunch, we went to get our Christmas tree from a little lot in Seattle. It was a subdued sort of festive. Tree day is always fraught around here and I'm not quite sure why. It has something to do with expectations (though I could've sworn I'd beat them all down with my jaded forty-three-year-oldness) and hyper kids and my encroaching S.A.D. that always seems to sneak up this time of year. Let's just say that this morning's weep fest was followed by another equally disturbing cry while sitting on the stairway at dusk.

Now that it's dark I'm better.

I've thought of so many things I've wanted to blog about lately, but haven't had the time to put fingers to keyboard.

I've lost between 15 and 20 pounds in the past six months. I'm not saying this to brag, but because it scares me a little. I haven't exactly been measuring my food or even exercising.

So, size 8 pants for a 6'2" woman. Yeah, I don't know. The baby tummy et al is gone, but ???

***

I had a HARD few days with Max this week, wherein I actually applied the word Tween to him. Everything, according to him, was stupid. He wasn't working hard or being very respectful. And then, in the snap of my fingers, he became sweet and adorable again. He copied his spelling words down neatly and was proud, he came up to me several times, wrapped his arms around my waist, and said he loved me.

Claire continues to be amazing most of the time. Her projects wear me out, but I do love that she is driven.

***

And now, something fun! Hipstamatic prints. I got 9 made and am completely jonesing for more. I don't know what I'm going to do with them yet, but I'm smitten. I'm thinking of mounting a few on bamboo and have been watching YouTube tutorials. I'll keep you posted.

I am madly crushing on this Facebook page that features (really good) photos of people reading on NY subways.

Also, I've started a Facebook page for Spectacle –- that cannot touch Underground NY Public Library -- and, if you partake in the FB, I would be honored if you'd Like it.

In other Spectacle news, the Kindle version is free today and tomorrow. On Friday it goes back up to $3.99.

In case you haven't seen Misa and Fukumaru, go behold the most precious human/animal story ever told in photos.

Security cameras catching people in acts of being awesome made me grin.

Are you on Pinterest? It's a happy, happy place full of inspiration and stunning photos. Yeah, sometimes it can get a little Martha Stewarty, but I go there when my brain is about to short circuit and it often brings me down. I'm here if you'd like to follow me. I'll follow back if you have good boards. :0)

I love Instagram, too. I'm alladither if you want to 'friend' me there.

I'm digging this blog.

My sister-in-law, who lives in Brooklyn, is doing a lot of work with Occupy Sandy. She forwarded me this wish list on Amazon for anyone who wants to get supplies right to the people. (Beware Red Cross. I know they do some good work, but they also have a ton of overhead. I've seen it.)

I'm reading a book right now that I adore, though I kind of hate the title. It harkens back a bit to Oprah book picks of the 90s, which I shamelessly loved. Complicated and dark family tales.

Max's 9th annual allergist visit was today. Which means 1-2 hours of sitting in a small room waiting and watching welts the size of lima beans erupt up and down his forearms. It's always emotionally fraught.

This year was no different. He seems to have outgrown hazelnuts and pecans (!), but remains very reactive to peanuts, walnuts, cashews, pistachios, egg and dairy. (When is the poor kid going to get to try pizza? And ice cream?)

While I'm grateful to scratch two more nuts off our list (last year he 'outgrew' the almond allergy, but this year it returned with a weak positive), it's very difficult finding tree nuts that aren't cross contaminated by other tree nuts. Multiple nuts are generally processed on the same equipment. And the way labeling is done now, most companies will only say "This product was processed in a facility with tree nuts." Which is helpful not at all.

That said, things could be a whole lot worse. We're lucky that Max is healthy and happy overall and that we've managed to keep him safe so far.

Trying to kill time while waiting for the doctor to come in and once again say, "Well, we're not where we hoped to be..." Max and I took pictures of each other with my phone...

Last night a friend invited me to an event at Island Books on Mercer Island. The owner happens to be an antique typewriter collector and the store is lined with them. I was in my glory.

But I digress. The event was Maria Semple, author of the NYT bestselling (and Seattle centric) Where'd You Go Bernadette reading from and talking about her novel.

I used to go to author readings all the time. Free, inspiring, thought-provoking. It's been years, though. I was beyond happy to get back to it.

Maria Semple and me, with two books in hand. Maybe these events aren't so free after all.

After yesterday's post I think we can all use some Simon's Cat...

I feel relieved more than anything. Relieved that Romney and his cronies won't have the chance to get elbow deep in our lady bits, relieved that gays are gaining ground in securing civil rights, relieved that anyone making less than a billion dollars a year won't necessarily be thrown under the bus, relieved that the leader more interested in green energy will be in charge. 

But I'm still perplexed and, frankly, really frustrated by almost half the voting nation. I simply cannot believe that people heard the things they did about Romney, heard the things that came out of his mouth, and still cast their ballots for him. Defunding Planned Parenthood? Drill, baby, drill? (Not to mention the dirty, nasty tar sands pipeline).The 47% comment?

I can see why folks like ridiculous Donald Trump wanted Romney. I just don't get how other smart, caring, middle-class parents, community members, and friends could think Romney would represent them, would be good for humanity and the earth.

Last night after the election results were announced, I watched Facebook comments roll in about how "disgusted" some people were, how they might as well hand over all their money to the government now. I saw photos of bumper stickers like these and read tweets like this. Now, I know not everyone who voted for Romney is a right wing extremist, but I'm sad. What's so wrong with giving unlucky people "a shot" at life? How can global warming be denied when there is actual science behind it?

And to people (especially women) worried about "too much government"... there's nothing more offensive than a government up in our fucking vaginas telling us what we can and can't do with them.(Believe me when I say that my opinion on abortion is very complicated and not entirely formed, but I do know I don't want some middle-aged man with a mouth full of crowns, head full of grecian formula, and mind full of absolutes to dictate anything having to do with women's reproductive systems.)

I hold no delusions that I'll sway anyone. People lean one way, decide they believe something, then seek out information corroborating their beliefs. It's human nature. I'm just a mom and part-time worker bee with a bachelor's degree in journalism. And yeah, I want to continue to live a comfortable existence. But I also want to reach out a hand to others and protect the planet we live on.

I'll get off my slippery soapbox now. This election has exhausted me and I didn't even do any canvassing.

For the next 3 years and 11 months you can find me reading celebrity gossip, writing reviews on Amazon, and trying to get shit published.