Amy Lane's Blog: Writer's Lane, page 45

Poll Results and Weekend Update

Poll results are as follows:

A. Everybody who has not seen the Yarn Harlot's work on non-frogging fixes told me to frog the sleeve, but I HAVE seen her talk about non-frogging fixes, so I just stitched the little hole closed. Nobody can tell--the thumb hole was on the fold. It's fine. And because the Yarn Harlot said it was okay, I'm okay with that.

B. I've managed to knit for two nights running by just letting the offending animal slide to the side of me where it gets comfortably wedged. It's like my thigh fat is a thunder shirt. Everybody's happy.

C. Laundry with dog. It's not like their hair doesn't get everywhere anyway.

D. Gibby is NOT acclimating well, although I thought she was last night. I know this because today she disappeared, and we had a daylight edition of "WHERE THE HELL IS THE DOG???" complete with me running to the neighbors houses and knocking on their doors.

She was in the laundry.

Fucking dog.

E. Apparently every part of Con Air is completely ridiculous, which is, from what I understand, part of its charm.

If you all say so, who am I to disagree?

And as for the rest of the weekend?

Well,

A. I finished the sweater!

B. Squish started to crochet something of her own

C. Mate and I went to the protest for ICE.

And this was sort of a story.

For one thing, it was hot--everybody knows this, it was hot everywhere.

We had shade for a little while, and then I elbowed Mate.

"Hey--who's that big kid with the sign over there?"

Mate and I were delighted--there was our son! Bless him-- he has to take two buses to get downtown, but he was there to protest, and we were so proud!

His sign said "Children need their parents... Not concentration camps! Fuck Civility!" And you may notice that his block letter game was about on par with my own. (I.e. neither of us should be allowed near art supplies ever. That's why I do yarn. There's a certain mathematical precision there that keeps me from just fucking up outrageously.)

So I bailed from our shade (Mate was like, *flail* "Why didn't you just let me go get him?" and I was like, "Because I was stupid!" Because we both knew we'd never get that shade back!) and went to... well, bother him.

First he kept letting go of the sign and it would flail about and hit his father in the ear, so there was nagging about that. Then I made him put on sun block, and then we asked him if he had water.  After an hour and a half of listening to the speeches and cheering when we were supposed to, I started to feel lightheaded. 90 + degrees, right? It was either leave then or throw up and need the medical tent in about half-an-hour, so I opted out of the march and left it to my son. Before we left we gave him out satchel with some granola bars and the rest of the water.

As Mate and I were walking back to the car, I said, "You noticed his sign said 'Children need their parents,' right?"

"Yeah?"

"Well, we showed up and gave him water, sunblock, granola bars, and a bag to put them in, and then nagged him about how to protest responsibly. I guess he was right."

Mate high-fived me, because THAT folks, is an A+ in parenting right there.

On a more somber note, he's 25, and I showed up and worried that he needed me. His sister is 23 and if we don't see her, she still texts every day. I can't leave my 12 and 14 YO kids alone for more than 2 hours without worrying--hey, did you guys eat? Are you bored? Have you exercised? Don't forget to drink water? Did you want to do something today? I love you!

There are parents out there who had their children yanked screaming from their arms--their much younger children--and haven't seen them for thirty days, and our government did that, and that is not okay.

Children really do belong with their families--the demonstration was great. I hope RAICES got a fuckton of money, and the same for the ACLU. I'm done thinking our government got the message--they're ugly greedy vile men who do not care--but I'm hoping the REST of the country got the message to make them stop this policy, and to keep fighting until its fixed.

I know there's a lot of other ugly things our ugly government has done--but we're all fighting on the front we feel most passionate about. Guess this one is mine.

A brief poll--

 For a change of pace, I have a couple of poll questions for you u. Feel free to answer as you will:

Question 1:

Say, just say, you were working on a sweater, and at the end of the first sleeve, you decided to put a thumb hole in it. But after your daugh--erm, someone tried it on, you realized that the thumb hole was on the wrong side. 

And as you--or anyone, really--was finishing up on the second sleeve, it occurred to you--or anyone-- that anyone had three options.  Four options.  Wait-- FIVE options. That's how many options. Five.  Uh-huh. That many.

A. Frog the first sleeve and re-work the thumb hole. When erm, anyone--no, no, EVERYONE hates, positively LOATHES frogging and would rather do anything else.

B. Stitch the hole closed in the first sleeve and pretend it never happened. No hole ever happened. Nuh-nuh, no hole to see here.

C. Just ignore the hole on the first sleeve. "There's a HOLE? Oh... silly me... I would ave had to work two rows special just to make a hole look like that--I WONDER what I was thinking!"

D. (Which makes me--I mean YOU-- look like only slightly less of an idiot than C) Put a matching thumb hole in the same place, which will give you the benefits of the thumb hole (ie built in fingerless mitts) but will necessitate a twisting of the sleeves.

E. Put a thumb hole in the right spot so that one sleeve is twisted and the other is not and just go, "Oops! My bad!" And pretend the whole thing was done for the sake of art like that weird statue in the backyard in downtown.

Uh, get back to me on this poll if you can. You know. Cause, uhm, asking for a friend.   That's it. A friend.

Little Old Ladies... still in the pool...

Okay, so I've had mixed stories about Little Old Ladies in the Pool--this is, in its essence, white suburbia at its most conservative. The other day I got into the water spoiling for a fight. Someone said I looked pissed, and I replied, "Let's just say if anyone here thinks putting kids in cages is okay, I'm not going to mince words."

Nobody messed with me that day, and I wasn't sure if it was because I was scary (don't laugh!) or if it was because they agreed.

Today I was in sort of a "get down to business" mood, and the instructor (a new one, but so far so good!) responded to someone speaking behind me with, "Hey--no comments from the peanut gallery!"

I blinked. Liberal Twitter has branded that expression as a nonstarter and I was surprised to hear it--but I also know that most of these ladies aren't on Twitter, so they might not have heard it was a racist throwback, and something we're sort of trying to phase out of use.

And then the instructor blew my mind.

"Oops! I'm not supposed to say that! Shoot! I forgot!"

"Wait--why not?"

"Because it's racist--it's a throwback to the time when black people were forced to be up in the balcony. I gotta remember that."

And I was expecting blowback--it's hard to change, and these were older women, right?

But they went, "Oh! Okay! I didn't know that--I'll stop saying that now! Oh yeah--one of my favorite songs turned out to be racist--I was so bummed, but, you know, gotta think about what you're saying. Yeah--I mean, it's always been there, we just need to pay attention now. It's not easy but yeah. Gotta remember to change that. Oh yeah--we don't want to hurt anybody. Right?"

And then the subject changed.

And so this week, which has been miserable in terms of politics, and hopeless and painful, got to be a little bit better.

Because you hear a lot about how white women helped the white men wreck the world--and knowing people who actually said to my face, "But I can't vote for Hilary--my whole family is Republican," I believe it.

But seriously--if these women can change in something like this, the world doesn't have to fall to shit.

Hopefully.

I can cross my fingers.

It was a very nice moment.

A small surrender

So, I had so much planned today. I was going to finish a cleaning job Mate started, and do some laundry and keep writing and...

Anyway--

So this morning I took the dogs for a quick walk and went to a dentist appointment. I have a "food trap" between two of my back teeth. Basically it's a black hole that can swallow an entire piece of chicken--if I don't mind the ever-present ache of chicken in my teeth. (It can get quite painful.)

Anyway...

I was asking the dentist how bad it would get and he was like, "It won't hurt! I promise! But just in case I'm going to put one more injection of novocaine between he teeth."

Bless him.

Didn't feel a thing.

Until of course the novocaine wore off, and then I felt the three holes in my gum and they ached fiercely.

By then, of course, I was home, and the kids had eaten and I could feel my face again. I was sitting down to work, still thinking of all the things I'd planned to do and my neck hurt and my teeth hurt and my face hurt and my head hurt and I took two motrin and crawled into bed.

I woke up two hours later, feeling very much better, but still... let's just say I was psychically curled. Just not quite ready to come out of my fetal position.

I wrote a couple thousand words and then made dinner and did the dishes and...

And sat down.

I sat down and crocheted and watched Firefly--which is a damned fine show.

Anyway--four episodes in, it occurred to me I'd pretty much pissed off the whole day.

Got halfway done on the sleeve to the Amy-NO! sweater.

I'm pretty sure I have no regrets!

Somebody got groomed today...

I'm not naming names...

By the way-- that photo?

Well, the camera takes those little second-long photos, so there's about 10-15 frames per picture. I took about ten pictures, and that was THE ONLY FRAME in the whole mess that had her looking at the camera.

It's because she was about to jump on me.

Anyway-- she looks lovely, we can see her eyes, and her features are a tad more... Chihuahua-ish? Does that make sense? I mean her little snout is SO too short to nip, but she does love to snorggle, and her eyes are very much like Gibby's and Johnnie's here.

Anyway-- she's cute. Little trash panda is gonna be four years old this summer, and I adore her so much I can't stand it.

*snorggle*

So, that was sort of my day--alternatively titled, "the day that got away".  I went for a walk, took the dog to the groomers, went to the grocery store, picked the dog up, took a nap, fixed dinner...

God. So mundane it bores me to type it, but it somehow still meant I skipped the pool and didn't get to write. Yeeeesh!

So-- had a thought today.

Was watching Moana, the end, where Moana gives the goddess back her heart, and I almost broke into sobs. Because the news has me like a hateful lava monster these days, and I'm wondering, who's going to give me back MY heart? It feels like it's been stolen in the effort to stay active, to keep caring to NOT pretend that my country falling into fascism is normal.

And then, we watched a comedienne named Hannah Gadsby perform Nanette. The show was gorgeous. Stunning. Amazing. But it wasn't really comedy. There were some very funny parts, yes--but the ending was about why Hannah was angry, and why she was going to stop doing standup because telling your life in a punchline freezes you in anger, and you never got to heal that way.

It's on Netflix, and it's SO worth watching, but the takeaway here for me is that I don't serve anybody this angry. I can't write this angry. I'm not an effective mother this angry. I've given the money we can afford to RAICES to help families legally, and I'm hoping we can make it to a demonstration on Saturday--if we make it to one, this one should be it.

And I'm doing my best to live my life right--again, with all the kindness I know how to do, and all the activism I can manage and still stay sane.

Still angry-- but now I've got Hannah's wonderful thoughts about doing something about the anger, working it through, and not just shouting it to the heavens.

It feels like I've got my heart again.

But seriously-- one person jumps my shit and tries to tell me it's okay to put little kids in cages in a deserted Wal_Mart and I'm going hot-lava-bitch on their ass.

The Chi-who-what mafia and the Amy-NO! sweater

So, a mostly quiet weekend--did some housework, saw a movie, worked on Familiar Demon. General stuff.

Anyway--

Here are some highlights-- enjoy!

Me: Did you get some food?
ZB: Yeah--I had three pieces of chicken. And some orange chicken. All of the orange chicken. And some noodles. About half the noodles. Anyway--I ate.
Me: 0.0  That was a quart of orange chicken!
Mate: Oh dear God.
Me: This is what feeding a growth spurt looks like.
Mate: He's gonna be gigantic.

*

I woke up this morning surrounded by small dogs and a pissed off cat. I'm like, "It's the Chi-who-what mafia! And Steve's their moll!"  Okay-- so I woke up and thought that and it was probably way funnier when I opened my eyes than it was in real life. But I literally rolled out of bed and took pictures. Hello.

*

Mate and I, watching Jurassic Kingdom--

Mate: You recognize that guy without the mustache?

Me: Oh yeah.

Mate: What's his name again?

Me: Judging by his part, it's Kibble.

*

And I need to give this next bit context, otherwise I'm not sure it will make sense.

When I was in high school, in drama, I once got partnered with the cutest guy in school to help him do a makeup assignment. He was like "Cool! Amy! She's good at drama! I'll do great!"

I was like, "HEEEEEEEEEEE HEEEEEEEEEEE HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE ERK!"

Because he's the CUTEST GUY IN SCHOOL, right?

Squish is about as liberal as a 12 YO can get. You all know that. She loves my friends, loved Pride, is reading that Rainbow Rowell Drarry book where the two guys kiss and wants to read more. Rainbow flag-- that is our Squish.

So, as we were sitting at the movies, waiting for Mate and ZB to come back with the snacks, two guys came past us to sit in the middle. They were on a DATE. How did I know they were on a date? It was 11 in the morning, ninety-five degrees outside, they were wearing SUPER TIGHT jeans, loafers, dress shirts, goop in their hair, and they smelled really good.

They were about 18 and cute as hell--just adorable. I wanted to pinch their cheeks and wish them the best. The mom in me was like, "Oh, you're so sweet guys! Have fun! Enjoy the movie!" but of course I didn't do that because I want my own children to maintain their will to live. (Yes, I feel like this about adorable straight couples and adorable lesbian couples-- it's a mom thing. You hope they've got a mom at home, wishing them happiness. Can't explain it.)

Anyway, Squish got weird. She blushed. She moved in so her brother was closer to the guys. I was at a loss. After the movie I was like, "What in the hell? Honey! You've been around LGBTQ all your life--"

"But MOM! They were so CUTE!"

And then I got it. It wasn't phobia. It was being twelve and being near cute guys. And not that I advocate being weird around people, but I have to admit, being weird about and around cute boys was inherited honestly from yours truly. Sorry, Squishy. Enjoy dating in the future--it's gonna be a HOOT.

*

And finally, the Amy-No! sweater.

Now, I'm sure none of you will believe this but I used to have quite a temper--and I used to scuffle pretty regularly. Teachers, peers, online. Sometimes I'd just be spoiling for a fight.

I've learned better over the last fifteen years--and in the last five or so have worked REALLY hard-- to be as kind as I know how to be.

But it's hard--you all know it's hard-- in this political climate.

So, I started the Amy-No! sweater.

Amy no! You can't write that book you've been planning for years, it's not what's on your queue!

Amy no! Don't reply back to that really toxic person on line!

Amy no! You CAN'T LET THE DEMONS OUT TODAY!

Amy no! You can't mix a thousand different colors of wool in one piece of cloth--FUCK OFF! I'LL DO WHATEVER I WANT!

So there you have it. Social media frustration channelled into a serviceable garment. It just needs a sleeve, a collar, and some REALLY bright buttons.

Amy YES! Put that thing away or it will blind us!

*tsk tsk*  Some people just can't face the brilliant emotional palette of a suppressed redhead.

But that's okay. *I* like it!

A Little Late...

But still sweet...

So, Sunday was our official 29th anniversary, and I was SO going to go out with Mate and we had plans to...

Fall asleep on the couch, repeatedly.

Recital does that to us--and every year we forget. We come home Saturday night, fall asleep before ten, and spend the next day going, "OMG I'VE GOT TO...zzzzzzzzzzz...."

So while I had basic dad's day stuff ready for him, and a card, neither of us were prepared to celebrate.  This week he brought me flowers--but, my neck wasn't feeling great, so when he got home yesterday and said, "Hey, you want to go out to zzzzz...."  And fell asleep on the couch before I could answer, I wasn't bummed at all.

But today?

Today, my neck felt a little better, and I spent the entire day going, "What are we going to have for dinner? What? What? WHAT?"

So when he walked in and said, "You want to go out to--"

"Eat? Yes. Stay right there. Be right back. Five minutes. Sweartadog. We'll go. We're going. See? We're gone!"

The kids had frozen burritos btw which we supplemented with leftover prime rib.  (I do this all the time now--I used to be able to wipe out an entire 14 oz prime rib. Now, I eat half and bring half home for Squish. *sigh* Middle age.)

Anyway-- so, Mate's gift is still under construction. I'm getting a picture of his mother framed, along with one of her and the kids--the one with her and the kids was the only picture we found in her wallet. (We had the electronic copy.)  It's going to make him cry, but we saw the movie Coco, and both of us bawled like babies at the end, and I thought, "Hey, maybe he really DOES need a picture of her so he knows she won't be forgotten." So I'm thinking it will be a lovely gift.

And that's about it! I finished a pair of socks which I need to send to my friend before they become, uh, overloved by the cats in my life (that's Opal sock yarn, which will mean something to sock knitters, particularly in that it's pretty indestructible, sock yarn wise.)

Also, FB said it was selfie day, so I took one (which I don't often do.)  Mate took one look at it and said, "I wish there would be more... you in your selfies and less... messy house."

And I said, "That's funny, I thought the whole point of the selfie was to have less me and more anything else."

"No."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"Is it too late to hire a model to be me?"

"If you were going to do that you should have done it fifteen years ago and signed her to a lifetime contract."

"If I'd done that fifteen years ago, I'd be less fat and less old--but still. Wouldn't be a bad gig. She could go to all my events and I could stay home and write. Ah, hindsight..."

Yeah, well, sorry, all. You're stuck with me. And I'm still not cleaning the house!

So today...

I told my children that our government was ripping children from the arms of parents just looking for safety.

I told them that Dad and I were upset about it--and it was making us mad and tearful and we were going to watch something stupid on TV because we'd been thinking about it all day and we couldn't do anything--our senators and representative are appalled already--and we needed a brain break.

And they cried.

And sat and watched an adorably stupid rom-com with us, and laughed even though they weren't remotely interested.

Because families should be together.

Anyone participating in or justifying the abomination happening in the country's detention centers is complicit in child abuse, child neglect, crimes against humanity and being just a fucking pig-monster-pile of vomit.

Anybody who can look their children in the eyes and say, "Yes, it's okay, because they're foreign children," doesn't deserve children.

Yes, I really feel that way.

Hasn't changed since Sunday.

I could live to 150 years old, and it should never change.

I mean Jesus--my kids were gone at Kids-to-Work day with their father and I missed them. If someone locked them away without sunlight or hugs or each other, I would not come out sane on the other side.

I'd come out frothing at the mouth, yearning to find the fucking pig-monsters who did this to my children.

I'd come out wanting to make somebody pay.

Well done, America.

Our children just inherited one fucking awful debt.

Pinched Nerve

I may have mentioned this before--

There's such a thing as writing injuries.

I thought I was alone, and it was just because of the weight, but I saw Jeaneane Frost talking about it on Twitter.

Writers can fuck themselves up by sitting down, staring at a screen, and making their thoughts into words for other people.

She suffered from anxiety that was rough enough to stop her heart. Other writers have written through pneumonia, injuries, and chronic conditions that would make your blood run cold. Listening to a writer with a chronic joint condition talk about what she has to do just to write makes you realize what dedication truly is.

My worst story is at the end of Forever Promised. I crawled into bed with pinkeye, bronchitis, a fever, a strained achilles (from the way I sit), and a UTI on its way to my bladder. Mate was like, "You done?"

"Yeah."

"You're never doing this again, okay?"

"Sure."

And mostly I've kept that promise. I mean, as squirrelly as my brain truly is, I've made it a point to take time away from my computer, to spend time walking the dogs, to spend time in the pool, to spend time working on the house and with the family knitting, so that I'm not the unwalking undead at the end of every book.

This time... well, it was a little different. There was recital/rehearsal etc, Mate was gone for a week and then another day, and Father's Day and our anniversary at the end of the rainbow. So, at the end of HomeBird I was a little... iffy.

And then I spent recital getting up and down from one of those camp chairs that will wreck the stoutest back.

And now I can't move my head.

Lots of sleep, lots of motrin, it will get better.

But in the meantime...

If you see me on social media, most of the time I'm in bed, and I'm on my phone.

And now you know.

Writing injuries-- not as uncommon as you think.

Another Recital

Okay--does anybody remember that scene from Romancing the Stone, after the Angelina part, where we see Kathleen Turner wandering around her apartment in her pajamas and socks, looking for tissue so she could blow her nose?

I wish that's what happened when I finished my Christmas novel, HomeBird, this Friday night.

Instead, I whipped off a missive to my editor that said it was done and it was still technically the 15th, so I was good. Then I crawled into bed and half-slept through plans to beef up the ending. Then I woke up to my beta reader telling me to beef up the ending. Then I frantically beefed up the ending until it was time to get ready to take the kids to recital.

Yes, recital

Now, this year's recital was particularly poignant--Joanna, the woman in charge, who has been in charge for the last twenty-five years, and who has known Chicken since she was four--has just bested cancer, and her livelihood has been in the hands of former students, who carried her classes and planned the recital and basically just picked her up and carried her, because she's done so much for them and their kids and their community.

It was beautiful--but it was also... smaller than usual.

She'd lost some students this year.

So on the one hand, it was just as hectic and just as whoa! as it has been other years, but there was an undercurrent of, "It's been so much harder other years," too. Right down to the weather. I mean, it was lovely--lower eighties, both days. Usually it's 110. No lie.

And into this, there's me.

I'm sleep deprived, I'm dreamy--I'm still in Joan Wilder's Angelina land--and I'm just not ready to deal with other people's children.

I mean, I think I did okay--but at one point I looked at a hyperactive little girl who was DONE, just like I was, and said, "You know, it's a good thing you and I are done after this, or I would roast you like a duck."

She said nothing--just got down off the pole she was trying to climb and looked at me with big eyes.  I'm sure she hated me--but you know, I can live with that.

Anyway-- I must not have been too whacko, because I got a hug from my co-mom, and that doesn't happen often. (There is a weird alpha-dog thing that goes on backstage about who has known Joanna longer and whose kids can get away with the most. I don't play alpha dog, I play whatever-cat, and in this case, my co-mom was another whatever-cat. We got along fine.)

Anyway--I got to see two of my kids' performances (this wasn't going to happen this year--we were forbidden from that part of backstage, and then people cried. Okay, I cried. I'm not sure about anybody else. I cried. Part of that was tiredness and stress, and part of it was not seeing my kids perform when hey, I was there for just that reason!) and anyway Squish was radiant and sweet, and ZB... well, he's sort of becoming an amazing dancer.

I also watched him flirt with the entire backstage. And he combed his hair.

And Chicken was stage manager again--and she really is amazing. This year people started doing the job she'd had before, and they needed three people to BE her. She was like, "Yes, you need to move that fast!" and they were like, "Wait--we need help!"

That was fun.

Also fun--this was actually pretty hilarious--was the mom's meeting when kids were gathering on stage.

JoAnna said, "Are all the moms here?"

"No," I said. "We're missing X, Y, and Z."

"Are they here yet?"

"Nope, still missing--no I don't know where they are."

A few moms got there, and Joanna said, "So do we have everybody now? Wait! Where's Amy Lane?"

Now, I'm not a small person. You've seen pictures. And I was standing six feet in front of her.

"I'm RIGHT HERE!" I cried, and she cracked up and hugged me.

This is particularly funny because she gets Squish and Chicken mixed up constantly. It's like my family can't win. But we all agree ZB is her favorite of the five Lane family members she actually knows. She used to get frustrated because she thought he spent all his time at the zoo when she was talking. Now she realizes that he was only at the zoo some of the time.  Most of the time he was calmly processing EVERYthing she told him, and came back next week with stuff fixed.  He was supposed to have two solos this year, but we went away back east when she was writing the show, and he had to make do with one. Like I said, he was amazing.

So, in general, it was a good year.

But I'm wishing Joanna all the health in the world this year. Next year, I want to see more kids and more parents and more audience members.

Easier isn't always better, you know?