The Negligent Mommy

Things I should have figured out a long time ago.

Reading knitting blogs while at work is a bad idea (and not just because it's called "work" and not "that time you spend between lunchtime and dinner aimlessly surfing the Interwebs").  It makes me want to knit, which is not something I have much any time to do right now.

*sigh*  Back to actual work.  Maybe if I can get enough done this afternoon, I can put in a few stitches while seeing who gets booted off "Dancing with the Stars."  (I kind of hope the bell tolls for Ty Murray.  The "aw, shucks, ma'am" schtick has gotten old.  And besides, who are they kidding?  They just need to have a dance-off between Gilles and the bachelor chick and be done with it.)

Headnotes

[1]    Conversations with my husband.

Him, as I am getting ready to leave for work on a Saturday:  What, no makeup? What about our date tonight?

Me:    Dude.  I am so busy you are lucky I even showered.

Him:    Good point.

[2]    My children are insane.

Owen is obsessed with the solar system lately.  He draws elaborate pictures (in which Jupiter is festooned with purple stripes) of it.  This morning he showed me his leg, which is festooned with a drawing of the sun in yellow washable-thank-God marker.

Later, hubby and the kids dropped off my crackberry at the office, and Owen showed me his leg again.  He has added a picture of Venus, which must be about to crash into the sun because it is saying "uh oh."

Not with a bang, but with a whimper. And a Fresca.

 

I did it.  50,000 words (well, 50,303, if you want to be precise about it) in 28 days.  I am officially a Novelist, at least according to the NaNoWriMo folks.  It wasn't pretty toward the end--I concluded the novel a few hours ago, but it was only 48,000 words long, so I've been scramling for those last 2,000 for  a while. 

There is also the fact that the vast majority of what I've written is total crap that will have to be discarded, or at least substantially rewritten, before I am willing to let anyone--and that includes my husband, who knows the risks he incurs by mocking me--read it.  The chunks of it are completely out of order.  The prologue doesn't fit with what happens at the end.

But I'm taking comfort in what one of the real (i.e., published) novelists said in one of the e-mail pep talks that got sent out:  Writing the first draft of a novel is like carving a huge hunk of granite out of a quarry wall.  It's only the first step--you still have to shape the huge block of stone into a sculpture.  That's what revising and editing are for.

Next month.

Holy Crap!

I have a six year old!

Of course, I've had one of those before, but now he is a very handsome eight-year-old!

All of which makes me old-old-old!

My kid on race relations

Wednesday, November 5, 2008:

Andy:  "Mommy, I'm tired of white people being President all the time."

Me:  "Well, kiddo, that problem has been solved."

Andy:  "I know.  Yay, Obama!"

*******

This morning, listening to NPR on the way to school:

A:    "Mommy, who's that Mama Africa they're talking about?"

Me:    "She was a singer from South Africa.  You know, for many, many years she couldn't live in her own country."

A:    "Why not?"

Me:    "Because she had brown skin, and the people with white skin who were in charge didn't like the things she sang about.  So they told her she couldn't go home."

A (vehemently):    "That's so STUPID!" 

Seriously, people, do I have to do *everything* myself?

Do y'all know how many women are in the South Carolina Senate as of today?

Go on, take a guess.  You'll laugh your ass off.

That's right, none.  Nada, zip, zilch, zero.

Fer cryin' out loud in a bucket.

Hey look, a soapbox!

Seriously, do it.  People have died so you could.  Are you just going to throw that away?

If you have trouble, or see someone having trouble, call this number:

 

1-866-OUR-VOTE

That's the number for the Election Protection Coalition, a non-partisan organization which exists for the sole purpose of helping people exercise their right to vote.  Voting machines down and no paper ballots provided? Call.  People being refused the right to vote because of I.D. problems? Call.  Polls closing early, or not letting people in line at closing time vote? Call.  Purple space aliens telling you to vote for Ralph Maccio?  Call, but we'll probably laugh at you.

When you call, a friendly neighborhood volunteer, such as yours truly, will be dispatched to the polling place, copy of the law in hand, to assist with the problem.

Vote.

On second thought ...

Okay, so I kind of have this totally inappropriate crush on Robert Pattinson, who played Cedric Diggory in the Harry Potter movies and who plays Edward (swoon) in the movie version of the novel Twilight.  He's tall and dark haired and has these really intense eyes and ... well, to borrow a phrase from the book, he is exactly my brand of boy-man heroin.  (Sorry, Michael Phelps, but you had to know we were doomed.  Your ears stick out too much and I can't swim for crap.)

And then he showed up in public looking like he does in the picture below, and I'm kind of thinking ...

 

Um, yeah.  Maybe not so much on the crush thing today.

I'll have a double tall caramel machiato, extra crazy, please.

 

Sleep is so overrated.

The kind of day that makes the other days worthwhile.

So this morning, Andy announced that he planned to serve in the altar at church, instead of standing with me in the choir complaining about his legs hurting and running off to the bathroom every five minutes.  Then Owen announced that he was going to be with me "and stand in the choir and not sing," instead of perusing monster truck books and refusing to stand during the important bits.*  And then--here's the really crazy part--they actually did those things (Owen even gave another singer a hug when she sneezed).  And then we all had a nice lunch together at coffee hour. 

And then Owen went to a party and Andy played with his friends from down the block.

And then we all went to a nice dinner (where, while waiting for our food, Andy practiced his cursive and Owen did a word search) and to Barnes & Noble, where each picked out a book and spent the entire ride home reading them.

I think my kids may have been replaced by alien pod-children.

And I have to tell you, I'm cool with that.

*Orthodox Christians stand to worship to the extent we are able, but at a minimum, barring serious illness or disability, during certain portions of the service, such as the Gospel reading.