Life in the Squirrel Lane

Posted on | March 1, 2010 | 4 Comments

This is stating the obvious, I know, but it’s been a while. I really enjoy bulleted lists, so I am going to use one and cheat the whole “let’s explain the what’s been going on in the last year” thing.

• D got a job, thank the gods. He is working for an educational nonprofit that makes modules for teaching children. The good thing is that he gets to draw all day – weird stuff like beakers and hurricanes and dragons. The bad thing is that they are underpaying him by a mile. That being said, he’s got a job so we are content.
• My job is going well. I grew very close to my boss very fast, and then the bitch moved to Seattle. How DARE she! So D and I have made a few trips up there to visit, and since she and her boyfriend have family 45 minutes north of us, they are down here quite often. It’s interesting when you meet someone that you really just click with. We laugh a lot, about juvenile stuff. She isn’t as political as I am and she is defiantly girly, but in a grrrly kind of way. I adore her boyfriend (who is so tall, when I hug him, it feels slightly inappropriate) and D and I love spending time with them. Selfishly, I wish she had stayed in Portland, but she didn’t. Maybe one day we will move to Seattle…one day.
• Oh yes, the job thing. Well I am keeping most of work out of this blog. It is safer for everyone. I like what I do. I love my window office. I am blessed to have a job and am learning a lot about myself and the world around me. It’s good to be able to pay the bills.
• My sister and her family finally got orders and moved from Tacoma. Now they are in St. Joeseph, Misery. It was harder to say goodbye to my sister than I thought it would be. I know it’s not permanent, and a few more miles will do nothing to lessen our relationship. But there was something nice about saying “Hey, I’m coming over this weekend” and actually being able to do it in reasonable time. They bought a house in St. Joe, so they won’t be moving in the foreseeable future. D and I won’t leave the Pacific NW. We love it here, so our almost 3 years of living close will probably never happen again. I’m grateful for the relationship I have with my sister. I think I have grown as a person being exposed to her kids. I still don’t like kids, and I think bad parents should be shot with a rubber-band gun. That will never change, but I don’t loathe kids as much as I used to. They can stay on the planet for now. But they better not make a mess.
• I am BACK at Seton Hill University. There were rumblings that they were going to try to change the program from an MA (Master in Arts) to the better MFA (Master in Fine Arts), which is a terminal degree. It happened faster than the school anticipated, and so two weeks after I graduated, they sent us letters telling us we could come back for the “F” part of our MFA. What does this entail? I need to start a new work, so all the work I did on my first book is independent of what I have to work on now. I still have a crit group (more on that later), I have 5 classes to take online, in conjunction with 2 residencies. Right now I am in a Horror class and the Teaching Popular Fiction class. Anyone that graduated with the MA can come back and take these classes, and get an MFA. Sounds grand, right? Well the workload is easily tripled for those of us who are coming back. These additional online classes are wonderful, and if I had the spaced out one in a term, it would be perfect. Right now I am taking two and I feel overwhelmed. My muse and I have had long discussions about my work and she and I both agree that this has stopped that forward motion in my writing life. Next term will be worse – I’ll be in 3 classes. God help me.
• I have reconnected with certain friends lost to infantile arguments. Sometimes I need a break, we all need a break. I could be more skillful in relaying my needs to others, but sometimes I’m just dumb. It feels good to have these people back in my life. The time apart was fruitful for both of us, I think. And now we know what we were missing, what we threw away in fits of stupidity. I will be more forthcoming next time, and more forgiving.
• I planned on seeing my birthdaughter for the firs time in years this month, but the trip was postponed due to her family health issues. She’s 16 now, the same I was when I got pregnant with her. I remember it like it was yesterday, feeling so scared, so alone, so freaked out that I was going to California to give birth when my home was in North Carolina. They say that you change after situations like that. I felt like I boarded the plane to California as a young, immature, scared kid. I left as a damaged woman, with leaky breasts, and a irreparably shattered heart.  Sixteen years later, I know that she is in great hands, and she’s grown up to be a beautiful young woman. But I will always remember holding her when she was a day old, and I promised her I would do right by her by becoming a better person. I hope I’ve succeeded.

Whew! That was a lot. Of course, that was not everything, but it is enough for now. It feels good to blog again. I am headed to World Fantasy Con in October with my lovely, charming, and brilliant crit partner. It should be tons of fun. Right now, though, I need some damn coffee.

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