Good news!

I recently found out that I will be getting a MD State Arts Council grant this year. I'm going to take the summer off from teaching to write the next book.

MSAC Press Release

I am thrilled to death. The writing sample I gave was from the new book which gives me a much needed confidence boost.

Mermania

I just finally ordered Swim to Me...a novel based on the Weeki Wachee mermaids. In Two Rivers, Brooder's mother runs away to become a mermaid in this roadside attraction, and he winds up married to a mermaid he meets when he goes to Florida to find his mother. I have been fascinated by them since I first discovered Weeki Wachee. It bums me out that someone beat me to the punch with the novel, but maybe a photo project would be fun. A road trip down to Florida??

Do you suppose I'm too old for Mermaid Camp??!!!

Possessed

Esmee was possessed by the devil two days ago. Linda Blair in "The Exorcist" possessed. Marlena on "Days of Our Lives" in the 90's possessed.

So it was time for the annual check-up for both girls. No big deal. Ears, nose, throat...a flu shot. Some boosters. Right? Am I crazy? I thought this would be a piece of cake. These girls have been going to the doctor for years! And their pediatrician wears a little rubber Pooh Bear attached to his stethoscope and makes them guess what animal is living inside their ears. We'd be in and out, right?

No such luck. Here's the timeline.

2:30 We arrive at the office. All is great. We even get called in early by the nurse.
2:35 Blood pressure, pulse, height and weight. The girls are happy, smiling, finding their own pulses.
2:45 The doctor comes in, Kicky starts to ask questions about the flu shot. "I'm just getting one shot, right? Just the flu shot, right? It won't hurt much, right?" Anxiety starts to build. The doctor proceeds with the exam...checking tonsils, spines and asking questions about what kind of veggies they like. Kicky keeps asking questions about the flu shot. The doctor says she will, indeed get a flu shot. And a Hep A booster. AND a chicken pox booster. Terror sets in.
3:00 A respite: the eye and hearing exams. Then the nurse comes with Kicky's shots. Esmee's cool...watching Kicky freak out as she gets not one but three shots. But she is brave, strong, proud of her band-aided shoulders.
3:15 Esmee's turn.
3:20 Where is Esmee?
3:25 Curled up under the chair, clinging like a monkey to the chair legs. Screaming bloody murder.
3:30 The nurse and I extricate her from the bottom of the chair and try to get her situated on my lap.
3:35 Flailing, beet red and screaming, the demons have arrived.
3:40 The nurse prepares FIVE vaccinations and gets ready to administer the first one.
3:41 Esmee's head spins round and round and then she close-fisted clocks me in the face. Hard. Harder than I have ever been struck. Ever.
3:42 Stunned and bewildered and IN PAIN, the rest is a blur. Somehow the shots all get given, and the demon leaves my child's body.
3:45 We go out to the lobby, Esmee is clutching her Dora the Explorer sticker. I am clutching my nose. The receptionist, clutching her side, laughs, "The Four Year special?"

A New Year

I am several days (weeks?) late for new year's wishes, but I would be remiss if I didn't acknowledge the bittersweet waning of 2007 and the glorious waxing of this new year. I have high hopes for this year, though 2007 really gave most others a run for their money.

I have lots and lots of writing goals for this year...I have to revise The Hungry Season (the next book in line). I also want to write a short story. I want to find a home for my collection of poems and my children's book.

Other resolutions/aspirations: I want to get a photo published. I want to make all of the Christmas presents I give next year. I vow to go to the doctor AND the dentist this year (for me, not for the kids). I will practice patience. I will pay off some credit cards. I will use the stupid new treadmill at least once or twice. And I will try to be a better teacher to my children. And I will make more time to be a grown-up with my husband, even if it means hiring a babysitter every now and then. And I am going to try to spend less time on TMZ.com and more time reading the books that are threatening to collapse my nightstand.

As for the blog...I promise to try to be more prolific. My silence has been due both to absence (holiday vacations out west) and the fact that my typing fingers have been otherwise engaged. I finished my edits on Two Rivers just a couple of days ago...and I think I am finally done. for those of you have had any sort of history with this blog...you will know that this damned novel has occupied my digits for far too long. I swear I almost got up and danced when my index finger clicked the mouse on SEND.

That's it...best wishes to all of you in this new you. Peace. (Oh yeah...Kicky learned a new word during break...PSYCHEDELIC. She told me I have psychedelic eyes. So have a psychedelic new year!)

Light at the End of the Grading Tunnel

Today was my last day of classes for the semester...sort of bittersweet. I always fall in love with my students a little on the last day. Now, I just have to power through all of their final drafts, finish an editing job, and finish up a workshop at The Writer's Center, and then I am on vacation!

Last night I participated on a panel of contributors to an anthology of DC women writers. It's the first time I've ever had anything anthologized. It was such a strange experience (not the anthologizing but the reading). The story, "Instruments of Torture" is the first and only funny thing I've written since a horrific novel I wrote in college ("Tygers and Berries: A Modern Inferno"...and no, I'm not kidding...a wild romp about two women on a road trip from New Hampshire to New Orleans, full of Dante and Zen...yikes.) Anyway, I am typically accustomed to people in the audience looking at me intently, eyebrows furrowed. But last night I felt like Ellen or Roseanne. Seriously...people were laughing! A love stories about medieval torture instruments...who'da thunk?

We also had our first snowstorm...it feels all festive and holidayee here. We did have a mishap with the Christmas tree...it fell on me while we were watching "Dexter" the other night. TIMBER!!

Sorry for the scatterbrainy post. I promise coherent contemplations in about a week.

Soooooo

..the opening was wonderful. I was really, really nervous. All of a sudden on Friday night I started to think that the whole idea had been ludicrous. But then when all of my DC friends and colleagues started showing up, it felt really right. I have to admit that watching everyone look at the pictures was a bit bizarre...but they all seemed to genuinely enjoy the show, and it also got a lot of new people into the Atlas which is always great. I even sold a few pictures...now I can buy some more photo equipment. We didn't get home until pretty late though, and I had to get up to teach yesterday morning. And then last night we had company over, and I made a lasagna that had six cheeses in it. I think I can feel the blood trying to chug through my clogged arteries as I write. It was really nice though, and Patrick even fired up some creme brulee for dessert. Needless to say, the weekend was wonderfully distracting, but tomorrow my nose has got a ticket back to the grindstone. I have 36 more papers to go and haven't even started the new editing job.

Oh yeah...I've added a link to the slideshow of the exhibit on my photo blog in case you can't go see the pictures in real life: www.ephemerafiles.blogspot.com

Gallery Gallera

I feel like I'm running on fumes these days...there are no breaks in sight either. It's that mid-semester madness coupled with me taking on more than any sane person ever would that's getting to me. Anyway, here's a brief update: the pictures are up, the reception is Friday night. I am ecstatically nervous, if that makes any sense. Happily anxious? Blissfully biting my nails to the quick? Anyway, here's a picture of the space with the pictures in it. You'll have to come to the Atlas to see them up close. And we got a nice little pitch on http://www.artsdc.com/

Check out Big Esmee!!

This week I am also getting 45 stories turned in, a 350 page novel to edit, and hope to finally really digest the editorial comments from my new editor on Two Rivers. I feel completely scatter-brained, the only thing tethering me to the world is my to-do list which is a completely full double-sided piece of paper. Yikes!

Anyhow...sorry for being so sporadic with the posts, but I am, indeed, alive here. And today I did manage to stand for an extra minute in the cold autumn sun just to watch the leaves fall like snow while the girls tried to catch them as they fell.

Falling

I love autumn. I love it, love it, love it. And, for a few minutes, it seemed like it was here. But alas, eighty degrees again today, and I'm beginning to wonder.

I went to the pumpkin patch with Esmee's class this week, and it was so wonderful: animals, a hayride, pumpkins, apples, cider. It was fun to watch her among her peers (I almost always only see her with Kicky around). She did get knocked over a log once, but other than that, she is such a sweet social butterfly.

I didn't do everything on my list, but I did everything that had a deadline. I got a portfolio off to SHOTS magazine, taught, graded papers, met with a contractor about the addition, paid bills, volunteered at Kicky's school, went on the field trip, and kept the house from exploding. I even managed to get those enchiladas made. the tooth is still in Kicky's mouth, buthopefully soon. Not a bad week. And I still have Friday.

Busy Bee

I am in some sort of crazy whirlwind these days...barely catching my breath now as I write. Here's what's on my plate this coming week:

12 student stories to grade
60 critiques to grade
6 classes to teach
3 office hours to keep
1 novel to edit (not my own)
1 novel to start editing (my own)
1 photo exhibit to prepare...only 24 days to go
1 hour of volunteering at kindergarten
1 chaperoned trip to a pumpkin patch
1 ballet lesson
1 gymnastics lesson
3 blogs to catch up on
1 storage room to clean
1 photo portfolio competition to enter
1 poetry collection competition to enter
1 pan of enchiladas I've been craving for two weeks now to make
1 harvest dummy to build with the girls
2 Halloween costumes to make (ghost and butterfly or lion or witch)
4 large piles of laundry to fold
1 call to the vet
1 call to the dentist (should have done this 6 months ago)
100's of bills to pay
74 days to Christmas
some sweaters to buy for Kicky since the weather just dropped 30 degrees in the last 2 days
1 loose tooth to nudge

What are you doing this week???

Frazzled

Little mermommy rant here: the elementary school where Kicky goes (and where Esmee will go in a couple of years) is proposing a huge renovation. Wonderful! But during the construction phase...which will last over a year, starting when both of the girls are there...they are possibly going to relocate the students beyond the Beltway (for those of you outside DC, this probably means little to you, but to me it's RIDICULOUS) to northern Bethesda...which is an hour and a half bus ride for them or an hour each way commute for me. Jiminy crickets. Parents are talking about pulling their kids from the school. Part of the reason why we live where we do rather than in the city is because of the school. ARGH. Anyway, I've got my PTA hat on now, jamming up the old listserv with my bitching and moaning.

So, on that note, way too much going on here...between getting my photo show ready and teaching and trying to raise these crazy children, I am left with little time, energy, or general gumption. I'm mustering up some tonight though to go hear Edwidge Danticat read from her new memoir at Politics and Prose. I have only read Breath, Eyes, Memory...which I loved. I'm meeting a friend there early on to catch up and browse...maybe treat myself to a new photo magazine.

The panel discussion at The Roundhouse went nicely, and the show (A Lesson Before Dying) was really incredible.

Calm blue ocean, calm blue ocean...

Everything's Coming Up...

ROSES. My, my, my have I had a fantastic week. First, I got a two book offer for Two Rivers and the next novel. (You all know how long I've been waiting for this :) But also, a curator at a southern art museum contacted me about submitting a proposal for a possible photo exhibition. I feel like I've been at such a standstill for so long...I hardly know what to do with myself! Pinch, pinch.

This week is going to be busy...teaching and the usual ballet, gymnastics, grading etc... and on Thursday night I'm speaking on a panel at The Roundhouse Theatre in Bethesda about the adaptation of A Lesson Before Dying. It should be a fascinating discussion. My approach has more to do with what happens when a novel is stripped to its bare bones. The other speakers, I believe, will be addressing the more thematic concerns of the novel/play.

At last...

Two Rivers is going to be published. More details soon...

Photos of the Crazy Book Lady's Living Room

So here it is. And notice, I haven't even filled all of the shelves yet!!

Back to School

Well summer is officially over...I am back to school again. This semester I am teaching three Intro sections...back to back two days a week. I suspect I'm going to feel like a broken record by the third class, but I like that my schedule isn't spread out all over the place like last semester.

Yesterday P and I spent the entire day re-doing our livingroom. My entire body hurts today. I painted...Pebble Path is the color. During the day it looks like Dijon mustard, and at night it looks like a latte. Very strange. P assembled four gigantic floor to ceiling bookcases, and now we are officially the "crazy people with a whole wall of books." Poor sap didn't know what he was in for when he married me. Speaking of which...it's been eight years today since we got hitched. Some pretty great years.

On the writing/book front...some renewed interest and possibilities for Two Rivers. Also, I plan to get back to the super secret summer Scranton project this week. Too long of a hiatus.

Off to start my marathon teaching session in about an hour...writing from a brand new used computer in my office at school. Beats the hell out of the Windows 95 monstrosity I had before.

A New Blog

So, I have now created a blog that's just for my photography stuff. Check it out!

The Ephemera Files

Summer's End

Just got back from almost five weeks in Vermont. This is such a sentimental time of year for me. Bittersweet...I love the onset of autumn, but everything about leaving Vermont, about starting school again, about the inevitable end of summer makes me feel melancholy.

Vermont was wonderful, as always. The first two weeks belonged to me and the girls. Swimming every day, long hikes through the woods, pancakes for breakfast and reading half the night. I wrote over a hundred pages. And I even wrote a children's story (a story within the novel), that I think might be good enough to stand on its own. Patrick came to visit right after my parents arrived, and the visit got increasingly more busy, which was also fine. Lots of family visits. A night in Burlington, and my visit to Bread Loaf, which (though short) was everything I expected. It's like summer camp for writers. I wish I could go for the whole conference sometime. I met some wonderful people there, got some work done, and then took a beautiful ride back to the Northeast Kingdom through a part of the state I had never seen before. I took over seven hundred pictures, and wound up with a handful I'll use in my show in November.

Now, we're back. And today I took Kicky to her first day of kindergarten. I was surprised by how emotional I got...I could barely keep it together long enough to get back to my car. Kicky, on the other hand, was fabulous...calm, cool, collected. I also appeared to be the only one feeling so completely overcome by things.

School starts for me next week: three sections of 81 (back to back no less). I also become official chauffeur next week: ballet lesson, gymnastics. Oh God, I'm a mom.

Any way, here are some pictures...

S'mores

The Treehouse

Painting Rocks

Lemonade and Art Stand

Swimming

Twilight at Newark Pond

I made The New York Times Book Review!

(Well, a Letter to the Editor I wrote did anyway.) Check it out...it's online today and will be in the Sunday Book section tomorrow:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/15/books/review/letters3.html

Super Secret Secret Summer Project

So I am fully in the throes of what we've been referring to as "The Super Secret Secret Summer Project" around here. The excitement and thrill was at a high yesterday when I spent an hour on the phone with a woman whose situation is eerily similar to my narrator's. I found her on the web, and she graciously has given me the details of her story as well as invited me to her home in Scranton to look through her papers. Her generosity is overwhelming. We may have to start calling it "The Super Secret Secret Scranton Summer Project." Argh...I am so superstitious. My horoscope forbade me to discuss the details of this artistic endeavor, but I'm just about losing my mind over it.

We leave for Vermont a week from Sunday, and I am so excited to have a whole month to dedicate to working on my own work. I am going to be a writing, picture-taking fool for a month. I also plan to spend a pretty large chunk of time floating around in an inner tube with the girls.

Also, I just entered a small portfolio of work in Aperture's annual contest. I'm not expecting anything, but it was good to help me focus on selecting the best pictures I've taken so far.

Here's one:

"Sleeping Beauty"

Yes, we let our children play with firecrackers.

Ohh Mermama

Ooooh am I back on track. Writing, writing, writing. Can you hear the tappety-tap, clackety-clack?? What a little Ocean Beach Street Fair can do for inspiration: