It must be Tuesday...

So I've been to camp. And now I'm home. Three days early. Oh, my.

I shall tell this tale with headings that really encapsulate the microcosm that each day was. It all started Sunday... *insert flashback music/wavery image here*

HARD DAY'S NIGHT

We worked from noon to midnight setting up for camp. I unloaded ALL THE KAYAKS EVER from the trailers (since I am the kayaking instructor), and set up the lake. Granted, I took some liberties and went for a nice long paddle all alone on the quiet lake, but I swear, the rest of the day was basically an extended exercise in endurance labor. I built six wigwams from plumbing parts, helped set up the kitchen, helped check in all the staffers, and moved seven ancient (and heavy) camp bunk beds into a new cabin after the first one flooded in a huge rain storm, and built the camp store twice (it also blew over in the storm).  By the time I got to bed around 2 am, I was thoroughly pack-muled out.

It was hard work, but essentially uneventful (plus, remember the nice peaceful paddle).

This brings us to MONDAY. I DON'T HAVE ANY FUN-DAY.

Monday morning started out with a bang. One of the counselors woke up having been sick during the night, and didn't want to tell anyone. She kept it secret because the previous night at the counselor meeting, one of the directors announced not to eat too much candy, because candy makes you puke, and pukers get sent home. It's just her funny way of warning the kids off eating too much junk and making themselves sick. Well, this girl went to FUCKING GREAT LENGTHS to hide her illness, not realizing she'd basically contaminated the entire camp with GODFORSAKEN ROTAVIRUS. So we had Typhoid Mary walking around all day, leaving her germity germs of death EVERYWHERE. When we realized she was sick Monday afternoon and sent her home, we were worried, but not too worried. We should have been...

This brings us right up to today: TUESDAY, also known as IN MY TIME OF DYING, and I COMPLETELY OFFERED TO EXORCISE THE CAMP SUNDAY AFTER SOMEONE DIDN"T FEEL WELL, AND THEY BRUSHED IT OFF LIKE I WAS JOKING, AND THEY'RE SORRY ABOUT IT NOW.

The dominos began to fall. We had a few girls get sick by lunch time. Then a few more. By the time my kid succumbed at 7:30 this evening, there were 15 sick girls, and a few more who looked green around the gills. In the span of an hour, we went from a fully functional camp to a CDC quarantine zone. For crying out loud. So we had to shut down camp. I brought my little puker home, and I've been rewarded with not having thrown up, and by having access to the internet. At least until tomorrow night. If they decide to reopen for the final two days of camp, I'll go back, but I think the kid is done.

I taught exactly three kayaking classes. I was supposed to teach fifteen. Oh, well. Maybe next year.

So I'm home, and now I can get back to work, because editing is all but impossible at camp when you're surrounded by 75 girls who all need your attention RIGHT THE FUCK NOW. Read a sentence, change some punctuation, THEN HERE'S ANOTHER EMERGENCY HANDLE IT NOW. It's not even worth turning on the computer. So I'm secretly thrilled that my kid's sick. How awful of a human being does that make me?

In fact, the poor thing's curled up on the bathroom floor with a pillow and her kindle. :(

So hopefully the rest of the week is an improvement. I'm done.

Dear Real Life,

I started out composing this as a tweet, but then I realized I had too much I needed to say to Real Life today. I would like to begin by showing you the untweeted tweet, because Real Life is a royal jerk, and I think everyone needs to keep this in mind:

Dear Real Life, will you please stop trying to interfere with my writing? It's getting annoying.

Sincerely, me

I'm just getting over a bout with the plague, and hadn't been able to write for several days. This was bad enough, but at least I'm recovered enough to attain a seated position for stretches of time again. Of course, the day I try to start writing again, the neighbor decides to have his entire wooded lot serviced by a tree trimming company. EVERYTHING GOES IN THE WOOD CHIPPER. I'm pretty sure Real Life has a twisted sense of humor.

My view for the last two days, sans the EXTREMELY LOUD NOISES.

Just when I think it's safe to sit down and concentrate for a while, they crank that puppy up and RAKWWWKKGGRRRRRGRRRGRRRRR. It's like being attacked by angry bees over and over again.

I've also been helping Lulu with some projects for school. She had to build a useful object from recycled materials for her Inventions and Innovations class. This was fun, but time consuming. Have you ever tried to build a working greenhouse out of old muffin boxes and yogurt cups? She darn well better get an A on it, is all I'm saying.

Then there have been numerous errands. Numerous things to take care of. After four days in the Blanket Fort fighting the plague, all those little things start to pile up. I still have to do them. They didn't magically take care of themselves in my absence. The jerks.

All this means is that on top of feeling guilty for not writing, especially when I love my current draft, I also feel quite paranoid that I'm still not caught up on all the necessities. Anxiety is not a frame of mind that's conducive to focused writing. So then I feel even more guilt, which adds to the anxiety, and you see the horrible pattern emerge.

What I realized today was that Real Life wasn't causing my problem. I can't stop that bus. I either grab on and go for the ride, just like everyone else, or sit on the bench and never get anywhere. Nope. I realized that *I* am causing my problem.

Not much I can do about all the piddly stuff. I'm getting caught up as fast as possible. And I wrote more than a thousand new words last night. Progress is progress, and I will choose to be happy about it. Sure, it's not the 10,000 words I could have written while I was sick, but didn't. It is 1,000 more words than I had yesterday at this time.

There's also a pile of boring, mundane crap I need to do. Pay bills. Collect Girl Scout Cookie money and deposit it. Paperwork for summer camp registration. Balance the checkbook. Correspondence that needs to be handled (most sincere apologies if you're waiting for email from me). But I'm working my way through that, too.

There are things that will always need to be done, but I have to keep reminding myself that I can't do everything all at once. I'll just do as much as I can, and try not to let it get to me. Even with Real Life throwing wood chippers in my way.

The words will come. I'll give them as much time as they need, within reason. So now, to the store to pick up the forgotten items from the list, and then home again just in time for the Evening Rush to start up here. Homework, dinner, tv, family. It might interfere with my writing, but I only have one family, and they deserve some of my time, too. Eventually, hopefully by 7 or 8 tonight, they'll leave me alone to play with the words again. It's all I ask from today.

Report From The Blanket Fort

I just realized it's been more than a week since I posted anything. I'd feel worse about that if I didn't already feel so awful. I spent the last few days battling the plague, and today took the cake.

I had to go grocery shopping. When you're sick, feeling queasy, and just want to curl up into a ball and die, NOTHING is worse than being surrounded by food. Even the smell of fresh baked bread couldn't help me today. For better or worse, to fend off starvation, someone had to shop. Someone, at least in this household, means me.

I'm not sure I actually bought any nutritionally valid foods (not true, I bought fruits AND vegetables), but I know we won't run out of comfort foods for a good long time to come. Cupcakes, brownie mix, blueberry muffins, Pirate's Booty, pudding, chocolate, ice cream... need I go on? Because I could. I could go on and on.

So even though I felt DISGUSTING, and haven't had an appetite in DAYS, I knew I still had to provide food for my family. I'm sure they'll be able to cobble together a few days' worth of decent meals out of the bizarro conglomeration of food I brought home. At the very least, they won't starve to death before I get well enough to remember how the food pyramid works.

This is correct, right? Because I thought caffeine was one of the lower foundation blocks.

I feel the same way about my writing after the last few days. I had a headache so awful I couldn't even wear my glasses. It was pleasant to just let the world go fuzzy and out of focus. It actually hurt to see clearly. Not being able to wear my glasses meant not being able to read anything on the computer, unless I felt like sitting with my face six inches from the screen. I've been mostly off Twitter and the rest of the interwebs for several days now, and all I've been able to do is read on the kindle. I can easily hold that six inches away from my face for long periods of time. :D

I may have indulged in a reading binge, but I haven't been able to write. This saddens me to no end. I love the draft I'm working on, but the scene I'm at is one of those pivotal scenes where everything has to work out exactly right, not just for this novel, but for the other three I've already written in this series, and which take place AFTER this novel. This is the BIG EVENT that defines the rest of my MC's life, and I'd be turning to jelly inside writing it even if I wasn't already feeling quite gelatinous due to the plague.

For anyone who is at all familiar with Running Down the Dragon, I'm writing the events from Thalia's early life that basically define the next 2,000 years for her. So, no pressure there, right? :/

If only I wasn't so unbelievably miserable. I'm going to crawl back inside the Blanket Fort of Infinite Decrepitude, and I'll hopefully see y'all again soon, back in the world of the living. Keep everything cozy out there.

Bully for you

When Lulu was in kindergarten, she came home from school one day with a Blue Slip. Blue Slips were filled out for disciplinary actions, and were just about the worst thing a kid could get before they started calling parents in for conferences and handing out detentions/suspensions. Needless to say, I was shocked and horrified. MY CHILD?! A behavior problem? Surely not. There must be some mistake.

Turns out, a little boy on the playground took a swing at her, so she used her kung fu training (she came to class with me four times a week), and delivered a textbook mountain punch to the kid's gut. I asked if she was okay, was she hurt when the kid punched her, and she said, "Of course not. I ducked."

It took all my Supermommy power to keep from cracking up at her response. She'd obviously been paying more attention than I'd thought in kung fu. We talked about how it's not okay to hit someone, even if they tried to hit you first. We talked about appropriate responses to anyone who hurt you, whether with words or actions or physical violence. I thought we had this covered. I was wrong.

Lulu's in 7th grade now, and she barely even remembers the incident with Punchy McSluggerton way back in kindergarten. Until yesterday, I thought she'd at least remember the lessons we talked about back then, and over the years in between. It seems that every year the school sends home letters about bullying, how the school has a zero tolerance policy for dealing with bullies, and how they are having assemblies to deal with the topic, and class time dedicated to talking about it. It sounded to me like the teachers were all over this issue, looking to nip any sort of aggressive behavior in the bud. Once again, I was wrong.

She'd been a straight-A student, especially excelling in English class. This year her honors level class only has 16 students (which is a near miracle when most of her other classes have upwards of 30 students each). So you can imagine my surprise when she's bringing home consistent C's. I thought she must not like her teacher. Maybe she didn't care for the poetry assignments (always my own least favorite English class unit). I couldn't fault her for that. But then she was getting dinged for not turning in classwork. She'd been in class, so why didn't she turn in the work? She'd done it perfectly. I couldn't understand, and I was beginning to think she might have some sort of problem with her memory. I was considering taking her to the doctor to ensure she hadn't sustained some sort of head injury. I couldn't think of any other way to explain her sudden memory lapses, her refusal to talk to me about why she wasn't turning things in, and why she wasn't able to focus in class.

Yesterday she reached her breaking point, and finally told us what was bothering her. Or, more specifically, WHO was bothering her.

Let me be clear, I am an involved parent. I volunteer with her Girl Scout troop on a near-continuous basis. I know half the kids at her school, and most of them know me. I am The Library Lady, and everyone from her old elementary school knows me. I have asked her on numerous occasions if she's seen any incidences of bullying at school, and she's told me about a few things she's seen happening with other kids. I thought we had this covered. But we really didn't.

After she told me everything that had been going on, essentially since the beginning of school back in August, I was heartbroken. "Why didn't you tell us about this? Why would you let this go on so long?"

She looked me in the eye and told me she didn't say anything because what could we do? What the kid was doing to her was not bullying, so she couldn't do anything to stop it.

Go back now, reread that last sentence. I'll wait right here.

Done? Are you as shocked as I am? Everything she described to us, from him deliberately knocking things off her desk every time he walked past, to telling her to "shut up" on a daily basis, to making faces at her in class, to recruiting a group of girls to laugh at her, THESE ARE ALL THE THINGS SHE'S BEEN TAUGHT ARE BULLYING BEHAVIORS, AND SHE STILL DIDN'T THINK SHE WAS BEING BULLIED. SHE THOUGHT SHE JUST HAD TO DEAL WITH IT.

She knew teachers had seen this behavior, and because they did nothing to stop it, she assumed she just had to live with it. Despite all the talk about bullying at school and how to deal with it, despite her strong group of friends, despite all the Girl Power lectures, despite our repeated conversations at home about how she should never let anyone make her feel lesser, she thought this treatment was somehow either deserved or something she had no power to stop.

*pauses to sob*

This is what I'm having the hardest time understanding. My daughter knows what bullying is. She can tell you right away when she sees it happening to someone else. She supports her friends when they're going through frustrating situations like the one that's been bothering her. She has always been told that she should NEVER put up with anyone who makes her feel small in any way. In theory, she carries this knowledge with her all the time. I have no idea how to remind her of that when she's feeling alone, hurt, and defenseless, and I'm not there.

This is why we rely on the teachers we entrust our children to every day. I handed her over, in the hopes no teacher would permit any student to belittle another student in her class. I am so disappointed in this entire situation. Disappointed in myself for not pushing for more answers when I saw my child struggling with her grades. Disappointed in the teachers and school staff for not holding her tormentor accountable for his actions. Disappointed in the other kids, some of whom I know personally, for not only doing nothing to stop it, but sometimes participating in it and encouraging it. Disappointed in my kid, for not thinking she had the right to stand up for herself and seek help from any adult within shouting distance the moment another child said or did something that made her uncomfortable. And disappointed that despite all the training and speeches they give the kids at school, she STILL felt as if she were the one in the wrong for feeling upset by another child's abusive behavior.

I am at a complete loss. What could I have done differently? I know there's no way to shield someone 100% from bad feelings. There are always going to be jerks in the world. I just wish I knew how to give her the tools she can use to defend herself. Hopefully this will be a good practical learning experience. It's the best outcome I can hope for at this point.

I spoke to the guidance counselor at school this morning, and I'm waiting to hear back from her on how they intend to deal with this. I am at a complete loss. I don't know what more I can do, other than to constantly remind her that she is awesome, and that nobody is allowed to make her feel otherwise.

***UPDATE: Two sides to every story***

I heard back from the school today, and it turns out Lulu is just as responsible for the bad behavior as the kid who made her feel bad. And you know what, *I* might be partially responsible for it. Let me explain.

Lulu has a few words that really bug her. Pet peeve words. Apparently the boy who teases her has a favorite word, which is at the TOP of the list of Lulu's despised words. That word: Swag.

This kid is the king of swag. He loves the word, and applies it to himself regularly (as 13-year-old boys are wont to do). Every time Lulu hears it, she yells back "Yes, you are curtains." She's had it with swag, YOLO, and half a dozen other irritating catch phrase words, and she inherited a large dose of snark from both me and her father. Her friends think we're funny when we tease each other back and forth, but a kid who doesn't know she's just playing around, just trying to be silly, would likely take those comments the wrong way.

So we have a lovely opportunity to remind her that teasing someone for their word choices is also bullying. I might correct her usage and vocabulary at home, but that doesn't mean she's allowed to make fun of others for using words she doesn't like. Unless someone's words are derogatory or hurtful in some way, just let everyone else be.

So there you go. I feel like kind of a jerk for getting all bent out of shape yesterday, now that I know this whole situation started because of something she said herself. I'm not saying she's entirely to blame, but I know that she's at least 50% responsible for it. She's definitely responsible for letting it escalate to the point where it's interfering with her school work, for not saying anything sooner. There will be a big discussion tonight.

It's Thursday, so why is it acting like a crankypants Monday?

Today is Thursday, but it's behaving like a tantrum-filled Monday. Not fun. I haven't been bombarded by nitpicky lunacy like this in a while. I hate to get on the blog here and rant, but I need to blow off some steam before I get back to editing or, heaven forbid, take my rage out on the WIP. Nobody wants to see that.

So, everything started out on a stressful note. I heard my email notice chime on my phone last night while I was falling asleep. I figured I'd check it out in the morning, since I'd been having a back and forth with a crit partner. I thought it might be more edit notes. HA! No. It was nothing I want to go into here, but it wasn't good news. That's the first thing I saw this morning, and unfortunately the day didn't get much better.

I knew I had to pay bills today (I forgot the phone bill was due today, and while I was there I just balanced the checkbook and paid everything else). That never makes me cheerful, but I thought it would improve my mood to know I didn't have to think about it for another few weeks. So I guess that did work out in my favor. I was feeling better. Temporarily.

I had to go to a training session for the camp I'm working at in a few weeks. I forgot to bring the paperwork I needed to hand in about my kayak instructor certification. I'm glaring at it right now, so I have to make another trip out in the heat to deliver it.

While I was at the training, my cell phone refused to connect to the network. It's been doing this a lot lately. Stupid old phone. It took a 20 minute phone call to Sprint to make it work again. It apparently keeps dumping all my password information. Grrr. At least it works again, but I was like five hours behind on everything because I still didn't have time to catch up.

I paged through the mail while we were fixing my phone, and the community association wants me to take care of a fallen tree in my yard. Apparently it's ugly. Oh, and so are the weeds. Sorry, I haven't had a chance to spend two days hacking through the jungle that my garden turns into in the span of two weeks every summer. So now I have two weeks to take care of it. In record-breaking heat. By myself. Ugh. Lulu volunteered to help, at least. We'll see how that goes.

We also had to go grocery shopping. At least that was fun. I think I overcompensated for my bad mood by buying ALL THE SWEETS. We have moon pies, doughnuts, and two kinds of cookies now. At least I can't blame my problems on a lack of delicious, fattening sweets.

Come to think of it, that makes today...not all that bad, in retrospect. Because it's kind of impossible to be upset when you have Moon Pies! :)

Okee dokey. I'm going to put on my hat, grab some water, and go hack through the jungle. Maybe if I pretend I'm Stanley on a mission to find Livingston in the Deepest Corners of Darkest Africa, I'll make it through. It feels hot enough outside, and it's always easier to take care of horrible tasks if you can make up a good story to play with while you're torturing yourself.

Or maybe I'll wait until after dinner. Maybe the tension headache I gave myself from grinding my teeth together will be gone by then, too.

So there you have it. I worked myself up into a lather for nothing. Life's not so bad. At least the air conditioner is holding out...knock on wood.

I hope everyone else is having a happy Thursday, too.

Tuesday. Today stinks so bad I could cry.

Today started out great. I was all psyched up to write, since I wouldn't be able to work on the deck. First thing I had to do was balance the checkbook. I handled that like a pro, and moved on to the internets. I got all my email and things sorted and squared away, and then was ready to sit down and write. Yay!

Then the guy painting my house showed up and said we'd need more paint. Could I run out to Lowe's again and buy a few more gallons? Gah! So I did. That's three trips to Lowe's in six days. I'm really getting sick of that place. Turns out, I need to go back AGAIN and buy one more gallon. I could have cried.

Then we have a serious bit of drama going on with a friend of mine who has escalated a minor passing disagreement into a federal case. It has eaten a large part of my day, and filled me with distress. That's all I'll say about it here, but let it be known that it really eats at me that anyone who has a problem with me doesn't just say so to my face, but runs around and causes problems for all kinds of other people because of it. I'm not stupid, and we are not children. If you have a problem with me, just tell me, darn it! Don't run off and tattle to others, please.

Then, I had to run off to chorus practice, where a friend and I rehashed all that drama yet again. When we were done, I checked my email real quick, and realized I'd heard back from the agent who has my full manuscript. She rejected it, but with some very insightful advice, which I'm taking into consideration, and planning a whole rewrite of the first novel. Which means I'll have to trash most of the second novel, as well. The revisions she suggested, which mostly consists of bringing the two main characters together romantically, happens in book two, and that's about half the story line of the second novel. What they go through makes them realize they belong together. If I have to move all that to book one, I'll have to completely rewrite both books. And the third book I'm working on right now should basically just sit and go unwritten for now, if the first two books are going to undergo that much change. Pointless to keep writing it until the first two novels are rewritten. Right?

Not even wearing my pink shoes could keep me from wallowing in the doldrums today.

Damn Cheerful Shoes

No, not even these puppies could cheer me up after all that. I can't wait for Tim to wake up, so I can ask him what he thinks about all of this. I don't know whether to be happy to get so much great revision advice, or to cry because of just how much work will go to waste if I take it.

Then again, it's good advice. If I don't take it, I might never get published at all. And then EVERY SINGLE BIT of work will have been wasted, technically. Who the heck knows? I certainly don't.

I've decided to wait until tomorrow to make any decisions on what to do now. I've also decided not to cry, which is an improvement. Glad I had this chance to share.

What the heck was I thinking? (Part 1)

There are people who refinish decks for a living. They make good money. There is an excellent reason for that.

I tried to save all that good money by choosing to refinish our deck myself. All I can say is, "OW!"

I have splinters, blisters, and I think I'm developing carpal tunnel syndrome. It's freaking HARD to paint all those stupid little balusters! I think I am going to start an "I Hate Balusters" group.

I got the entire "upper level" of the deck's railings painted, including the back stairs, and part of the front porch railings and steps done. I still haven't even started on the floor of the deck, which is getting a different treatment than the railings. I could cry.

We decided to start this huge project last week because Tim was off work. We figured it wouldn't take more than a week to pressure wash and stain the whole deck. HAH!!! We didn't count on the bad weather postponing our work for two days. So now, he's back at work, and all the staining is falling to me. I haven't been writing yesterday, and I won't get to it today either. I have essentially put all that on hold until I get the deck finished. I have two days in a row of good weather, so I have to run out and pick up another gallon of paint for the railings.

There's no point in trying to write until all the physical work is done, though. I spent 8 hours on it yesterday, and the sooner it's done, the better the world will be. I have to take advantage of the good weather, because we're expecting rain on Wednesday. If I can get this all done by tomorrow night, I'll be so happy! At least the physical work is tiring me out enough to sleep at night, despite the book screaming at me in my head. It's better than the alternative, which is to try to keep writing in my exhausted state and have the story make no sense whatsoever. I'm afraid I'll have to start all the way back at the beginning again, because the choppy work I've done on it so far still leaves me confused when I sit down to write again. I forget what I've already written, and I'm worried it's repeating stuff, or leaving stuff out that needs to be there. And the plot line has completely fallen apart in my head. It's sad. I'm 40 pages in, and the damned thing has already derailed.

I hate balusters.