Susan Senator

So the last two nights I have been trying to do what a therapist suggested: at dinner, each of us tells the others one thing he/me did that was good today. The first time I did it, Ned wasn’t there for dinner, and Max rolled his eyes. But we each managed to crap something out. I had prompted Nat a little bit, to talk about art class, which he loves. I loved watching Ben and Max pay attention to Nat, loved the surprise that flickered through their eyes as he expressed himself, a bright, brief flash of son-shine.

I also am amazed at how it actually works, and makes it feel like a Real Family Dinner. It is utterly ironic, because it starts with a strange and marked effort, but it is similar to fake laughter, where it begins totally forced and artificial, but always ends up as the real thing. The first night we then went off on a tangent about their cousin Paul and what to get him for his birthday (he is such a Leo, even down to the mane of blond curls surrounding his head). I repeated a few salient details to Nat, to keep him a part of things.

Last night, I made us do it again, and Ned looked at me like I was nutz. (not that there’s anything wrong with it) But Ben looked a little excited, because he could think of something he wanted to tell. I helped Nat talk about his community outing at school where he had ordered and purchased chocolate ice cream. I talked about the highly animated argument/great conversation I had with my agent, Ned talked about some stuff he’d accomplished at work (sorry, it did not compute), and right now I can’t remember what the other two talked about, but they talked. Music to my ears. As stilted as the thing was, it really, truly made me feel good.

You are like the hurricane
There’s calm in your eye.
–Neil Young

I just watched Nat crouch as he walked down the front path to the bus, trying to avoid the heavy raindrops. Such a mensch. He hates the rain, hates the fact that his brothers stay in bed while he has to go to school, hates the fact that Ned and I eat our breakfast sometime later than him; yet he just does what he’s got to do. He did ask me several times if the rain would stop and if it was still summer and we were still going to Colorado. I just wanted to crush him to me and kiss his fuzzy face! I see how anxious he is, and yet he just totally held himself together. I could learn a lot from his fortitude.

I am not quite as stoic. I feel battered by the winds blowing through my life right now. My expectations have been laid low to the ground, in anticipation of the next storm. But give me a few days of son-light, and I forget all about the hurricanes.

Today I am going to write, but it is going to be fiction. That’s the way it goes. Before Making Peace With Autism, I wrote novel after novel. Historical shit (I have a Master’s in 19th Century Russian Intellectual History from Penn; my thesis was about Tolstoy’s worldview — I disagreed with Sir Isaiah Berlin, of “Hedgehog and Fox” fame — in War and Peace, which I read in Russian, da, koneshno) with convoluted plots. But there was also a huge dry spell of nothing. Ned and I have a joke, where he says, “I’m not a software engineer anymore,” and I say, “I’m not a writer.” Because we both have our days of desert and drek, when he can’t think of anything to blog or new cute little programs to write. And I just stare at Precious’ vacuous face and I want to snap her lid shut or strangle her with her clunky white cord.

During those times, we just gotta do other things. We gotta be like Nat and remind ourselves that it is still summer, thank God, even though the air smells fishy and thick. Somewhere out there, crisp and clear Colorado and Cape Cod cavort, just waiting for us to join them. Have to crouch and go out into the fish stew first to get there, as Nat already knows.

Something I saw years ago, when I was first married and living at 4413 Pine in Philly, was Felicia and Frisco’s fantasy honeymoon. I believe this is where it all began for me. Sean Donnelly had decorated his penthouse Arabian style, with festooned colored gauze and tents and pillows. And Felicia, of course, wore a great BD outfit. Frisco was a sheik, and looked like he felt both foolish and in love.

For my 45th birthday, I want to suspend chiffon from the ceiling of my entryway and staircase, all the way down to the livingroom. Nothing but candlelight, but tons of it. The coffee table would be gone, so that there would be a large area for dancing and for people to sit. There would be pillows everywhere so that my guests would be comfortable. The spicy aroma of Middle Eastern food would fill the air.

I would have something like George Abdo’s Misirlou going on the stereo and I would come down wrapped in veil, zilling. I don’t know which costume I’d wear; maybe my new gold or I might buy that gorgeous Eman from Dalahl.

I would have a bunch of my closest friends there as well as Laura and my parents. It would be my debut performance, my declaration that age and any other challenges won’t beat me. Columbus Day Weekend. Mark your calendars.

So much for that. I turned down my publisher’s offer as it stands. Not gonna do it. Can’t talk about fun and happiness the way I’ve been feeling. All those cool, happy things I thought I’d discovered? Nah. Not so much. Also, I can’t figure out how to interview all those people and somehow do justice to their stories. How do I write about my process, my thoughts, my journey, from my heart, and then weave in ten other strangers’ stories? I don’t see it. I can’t, can’t, it would be a load of cant. No. I’m in the middle of it all right now — a vortex of tsuris — and when I come though it, I’ll have a lot to say I’m sure, but now? It’s if at first you don’t succeed, cry, cry again.

I counter-proposed a book to them and also sent in my historical fiction, about 1905 Russia. My publisher does historical fiction, too, it turns out. But “only two or three a year, and from established writers.” That’s the Catch-22 of the week. How do you become established? Where does that start?

Feel like the biggest loser since Bill Buckner opened his legs. How can a person like me get a large teenager off to camp on an airplane and then drive around an unknown state, pretending to be an adult? I’m so nervous I feel like puking, but maybe that’s cos I was wrong about fudge.

Though it’s been
Over a year since,
I still wish
I hadn’t done it.

Because I think
I feel
I see
A shadow, a ring of dirt, a haze on the soft blue sky; you

It.
Sprouted out of boredom
And ugliness
And nothingness

like a dandelion through old cracked cement, taxi-cab yellow, a slime-green stem

Never mind that it seemed to be some kind of intoxicating, exotic flower

(Or so I thought.)

Like the lily he once bought
me. Overpowering smell of sugar, too tall, sticky, bent, shriveled too
soon.

Nearly killed me.

You can (almost) die of sadness and regret. Unless you lie down
under that sky.

Turns out, I didn’t need to know about the store-bought flowers with their garish,
dyed hues
And their crinkly paper.
$9.99 a bunch.

I had a sunny meadow
I have a sunny meadow,
under a hazy blue sky

Okay, so there’s the light at the end of the tunnel. I see it. It’s so bright it is blinding me. Good. It has now been a week — knock wood — that Nat has been happy and calm. He is still very animated and interested in what others are doing, especially at dinnertime, but not in a way that gets him upset. I sure don’t mind discussing once or thrice who is going to use salt and who is not; that’s just dinnertime conversation! It was just so difficult before when no answer seemed to satisfy him. Or we all had to pretend to use salt on everything just to placate him. But tonight I even said, “Max might use the salt, but sometimes people don’t use salt.” The dreaded, ambiguous “sometimes.” Nat then repeated his desire to see Max use salt, but only once.

On Friday we went to his doc and talked meds, which was a good thing. We came up with a longterm plan for him, which may involve a small dose of an anti-seizure medication. We are going to see if his new, higher level of Risperdal is helping his seratonin, etc. He is still on a fairly low dose of Risp., and I’m glad we don’t have to increase it yet again.

We also came up with a shortterm plan, to help with the difficulty of the airport and the plane ride. We now have Klonipin, which may make him sleepy, but that would be good for all the travel mishegos. I am going to call our airport Monday and talk to someone there about special considerations. For example, even if Nat knows to expect to take his shoes off to go through the x-ray, he will not like it and there is a chance for an outburst at a very bad time and place. I have a note from the doctor, too.

I gotta start packing and figuring out what to take and how much. Very exciting, but also vomit-inducing dread.

What helps that every time is a snippet of fudge. And since I had a lot of anxiety, I had a lot of fudge. That stuff is unbelievably good. Nat and I share an ability to eat infinite amounts of fudge without getting ill. We eat it until it is gone, not until we hurl. Fudge, for me, is the Anti-ralph.

I bought another brick of the stuff last night, because I went to Provincetown with Laura. We went out to dinner, got incredibly sloshed and then we were only a hop, skip, and a jump (especially a skip) from Provincetown, so there we went. I told her I had to get more low-carb taffy and more fudge, the miracle food for Nat and me. Et voila, they had cookie ‘n’ creme fudge, which I bought for Little B, my Oreo fiend.

We also went into Spank the Monkey, or maybe it was Hocus Pocus, and bought me, for the first time, a handful of new navel jewelry: a teensy red die, a little peppermint-like pink and white ball, a purple disc, and a tiny amber rose. The amber rose is to go with my new bellydance costume, which I bought while depressed a couple of days ago. It is gold colored, with bronze and gold beading. I think I will feel completely like Cleopatra in this one (yes, that’s a good thing). I have not received it yet, but soon, soon. A new cossie feels as good as fudge, and is far more flattering.

It’s that little souvenir
of a terrible year
which makes my eyes feel sore.
–The Sundays

This will probably go down in my history as the worst summer in my life. I have been battling my own depression and Nat’s anxiety, as well as dealing with Max’s new teenage attitude of distance. That is not to say that every single day has been bad, not at all; but I have never felt so discouraged for such a long time. I am discouraged about how to help and reach Nat and I am discouraged by my own inability to remain positive and avoid self-destructive behavior. The worse things get, the more worn out I get, and then I am less able to do what I need to do for anyone.

And yet I see that there has been an improvement in Nat. The pre-warn is a very good thing for him, by which I mean a simple reminder of the salient points for the following day. He was happy this morning. Ben, however, has just about had it with him and has been yelling back at him when he starts to obsess. Ben feels like Nat pushes him around. There is alot to balance here; Ben is not allowed to be rude but he certainly can feel however he feels about his brother. So I talked to him for a while last night in the privacy of his room to get a sense of how he’s doing. I tried to point out Nat’s good qualities but Ben does not want to appreciate Nat these days. Still, I think it’s important to remind him of Nat’s overall sweetness, helpfulness, and progress. I have to hope that this helps somehow.

I check in on Max however much he allows. He is building a computer for Ben (it is a surprise) and I am so blown away by this. I am so glad that he is kindhearted and wise. Even though he has his flaws (he is very sedentary and technology-oriented) he is a delight. I love the way he loves Ben. The two of them fit together like a puzzle. I wish they could include Nat more, and I am trying to come up with more things they all three can do together or have in common. Ben’s therapist suggested even going around the dinner table once and telling a joke (or trying). I don’t know. I don’t want Ben to become even more exasperated with Nat. Maybe we can vary it, and each person do their favorite stim, instead. Mine would be either twirling my hair or clicking “get mail” on Precious. Nat’s is probably squeezing words into different shapes and creating a rhythm out of them. Max’s is maybe rolling his dreadlocks; Ben’s got a funny little throat-clearing cough. Ned’s favorite stim? Humming and tapping. It’s my clue that he’s feeling happy.

I have a feeling that when this period in my life is over I am going to have learned a lot. But right now, I’m in the middle of it and just holding on.

Why do we feel so bad one day and so good the next, without there being a whole lot that is different day-to-day in the actual events?

Nat is definitely happier all of a sudden. I don’t really think it’s the fudge. I think it’s the pre-warn that helps Nat feel better about the varying routines in the summertime. (“Now, Nat, remember: Max will be in bed when you have breakfast. He won’t have breakfast until you get on the bus.”

“Okay, yes, Mommy will close the door.”) I went over and kissed and kissed him, telling him how happy he was making me because he was staying calm. He looked very pleased. And I am so pleased with how calm and comfortable he seems today and yesterday; the difference is night and day. Or maybe he is just so touched that I bought all that fudge for him? Maybe just the promise of that chocolate goodness at the end of the day is enough to make him able to stay calm? However good fudge is to me, maybe it is even more delicious to Nat that I can’t even imagine such a thing! Who knows? Because we don’t really know how another person experiences something, I can’t know. And I want to know because I want to learn so that next time I’ll have more of an idea of what to do. Tonight, with Nat joining Ned and me on the porch (I was finishing the Sunday NYTimes crossword and Ned was answering email), it felt so good to have him smiling at us, even joking with Ned who kept trying to get him to stop sucking his thumb. But I’ll take a thumbsucking 17 year old any day over armbiting and screaming. Mmmm thumb.

Natalia who bellydances and writes honestly about classes, practice, and performing, has tagged me to tell you 8 things you don’t know about me. I’ll bet those of you who have been reading for a while think you know all about me! Well, let’s see if I can come up with 8 new things.

1) I discovered that my publisher, Shambhala, does historical fiction, so I am getting my 16-year-old novel The Winter is Past ready to send to my editor. A few friends are reading it through for me. I wrote it while Max was in utero and then a tiny boy (which lasted for a few months).

2) I once went parasailing in the Bahamas and I hated every minute of it. Suspended by a string over the Vast, Mighty, and Shark-Infested? I don’t think so. But Ned loved it so much that I thought I would, too.

3) I never used to meet friends for drinks, not until my forties. Now it is one of my favorite things to do.

4) I am hoping to do an intro to bellydance workshop for special needs moms.

5) July 29 was our 7 year anniversary of living in this house, and it is the longest we have ever lived anywhere.

6) Parts of my house scare me, and I think that’s crazy, so I force myself to go and check on them every now and then (the triangle room on the third floor, the old kitchen in the basement, which houses the Silence of the Lambs room, an ancient butler’s pantry that is dark, webby floor-to-ceiling woodwork, and a mouse graveyard. I have only been in there a handful of times, usually when a plumber needs to show me something horrible). Then I pull the doors shut and run.

7) Ned and I haven’t made a party here in a few years. I don’t know why. I am considering throwing a big one for my 45th birthday this October.

8) I get jealous and competitive way too easily (more than you! nyah nyah)

I tag Max, Ned, (because I believe there’s always more you don’t know about a person), Resilient Mom, NancyBea (it’s been awhile), Body Impolitic, Laurentius Rex, and that’s all, folks.

Look out, look out the Candyman
Here he comes and he’s gone again
Pretty lady ain’t got no friends till the
Candyman comes around again…
–GFD

Eeah, Fudge
Hoo, Fudge
–Nat

I defy Brazelton, Leach, or Spock to come up with some wisdom about my life. When Nat was a baby, all those books left me cold. I could not recognize my little guy in their pages. I tore Penelope Leach in half and threw it across my kitchen.

Today I am limping along, bruise-free, with faint hope flickering foolishly in my heart. Last night I tried something a little new: I pre-warned Nat of how things would be in the morning: who would be awake, who asleep; who was having breakfast, who was not. I told him he would have to be calm tomorrow in spite of all those things.

This morning Nat was like the old Nat. Baruch Atah. Boshe Moi. He asked a question or two about Max, like when was he going back to school (after the last week of summer, after Cape Cod is over, in September, in the fall). And that was that.

He had a great day in school, as he has been anyway, and I gave him fudge when he got home. At around 5:30 I determined that Ned would be too late to eat with us, and that I was making pasta and meat sauce. I told Nat during his airing of Peter Pan, and I told him that if he was calm during dinner he would get fudge after dinner.

I had gone to Cape Cod for the weekend and one of my wishes had been to go to Provincetown. My parents obliged me, and we also figured I could take the ferry home to Boston at 3. So Mom and I shpotseered while Dad took the bike ride of his life at Race Point. I was determined to go to Cabot’s, where we always bought fudge when I was little, and where they now sell diabetic taffy in all flavors!!!!

I bought a ton of the bowel-challenging candy for me; I also bought a pound and a quarter of milk chocolate fudge for the boys, a hefty brick of that buttery sweet brown stuff — the warm sticky smell made me nearly swoon with delight — and I said to Mom, “I am going to bribe that kid of mine. If that works, I am going to be so pissed at him.” Mom laughed. I may have called him something less complimentary. Sorry, but this has been an awfully long stretch of difficult behavior. And that’s just me! (HAH)

Well, so far, it has worked. The pre-warn and the fudge. How much more obvious can things get? All it takes is a little fudge? A spoonful of sugar? Well, why do you think I call him Sweet Guy???

Now I just need to buy a lifetime supply of Cabot’s fudge. It could be worse. And now I get to hear happy Nat silly-talking with the word “fudge” sprinkled in liberally throughout his monologue.

A good week
A week of peace
Let gladness reign
And joy increase.
–Hebrew prayer at Havdalah (when Sabbath ends)

It is 4 p.m. I feel the slow hot day begin to draw back like the tide. The light outside is quieting down, as if seen through partially lidded eyes, eyes about to nap. These eyes already napped, my usual 2 pm. Soft white bed, brightly lit room, boys’ voices downstairs.

My best friend is back in town from her vacation in Israel, so it was a fun day of pedicures, eating felafel, and gossip. My pedicure is the best ever: A pink that’s almost white, and a tiny red flower in the middle of each big toe. Sparkly gold center. They look like someone else’s feet (someone with nice feet, that is!). A pedicure is sometimes a footgasm. It is always so nice to have your feet pampered and cheaper than therapy and almost as effective. It’s at least “like a witamin.”

I spent the morning going over the Colorado trip and perfecting the details. I went on a big 9 mile bike ride (the only one I can take around here because of my proximity to Boston; there’s too much dangerous traffic otherwise. So I head out to “suburban” Brookline, Chestnut Hill and the Estate area, with hilly, winding roads, and a long vista of a reservoir and the Boston skyline, which is not bad for a toy town.) This morning I had one ear bud in, listening to all kinds of stuff. Then Rocky Mountain High came on, what a surprise! I plunged back in time, to when my parents were way younger than I am now, and Laura was my backseat buddy/sometime enemy. My heart was bursting with memories and with hope for what my little family is going to go through soon, too. How will it feel to once again see those sketchy white outlines in the distance, the snowcapped mountains? And all that space around you! I called for reservations and some people actually sound like Westerners! I loved it!

I could see M and B trying to run up Great Sand Dune (it’s 750 feet high!) and rolling down. I suddenly felt so happy to be alive, imagining it, remembering, and riding so fast in the blessed shade. To be able to whiz down Warren Street, faster than a car (or so I imagine). Warren Street is an uphill that feels like a downhill, because it curves and rolls. I was singing at the top of my lungs, speeding down the uphill. I felt sorry for car people. I exchanged knowing smiles with other bikers. I wished I could just go as fast as I possibly wanted without worrying about being killed. But that kind of joy is for children only who believe they are invincible. But every now and then —

I could remember our white water raft trip, where Laura and I were in the front of the raft and got completely wet! All the slides from the float trip are spotted blue, like algae, from where water got into the camera. Max wants to do a slow one, Ben wants a fast one. We are going for the fast one, of course. The scenic ones are nice but they can bore. My teenager is just being obstinate.

Apparently Nat told his bus driver all about Colorado, because she asked me when she pulled up. “He talks to me all the time,” she bragged. What’s the secret? Not being his mom, I suppose.

L’hitrot.

I want this one! Help, help, help. Oy. Okay, I better dance tonight so that I convince myself that were I to be a very bad girl and actually order this one, I would perform publicly in it. Yikes! But that’s the deal.

“Those who are pregnant in the body only, betake themselves to women and beget children — this is the character of their love; their offspring, as they hope, will preserve their memory and giving them the blessedness and immortality which they desire in the future. But souls which are pregnant — for there certainly are men who are more creative in their souls than in their bodies conceive that which is proper for the soul to conceive or contain. And what are these conceptions? — wisdom and virtue in general. And such creators are poets and all artists who are deserving of the name inventor.”
Diotima to Socrates in Plato’s Symposium

I’m pregnant! No, not in body. But in my soul, as Plato describes in The Symposium. My new book feels so much like when a fetus is tiny, just newly discovered, and you don’t yet know who this creature will be nor are you even sure you quite love it. (You are mostly scared of it and loath to face it in its tiny enormity.) But you know you will love it, once it starts to take form and to grow.

When I was just preggers with Nat I remember whispering, “Just stay alive, Little Sweetheart!” He seemed like a little bean to me, spinning inside of me, adding to himself moment by moment. Spinning!

When I was newly pregged with Max, I felt so sick I couldn’t bear it and I wished for a moment that I was not pregnant! So mixed up was the new Mommy. But “Little, Little” just kept growing and eventually grew into my biggest baby, hence Maximillian, which means The Greatest. Ned even added an L to the name, to make it even bigger.

With Benj, I was sick even longer! Because I was kind of old by then (34)! I imagined he was a girl because I was so sick and because he was not a big bump in my belly. But then, several ultrasounds later, we all knew the truth about Beastie. I felt I knew him so early on, because he gave us a lot of scares that landed me in the hospital a few times. Always making his mommy worried!

So now I have this small life growing inside, this odd new book. I have very little loyalty to it. It makes me feel kind of sickly nervous everytime I sit down and contemplate it. I have to have faith that it will come to me, just exactly what this book is, in time for my delivery date (June 1, 2008. This book is a Gemini! Hooray!)

Anyway, I felt it today. That tiny beautiful pressure of creation, that something calling me. That confidence that it is all there, just beneath the fingers on the keyboard. Or in the air before my eyes. The feeling of diving into the most intense part and peeling away to the best writing. Being lost in the paragraphs, resenting the phone and the red appearance of a new email. I worked for about two hours today, and ended up with 1000 words fewer than I started! D’oh! But that is actually okay because it is my process. I start by importing all the stuff I’ve been writing and thinking about (a lot of which you have never seen) and then winnowing out the crap while putting it into some kind of order. Today, I did a good job on Chapter 1. So now I have a lot of Chapter 1 and all of the Prologue and Chapter 5 (except for the other parents’ thoughts, which I will get to soon. First I have to meet with my editor and tell her the whole vision and make sure we are “on the same page.”

To those of you who responded to my call for interviewees: Thank You!! I will be emailing you or calling soon.

Feels good to be back.

Good Morning, here is ONE bear called Corduroy
–Lisa McCue

I took the post down I wrote earlier today. I thought it was stupid after reading it again. Silly and not getting at what I really feel. Not really fair to Nat, either. I could tell because after I posted it I had a stomach ache, like I’d swallowed Jiminy Cricket.

Here’s the point: I love my boy so much and I just want to understand what is going on with him. I just want us to be happy. Him and me. His brothers. His dear father. That’s all. We are all five of us equal parts in a family that works. But it has been so hard lately. Nat has not been happy. Stomping, yelling, charging at people, chewing his arm crazily. Not happy. I get at the end of my rope, despair, and then — I find a few more inches. One of his teachers gave me an idea today, simple and clear: write it down. Just write down what is happening the moment he gets upset. Tell him on paper, so he can process it in his own way. Give him a suggestion (on paper) of what he can do (like read Shel Silverstein on the couch). I now believe he cannot process our words effectively when he is feeling in the middle of chaos. And to him, the start of the dinner hour means chaos. But, thankfully, he can process something he reads.

This should be no surprise, and yet, when his teacher suggested it to me, I felt the light, feathery relief of being helped, at last. Write it down. Of course. Nat has always enjoyed the written word, ever since those earliest days sitting on my lap listening over and over to Corduroy’s Day: A Counting Book. That was our very first sophisticated interaction: reading together. Before that day, he could let me know when he wanted food, sleep, or to be changed, but as far as enjoying something with me: reading Corduroy was the first ever. I will never forget the joy I felt as he closed the finished book and then handed it back to me so I would read it again. Why? Because I felt it tonight when he took my note about dinner, read it, and calmed down immediately. And then again when he agreed, spontaneously, to go with us to the park to see some friends. And then when he grinned happily as he watched Ben wrestle with Chris and Andy. And then when he asked to throw the ball to Robbie the Blind Dog.

Peace.

A sweet ending to a pretty full day.

See my Tabblo>

When someone offers you a piece of pie, you take it.
–Ned’s friend Paul H.

A mixed day. I took a two mile walk around the Reservoir with Nat, and baked a pie with him, but in between he had a terrible screaming fit and ran outside biting his arm and screaming through the neighborhood. I think it was because someone was refusing to do something that he wanted them to do, like use chili powder or salt.

I was very shaken up by this and just cried for a little bit, got that out of my system. This was when we were supposed to go to a friend’s pool (Ben’s friend Andy). I just could not muster it. So Ned took Ben and I made the pie with Nat, which was a lot of fun. He is very dextrous and an excellent baker. He was trying so hard to do it well! That Miniman. I tried to talk to him later about how he can’t control what other people like because we are all different from each other. He kept saying, “No different! No different!” Finally I said, “Fine, Nat, think what you want.” And that was the end of that. It reminds me of when he was little and we were explaining that something was different and that that was okay. He started saying to himself, “It’s a different, that’s okay.” Which kind of got it right. But he wasn’t buying it now, as a wise old teen.

We made Dot Pie (.py), which I dreamed up after hearing about a bit of software Ned wrote of the same name, using the python programming language, of course. I know nothing about it or pythons but I do know pie and I know when a man goes on a pool outing he didn’t really want to go on, he deserves a really great pie when he comes home.

Speaking of python, snakes figure prominently — and horribly — in the very beginning of the latest Harry Potter book. How do I know? Max bought the book at midnight on Friday night (see footage here) and has already read it. So now I have a great book to read for a few days when I’m not writing mine. And by reading about the Death-eaters, I will be able to stay away from Dot pie eaters.

Ah-hah, I touched your heart.
–Nelson Muntz

This helped lift the mood:
Our friend NancyBea originally had the Create-A-Character on her website, which Ned has linked to in his post. Ned and the boys and I sat together and made our family (Nat was not too interested, however, although he does love to watch The Simpsons with us every Sunday). A good laugh with my guys is “like a witamin,” as my grandmother used to say. That, plus a very late but very good argument/talk with Ned. (I know many of you are thinking, “Thank God I’m not married to her!”) Well, I know Ned doesn’t like the late-night argument either, but he does like me, so…

Try doing one of these of your own clan and send me the link!! (with a pic so I can see the real life peeps) Guaranteed to make you smile.

I am a sick man…I think my liver is infected.
–Dostoevsky

You’ve all got to understand. Things have been so bad here that I have been nearly nutty. I have been feeling drained, sad, and trapped. I cannot get Nat to relax. Every day there is an outburst that makes no sense. An arm-biting, yelling and screaming episode that can last ten minutes or on and off the whole night. He is so fragile these days, so easily shaken. I cannot stand to see him so messed up and angry, out of control. What is it?

This brings out all kinds of feelings in me: sadness, inadequacy, and imprisonment. I need some escape. There is none. Writing is slow. Friends are on vacation. Ned works long hours. My vacation is weeks away. It is raining. I can’t eat for fun. I have very little time to myself with the boys always, always, always around (Ben is not in camp! He hated it so I took him out. It is miserable keeping him off all the technology).

I want to change my dance name again. I can’t tell why but now Lilia has bad memories tied to it, painful associations. I want to be Natacha, which is who I said I was to everyone on my first day at Penn. Also like Natacha Atlas, my favorite singer.

I want to call my book Making Peace With Imperfection. The former stupid title I had sucked. Piece de merde. Slick and glib. I ain’t. Are We Having Fun Yet??!!!! Makes my teeth shiver, like nails on a blackboard.

This is going to be another book that will probably be ripped out of me like an emergency C-section. I am going to give birth, but it feels like a crisis.

(This is getting too emo, as Max would say, even for me.)

Okay. Enough of this swill. If the space around me is suffocating, I shall have to create a beautiful space where there is none. I have to dance, I guess. Probably in the fuschia.

This is my monthly column for the Brookline Tab. Enjoy!

Well you crazy mama
with your ball and chain
–Mick Jagger

I woke up looking like Cyclops, with a puffy zit in the middle of my forehead. I said to Ned, “Do I look weird?” And he said, “Why, cause of the pimple? You gotta stop picking it.”

Which made me laugh because I spent a lot of yesterday picking that thing every time I stopped to think. I am trying to get organized over my second book, which I am calling Booky (and I’m sure the editor will have a better suggestion, like “scrap this thing.” ) because the real title blows foul chunks.

Aside from the title, I had a good idea which was to add to the bullet lists bits of research I have dug up here and there about happiness theories. So I’m doing a bit of reading now about that and I found that an old Penn prof who lived in our dorm is the Father of the particular theory I’m interested in (Hey, great syntax, Writer Breath! This reminds me of that joke where the southern lady asked a snooty professorial type next to her, “What time we landing at?” and the prof answers, “It is grammatically incorrect to end a sentence with a preposition.” To which Southern Lady replied, “What time we landing at, Shithead?”)

The mind wanders far too much sometimes for real writing. So yesterday, every time I stopped to think, my finger would wander to the invader on my forehead. To stop myself, and to dry it up, I coated it with a dab of mud mask from Israel. But I forgot about it, and Max sat down across from me and did not say a word. But he seemed to be grinning a bit, but I thought that was because I was hassling him about eating too many Goldfish. No, it was because Crazy Mama was at it again. My creative process is an ugly thing, my friends. You shouldn’t know from it. But now you do.