Five Years Later

 Journal  No Responses »
Aug 312010
 

After the storm my life moved on, though I still miss New Orleans.  I imagine I always will.  Going back there, alone with my two small children, to face what had become of my life, was probably one of the scariest things I’ve ever done.  Everything was a giant mess, and we had no utilities for weeks, but still, I was one of the lucky ones.  In the midst of chaos, in a town where more than seventy-five percent of the structures were damaged or destroyed, my little pink cottage stood there, waiting for me, completely intact.  I felt immeasurable relief, but also guilt, because I was alive and my house was here while so many still suffered the loss of everything – families, homes, livelihoods.  I’ll never forget that time – when we were all in it together, all trying to cope with the aftermath of having our world turned upside down, when my kids’ teachers were sleeping in the school because they had no home to go to, when the Red Cross made a trip down my street every day to feed us because there was no place to buy food, and no refrigerator to keep it in if we had it.  We were one big family, cleaning up and digging out.  Tragedy does that to you I guess.

Inspired by another blog I read, I thought I’d post a few pictures of what I found that day when I returned…

In front of my house

My backyard fence

My backyard

Across from my house

My street after the storm

My street after the storm

A street near Lake Pontchartrain in Slidell, LA. I lived near here after college.

This work by Lynette Mejia is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

The Last Hurrah

 Video  No Responses »
Aug 132010
 

This will be the last single released by a-ha, as they announced earlier this year that they’ll be calling it quits after this year’s farewell tour.  I’ll miss them terribly – their music has been the soundtrack to my life since I was 15 years old. Most people only know them for their one U.S. hit, “Take On Me”, though they recorded eight more albums after Hunting High and Low, and have remained immensely popular in other parts of the world.  The video is beautiful and sad, everything their music has always represented.  Farewell, and thank you.


A-ha Butterfly, Butterfly (Tha Last Hurrah)

A-ha | MySpace Music Videos

The Only True Thing Left Inside Me

 Journal  No Responses »
Aug 122010
 

House is quiet again.  Today is the first day of school, and I’m sitting here trying to wrap my mind around the silence.  All summer I’ve worked in a whirlwind, in the middle of a chaos of sound and light and the distant warbles of Spongebob Squarepants.  Every year they grow up and away, and I have to remind myself that I am more than a mother, more than what they see and how they define me.  Number three will be along soon, and the whole cycle will start again, but hopefully this time around I’ve learned a few things; learned to give all that I need to without winking out of existence in the process.  Being a parent is not just hard work – it’s learning to draw the line between who you are, and who your children see.  It’s learning to step back and forth over that line at will.  Now in the silence I’ll have more time to work, and I’m grateful for that.  Still, I miss them.  They are the light.

Tropical weather skirting the edges of this area today.  Most of the action seems to be in the New Orleans area, so I’m not sure if we’ll be seeing anything from it.  It’s cloudy out, however, keeping the temperatures down somewhat, so I’m glad of that. I’d love to get some rain, though.  This is the time of year Gulf South gardeners just get through, working at dusk and dawn, dodging the heat and waiting for the cool breezes of autumn.  The Dog Days.  The ancient Romans blamed it all on Sirius, sacrificing a brown dog to try and appease his anger and cool things off.  My cats think it’s a tradition worth saving, though they haven’t convinced me yet.

At any rate, back to work.  The rituals continue, even if the seasons no longer exactly line up.

Love the Way You Lie

 Video  No Responses »
Aug 062010
 

Really digging this new song by Eminem featuring Rhianna – as usual his work is controversial and yet spot-on.  People Magazine reports that Megan Fox donated her salary from the video to Sojourn House, a shelter for abused women.

A Plan Evolves Too Grand to Entertain

 Gardening, Journal  No Responses »
Aug 042010
 

Yesterday I got a lot of work done on the novel, probably the most in one day all summer.  The structure of the thing is starting to come together, but with the switch to third person I am now obligated to come up with POV chapters for a whole host of other characters (imagine!).  This adds a lot to the planning process.  At the end, I simply took out a sheet of loose leaf paper and started sketching – chapters, scenes, who goes where.  It helped to put things in a visual context, but the new scope of the thing kind of scared me.  I worry the manuscript will be too long.  I’m already 20k words in, and I don’t want the finished product to be more than 60-70.

The LOML got the initial coats of paint onto Brandon’s wall yesterday, which looks great.  I never did like the pale pink color the room was originally.  Just not a pastel girl.  We left it because Katie sorta dug it and because we were too tired from consolidating/moving two households already.  The blue we chose is great, and I think it will grow with Brandon.  In fact, I’m really hoping both their rooms do them until they finish high school.  I am aware, however, that this may be wishful thinking on my part.

After the cut, a few pictures from my sagging late-summer garden. I tried to get the pretty, heat-loving flowers, carefully avoiding the large patches of wilting, half-dead brown plants.  It makes me sad.  This heat wave sucks.  Tonight at dusk I’ll go out and water, but there’s just no substitute for cool breezes and afternoon thunderstorms.

And now, I need to get to work.

Continue reading »

Dog Days

 Journal  No Responses »
Aug 032010
 

The hottest part of the year has settled here; yesterday at 3pm the temperature was 100.  I only venture outside when I absolutely have to – at dawn to water the pot plants and replenish the fountain, and occasionally during the day to bring the kids somewhere.  It’s got me wishing for autumn in the worst way.  Sometimes I feel like I spend my life that way – wishing and waiting for the next thing coming down the tube.  Hard for me to live in the moment, though I hear that’s what we’re supposed to do.

Yesterday was spent working on Brandon’s new room, cleaning out the last of Katie’s things, going through them and deciding what’s going to Goodwill, what’s going in the trash and what’s going in her new room.  The LOML taped up all the molding last night, so I believe we’re a go for painting tonight.  Luckily, Brandon currently only lives across the hall, so this move won’t be the endless trudging between floors.  Still, he’s a pack rat, so sorting through his mess will be a daunting task.

I’m missing the farm.  I haven’t gone in a couple of weeks because the heat is prohibitive to getting anything done, but I’m homesick nonetheless.  I miss taking walks, working in the gardens, seeing the full darkness of night without the false dawn of city lights.  As soon as things cool down a bit I’ll go back, though that may be a few weeks out yet.

Last night we played WOW again, though I have to admit I’m getting somewhat tired of quest grinding in Zul’Drak.  Naamah and Adramalech are at level 76 now, and those final four levels seem to be taking forever.  I know I’ll never be a candidate for Loremaster, even though at heart I’m an achievement whore, simply because I can’t stand to stay in one place long enough to finish every quest available.  My alternative undead-self has a serious case of wanderlust, and she’s getting restless.  Perhaps tonight I’ll take a break, and just work instead.

Nine days till school starts.  Bittersweet, as the silence will be much more conducive to work, but the absence of my kiddos always leaves a hole in my heart. Some small, selfish piece of me wants to keep them little forever.

Until tomorrow.

Ghosts Appear and Fade Away

 Journal  No Responses »
Aug 022010
 

My garden in April. This is what I think about in August, when everything is half-dead with the heat.

A few days ago I decided to rework my entire manuscript, changing the narrative point of view from first person to third person omniscient.  It was a huge decision, one that I gave lots of thought to, but ultimately, it fits the story I want to tell.  The fact is, I need to be inside the head of all my characters, as there are some things, including relationships, that I want to cover from more than one perspective.

Needless to say, the decision has cost me some time.  Not only do I have to go back and rework the chapters I’ve written, but I’ll now need to add in chapters that tell the story from other characters’ viewpoints.  This adds more time and work to my deadline, but ultimately I think it will add greatly to the story.  First person demands a very tight narrative; third person allows for a much richer, well-rounded story.

On the pregnancy front, everything continues to progress nicely.  Each week we’ve worked to move one room in our massive, house-wide reorganization project to make room for the new family member.  Two weeks ago we moved my office from upstairs to a small room next to the kitchen.  Last week we moved my daughter upstairs to the former office room.  This week we get started moving my son to his sister’s old room, and then finally, we’ll use his room for the new baby.  It’s very exciting, and I’m getting lots of stuff donated and thrown out that needed to be weeded years ago.  It feels good.

And now, back to the grind.