Caught a Long Wind

OH HI.

Well, then. I don’t like to overly explain absences, but I’ve been working a lot, which is great! Really, it’s great! Who doesn’t like money? I LIKE MONEY. But I was super-busy every night and every preschool session and every . . . well, EVERYTHING.

I’ve been working more in books, and man, that’s a lot of fun. Also? It’s a lot of reading. A LOT of reading, which doesn’t leave much leftover time for PERSONAL reading, which is why I’ve been sitting with Maggie Steifvater’s “Forever” on my night stand for two weeks, and it’s due back to the library on Tuesday, so I’d best be HUSTLING UP IN HERE to whip through that last, miserable book in the most ridiculous trilogy ever written in the history of YA trilogies, AMEN.

It’s awful. There is a lot of soul-gazing among teenagers and a not-insignificant number of heartfelt SONG LYRICS written out by one of the protagonists, and it’s not meant in an ironic way. Basically, I read this entire trilogy from behind my hands while making this face:

(SONG LYRICS.)

I … God, let’s see. The last two weeks have been VERY BORING and involved me staying up late with a red pen (have you tried these?) and writing some stuff for other people and working on multiple books for children and young adults and . . . um, that’s all I’ve got, because THAT IS ALL I HAVE DONE FOR MANY DAYS.

The end.

Oh, not really, but that’s what it FEELS LIKE, and you can ask anyone who’s expected a phone call or an email from me, because AIEEEEEE, freelancing is fun, but it is also very time consuming.

In the interim, I missed you guys, and feel like a loser for saying that, but I DID (do!).

I can’t stop thinking about Swistle’s post about sociopaths, because once you encounter a sociopath, you don’t really forget. It’s CRAZY. It’s crazy. I am exceedingly nice to sociopaths if I can be, because as Swistle and I discussed separately, it’s amazing how FAR a sociopath is willing to GO in order to play a game with you. SO FAR. FURTHER THAN YOU EVER DREAMED. Because remember, they do not have any feelings. None. Zero. They don’t care about you and yours. They’re bored, they’re egomaniacs, they have no conscience at all. They don’t even love their CHILDREN. They CANNOT. YOU WILL NOT WIN. So if you see someone being nice to a person YOU KNOW they know is crazy, maybe they know they are a sociopath, and just don’t feel like having their LIVES RUINED.

I don’t need to tell you (BUT I WILL) that this led to a panicked spiral as I considered how awful it would be to be the MOTHER of a sociopath, given that most rudimentary research leads one to believe that they are BORN NOT MADE, and what do you even DO? Fortunately (oh my God), my research also indicates that, as suspected, my current offspring is rather far from the picture of a young sociopath (highly empathetic, very into physical affection, likes animals and doesn’t set them aflame, ETCETERA) and I no longer need to consider 20/20 appearances as part of my retirement plan.

In other offspring news, she is naked pretty much 24/7, and today at the park, just before plowing into the sandbox, politely asked for her shoes & socks to be removed (reasonable), then requested that her pants and diaper also come off (not reasonable). So while I may not have a sociopath on my hands, it IS true that I might be dealing with an exhibitionist, and perhaps by the time she is of age, Times Square’s Naked Cowboy will be retired, and Sam can take over as Pantsless Percussionist. She does a mean “Got a Bunch of Bones” from the Bubble Guppies while drumming in time, and hot damn, she prefers to do it in the buff.

Now if you’ll excuse me, now that I can check sociopath fears off of my list, I am off to ruminate about pancreatic cancer. Because this is what I DO every time a famous person dies of a disease. I PANIC ABOUT IT.

Feel free to imagine what I’d be like if I wasn’t medicated for anxiety. BECAUSE SERIOUSLY.

*Feist

132 comments October 5th, 2011