I wish I was a better photographer.

But here is a picture of our Halloween tree. I've moved on from mermaids to black cats playing musical instruments.
Am wearing orange pants today in honor of the upcoming holiday. I look fantastic.
Happy Halloween!

The Knob Bell is in!

I sent it in to my editor yesterday. I don't think it's finished, but at least, as my friend Erica says, the huge slab of clay is on the table and I can start sculpting. And now today it is raining and I feel like I missed all of the glorious fall days because I was huddled over my computer hurting my brain trying to decide which sequence of events was the best choice for my character.

Dawson is home sick,swearing that he can never go to school again because they make him rest too much. This morning--oh, dammit. I have to go. Dawson is taking pictures down from the wall in the front hallway.

Knob Bells

Here is a story Dawson made up the other day:
"Once upon a time there was a little towel named Eyeball. And he said "Whee!"
He went down the slide and straight into the garbage can and someone took him and put him in the washing machine. And when he got home he said, "Do you want to play with me?"
Then a shark ate him up."


"Good last line," I said. "That's the the most important part of the story."
"It's very a-s-o-n," Dawson said. "And Mommy, you are e-s-o-n."
I still don't know what ason and eson mean, and Dawson couldn't tell me. I didn't have the heart to tell him that he was plagiarizing the Frances,
books, except that Frances usually knows what the words she mispells means, whereas Dawson just throws out letters as if they spell something only we know the meaning of.

He went into our office and pulled out a computer keyboard that is not attached to the desktop.
"Put that back please Dawson," said Tommy.
"I have to write my nobel," Dawson said. (He pronounced like "knob bell")
"What's the story?" I said.
"Once upon the time, the end," Dawson said, as if it was obvious, and he couldn't believe I even had to ask such a question.

four hours in the car

Well. I wasn't quite as done with my draft of the novel as I thought. Still picking away at it, but it's closer, anyway. At least I know I'll make the due date.

Last weekend we went to Peterborough, New Hampshire to my cousin Angus's wedding, which was awesome. We stopped on the way to visit my friend Betsy Wheeler, a wonderful poet who I met when I was in graduate school at the Ohio State University. Betsy's work is fantastic. Not only are her poems little pieces of art, but she help found Pilot Poetry, which publishes beautiful poetry chapbooks made by hand. I hadn't seen her in years and was very excited.
"We're going to see my friend Betsy!" I said in the car to Liam and Dawson on the way to Northampton. "Betsy lived in our house with us when I was pregnant with you, Liam, and she was very nice about putting up with me."
"She didn't call you fat?" said Liam.
"Not to my face," I said.
"DID SHE CALL YOU APPLEHEAD?" yelled Dawson.
"No," I said. "She didn't call me Applehead."
"That is very nice,"said Tommy.
It was such a great day to be driving through New England. The leaves were just starting to turn and I thought again of how much I love fall. I said this recently to my friend Hitch who said that the Japanese have been arguing for thousands of years over which is a more beautiful time of year, summer or fall.
"Fall," I said. "It's a no-brainer. It's infused with melancholy." Hitch just laughed as if that said a lot about me.
In the back seat, Liam and Dawson were talking about tonsils.
"I'm going to be four soon," said Dawson, whose birthday is in March. "And then I'm getting my tonsils out."
"It REALLY hurts," said poor Liam, who was in terrible pain for an entire week after his tonsillectomy and was on baby Percoset around the clock. "It hurts A LOT."
"Well I'm getting mine out," said Dawson.
"It's a real pain in the ass," said Liam.
Tommy and I tried not to react.
"You mean a PAINT in the BUTT?" said Dawson.
"I like how he isn't sure which word is the dirty one so he's altered both 'pain' and 'ass'," I said to Tommy in a low voice. "At least we have that."
Tommy laughed.
Then Liam wanted me to sing Down in the Valley, which Dawson doesn't like because of the "If you don't love me, love whom you please" verse, which I completely understand because even though that line sounds kind of sassy without the music, paired with the melody it's heartbreaking. But Liam loves it, so I started singing just the first verse, and Dawson started going, "NNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!" as loud as he could.
"Stop it Dawson!" said Liam.
"STOP SINGING!" Dawson said. "NNNNNNNNNN."
"We can sing something different," I said.
"NO!" said Liam. "I want Down in the Valley!"
"NO!" said Dawson. "I HATE MOMMY'S SINGING!"
"Dawson!" I said. "That is not a nice thing to say. You need to apologize to Mommy."
Silence.
"Are you going to say I'm sorry?" I said.
"I'm saying it in Spanish," Dawson said.
"Hee hee hee hee," said Liam.

And so it went.
The visit with Betsy was wonderful, and the wedding was amazing. I would write more, but I'm tired, and too much writing is a paint in the butt.

Back in the land of the living.

I finished a draft of the novel yesterday.

It still needs a good going over before I send it to my editor, but still--a draft is done.

I feel like I've just come out of a cave and am standing here, blinking in the sunlight, looking at all the things I missed while I was gone. It's the end of September--sunny clear and warm, and the walnut tree outside my window is beginning to turn. The cats are disgruntled and I know my children have been missing me, and there is a pile of phone messages I never returned and e-mails I haven't responded to, and thank you notes I haven't written. The deer have taken up residence in the back yard, and the bed in our TV room is covered with papers.

I ran into my friend Stephan at the co-op the other day and he asked me how I was and I said, "Frankly, I'm a little insane right now. I'm trying to finish a book and I feel like I'm alienating everyone in my life."
He smiled knowingly and said that's what he was like when he was finishing his thesis.
"Terrible," he said. "Destructive, to myself and other people."
I found that hugely reassuring, and then I remembered a story my mother used to tell about my older sister Maria. Maria was about four and my father was finishing his thesis and pretty grumpy, and one day my sister was at my mother's friend Emily's house and Emily found her sitting at a desk, scribbling and scribbling on a piece of paper.
"What are you doing, Maria?" she said.
And Maria said, "I'm writing my thesis, it will never get done. I'm writing my thesis it will never get done."
I used to think that story was funny and still do, but now it tugs at my throat a little more than it did before.

Still, it's time to celebrate. The thesis is almost done. We can celebrate even more when it's off my desk and with my editor, and I've returned a few phone calls and made up with my children, who, luckily, are pretty forgiving.

Boa constrictors.

Yesterday Liam came running up to me as if he had just discovered electricity.
"Mom!" he said. "I've figured out how to catch a boa constrictor. You put a stick in its path and then when it goes over the stick you lift it up and then you have it!"
"Genius," I said.
"So can we go catch one?"
"We'd have to go to South America," I said.
Liam thought about this for a second. "That's okay, we can go there."
"It's pretty far," I said.
"I bet I could take a few days off school," he said.
"Yes, but I'm not sure I want to have a boa constrictor in the house," I said.
"Why?" said Liam. "It could help you with the laundry."

Then he gave me a very detailed explanation of how the snake could take two clothespins and inch along the clothes line, hanging things up to dry.
"But it might eat the cat," I said.
"We'll keep the cat outside," said Liam.
"Where will it sleep?"
"Under the porch."

So I guess that's settled. We'll have to get a boa constrictor. I heard they found a four hundred pound* one in Florida.

*or something like that.