Without a doubt, it’s me. I want to be a better writer and I respect my teacher who doggedly pursued his profession from non-fiction magazine writer to fiction author–it was a tough climb from the way he tells it. He learned a lot along the way and he takes his teaching seriously. His dedication is unquestionable. He reads everything we write closely and gives specific, personalized feedback. And the feedback is uncomfortably spot-on, to the point where you’re saying “Goddammit, I really did accidentally switch POV here!” Even so, it’s not him I’m afraid of.

I’ve always been protective and secretive about my fiction. I find my stories embarrassing and I find my rendering of them even more embarrassing. Why? My stories aren’t any more outlandish than others. My style could still use polish to elevate it, but right now it’s serviceable for mainstream or genre fiction.

I think this is partially linked to my fear of picking out the books I wanted from the library when I was a tween. I fell in love with The Hobbit and there was no looking back. But there was my mother not directly saying anything, but obviously disapproving of my taste, the way she grudgingly humored my father’s collection of vintage ’50’s and ’60’s sci-fi. In a crushing dose of irony, she read romance novels. As an adult, it boggles my mind.

I also wonder how much of my secretiveness is inborn. My daughter is secretive, even though we’ve never invaded her privacy. She’s high-functioning autistic and needs her time alone with her music and she needs to maintain control of her bedroom fiefdom. That means parents are strictly forbidden. She locks the privacy lock every time she goes in her room and squeezes out like a snake exiting an impossibly small crack, pressing her back to the doorjamb and pulling the door tight against her front. I wish she wouldn’t do it; it’s hurtful that she doesn’t trust us but there’s a very real possibility that it’s not about us at all. Just like my embarrassment may not be due to my mother’s aversion to elves and dragons.

Where does this leave me? People ask what my genre is and I can’t really peg it. I’ve got 600,000 words in genre limbo. When people ask me to summarize my book, I can’t because I’m afraid it will sound stupid with all of the subtlety taken out. I wrote for a long time as a way to control my bipolar mood swings–a vacation from my own moods into my characters, an externalizing of what I was feeling. Am I embarrassed about what I needed to write during my bipolar? I don’t know.

Regardless, I’m going to have to dig up two scenes for workshopping. Some commitments you just can’t wiggle out of. I owe my classmates the chance to become better readers and writers by workshopping my writing, because we all have different strengths and weaknesses. That’s part of the requirements of the class and even though there’s no grading and no real consequences, I still feel that the stakes are incredibly high.

How do I get out from under this anvil of embarrassment? Frankly, I don’t know. I can’t even self-publish unless I have some degree of confidence. It all comes down to who and what I’m afraid of. I haven’t figured that out yet. All I know for sure is that I need to figure it out before I spend all of our savings on writing classes.

Every year, my son’s high school band travels to some kind of festival or competition. The hard work is mixed with fun and independence for the kids and is a good growing experience for them. I have another blog post to write wherein I geek out about being a band mom.

This post is about my daughter who, between first and second grade, was diagnosed with high-functioning autism. Aspergers got wiped out in the last upgrade to the diagnostic manual, but I don’t think she would have qualified as that high functioning due to the language regression she experienced between one and three years old.

She’s high-functioning enough that I don’t say “she has autism,” I say “she is autistic,” the same way I say “she is artistic,” or “she’s a good reader,” or “she’s hilariously passive-aggressive.” She is quiet. She has a hard time making eye contact and speaking to waiters or other people she doesn’t know. We worked for months on desensitizing her to eye contact. She likes her alone wind-down time after school. She guards her privacy with the zealotry of a tiger protecting its territory.

I love her all the more because she’s hard to know, hard to share time with, hard to talk to. I put conscious effort into it. But it’s not easy and I’ve had periods of despair.

Here I should make a note: I can only speak to my daughter’s experience on the spectrum. I feel that autism is something that varies so much from child to child that you can infer some things (sensory issues are very common, but what they’re sensitive to and whether they seek or avoid it is individual) but I don’t dare claim that I speak for any other family with an autistic child other than ours. I know no other autistic children and what I say is only about our experience. Please never presume to generalize what you know about one autistic child to another.

When we found out her brother’s band was traveling to Disneyland to play in the park, I knew my daughter and I had to tag along as band-groupies. You don’t take one child to Disneyland and leave the other behind. And with her father traveling along as a chaperone, I was not about to be left behind either.

I was excited. Traditionally, Disneyland brings my daughter to life. She speaks more, interacts more, and is generally bouncier and happier. She’s able to withstand crowds and boring lines and it stretches her capabilities.

Not so much this time; I found myself disappointed. I had hoped to get her to talk with me and bond a little more before she starts middle school, where I know she will need me as she navigates the passage from tween to teen. She seemed tired and gloomy. I blamed it at first on the omnipresent hoodie: the North Face fuzzy teal hoodie that she wears all the time (even to bed). I felt she was tiring out because she was overheating and dehydrating at a rate she couldn’t replace.

We had flown in on Wednesday to get some “girls’ time” in the park. And it worked to a certain extent. I put my daughter in charge of our expedition in the parks, letting her choose rides and when to return to the hotel to encourage independence and decision making. But that girl really came alive when her father and brother arrived on Friday evening and we met them at the bowling alley in Downtown Disney (kudos to Splitsville Luxury Lanes for handling a huge group of teenagers pretty darn well).

Particularly, she has a good dynamic with her brother, who is six years older. He has always treated his sister with kindness and indulgence. For his sake, Nora removed her omnipresent headphones (yes, she wears over-the-ear headphones under her hoodie to keep the world at bay) to listen to the two Ballard bands play in the park. We met for dinner that night and then her brother went on Big Thunder Mountain with us and she sat with him and had the best time. There’s a special connection there and I’m frightened of my son going off to college in Fall of 2020 while my daughter enters seventh grade.

When my husband and I parted Saturday night, I bawled like a baby. My husband and I are very attached and spend little time apart save for the workday. Once we parted and were on the way back to our hotel, my daughter wrapped her arms around me and did her best to comfort me with a running litany of reassuring words. Listening to her empathy (which is difficult for kids on the spectrum), I started crying even harder, because I know there is so much potential that’s still suppressed inside her. All we can do is to continue to shape her behavior, extinguishing alienating quirks and encouraging her strengths. And isn’t that the same that any parent does with their child?

I’ve been meaning to follow up on my post about feeling overwhelmed with a mere summary of what I did and how it’s been working for me. The fact is that–when everything’s counted up–I am pretty close to overwhelmed and so it’s taken a while for me to get around to this. Note that this is the weekend between the winter quarter and the spring quarter of my C++ course and finally getting around to this during this break is not a coincidence. The C++ is a huge investment when viewed in light of my available free time.

What I did to address my sense of being “stretched too thin” was simple and–when I looked back at what I’d done–based on the core premise of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: establishing “balancing thoughts” to the ones that trouble you.

On a simple steno pad, I listed on one side all of the things that were bothering me or weighing on me in any way. I broke up large problems into the smallest pieces possible. Turns out I had a whole two pages’ worth of things on my mind–and I probably could’ve broken some of those down even further.

The first thing I did was to go back through the list and cross out all of the items that stemmed from my outsized sense of anxiety and insecurity. Those are issues I’m already actively dealing with and I could put those items aside.

Then, I recopied the curated list over again. One by one, I addressed each item thoughtfully, writing a brief note on how to counter that worry. I found that either:

1. I’d done as much as I could about that item and should let it go
2. I hadn’t done as much as I could and made a brief note on how to address it
3. I had no control over the item and should just accept it as it is

Interestingly, I found that many more things fell under category 1 than I would have ever guessed: I have a lot of balls in the air, but damn, I’m doing a good job juggling them–keeping a gentle pressure on them to get them to a resolved state. This alone made me feel much better. The items that fell in category 2 turned out to have either simple remedies (hire a gardener for that stupid, knee-deep lawn!) or such long-term remedies that I didn’t realize that I could get an adequate handle on them. Category 3 was the saddest, as there are some things I would rather be able to take a direct hand in that I simply can’t butt in on. These were things I had to accept and let go.

So I learned two things: one, that I’m much more on-the-ball than I give myself credit for and, two, I am stretched pretty thin: I’ve got a full-time job and a full-time family and a full-time self to take care of and even with the tireless efforts of my husband, there’s just not enough hours in the day. I had to come to terms with that, too.

Following this exercise, I immediately felt a wave of relief. And the feeling continues: every time I feel like things are falling apart, I think back to my list and realize that I’ve got everything much more in hand than I think. Once the list loses its power, I’ll probably sit down and repeat the exercise. It’s that effective.

In the meantime, I’m busy juggling balls and making plans and reminding myself that the sense of exhaustion and chaos is part reality but also part illusion.

I have to admit that I’m feeling stretched thin as of late, uncomfortably so. Aside from all of my real-world commitments (which are many, some of which I don’t disclose here), I’m holding on to too many worries that either a) I can’t do anything about or b) I’ve done as much as I can on or c) aren’t even my problem. Tonight is the night I intend to list them out and convince myself to let go of as many as possible. Why? Because I’m at the point where I can’t pay attention to any one thing for any decent stretch of time.

Being a worrier can play against you. One thing on my mind right now, with the end of our government contract looming, is interviewing–it’s hard to play worrying up as a strength and it’s nothing short of a curse during the process. However, in some ways, it makes me a better coder: it makes me more alert to potential conflicts, problems, and risks. It even contributes to the team: I make a great devil’s advocate and am a pretty decent rubber duck. Sadly, these are soft skills that I’ve never been asked about in an interview and I think that’s a real shame. It seems like something people should care about in a team member.

In my private life, worrying can work as a real motivator to get things done and to plan, plan, plan. I do things like plan our summer vacation a year in advance. I make spreadsheets to track the kids’ Christmas presents: what are we buying? has it been ordered? has it arrived? been wrapped? My packing list spreadsheet is a multiple worksheet wonder, copied from a prototype spreadsheet and then lovingly customized for each specific trip. And though spreadsheets have their place tracking minutiae, nothing beats the family Trello board for day-to-day life management.

So tonight I will take my awesome planning skills and apply them to analyzing everything that seems to be weighing me down, breaking down worries into categories so that I can put everything into proper perspective and cut the dead weight from my mind. I don’t believe that I’m stretched as thin as I feel and if I’m wrong, some good planning is my best defense. I’ve got a passel of sticky notes and some large sheets of paper to work with to make it a tactile and thus, for me, a more visceral process. I do believe I can turn this around and even have some fun while sorting it out in the cheerful company of my husband and a glass of beer. Lemons to lemonade? Definitely.

There’s always a little hangover involved in finishing National Novel Writing Month. Perhaps writing 50,000 words in 30 days doesn’t sound intimidating to you at all, but it does involve concerted effort and perseverance to keep slogging when you’re tired or when the story simply isn’t coming together. 50k works out to a mere 1,667 words per day, which is reasonable, even with a full-time job and family.

And yet it’s not. Sometimes you’re inspired, sometimes you’re tired. Last year, I sailed happily through my novel. I hit both 65k and a satisfyingly wicked cliff-hanger ending. This year was an uphill challenge and I found myself updating my word count every 100 to 200 words, taking solace in the slow upward creep of my statistics for the day, looking eagerly for any discernible height increase in the day’s bar over the previous day’s bar in the cumulative word count bar chart. Some nights, I could only bear putting in 100 words before folding for the night.

I survived only by bearing down on the weekends, pounding out 2.5k or so per day. On Sundays, I went to a coffee shop at its 8am opening (by myself, which was a weird experience; coffee is typically a social event for me) and wouldn’t allow myself to leave until I’d hit my 1,667 for the day. Then I would continue to cram in the most I could for the remainder of the day. Weekends were not always easy: as a working mother with 2 kids, there are always plenty of other things to be done (even with the benefit of a super supportive and helpful husband), but the weekends were my saving grace this year.

The other thing that I couldn’t have done without were the Monday night write-ins that I hosted. As host, I did little more than declare a time and place, bring a power strip and extension cable, try to find seating for everyone, and run the sprints. A sprint is a 20-25 minute timespan where everyone in the group stops talking and writes as hard and as fast as they can. Calling sprints was actually more delicate than one would think: I had to search for lulls in conversations, keep track of people ordering at the counter, and wait for people who had disappeared to use the facilities. The write-in nights (again, aided and abetted by a husband who kept the household running perfectly well without me) were as productive as weekends, yielding roughly another 2.5k.

The best thing about the write-ins was that a core group of 6-8 of us really clicked and came to enjoy each others’ company enough that we’re extending the group year round. I have always been secretive and humble about my identity as a “hobby novelist.” I found that the write-in was a turning point for me and a safe place to declare my avocation as a writer among other writers. I’m not ashamed that I have no ambition for publishing beyond writing a $.99 trilogy to post on Amazon for my family & friends to read and the people in my group don’t look down on that like some groups might (I’ve heard rumors and seen posts on the forum from more “ambitious” groups).

When we started bandying around the idea of going year round, I moved things forward by posting a “baseline proposal” to the regional forum. I proposed a loose association with no agenda and no rules and no requirements (no forced beta-reading and critiquing homework) other than caring about writing and being in the company of other writers. I proposed we continue our day and hours and asked for feedback and counter-proposals. No one had anything to say except “that sounds good!”

We did, several days later, have a post from a woman who lamented that her work schedule had kept her from attending the write-in and she regretted that she would now miss the year round group. So we’re adapting (adaptability was part of my baseline proposal) and trying a Tuesday, with the intent of alternating Mondays and Tuesdays. We had her pick a Tuesday date to meet and greet and even with the holidays impinging on everyone’s schedule, it looks like most of us will make it, so she can decide if she “likes” us and wants to keep coming. I read her profile and she seems like a nice, interesting person. Her avatar shows her holding a cat. Seems like a good fit and the more the merrier—I believe that critical mass is the key to a vivacious and sustainable group and was the secret ingredient to our successful write-ins.

Having the promise of a year round group helps ameliorate the post-NaNo blues a bit but not as much as I would like. I don’t like deadlines as a rule, especially when the work is unpredictable. But NaNo is very different: the goal is clear and simple, with no last-minute surprises. It’s a race between your imagination and the clock and it’s highly motivating, especially when you’ve spread the news around about what you’re trying to accomplish. When it’s over and the pressure’s off, I feel adrift for a while, uncertain to do with my new-found free time, even though I’m a year round novelist and have at least three “after hours” projects I need to work on, but I can’t muster the motivation for a while: there’s a little bit of NaNo burnout.

I’m looking forward to when the blues and the burnout are behind me and I can again turn my mind toward mentally-demanding projects (outside of work) once again. For now, I can’t even read or watch simple action movies. Luckily the holidays are rapidly approaching and will occupy my mind and by the time January comes around again, I should be ready to be swept up in New Year’s optimism (which is mostly relief that the holidays are over) and get back to my beloved “life of the mind.”

I remember being flustered when I discovered that our son’s new preschool/daycare closed during the week before Labor Day. And so that week became “Family Week”–the week to which our annual vacation was inevitably pinned. For the last ten years, Family Week has been the same week every year, closing out the summer, even after both kids were out of preschool.

But this year was our last, as next year our son begins high school and we’ll have to be at home that week because of jazz ensemble auditions. I know it’s just a week and any other week will suffice, but I have to confess I’m a little teary over the demise of Family Week because it means my son is growing up and his high school experience outweighs tradition.

Last year we went to southern California. We took Amtrak’s Coast Starlight from Seattle to LA for an entirely new experience. We stayed in and explored downtown LA before renting a car and driving down to San Diego and staying there for a while. We drove right past Disneyland and didn’t blink an eye. However, we booked reservations for Disneyland the week after we got home.

Why Disneyland? For me especially, it’s a family tradition. As a child, my mother lived in a household of modest means in northern California. She was able to watch the media excitement on television, but actually going was far, far out of her reach. Until my Dad swept her off her feet and took her.

As a family of four, we went when I was three–a visit I dreamed about for the next several years. Then, as a young family, it was out of our reach until I was nine and my Mom was pregnant with my younger sister. Then again it was out of reach until my sister was three or four and my mother started working part-time, which gave us enough spare cash to go for epic vacations, so we went for a few years in a row as a family of five: my brother, the eldest by four years, me, and my sister, the youngest by ten years. We had great fun and it was a great equalizer between us siblings.

And so now I inflict the blazing heat, aggressive strollers, and long lines on my family at regular intervals. This time we made an effort to do things a little differently than usual: to take a more mellow pace and to deliberately do things we typically don’t see.

Things We Splurged On:

• A “Club Level” room at the Disneyland Hotel.
  • You don’t stand in the regular line to check in. You go to the Guest Services desk and a host/hostess will whisk you up to the “E-Ticket Lounge” where the cast member behind the desk will check you in quickly while you have the luxury of sitting in a chair.
  • You get access to the “E-Ticket Lounge”
    •  There is a continental breakfast every morning starting at 6:30 am. Don’t get too excited: there’s no eggs or breakfast meat or waffler. It’s a minimalistic repast. But it’s enough to get you started in the morning so you don’t enter the park with a growling stomach. The coffee is decent, there’s a fridge full of soda, and free water bottles on request.
    • There is a lovely view of the fireworks. They dim the lights and pipe the music in (this can be a plus or minus, depending).
    • In the evening, they’ll serve you a glass of wine, if you’re into that.
  • You get the possibility of a room with 2 queen beds and a sofa that folds into a daybed.
    • With a 13-year-old boy and a 7-year-old girl, I’m not going to make them sleep in the same bed. That’s kind of weird. This means that one of the kids usually ends up sleeping on the floor in a sleeping bag. Pure luxury this trip: my 7-year-old enjoyed curling up on the daybed in her sleeping bag.
• Preferred viewing for both Fantasmic and World of Color
  • Okay, you still have to arrive an hour early, but you get a lot more for that hour.
  • We splurged not only on the preferred viewing, but the *best* preferred viewing. Spending on the most expensive package really did result in the best front-line viewing.
• Buffet meals
  • The Disney buffets are also (without exception, I believe) “Character Dining,” where costumed characters will interrupt you for small talk and photo ops roughly every ten to fifteen minutes. This may be a plus or minus. I didn’t mind it, but it wasn’t a real plus for me.
  • The food is actually good not just for a buffet, but constantly refreshed and better than any of the middling options in the parks, not just the fast-food.
  • Great for picky eaters.
  • Can be quite fast if you’re a quick eater and you make reservations.
• A half-day cabana rental at the pool
  • The kids swam over the course of four hours while my husband and I had front row seating, so we could keep an eye on them. (Which was only marginally necessarily, given the hotel’s generous life guard staffing).
  • We had reserved poolside seating in a place where it was extremely hard to come by any seating at all. On other days, we were relegated to piling our gear on the ground at the edge of the landscaping.
  • We had a nice, deep dark tent so our pale, Pacific Northwest skin could be protected from the sun at intervals.
  • We took a half-day off, had drinks delivered poolside, and had a late lunch/early dinner as we relaxed. We did this refresher at the exact mid-point of our trip, giving us a boost for the last half.
• We boarded the cats as well as the dog. Last year, we left the cats at home with extra food and water, but I still couldn’t stop worrying about them.
• Booking a car to drive us to and from the airport. It’s so nice not to have to drive that it outweighs the inconvenience of toting our daughter’s booster seat around. (The booster can be checked for free.)

Things I Regret

Not much, actually. But there are a few things that could have been better.

• This was out of our control, but my son’s braces developed some kind of loose bracket or poking wire (he was not articulate about the problem) and he spent most of the time looking morose because smiling hurt. I could never tell if he was having a good time or not.
• The kids were acting extremely camera shy at a time when I was trying to gather photos of them for their grandparents.
• Not switching from sandals to running shoes earlier in the trip.
• Booking Goofy’s Kitchen once for dinner at the beginning of the trip and again for breakfast on the last day. They serve almost the same food at each meal and the characters and character entertainment are exactly the same. I should have booked Storyteller’s for our last breakfast. Their buffet is perfectly good and we would have had different characters and different character entertainment. Plus, Storyteller’s is a little easier on the eyes, which I needed after a week.
• Not having earplugs for shows and parades. Seriously, I think my hearing will never be the same. Along with good seats comes LOUD NOISE.
• I missed going on Small World, Winnie the Pooh, Peter Pan, and only did Splash Mountain once and didn’t get wet at all. :( My seven-year-old was mostly interested in the Matterhorn and Big Thunder Mountain for the most part and my thirteen-year-old, while generally easy going and willing to humor me, would not humor me that far.

Hyper-Optimizations I Enjoy

I confess, I like planning. Considering we booked a year in advance, I had a lot of time to “hyper-optimize.” Here are a few of my favorite things:

• My spreadsheet. I have a spreadsheet that I duplicate from the last trip to the next. I then run through it and tweak it for the next trip. It has tabs for a wide variety of things, from the toiletries checklist to the list of tasks to do the weekend before we leave.
• Making reservations as soon as possible. At the time we made this trip, one could make dining reservations sixty days in advance and cabana rentals ten days in advance. I didn’t call on the very first day possible and paid the price: I had a very limited selection of times, especially for the Fantasmic and World of Color packages.
• Duplicating and packing toiletries roughly a month ahead of time. Duplicating toiletries allows you to pack them early and not at the last minute. No forgotten deodorant at 4 o’clock in the morning. When we come back, the toiletries just become the next in line to be used when the originals run out.
• Disposable toothbrushes. I buy the cheapest pack of toothbrushes I can find and then, the morning we leave, have everyone brush their teeth and then dump them in the garbage. I don’t take them home. I started this habit after finding out that after you put wet toothbrushes together in a ziploc bag, you don’t really want to use them again.

Unlike last year, we’re now adrift, uncertain of what we will do for next year or even when we’ll do it. The kids are at such different stages that it’s hard to come up with something everyone will get something out of. We’d thought about doing the Smithsonian museums, but our daughter would never stand still long enough for us to enjoy anything. Our sister-in-law assures us New York is fabulous, but it intimidates me. I want to do a “small cruise,” but again that seems like an “empty nester” sort of thing, as does anything out-of-country. And so we meet soon to discuss what everyone wants and to balance everyone’s needs–because I’ve totally got to make reservations soon.

Gripe 1:

I just reopened my Facebook account after six years in order to monitor my 13 y.o. (and I keep forgetting to stalk him on Instagram, darn). At first, I was logged in like I’d never left–on a machine that didn’t exist six years ago, no less. Then I hit a wall. And I had to log in. With a password from six years ago. Needless to say, I was suddenly plunged into “reset password hell.” Part of it is that I don’t trust Facebook and it flusters me. Part of that is that…I hate resetting passwords.

Then I thought, “I should probably download Facebook to my phone.” Which means I have to reset my AppleID password because I never remember my AppleID password. What makes it worse is that my husband set up my Apple account with an email alias I don’t use. So it makes it even harder because it claims it doesn’t know who I am until I remember I am who I’m not. And then I have to come up with a password so complex that it’s a crap shoot whether I’ll ever be able to type it in on the phone’s keyboard.

(Note: I realize, of course, that 13 y.o.s don’t actually use Facebook except perhaps to wish Grandma a happy birthday (if they’re unusually thoughtful), but I mean to keep it that way by having my Eye of Sauron on his account.)

Conclusion: Passwords must die. Or just make resetting it simpler and automatic.

Gripe 2:

I spent a couple hours on the internet today, searching around for js packages to potentially include in my front-end stack for my side project. Some of the documentation and blog posts I read were good (React had a great page that made it really click for me), some of it was mediocre, some of it was pure puffery, and some of it was stultifying pontification. Kind of like a cross-section of real life.

What I hated was that a lot of it was REALLY HUGE. As in: the LETTERS AND HEADERS WERE VERY VERY LARGE. What is this trend? Thank goodness I’ve got a relatively small screen at work, or else my retinas might have been damaged by the sheer invasiveness of the letters, some of which are quite pointy. I confess, I’ve increased the font size in my report tables lately because my project manager uses reading glasses these days. But font sizes up in the 80’s or 120 or something? If I’m that hard-of-seeing, there’s a zoom button for that. If my fabulous PM can rock the zoom, others can too.

Conclusion: GIGANTISM should not be the central theme of your blog design.

Bonus gripe:

WordPress’s dictionary is too small.