Getting lost in the stacks

I got a package from my mom today, it contained a pair of pants I left behind when I visited, some sugar free cider packets for Ang, some stamps (yay!), and a few clippings. I love that my parents send me clipping from the paper. Sometimes it's coupons or cartoons or stories. One of today's was a story about the statue and plaque they put up at the Howell Public Library in honor of one of the librarians, Martha, who passed away several years ago. It was a lovely article and it reminded me of one of my favorite parts of summer when I was growing up: the library.

I never remember a time when we didn't go to the library. It was within walking distance when my dad was at work and there was only one car. It's where I first saw Pinocchio and got so scared I had to call my Grandma MacDonald to come and get me before it was done. (They get swallowed by a whale, that's terrifying when you're not much bigger than the wooden boy!) It's where I spent hour upon hour browsing the shelves, sitting in first the children's section, then the teen section and finally, the adult fiction section. (My Grandma Boutell introduced me to Danielle Steele at a very young age.)

We'd always arrive with stacks of books to return and more often than not Martha would be there to check us out. She knew my dad well, his library card had a hole burned in it he used it so much. She'd comment on our selections, give an approving nod and off we'd go, until the next week. We rarely had overdue books at our house, usually we ran out of books before they were due.

I still get lost in libraries. When I lived in Olivet I was fortunate enough to work in the library building for a year and I loved it. How quiet it was, how everyone there had a purpose, whether it was serious research or finding out the sports scores or getting lost in eighteenth century England. In Kalamazoo there was a gorgeous, fairly new library that I spent many days in researching information for my newspaper articles, reading screenwriting books, scanning the magazines. But nothing compares to those early days when I learned to love books in Howell.

This summer Angela, Dad and I trekked to the library in search of some Sue Grafton books we were missing from our collection. We found what we were looking for and then some. We came home with a DVD tour of Taiwan, where my dad was stationed when he was in the Air Force. And we all found a few extra books to read during our vacation.

I wonder what it would be like to live in a place with no libraries. To live in a world where no one wanted to share what they read or wrote. On second thought, no I don't want to know that world.

A little cracked

This is my Cousin Camp mug. The one I painted at U Paint It in Texas and then they fired. It arrived in the mail today and the handle was broken off and there were a few chips. Thankfully Angela's survived the donkey ride.
When we unwrapped the mugs I was upset, okay, maybe a little more than upset. I have been trying to be calm for the past few weeks, trying to maintain my vacation vibe but it's getting harder and harder. I've been applying for jobs and getting no response, the checkbook balance is getting lower and lower, and the state of California wasn't being very speedy with Angela's unemployment checks (she's now caught up through the second week of July, yep, I said speedy). I've been writing but haven't heard from any of the programs I've applied to...the list goes on and on.
But I don't want to be a whiner. I really don't. I read the paper each morning and know there are people so much worse off than me. But this afternoon, I lost it. I'd been to acupuncture which had been painful (and it's usually not but apparently the left side of my body is just going to pot), I'd been to the grocery store which had also been painful, and I was hot. It's been near a hundred all week here and fans only do so much in the afternoon. So I lost it. I cracked a little when I saw my cracked mug.

So I put it aside, grilled some veggies for dinner and watched a little Jon Stewart. I laughed. I wrapped Angela's birthday gifts and giggled when I drew on the envelope. I read through a friend's beat sheet and thought about how great it was that I had ten people show up to my Writers' Group on Sunday. And then I went and got the Krazy Glue.

It took only a moment (well two moments, I had to pause mid-glue to read the instructions on the glue box to make sure I was doing it right, turns out there really is no wrong way to glue) and voila! my mug was whole again. Sure it has a few chips and you can see where the handle had been snapped off but it was fixed.

And then I thought about how I wrote on the inside of my mug that "love is all around me all the time". And you know what? It really is. And love isn't perfect. Love is cracked and smudged and a little broken and off-kilter. But you know what, it's love. And that's what I need to remember. I am loved. I am so loved. I am loved even though I am cracked and smudged and a little broken and off-kilter. And that even though my calm is waning, I'm going to be okay. Because my mug is.

Trying...

I've been back from "Cousin Camp", aka my vacation in Texas with my cousin Jamee and her wonderful family, for four days now. And I've yet to write a thing. Well, I take that back. I wrote comments on all of my students' assignments when I graded them. And I wrote a bunch of stuff on the discussion boards for work and some emails. I even wrote notes on how I want to rewrite the last feature I wrote. But nothing on the TV pilot I've been working on or the spec script I'm trying to write of 'Modern Family'. Not a word. I've sat down to write plenty but that hasn't produced much.

I try not to beat myself up about it too much. It's been a stressful week, there have been job issues and money issues and Angela hasn't felt well and I've been dealing with jet/vacation-lag. (I've finally figured out that those are very real things.) I've done my job, I've paid the bills. I've even applied for several jobs (so far I've gotten one response, the Halloween store by the mall sent a 'we'll get in touch later this month' response -- no joke) and I've slept. A lot.

I was complaining to Angela today that I've been so exhausted this week and I don't know why, I was just on vacation for a week. Then she reminded me that I tend to cycle through life, I go go go for a while and then I have a week where I am drained and need to sleep more than usual (last night I went to bed at 10:30pm, yes, on a Friday, in Los Angeles and slept through till seven this morning). And if I think about it, maybe I didn't sleep a lot last week. Different environment, up late with the big kids, up early with the wee kids, etc.

So I am trying not to worry. I am reminding myself that I will write, that I will get back in a normal groove and that by tomorrow, in time for my writers' group, I will have something down. I've been going over and over my stories in my mind so it's not like there hasn't been progress. And I've been doing research and reading which are all good things. But sometimes that's not enough to quell the inner monologue that says, just do it.

So I'll try. These words here are a start. I'll open up the Final Draft document in a moment, go over some notes from my last read through and plow forward. Because, as the note above my computer reminds me: I am responsible for my dreams.