Carley Moore: YA Novelist, Poet and Mother to Harper’s BFF.

The Stalker Chronicles, by Carley Moore

Carley Moore is basically why I live in Brooklyn. I mean, where else does your daughter befriend an adorable little child, only to find out that this child’s parents are both poets, and that this child’s mother is also a novelist? We can share so many complaints that no one else cares about! And Harper and her beloved Malka can entertain each other while we do! I feel so lucky to know Carley, and extra-lucky that she wrote the excellent YA novel The Stalker Chronicles. But who cares what I think of this book (which is a total page-turner, by the way, starring a complex, unique teen female protagonist — when does that happen?) — I’m not a YA. That’s why I asked my friend and neighbor, a smart 11-year-old aspiring writer named Lena, to read the book and interview Carley. Lena reports that she liked the book, found the subject matter interesting, and most of all liked the end — and this, after she had just been talking about how she never likes books’ endings.

And now…The Lena/Carley Interview.

What gave you the idea to write about this?

I wrote my dissertation on Seventeen magazine, and I devoted a chapter to a very popular column (which still runs both in print and on the website) called “Trauma-rama!”  Maybe you know about “Trauma-rama!”, but basically the editors ask readers to submit embarrassing or humiliating stories; real life stuff that happened to them.  I found this column fascinating—all of the shame and cringing around boys and having a body and just being a normal girl.  I think this column was probably lurking somewhere in my brain when I dreamed up Cammie.  But honestly, I think we all do embarrassing, stalker-esque things all the time when we try to find love (I know I have!) and I wanted to write a book about that shows us a character who is very real and who also goes too far.

How long did it take you to write the book?

Hmmm…maybe about eight months to write the first draft.  I didn’t write every day of those eight months, but a couple of hours every other day or every third day.  I revised it later for both my agent and then my editor at Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, Janine O-Malley, but that was a much shorter process (probably about three weeks worth of intense work for both of those revisions).

Are there going to be more of these books?

I’m not sure.  It depends on what readers want.  I haven’t written a sequel to The Stalker Chronicles, but I’m open.  I have a new young adult manuscript called Cemetery Gates, which I hope to have out soon.  It involves ghosts and a spunky, confused girl who in some ways resembles Cammie.  I’ll have to keep you posted.

From the beginning did you already know how it was going to end, or did you think of ideas as you were writing?

I started by writing the flashbacks—the stories of past boys and girls who Cammie has stalked and then as I got those down, I started to come up with ideas for the contemporary story line with Cammie, Rosie, Toby, Henry, Tara, and Cammie’s parents.  But I was figuring out a lot of it as I wrote it.  Many writers say this, but it’s fun to see what your characters end up wanting to do or figuring out about themselves as you write them.  So, it some places it was very intuitive.  But I did know a couple of later plot points early on, like the garbage scene and what Toby had done in Pittsburgh.

While you were writing the book did you know what age you wanted children to read this at?

Cammie is 15, so when I was writing I thought the average reader would be 14 or 15.  But now that I have a little experience with my readers and with publishing, I see that she’s interesting for younger girls too.  There’s something very innocent and child-like about Cammie’s way of seeing things, and also she’s a teenage girl with urges and a major crush and a danger streak, so maybe that’s a bit older of a thing.

How did you decide on the characters’ names?

Cammie Bliss, Carley Moore (we both have three syllables, the same first initial, and similar sounding last names).  Everybody else’s name was very random, although I did know a guy named Toby in high school, but he was very different than the Toby in the book.

How did you begin writing it? Did you organize before your drafts?

I’m not a very organized writer.  I can’t really begin with outlines or plot summaries.  They make me nervous.  I just move from scene to scene and try to make each of those as good and interesting as possible.  Once I have about 40 pages, then I start to have a more long-term sense of where I’m going.

How many pages would you say you wrote each day?

One to five depending on the day.

At any point in the book did you not know what to write next or how the characters would respond to certain things?

Writing the garbage scene creeped me out and I made my husband and a couple of friends read it to make sure it was working.  I got stuck writing the ending too.  I think there are a couple of different versions of the last chapters.

If you keep writing about Cammie who would your next book be about? Would you write about another child who was a stalker and wanted to stop?

Cammie is probably the only stalker girl I will write about, but if she were to have a sequel I would want to explore her relationship with Toby and see how she handles being a girlfriend and actually having that “normal” relationship she so craves.

How do you imagine Cammie’s house?

It’s very much like some of the houses in the small upstate town where I grew up—Jamestown, NY.  Two stories.  The living room, kitchen, and dining room are downstairs and all of the bedrooms and the bathroom are upstairs.  I added a back staircase off the kitchen in Cammie’s house in the book because I needed a convenient place for her to spy on her family members.  Also, these houses are kind of old and have radiator vents that carry sound from one room to another—another great way for Cammie to eavesdrop.  The house itself is kind of a mess and the refrigerator is full of foods past their expiration date because Cammie’s parents are not fully present or able to deal with family life.

Thank you Lena for your wonderful and thoughtful questions!!!  I had a great time responding!!

The lovely and brilliant Carley Moore. I took this photo of her while Harper and Malka raced screaming from one end of the apartment to the other, and Ollie attempted to climb up Carley’s leg. And yet look how serene she looks! What a pro.

It Happened to Me

Harper at the Children’s Museum. (Photo somehow in LlGC ~ NLW’s Flickr photostream)

Who remembers the “It Happened to Me” column from Sassy magazine? I always wanted to contribute, but sadly, nothing ever happened to me. No abusive boyfriends, no messily divorced parents, no getting sold into slavery, UGH.

Once you’re a parent, however, there are many more opportunities for terrifying and dramatic things to happen, and/or for small things to suddenly become terrifying and dramatic.

Here’s one thing that happened. It was a few months ago, and I think my heart JUST now stopped racing from it.

Harper got lost.

At the Brooklyn Children’s Museum.

For, like, five minutes.

It was just how you think something like that will happen. I was bent over putting Ollie’s shoes on, and a noisy Catholic school group of older kids swept by like a flock of geese in plaid, and when they were gone, so was Harper. My friend who I was there with and I looked at each other, looked around. “Harper?” I peeked around the corner.The looking-at-bugs-with-magnifying-glasses section? Nope. The pretend-pizza-shop? Nope. Huh.

My urge to be a calm, collected, non-freaking-out mother has me constantly quieting my brain’s urge to panic, so I stuffed Ollie into the carrier and started fast-walking around in a sort of hectic fake-calm, calling Harper’s name, looking around, garbling incomprehensible things at bystanders: “Did you see my? Dress and braids? Harper?” After a minute, my friend and I exchanged a look, and I commenced internal freakout.  I just KNEW she’d been SNATCHED BY AN EVIL CHILD-SNATCHER who would obviously pay admission to get into the Brooklyn Children’s Museum just to CAPTURE INNOCENT BABIES.

I raced to the admissions desk by the front door, and sputtered: “Child! Missing! Girl! Mine! Blond!” A young man nodded and said, “Ma’am, it’s all right, it’s only that you’ve endangered your child by blogging about how adorable she is, you fool, don’t you know that only creepos read the internet?” “Excuse me?” I said. He repeated himself: “You stay here. We will find her. This happens all the time. Don’t worry.” Then he said into his walkie-talkie, “Code 3″ (or something.) For some reason it was very reassuring to me that they had a code for this. Oh, so it’s just a thing that happens so often they can’t even be bothered to say it! That’s good!

I stood at the desk mournfully watching the door and the busy street beyond it for an excruciating 20 seconds or so. Then another employee called out, “Found her!”

And there she was: happily driving the city bus, a few feet away. “Hi Mama!” she chirped. I threw myself on her, squeezing her with crushing freakout-love, causing her to wiggle away and look at me like I was crazy. A nearby nanny I know from around the neighborhood told me she’d recognized Harper and told her to stay put until her mommy found her. I fought an urge to smother the nanny with hugs and kisses too.

Turns out, Harper was completely unaware that I considered her lost. “But I knew where you were,” she explained. “YES BUT I NEED TO KNOW WHERE YOU ARE TOO,” I said, squeezing her hands as I did for the next three days. It did make me realize this was a conversation we’d never really had: what to do if you’re lost. My friend shared what she’d heard, which was to tell your kid that if she is lost she should find a lady or a mommy to help her. In my day you were supposed to look for a policeman or someone official looking, which actually sounds ridiculous now, which is sad, but whatever.

Now whenever we are somewhere crowded I remind Harper in a strained, trying-to-sound-nice-but-really-still-freaking-out voice, that she always has to be able to see me. The other day at the botanic gardens she made a point of walking backwards while drilling my eyes with hers for a good minute before she forgot and started running after a bird. Whatever. I remind her now and then about the “find a lady” rule, and try to still not freak out about things too much, and to remind myself of how in the end, that was a pretty good way to learn that lesson — in a protected, indoor place for children, where they even have a code for it.

So here’s another thing that happened: we had a fire in our home. (I already blogged about it over at the day job blog, in a post that actually sort of had a point.) Yes, home, the home we just PURCHASED. It was pretty sweet. I’m super glad we didn’t burn the building down. The co-op board just hates when that happens. So, yeah, this ceiling fan we’d inherited (whatever, it was ugly) had stopped working, but apparently deep in its tinny guts it was still trying to work, and sort of, like, exploded? All of the sudden, flames were shooting out from the ceiling. I was kidding before when I said it was sweet. It sucked.  But again there were many “thank goodnesses.”  I was home with Ollie while Harper was at school, so she didn’t have to be freaked out by it. Again, it could have been so much worse. I was right there. I was holding Ollie. I saw it happen, was uninjured, called 911, they arrived in a split-second, there was only a bit of smoke-damage.

And on the upside, I got to answer for myself the question: what would you grab in case of a fire? Our carefully-curated “fire folder”, containing our birth certificates and wedding photo negatives and such? Nah. The kid and the dog. That’s it, not even my wallet, oof. But hey, at least I took the dog with me to freak out in the lobby while greeting the firemen with a quivering “There! Up! My kitchen! Fire!” When I told Adam the whole story he said, “Hey, you took Quimby! Nice!” with just a touch of surprise.

So anyway. Those were the scary things that happened, and you know what? Even though I’ve now been able to write this “It Happened to Me,” I think I’d rather just keep having a boring life where nothing really too bad happens. I’m a fiction writer anyway.

(Which reminds me…the last round of revisions of the novel have been turned in! So I can once again spend my evenings doing relaxing things. Like finishing moving in. Yes, it’s been two months. Shhh we’ve been busy.)

Inside the Three-Year-Old Mind

I often wonder what goes on in Harper’s interesting little head. Then I happened to look at the photos on our iPad. Behold, a treasure trove of moments from her various gamies, saved at the most perfect of times! I feel that somehow these images explain everything.

Spring Festivities and a First Birthday.

A year ago at this time I was basking in the unique glow of motherhood, swathed in the womb-like confines of a shared room at NYU Tisch Medical Center, toasting my new son with the endless ice waters the rosy-cheeked nurses kept bringing me. And/or, I was sitting in a paper dress all stunned, like, WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED? After miserable weeks of sort-of-labor, after reaching that too-pregnant psychosis where you start believe the baby is just staying in forever, after passing the due date and sailing on to the next week and infinity beyond, actual labor was so fast the kid was almost born in a taxi cab. And not to wallow in cliche here, but I can’t believe Alton King turns one today.

Ollie.

Likes: Harper, cheese, drinking from a glass, throwing a ball, walking around, slapping things.

Dislikes: clementines.

Skills: Walking, running, falling, getting up, climbing, falling, getting up. Can say Mama, Dada, Hapa, that, and cake.

Goals: Getting bigger than Harper by age 2.

We celebrated by chasing Ollie, as he has somehow come to be known, around various locales and pulling him down off stools, chairs, and tables. First, an adorable Easter egg hunt in the backyard of our new building. This building has just been charming me to death. All the kids! The shoeless playdates! Look at this shit:

Okay, so that was cute. At promptly 1 pm, both of my young combusted, so we went home (all the way upstairs) for naps, and then in the afternoon headed into Prospect Park. Harper had suggested some weeks ago that we go to the carousel by the zoo on Ollie’s first birthday and that she would make sure he didn’t get scared. So we did, and she did. She forgot, however, to make sure that she didn’t get scared. But she played through the panic and then afterward walked away uncertainly, saying, “Maybe that’s for when I’m older,” and “The brave ones get treats.” (?!) Ollie: completely unfazed.

And then some park frolicking, and a long stroll home, and then, of course: cake.

This is Kensington. Or Windsor Terrace. Or Something.

Our corner, as it was in the 1940s. Thanks, Brooklyn Collection!

Well! So! We did it! We moved! It went kind of like this:

March, 2011: “Hey, we’re having another baby! But wait, we live in a 1.5 bedroom. Okay, a 1 bedroom. Oh, who cares.”

August, 2011: “HOLY SHIT WE HAVE TO MOVE.”

November, 2011: “Wait, what? After some months of getting super depressed about how super depressing Brooklyn real estate is, we found a non-depressing apartment? Weird! Let’s buy it!”

February, 2012: “Wait, what? We bought an apartment? HOLY SHIT NOW WE HAVE TO MOVE.”

From thence followed very shoddy packing, some chaotic days of moving, including panic attacks about whether or not our voluminous books-n-records collections were going to make our movers commit seppuku, some very shoddy unpacking, still not finished. Oh, I forgot the spirit-crushing anxieties over retiling the kitchen and bathroom and repainting and changing light fixtures and doorknobs and whatnot, which caused me to guiltily remember every time I’d mentally answered someone’s “Man, my renovations are killing me” with a resounding (albeit silent) “SHUT YOUR PRIVILEGED LITTLE TALK-HOLE!” (Turns out that stuff actually really is stressful. Who knew!)

So anyway, we made it, we’re here, in our new little corner of Brooklyn. If you’re from Brooklyn, we are on the border between Kensington and Windsor Terrace. If you’re not, we are still kinda near Park Slope, on a different corner of the park. Or, as our Manhattan-bound real estate lawyer put it, “Kinda near the ocean?” Exactly. Actually, you know, all of New York City is an…oh, never mind.

In EB White’s great essay Here is New York, he writes:”A woman friend of mine moved recently from one apartment to another, a distance of three blocks. When she turned up, the day after the move, at the same grocer’s that she had patronized for years, the proprietor was in ecstasy–almost in tears–at seeing her. “I was afraid,” he said, “now that you’ve moved away I wouldn’t be seeing you anymore.” To him away was three blocks, or about seven hundred and fifty feet.”

This is precisely so. We’ve been moaning about how weird it would be to leave the place we lived for 7 years, our beloved best-ever neighborhood, and then sniffling and saying things like, “Well, I guess if we really miss the bakery/bodega/block we could always…walk over one day. It would take like 15 minutes though.”

But I have to say, so far we really love it. First of all, the space. We have our own bedroom! Adam and I, that is. The kids have their own bedroom! Shared, that is. (If you’re from Brooklyn: I know, isn’t that exciting? A bedroom! With a window and a closet and a door! If you’re from anywhere else in the country excepting possibly San Francisco: Yes, the kids share a room, get over it.) We have  multiple closets and multiple doors! The kitchen has these storagey things called “cabinuts” or something! It’s all quite thrilling. And the building is full of friendly kids and neighbors and dogs and such. Harper’s favorite thing ever is pushing the elevator buttons. My favorite thing ever is pushing my SUV of a double stroller into the elevator. People, this is the life.

I’m already feeling protective of Kensington, though. I was just about to write about how I love my new coffee shop/office, our new playground, our new library branch, our new playspace, and then I was about to write something about how none of these places are as ridiculously crowded all the time as their shinier Park Slope counterparts (we’ve never waited in line for a swing at the playground here, if you can believe it), but then I thought, Waaaaiiiit- If I tell everyone how great it is here than everyone else will move here and then where will I be? In line for a goddamned swing is where.

Then I remembered that, thank goodness, I hardly have that kind of influence. Or readership. And also, we’ve only been here a few weeks. There’s plenty of time to realize we’ve made a TERRIBLE MISTAKE AND RUINED OUR LIVES AND THE LIVES OF OUR INNOCENT CHILDREN.

Nah. Come on, Steeplechase Coffee has red velvet twinkies! What could go wrong?

The Read Balloon: A Glorious Day

I’m officially behind on everything: this blog, every blog, to-do lists, returning phone calls, social interactions, personal hygiene. And this is in part because of a very wonderful, thrilling new stress: we are moving! Yes, after looking on and off for two years or something like that we have found an apartment and then we bought it and now we have to do something about getting ourselves in there. Hold on, you say. That’s nice, but isn’t this a Read Balloon post about books somehow? Stay with me here, yes, I’m getting to it.

So the place we are moving into is a big ole 1950′s co-op building with 55 units and some exciting features: elevator, laundry, and tons of kids. We’ve already been to a birthday party there — there are 10 kids under the age of 3 — and were regaled with tales of intra-building playdates on cold winter days, chase games in the corridors, laundry room toddler jamborees, and holiday parades in the lobby. We’re so excited!! It is going to be our favorite and our best!

All of this is relevant because the book Harper and I have been obsessed with lately is Amy Schwartz‘s excellent A Glorious Day. It’s one of those sweetly uneventful books (a friend who was roped into reading it 9 times in a row to Harper was like, “What is up with that book anyway?”) that really appeals to small children. Harper loves to read and reread details like what kids have for breakfast, or how they prepare for bed — after all, these are the main events of her life too.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. The book is basically an ode to Brooklyn family life, and this (along with the wonderful illustrations) is why I’m okay with reading it 7,000 times a day. 10 kids (am I counting right?) live in a little 4-unit apartment building, and the book is concerned with all these kids — the baby, the little kids, the big kids — spend their day. They play in their small apartments, they meet up in the stairwells and on the stoop, they stroll down the block to the playground. They flow in and out of each others’ lives organically — hearing each other in the bath at bathtime, helping each other locate lost pets, seeing one another at the store on on the street. With all the aspects of city life that seems so unwholesome for growing children, I love a good reminder of what’s so wonderful about it — the built-in community, the sights and sounds, the constant stream of interesting stimuli.

Plus, Schwartz’s illustrations are so lovable. We’ve already packed the scanner or I would share my favorite page, which features the bedtime arrangements of all the kids in the buildings and all the various shared bedrooms (another newfound interest of mine) — the bunkbeds next to the crib, the twin beds lined up Madeline-style. I’m so glad we stumbled upon this book, which came to us at just the right time, as all good books do.

Now let’s hope I can somehow return it to the library on time. This move has me psychotically scattered, but that’s another post. A post I will never have time to write.

A Glorious Day by Amy Schwartz. Warning: This subversive text features children jumping on sofas and eating potato chips for breakfast. Just so you're prepared.

McMe-Time With Fries

They made me do it.

I am writing this blog post on my phone, in my parked car, having just participated in one of the most salacious, shameful activities in my mom-repetoire, so embarrassing that I feel compelled to immediately share with the world. It involves… sleeping children. And… fast food.

But before I dive in, let me just provide some context– after an exciting morning of having a cavity filled (honestly, the most restful moment of the day), I spent an hour getting the kids ready to go to the doctor. This had me a little anxious already; last time we went to the doctor’s Harper distinguished herself by shouting,  “I’m not listening to you! I’m going to escape!” and running out of the room. This morning she is being especially contrary, vetoing the sweater I offer, turning down the suggested boots with disgust, really wanting Special Baby to go in the car seat instead of Ollie. (How do you argue with something like that?) Getting downstairs takes cajoling, getting across the street to where the car is parked takes threats, by the time I’m trying to get her in the car seat she’s kicking at my face (“I want to do everything all by myself on my own!”) while Ollie watches the show, and I’m yelling at her there on the avenue for all to see. “Stop kicking me!” I add as I shut the door, just in case any disapproving eavesdropper needs to know why I’m spewing venom at a sweet-faced little blonde clutching her dolly.

So. Then, the doctor’s office, where Harper repeats her trickery despite not being the one being examined at all, pushing at the doctor’s chair experimentally and whispering, “No doctor for me OR Ollie.” One shot and one screaming baby later, we are headed home. “I’m going to be a doctor when I grow up!” Harper announces as we get back in the car.

Now, we don’t drive often. This used to be because, hello, we live in New York City which is where people live when they are superior beings who walk places and frequent local shops. Now I admit, it’s mostly because finding parking in our neighborhood is an exercise in futility, so that my outings are all coordinated with alternate side parking, when the streets miraculously clear for the street sweepers, only to have every spot filled the instant it’s legal again. So driving is a little bit of a novelty for the kids, and for me, and so I am unused to this weird phenomenon of the kids both falling asleep in their car seats on our way back from anywhere.

Car naps used to disturb me because I used to care about “junk sleep” and “nap schedules.” Then I had another baby. Now I take what I can get. And when both kids are asleep at the same time, it’s like a spa vacation. In my car. So you know what I do?

I drive to McDonalds. I do. And I go through the drive-through. I do! McDonalds is so evil and disgusting! I, who used to be a vegan who lectured people on how supporting companies like McDonalds was destroying the earth and making angels cry! And… “Ah, can I get an iced coffee? And, like, a grilled chicken sandwich? Do you have something like that? A grilled chicken sandwich?”

“A McChicken?”

“Um, is that grilled?” I hear how ridiculous this sounds and correct myself, “Yes, please.” (It is not. It is a big chicken finger covered in greenish ribbons imitating lettuce and something like mayonnaise.) (It is DELICIOUS.) “Is the chicken organic?” I’m kidding, I don’t ask that. But I do think it. Oh, and can I just say that the sandwich, coffee, and fruit thingy that I get all cost $5? Do people know about this? That’s amazing!

And then, there I am, parked on a tree-lined Park Slope street, my kids snoozing away in neck-kinking slumps, sipping a McDonalds iced coffee (the medium is large enough to kill a horse — what is wrong with this country?! — oh, and delicious), and you know what? It’s the second-most relaxing moment of my day. After having my cavity filled.

PS Read more about how deeply, embarrassingly imperfect of a mother I am over at an even-more public forum here!

The Dance of the Sugar-Crazed Fairy

Image from Gyo Fujikawa's Night Before Christmas

I’m so behind on my to-do list these days that I’m starting to get out-of-season — I have potentially great blog posts that have remained entirely in my head and soon will be putridly out of date, like a Shamrock Shake you find in your fridge mid-June, unspeakably furzed. All these cute seasonal things have been happening — an attempt at candy cane playdough in little babyfood jars as presents to Harper’s classmates (it looked really cute but ours was a weird gelatinous mush the next day and I fear everyone else’s was too — I bet that never happens to The Artful Parent lady!), a day devoted to making salt dough ornaments, which were a big hit with Harper and infected our apartment with a plague of glitter.

And, also, I took Harper to see The Nutcracker, an outing I’ve been looking forward to since Harper was the gestational age of approximately 20 weeks. We went with a local, kid-friendly version — Lincoln Center is for the reliably potty-trained, I think — at Brooklyn College. The good people at the Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts have put together a sweet, family-friendly version, including a voice over explaining the trippy things occurring on the stage. That said, the thing is still 2 hours long and, as I’d forgotten in the 25-odd years since I last saw The Nutcracker, kind of creepy.

Also, taking a two-year-old to the ballet is akin to walking a bull with a time bomb strapped to it through a crystal palace. The best part was just before the curtain went up, when Harper was perched on the edge of her chair, her hands clasped, saying, “Oh, I’m just so essited for the ballerinas!” I almost floated our of my $7 seat, I was so charmed by her essitement. As soon as they dimmed the lights, however, she started saying she wanted to go home. I spent the next half-hour or so whispering answers to her many questions as quietly as possible and bribing her with M&Ms.

At one point she announced she was going home and took off, so I slunk after her, inwardly pouting about missing the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy. In the lobby, Harper stopped to stare at a ballerina on a television screen before saying, “I want to see that!” “That’s what’s going on inside the theater,” I said in a very nice and not at all annoyed voice. “Let’s go!” she said brightly, bounding back towards our seats.

By the last third or so of the ballet,  though, I did one of those Parenty Things you think you’ll never do and truly don’t understand until it happens to you — that is, I realized it would be easier to get out of the parking lot if we left before the show ended. Away we went. In the car Harper sighed dreamily. “Did you like it?” I asked her. “I did,” she said, “I really liked those M&Ms.”

All in all, a cultural triumph.

Now there are presents to be wrapped, and tomorrow, cookies to be made. (Harper was very concerned that Santa would eat her Hanukkah cookies, so we decided to make some just for him.)  There will be a walk in the park, since global warming’s fucking with our sledding tradition, and then a delicious Christmas meal (delivered by Fresh Direct, of course), and then I am staying up to catch Santa.  Dear blog people, happy holiday of choice, and to all, a good night.

(PS Check out my post on creating holiday memories over at the Redbook Motherboard blog!)

Images from Gyo Fujikawa's The Night Before Christmas

My Grievances, Now in Haiku Form

Can't everyone in this public place just BE QUIET? I'm trying to read this eBook that I printed out.

It is a weird necessity of my writing life these days that I do most of my work and all of my novel revisions at my local café. This means that my brain tires itself out working so so so hard to block out bad music and annoying conversations in these bursts of intense concentration where I forget entirely where I am, until I come crashing down to earth, flooded with stimuli – I look around, I eavesdrop, I get up for more water, and then burrow back into my work.  But not before I waste a few moments of precious writing time crafting my complaints into haiku.

Dude in coffee shop:
A coke, espresso, bluetooth.
That’s too many things.

The café bathroom
Is warm and fragrant with a
thousand coffee farts.

Lady, stop obsessessing
About the tortilla chips.
They ran out. Just deal.

That video of
Bikini ladies on your
iPad skeeves me out.

Guy tells barista,
Coffee’s better at Grumpy’s.
So, go to Grumpy’s.

Yes, the revisions are going quite well, as you can imagine.

Simple Pleasures: Cloud Dough and the Blue Ball

Sometimes Harper is very good at entertaining herself and will be busy playing school or changing her dollies’ diapers or bossing around Murray and the Big Kids  or “reading” or cutting holes in her socks for many blissful minutes. Others, not so much. And what with this other kid around, I can’t always get into the elaborate art projects and such that we so favored last winter. This week, though, two amusements reminded me of how simple a thing can be and still capture her interest and imagination.

Item 1: Cloud Dough.
The other night all the co-op moms had another awesome meeting to discuss how our awesome playschool’s going (awesomely), and as always happens at these things I came away with lots of ideas for fun things to do with Harper other than just saying, “Go play! Scat!” We were talking about sensory-integration-fun when one mom suggested cloud dough, for which I found a recipe here.

Harper reported that cloud dough felt

Like most fun things, a big mess.

Cloud dough + Mum-mums = entertained children.

We tried it out one chilly, rainy morning when both kids were up BEFORE FIVE and we really needed something, well, soft and tickly. Big mess, but also, big fun.

Item 2: Blue Bouncy Ball.
It’s a real hassle when kids start having a lot of opinions about everything, has anyone noticed this? Today I was determined to get to Tumbling Tots, which is a very enriching class at the Y that involves waiting for a ticket so that you can go into a big padded room and let your kid run around on some sweaty floormat, but for some reason Harper wasn’t into it. She wanted to walk around and look for puddles instead. Fair enough. We stopped at a little drug store, and just as I was feeling bad for having such a boring morning, Harper spotted a bouncy ball that she felt she and Murray really needed. We bought it, stopped for a ride on the ancient motorcycle ridey-thingy outside, and then went to park. And guess what? Harper and Murray had a great time with this ball. It was super bouncy. And that was the morning. And that was more than enough.