New Tattoo!

My tattooist is this tiny little gal, but damn that girl can DIG. Into my flesh, that is. With several sharp needles repeatedly for my first three hour session. That's right. I've got two more three-hour sessions left 0_o

Oh dear, I don't want to scare people any more than they already are about tattoos! I've loved them forever. Even since I was young and extremely religious, I've thought they were so beautiful. Art. On your skin! Yes!! But it wasn't until I was twenty-five that I got my first one, and I love, love, love them. That said, I didn't always make the best decisions about designs. I've learned more with each one, how to work with a tattoo artist, trust them to do their craft and add part of their personal style, give up a little of control over the process, and the result is always tremendously more beautiful.

So for this tattoo, I'm really trying to get some beautiful coverage on my left arm. I imagine both arms will be full sleeves one day, but right now I'm stopping at half sleeves in case I have to get a grown-up job one day ;) It's a cover-up for an old badly done tattoo I'd gotten on a spontaneous impulse one day (you can still see the old tattoo through it, like on the purple flower, we'll get more coverage next time so it disappears). Note to all: spontaneous impulse tattoos are usually a bad idea (even though they can be exciting and fun!).

All the flowers will be colored in during the next session - mixes of purples and blues, it's going to be SO GORGEOUS!!!!! If you can't tell my goofy smile in the above picture, in spite of the pain (which is very short-lived, in another half a week it'll be all healed up and not tender to touch), tattoos make Heather a happy girl :)

And here's me with both arms in tattoo'd glory, outside during the fabulous spring weekend:

Pretty in Pink: Why I Love Punky Hair Colors

I'm getting a tattoo today, a big half-sleeve on my left arm. I also have bright pink-and-blue hair, which I've had some variation of for a few years now. It's very normal to me, I barely notice it when I look in the mirror, which is why when I get reactions to it, I'm like, oh yeah, this isn't 'normal.' I've had many people make assumptions: that I'm immature, rebellious, want to be identified with goths, do drugs, live lasciviously. Or friends have told me they were intimidated by me when they first met me! In actuality, I wake up, go work studiously on my grad school work or creative writing, pick up my kindergartner from school, have dinner with my little family, stay in almost every night, and go to bed by midnight. While I'm far from conservative politically, I live very conservatively. I barely drink. I'm happily married (and have been for 9 years). I do laundry on the weekends.

Why I first elected to have pink hair is probably fodder for another long blog post [I have a chronic illness and was bedbound for about six months after my son was born, and I needed a little brightness in my life], but the basic reason I continue is: why not? So many people color their hair, why not brighter, more vibrantly fun, alive colors?!? There's too much brown in the world, too much gray. What pink hair means to me is: wake the hell up! live today alive and aware! don't go through life half-consciously, punching in time at a job and then mindlessly going about routine. Too bad negative associations along go with the hair and tattoos, but here I am, working to bust stereotypes one day at a time :)

And yeah, tattoos? It's gorgeous artwork that I get to wear around all the time. I look at it and it makes me smile. A little bit of pain for a lifetime of payoff is absolutely worth it to me. Besides, like giving birth, you forget the pain afterwards, until of course the next time you go under the needle and are like CRAAAAAAAP, why did I sign up for this again ;)

Also, coming soon: a step by step blog post on how I make my hair so pink and pretty without going to a salon, and on a budget.

Very Good Things in My Life Today

• Eating a grilled-cheese sandwich, interspersed with bites of fresh-cut Roma tomato
• Listening to my son sound out words slowly and then announce each one triumphantly when he figures it out, a little puzzle-master becoming more and more fluent, stacking up words till they become sentences
• Snuggling in the crook of my husband's arm after he gets home from class and drinking a beer together

Overflow of Happy

Agent Dude has referred to the process of all the people working to make a book happen--writer, agent, editor, other readers, foreign rights agents, and more--as making great music. I like this metaphor a lot because it implies a group of individuals all working together to create, not a product, but a moment, a shared experience--something alive that is then given to the world, something that will hopefully carry meaning and emotion beyond ourselves to others.

I just had a very difficult last week followed by a very wonderful few days, culminating in today, which has been a combustion of happy and love and giving to others. And all of the wonder-ment has been because of relationships in my life. I feel this overflow of happy in my chest, fullness, that old biblical image of 'my cup runneth over'. The question of how do you contain happiness over the long-haul? Answer: you don't contain it, you give it away, and paradoxically, I think that's how it stays with you.

Sweet Valentine

I know, I know, Valentine's is over, done with all the mushy stuff, yada, yada. But I've been thinking a lot lately about my marriage and in general I've been a giant slush-gob of mush for my man. In the past month, we've had a slew of good news between my book deal and his acceptance into several PhD programs of his choice, and it's been so strange to be able to get to know each other during GOOD times, you know?

Staying together during hard times, difficult sh#%y times? We've got that part down pat. We got married when I was 19 and he was 21, so the first time either of us was on our own paying rent and bills, it was together. I distinctly remember the year I was in a wheelchair and we were living in Chicago, where in all the crappy 4-story apartments there are no elevators... and we lived on the third floor. So everyday the husband would push/pull/carry me up the stairs or I would crawl miserably up them with him by my side encouraging me, it usually took about 15 min to get up those goddamned stairs either way. So yeah. That was a pleasant time.

We've been married 9 years now and have changed A TON, but luckily, we've been able to change together. Even as we were morphing as individuals, we were careful to make sure we stayed compatible, even as I went from a tight-knit conservative to a raging liberal, even as we became parents, got jobs, went back to school, changed our future goals about twenty times. It seems rare, but maybe it's not. Even in the bad times, he's easily hands-down always been my best friend. So yep, gotta say it's been nice to be able to pop out the champagne over the last month, get good news upon good news, plan out our future as partners, and get to know each other in joyful times too :)

Confidence & Getting Back Up After a Beat-Down

Awhile ago, I heard there was a study ranking US children against the rest of the world, and while the US kids were ranked twenty-something in math skills, they were ranked 1st in confidence! I thought, yep, that sounds about right. All the self-esteem programs and positive posters and praise really did sink in with my generation, maybe too much, some people have a sense of entitlement that's frustrating. I think Stephen Colbert epitomizes this ridiculous American swagger perfectly, but with the sarcastic self-referential understanding that it's parody. Probably why I love him so much :)

But back to confidence! I was NOT a confident kid growing up. I was shy, a total people pleaser, door-mat, etc. It wasn't until my mid-20's that I caught up on the confidence train. In part, I think that's what the pink hair and tattoos are about--I didn't have to hide my personality anymore, be the quiet, good, religious girl. I could be loudly, visually me. I started to trust my abilities and talents more, to try things I wouldn't have attempted before.

And as I get to know other artist types, I see a lot of self-doubt, self-deprecating comments, and unsureness. Don't get me wrong, I think humility and honesty are always hugely important! And maybe it's just because rejection and failure are such a big part of trying to make it as an artist/writer. But really, the fact that we keep on trying, get knocked out and get back up again, face EPIC FAILURE and then manage to write another novel and try the querying/submission process all over again, speaks to the fact that at some level, we BELIEVE we can really do this. You have to have some degree of ego to keep trying, you have to believe there's a possibility, however small, that you CAN be successful. And when you've put in the hard work, the years of trying, and the crazy of crazies happen and you get some success, enjoy it, don't question your right to be there! Yes, it was most likely a lot of lucky confluences of events that brought success (and that's where the humility is key), but it was also a crap-load of hard work, and if someone was going to make it, why shouldn't it be you!

Hello, Crazy Week. I'd Like To Stop and Breathe Now

This past week was officially The Craziest Week Ever, with all the highs and lows of any quality roller coaster week from school disciplinary meetings about my kindergarten son to getting the acceptance letter for my husband's PhD program to working on remodels and re-carpeting half of the house as we get ready to move and then there were some other exciting things that happened too, metaphorical kettles still getting ready to boil on the metaphorical stove-top.

So now I just want to STOP and catch my breath and maybe take a minute (or a day or a week) to reflect and remember to breathe, breathe, breathe. And oh yeah, take care of all those things that were completely abandoned, like say that thesis proposal deadline that blew past or the pile of dishes or grocery shopping that needs to be done. But back to the taking time to breathe :) I read a delectable book tonight: Fixing Delilah by Sarah Ockler. This is one of the most passionate and realistic romance stories I've read in awhile, woven among a really wrenching narrative of one family's growth and healing after years of silence and still-raw wounds.

My husband is currently sitting at his desk across the room from me whispering answers at an online tutorial about linear algebra. This is how he spends his free time, no lie. He's so frickin' ADORABLE, I guess that's why I've kept him around the past nine years :)

And tomorrow I'm going to the book release party for Cynthia Leitich-Smith's Blessed. One of the things I'm going to miss most about Austin after we move is BookPeople and the great authors I've gotten to listen to speak and meet.

Moving to Minnesota!

Changes they are a-coming. D (the hubster) just got the call this morning and was offered a fellowship at the Awesome University, and it's one of the top in his field. We only sent out the PhD applications last month to places all over the US (and one in Canada), and already we have a destination! Super excited, and unexpected this early. My honey buns is just that smart :)

So, yeah. The climate might be a tad bit different from where we live now: Texas. I was hoping we'd get to move somewhere north--you know, where strange white stuff falls from the sky occasionally. But Minnesota? Sheesh, pretty sure the snow overload is gonna take some getting used to. Then again, I've wanted out of Texas ever since we moved here from Chicago, so I'll take whatever gets us out of the baking, sweaty sunshine.

Oh Jr. High, Thy Name Is Awkwardness!!

Jr. High: In which there were cool people. And then there was me. Full disclosure: this was me in Jr. High, too tall, worried about my weight all the time because I was the size of a full grown adult in 8th grade, and covered with the extreme kind of acne covering my face, chest, arms and back, this pic was on a good day (though looking at it now, I just think, aww, you were prettier than you knew, and what a lovely shade of hair! my hair hasn't been it's natural color in so long I've forgotten):

Another blogger mentioned the on-going popularity contests we engage in, even as adults. Which makes me think, spot on. Believe me, to anyone who's still lingering in the morass that is Jr. High and sometimes High School: IT DOES GET BETTER! Sometimes I read intense YA books or watch shows with teen characters, and I think, lordy, I'm so glad I'll never have to re-live my teen years!!

But at the same time, for better or worse, so much of who we are, how we respond to life situations, is formed during those angst-ridden, hormone-raging years when you feel equal parts invincible and terrified every moment.

Friends I'd had in the preceding years ditched me, and as much as it's a cliche about 'finding a seat at the lunch table', I was one of those 'seating optional' people. Some people had the established seats, but there were a couple at the end of the table that if I scurried quick enough, I could grab, but if I didn't, it was lone dining for me!

For years afterward, through a lot of my college and early adult years, I was wicked shy because of it, a total people pleaser, would be a doormat if it could ensure I'd have a spot at whatever adult version of 'The Table' is. I was meek and quiet, made a mask I knew was socially acceptable, didn't voice my real opinions. And yeah, if you can't tell by my loud pink hair and unapologetic love for tattoos? I finally got over it. Grew comfortable enough in my own skin to be okay if people didn't like me, to be loud enough to finally make my voice heard, and to have enough confidence in what I had to say.

But oh, it still lingers, that awkward Jr. High girl's voice in my head, wanting to be liked, to have an established place at life's table, to have incontrovertible evidence of my popularity out in the world! So let's all raise a glass to all those scrambling voices inside us, and maybe I don't want to entirely 'overcome' that shy girl I was--I had plenty of awesomeness inside too, I just didn't realize it till later :) --but maybe we'll learn to embrace our past selves and let it make us more compassionate in the future.

A Weekend in Pictures!

Words can be boring. Here's my life in pictures instead :)

First, some of my favorite things: playing with my munchkin and my favorite tree out my window:

This weekend was busy completely clearing out two rooms in our house (we're getting new carpet, getting ready to move):

And then there's all the stuff currently nesting in our living room, to get rid of in another garage sale, or Goodwill, or recycle:



I worked on my outline for my book:


and organized the tons of books I got from the university library in categories for my thesis:


And last but not least, several lovely things that have come in the mail, let's call them belated Christmas presents: kick butt new purse (it's not nearly so shiny in person) and Florence and the Machine album :)

Zen & A Tree in Winter

This month long break from grad school has been immensely different than I'd anticipated. Full of tumult and crash and quiet. It's been far less about getting work done and instead working on me. Working on some transformative practices (meditation, reading and soaking in Natalie Goldberg and Alan Watts), and in a strange way, learning how to let go and not think all the time, letting go of that chaos mind, or at least, like Goldberg says, developing a relationship with it.

I barely got any fiction writing done, and only now, a week before classes start, am diving deeply into working on my thesis. Oh well, 'the best laid plans of mice and men'...

There's this tree outside my window that I've been spending a lot of time with. In Writing Down the Bones, Goldberg's friend says to her: "Natalie, you have relationships with everything, not just people. You have a relationship with the stairs, your porch, the car, the cornfields, and the clouds." (118). I love this, and it's not in some cheesy new-age way that we are one with everything in the world (well, in part it is exactly that, but not in the cheesy way!). So me developing a relationship with my tree is about... well, I don't know exactly what it's about, part of the beauty of all this is not having to fight to put things in words anymore.

I might not know what it's about, or what it means, but I love looking at this tree. I love the way, that no matter how heavy the branches, every one curves up at the end of their arm, reaching up toward the sun. I like it's naked winter form, the way the tiniest wind can shake all the hundreds of little twig branches, different ways all at the same time. I like the way that near mid-trunk, there are these two branches that look exactly like a ballet dancer or a gracious host or entertainer with arms outstretched to the tips, beckoning you forward.

Between Stasis and Expansion

A week far too crazy and emotional. New year really starts tomorrow with the first Monday of the year. I don't know if it's the nature of the holidays or the fact that artificial cycles like holidays we mark on a calender have real psychological effects, but the end of last year was... momentous, I guess that's the word for it, when everything that had been in stasis is shaken up, tumbled around, the after-effects of which are still rippling through the pond? I find more and more that life is about learning to live in the balance between order and chaos, stasis and change, structure and infinite expansion.

We're doing a lot of purging around here, taking trunk-fulls of old paper and cardboard to the recycling center, putting stuff aside for a big garage sale next Saturday, listing furniture on Craigslist--taking all the tangible steps to lighten the load of STUFF to prepare to sell the house. It feels cathartic getting rid of the old, and looking forward toward the new.

Seriously kid? You're killing me here!

Oh, the trials and tribulations of parenthood. My wonderful little six year old is becoming a Problem Child at school. His kindergarten teacher called me yesterday and we had a thirty minute conversation about his behavior problems. He's not mean or cruel or hits other kids or anything--he's just, well, I'd say naughty, but that word has all kinds of weird connotations these days. He's mischievous, and too smart for his own good. His Romanian grandmother, when she visited earlier this year, used to call him nasdravanul which roughly translates to "rascal". Which yeah, is appropriate, though maybe too nice sounding for his constant trouble making.

At school this week, when there was a sub, he snuck into the craft box, stole some glitter, and put it EVERYWHERE, in the classroom, and then the bathroom and toilet before the sub caught on. Yesterday, the teacher took away a contraband car he'd brought to school (after his dad had EXPLICITLY asked him the morning of to check his pockets and backpack for any toys--he'd hidden it in his shoe, of course!). So my lovely progeny watched where the teacher put it after she took it away from him--and then stole it back when she wasn't looking.

Then to top it off in the trifecta of bad behavior, he repeated something he must have heard from some older boys at extend-a-care (daycare after school ends at 2:30, till we pick him up at 6). He told another boy, and I quote: "You need to get a girlfriend, so you can have sex". I have no idea where he heard this, but the other boy's parent heard about it and came to the school to register a complaint about my kid telling it to her kid!

Seriously, I'm pulling my hair out at this point. At least I know he didn't hear that at home, and I've never heard him say sex or girlfriend before. The only tv he watches is SpongeBob and X-Men cartoons, so yeah, it must have been the older kids at extend-a-care, which his teacher thought too. But this kind of thing goes straight to the principle, and has yet to be sorted out.

He just keeps pushing and testing limits, even after he knows we don't budge or let him get away with stuff. It's like he's waiting for a weak link or chink in our armor somewhere, or at least, looking for moments when we aren't watching him like a hawk. As for the sex stuff, freaking A! The kids at his extend-a-care are only up to fourth and fifth graders. Are they thinking about sex at that point? Is that how few years I have left before I have to start worrying about my kid thinking about and figuring out sex? Ahhhhhhhhhhh!

Fabulous Life

I just got back last night from an academic conference in Fort Worth where I presented a paper on Ursula LeGuin and Terry Pratchett. The conference went well for both me and my buddy Phillip who went with me, but more even than the conference itself, what was sweetest about the entire trip--was coming home. I've never traveled without the hubster and it was strange not to have him there with me. Coming home and spending some sweet time with him made me realize just how precious he is, how beyond ordinary he is, and how much I genuinely adore him.

And of course the kiddo is super stoked about Halloween, and wasn't as interested in me hugging the stuffing out of him when I got home, but I just wanted to hold and hold and hold him! He kept squirming away until I finally told him he owed me three hugs, one for each night I was away, and he complied--and then twisted away to show me all the candy and toys he'd gotten at a halloween festival he went to last night. He's going to be a skeleton when he goes out tonight. He's very excited about looking as scary as possible

So life is good, very, very good. There are some exciting things brewing in my professional life--more news to come on that later in the week. In the meantime, I'm trying to batten down and focus on finishing the first six cantos of The Faerie Queene for my Renaissance class tomorrow night. Not exactly my favored reading, but I'm stoked to have some great YA books coming in the mail next week--including an ARC of Ally Condie's Matched!