As much as I want to wish all the moms out there a Happy Mother’s Day *waves to you all* I’d like to say something else.
Happy children’s day.
Because without them we wouldn’t be blessed with the privilege of being called a mom.
Fred, Chris, Alex, I love you. 🙂
…that is the question. What’s in a name after all? It’s something by which you are instantly recognized. But which one of you do you want recognized… I think that’s really what it comes down to.
We all have different personas for different occasions. To my children’s teachers I am nothing but a dedicated mother. To my readers, a sage. (Stop laughing. Oh okay laugh. It was a joke.) But seriously, I am myself. I am a woman who has never, on a regular basis, worn makeup. What you see with me is what you get. And yet few of the people in my real life understand where my imagination goes.
This post was brought about by the fact that, after a rather questionable fic I wrote last night, I lost a follower on my fiction blog. Whether it was someone who went ‘Ewww, what am I reading?!’ and clicked unfollow or whether it was someone who deleted their blog (a robot perhaps?) I have no idea. But it got me to thinking. My writing covers many different things. I’ve written a children’s book which is currently being illustrated by a friend and most certainly will go out to a publisher under a pseudonym. The stories I tend to enjoy writing however, go from humorous (my Second Seat on the Right series ) to perverted ( Beauty ) to horror (see a short story entitled ‘Reaper’) and of course the psychologically horrific Boy Series on this blog.
I understand that it’s probably important to write under different names for different genres. My biggest concern, however, is protecting those I love from the depths of my imagination, not only for what they would think (I believe they already suspect a great deal anyway – case in point, my eighteen year old son telling me I’m a sick fuck) but also for what the people my kids have to deal with on a daily basis – what are they whispering about mom?
Having been married a number of times I’ve been through a few aliases in my life, to the point where the hardest part of filling out an application form for something was deciding on my surname. My kids don’t even have the same last name as I do, and to this day you wouldn’t find me under Linda Hill in the phone book. But it was the name I was born with and the name I’ve chosen to stick with from now on, no matter what.
Unless I don’t.
Seems one of the neighbourhood’s kitties has gone missing.
Mmmm…reward….
Seriously, check out the reward.
Do you think I can pass off Thomas as their missing cat?
Thomas the feral cat
There’s a bottle of wine in it for me if I can pull it off.
In other news, I’m afraid to go into my front garden in case there is black and white cat hair littering the ground around my daffodil.
Speaking of flowers, we have some!
Here’s to spring!
Cheers all!
photo credit – Wikipedia
Friday evening is here, the kids are home for the second weekend in a row (their dad is supposed to take them every other weekend but apparently, work) and I’m fighting a chest/nasal infection. I went to the doctor and he asked me, “So, you have a chest infection?” – information he got from his secretary who asked me what colour my phlegm is – to which I replied, “yes”. He listened to my chest in four different places, through my shirt AND my bra strap and within 30 seconds I was walking out the door, the prescription faxed directly to my pharmacy from the doctor’s desk.
Yeah.
So I get home from the pharmacy and take two of these little yellow miracle pills and lo and behold I can speak again! For the first time in a week I don’t feel as though I’m going to cough up a lung sometime in the next few moments. Unfortunately the side effects may include death.
I hope my ex will get the hell off his ass and come and get the kids if that tiny little detail that the doctor, in his infinitesimal (no, that doesn’t mean infinite) wisdom, failed to inform me, comes to pass.
Then again maybe the run-on sentences will get me first. 😛
I remember Sundays BK (before kids) as a day when I woke up in the summer to hear lawnmowers going and the scent of freshly cut grass wafting through my window. I remember waking up and going downstairs to retrieve the Sunday Sun and laying in bed with my first husband, reading the paper and thinking about coffee.
I remember Sundays of watching movies on tv and spending my day on a knitting project or going for quiet walks or long drives: destination no where in particular. Maybe for ice cream. I remember laying in bed in the spring and seeing the new buds on the trees outside my window.
But that was all BK.
Now my Sundays are filled with cooking for the family, cleaning, entertaining a little guy with an unlimited amount of busyness about him. Sundays are about breaking up fights between my elderly mother and my young son. Sundays are about sleeping in until 6:30 if I’m lucky.
The one thing I can still hold on to?
Coffee. There will always be coffee.
Ah, the pleasures of living in southern Ontario. Instead of the forecasted mountain of snow, we’re having an ice storm. Power is intermittent. If it wasn’t so pretty it would be intolerable.
It took a bit of bravery to deliver my papers today. Having to listen for cracking from above and dodging falling branches.
Timber!
Living in an old part of town is pretty, but it’s also pretty dangerous when the ancient behemoths come crashing down.
My backdoor neighbour’s tree
I didn’t expect to post two of my adventures in one week, but today certainly deserves honourable mention.
Why can’t it be bedtime all day?
Trying not to be noticed
It’s the only time he plays quietly by himself…
Well, the good news is my laptop didn’t get stolen. Right, I should probably start at the beginning.
Upon stepping out my front door this morning with my papers I was pleasantly surprised. Not only has it warmed up a few degrees, the sun was coming out and … YAY! so are the flowers at the front of my house. I went back inside to get my sunglasses and my camera and, newspaper bag over my shoulder, set my glasses down absentmindedly to take a few shots of the new spring blossoms.
Lovely, yes?
So, both satisfied and happy with myself I stood up and reached into my pocket to find my sunglasses. Not there. Feeling a little sick I looked around my feet. Noth…. what’s that under my foot? Oh look!
Bent sunglasses!
So, cussing along my way, I finished off my paper route, but not without stopping by one of my customers – a dry cleaning business where the TV is always on – to find out that we’re to expect 15cm of snow Thursday and another 10cm on Friday. That’s a total accumulation of 10″ for my friends who haven’t caught up to the rest of the planet. You know who you are 😉
And then, to top it all off, I arrived home, put the key in the keyhole and…. locked the door. In my giddy glee I forgot to lock the house up.
The good news is… yeah. I have something to blog with.
This is more of a rant than anything else. My paper route is becoming an adventure in monotony. Why, you ask?
Take a look at this elm at the front of my house:
what do you see?
Bare branches, right? No leaves. What the hell? It’s April 3rd and I’m still waiting for one day when I’m at least tempted not to put on mukluks, a parka, a hat, my hood, gloves and underneath all that my fur-lined liberty bodice!
So what’s the deal here? And who do I complain to?
Why is it that the harder you look for inspiration the less likely it is you’ll find it? I think that’s what separates the wanna be writers from the actual writers. ‘Wanna’ just doesn’t cut it.
Today I want to write. Okay yes, I was inspired to write this, but could I come up with an idea for a story? Not a chance.
Distractions don’t help. Which is why I get antsy when I know I have to entertain people – even my kids. Don’t get me wrong, I love my kids more than anything. But writing isn’t just a past-time for me, it’s a need. Particularly when I do get inspired by something. But today it’s the worst of both worlds.
I want to wanna…
lindaghill.com 