February was a lost month.  I was under water.  Now everyone is hailing spring and I’m wondering where my winter went?  There was a dust of snow and a frisson of frost that limned my hair and lit the dark.  The third draft is thoroughly trashing my ass and I have to declare the match a complete K.O. for the draft.  My back is broke and I wonder if I’ve given the best I have already or if there’s more to milk from my shady head?

Today my boy started medication for his anxiety and every surface feeling is roughed but underneath my sadness and my own anxiety I know that this is the least dangerous course to take.  I’ve asked him if I may continue to discuss his mental health issues on my blog and he asks me why I wouldn’t – I tell him that some people like to keep these things private and that he’s at an age where I feel this is his choice to make, not mine.  I have his blessing.  At least for now.  If he changes his mind I will honor it but I can’t help feeling pride in his attitude that this is just the shit we crazy people deal with and there’s nothing here to be ashamed of.

Every time he suffers the same as I’ve suffered I feel shame for having brought him here.  It isn’t a case of luck of the draw, it’s a case of genetics.  The map was always there if only I’d looked before I chose to bring someone into the world.

I’m trying to wipe that whole chalkboard of graffiti clean.  His medication is an SSRI and my own quality of life has been so vastly improved by taking SSRIs that I indulge in hopes that this will help him too.

Can’t help but be scared.

Meanwhile – I’m sick to death of this country stripping funds from health care and education.  What’s happening in Wisconsin is shocking and disgusting.  You can’t keep stripping money from education and expect it to get better just because you make testing a focus of the curriculum.  I’m sick of stupid people in this country deciding how best to educate our children.  I’ve known a lot of teachers and I’ve known very few who weren’t working their asses off to make the best of what they had.  The education of people isn’t, in my opinion, just teaching them their numbers and letters as Laura Ingalls Wilder’s mother taught them.  Critical thinking can’t be taught by people who don’t know how to think critically.  The teachers who’ve worked with my kid have been amazing.  I can only name two who didn’t like Max and who gave him a real raw deal.  The rest of them have bent over backwards to help my special needs kid succeed, this is without an active 504 plan.

Educators are the backbone of any strong civilization.

I’m also angry about GMOs.

I’m also really put off by Lady Gaga’s meat dress.  That’s old news but I’m not sure I mentioned that before.

The food trend of mega-meat eating is tiresome.  Bacon is still hot but now it’s really important that you include it in every meal with other meat.  Bacon is a meat condiment.  Blood pasta (pasta made with pig’s blood), trotters (can’t believe I know what this is), pork wrapped in more pork, steak stuffed chicken, steak stuffed with pork and wrapped in fois gras.  I get it, there’s a big fat back-lash against the growing vegetarian rhetoric, but enough is too much!

Fashion is experiencing the same back lash in the form of hideous furs everywhere you look but I don’t want to talk about it anymore.

What if I’m only a second draft quality writer?

Whatever.

We all have our place.

Mine is in bed.