Star Wars love-in
My 8 year old nephew was down last weekend, and as it turns out, he’s become hooked on Star Wars lately. It was fun to tell him that I had been a long time Star Wars fan, but he didn’t end up really believing it, I don’t think, mostly because my knowledge of the “first three” (most recent three) movies is so sketchy. It does no good to be able to quote the “last three” verbatim if you don’t know the name of the… whoevers in the Trade Federation.
Even so, I DID know where to go to find some Star Wars toys and so we set off for the Silver Snail. I spent a lot of time in that store as a teenager, inhaling the scent of fantasy/sf geekery (this was when Bakka was across the street, too) and lusting over the really expensive movie paraphenalia.
But this time I was there solely as aunt and mother. I really didn’t want anything in the store for myself, even the beautiful life-sized lightsaber replica. But I did get a huge kick out of watching my nephew go bananas with Choice…
… and Noah, who took to my nephew (and he to him, which is good as two years ago this was not the case) and followed him about adoringly, also did. So he asked if he could get a “guy.” (Figurine is what I would call them but in Carl’s family they are guys.)
So I let him pick and tried to steer him to say, Han Solo. Or a Wookie. But nope, after much thought about it Noah picked out an Arc Trooper, which is a Stormtrooper/clone/nazi/whatever. I can’t say I was entirely thrilled to be suddenly thrust from Thomas to war toys, even if they are Star Wars (err… WARS, what was I thinking???). Thanks to the miracle of being the person to unpack the toy, his trooper didn’t come with a gun.
The morning after though, my fears about the toy were laid to rest as follows:
Noah: “Mummy, where my guy?”
Me: (bleary, it’s 6 am) “uhh… here you go.”
[lots of play passes, and then]
Noah: Mummy, my guy love me!
Me: That’s nice
Noah: Mummy, my guy hug me!
Me: That’s nice too.
Noah: Mummy, my guy take my hand and take me to the park and play with me.
Me: awwwww
I think the “guy” kind of represents the older cousin who introduced him.
(Except of course when the revolution comes, my son will toddle off blissed out on the love bit. Now how to have the “don’t go off with the stormtrooper” conversation…)
P.S. Am too old to save the galaxy, which kind of sucks.
Quiet
I know I’ve been quiet lately. I’ve kind of been having a hard time. If I understood it better, I’d tell you all about it. But mostly I don’t.
Noah is fine, marvellous, incredible. His capacity to express himself grows every day and his perceptions are so cute and cool. He is such a bright light. And we love each other - not that he has a choice in some ways. But we just get along. His personality is just easy to love, but it’s also that we have similarities in how we approach things. He wakes up with a plan for the day. I understand his need to know what’s coming next. That kind of thing.
My job is alternately very cool and very uncool. No more on that unlocked, but the lows are… low.
I feel very loved by my family of the heart. But things with my parents are hard. And for some reason I’m raw to that right now.
But underlying it all is that layer when you know your reactions are not quite right. I have a lot of anxiety that it is hard to rein in. And I feel lethargic and depressed. I am missing Emily in a very acute way. I feel the abuse of the past in a shadowy way. I feel a bit put on, despite all the blessings around me. I realize that I should be doing something about it, but I’m not quite there yet.
So that’s the quiet. That and I’m considering some questions around identity and the Internet that I may or may not write on next.
Nightmare, from the old english, maere, goblin or incubus
Last night Noah woke up crying, so this morning we asked him about it.
“It was the night bear mummy. The night bear came in and roared at me!”
:-)
Things that really matter/things that don’t, but sort of do
Easy things first: in a twist of irony and flash of poor planning on the part of building services, I had to make a fast move out of my executive office to a cubice on Monday… which lies directly outside of BigEditor’s office. This forced me to get the fuck over the flap, and now we are best buddies. Well, not really, but things are back around where they were.
It is really intimidating to be talking to writers about the editing process and editing them outside the door of BigEditor’s office. I’m highly aware that I am still a baby editor in many ways and faking it until I make it. I know that I will make some mistakes with my relationship with this first batch of freelancers. But now I have to make them essentially in public.
On the plus side I actually think that despite all the refining and learning I have to do about The Way Things Work(tm) when it comes to getting people to stop burying their leads, or to bring out the best in their writing, I am really starting to hit a certain level. I’m not saying I’m a star or anything, but I truly think that I have reached just barely enough maturity to leave much alone, while tweaking the bits that really do bring out the good stuff. Of course soon this will be put to the test and I will get drawn and quartered. But… I don’t know. I just think that even though there will be arguments and errors and blah blah, that I actually can find the story in things.
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I was also thinking about this whole “opting out” thing and it’s frustrating. More on that in a later post.
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I’ve been hesitating about this one because it is just so big, and no links. But one of the multiples I know via DP, a system who was very thoughtful and kind to us after Emily died, has suffered just sheer tragedy this week as their eldest son, 25 yrs old, committed suicide. My and our hearts go out to them totally.
Anything else that I could say would be so pointless, and don’t I know it. I found something I liked on a site about bereavement and Jewish traditions that was answering the question “what do I say to a Jew in mourning?” and it said be silent and listen.