Even chaos has its own niche and home in everyone's lives, you know?

Besides, a bit of cabin fever never really hurt anyone ...

np: Poor Skeleton Steps Out, xtc

Have a good seminar, Fiona! Looking forward to your return to the lessons, of course. :)

Since I know I've got a couple of people reading these for workshop purposes (hello, Mr. Wongmo!), I'll try to lay off the schmoopiness about Ethan. I forget sometimes that it's not just 'the hubby' reading all this. Suffice it to say, Ethan is both the best support I've ever had in memory, as well as a huge frustration. His job takes him away from home so often that it feels like just when I've gotten the hang of routine and comfort with him, the job steps in, and I'm solo for another little chunk of time. He and I get along so well and have so much trust between us - we've scaled the hurdles everyone else does, and it feels quite satisfying to have made this journey with him. I am hoping someday we can find a balance in the stress and machinations of daily life, and find more time for each other. Pixels on the screen and a voice on the phone are less and less satisfying, personally. Sorry, Ethan. I know we're both doing the best we can with what we've got.

Do you have any siblings? If so, what is your relationship with them? How has it changed over time? What about your relationship with your parents?

Both parents have passed on, sadly. I try not to think about it too much. My mother was an amazing person - resilient, somewhat stoic, but loyal and true like no other human I've ever known. Her dedication to her values and the people she loved was a model for me in life from my teen years on. My father, hale and hearty, was the artist with a businessman's attitude. He - he was a musician, too. He taught me violin. He did. There was a piano in the front room.

Anyway, my relationship with them was as normal as could be, I suppose! Fights with mom as I turned into a surly rebellious teenager, distance from my father until it was almost too late. All the makings for an ABC After School Special - On How to Be Normal. Yep.

Siblings I have none, although I think I managed to stray from being an Only Child, by dint of being too absorbed in other people's lives to really worry about my own. Books that I read, movies I saw, music I listened to. I used to sit and listen to the Beatles, Paul and George warring for best-loved in my heart(John wouldn't have wanted anything to do with me, I am sure), quietly freaking at side four track five of the white album. I had many friends as a kid, and a lot of the time they felt like an additional family - we were all so close, especially in high school. I wonder where so many of them have gone. How did we lose touch?

Are you married or single? Are you happy with your current situation?

Married, and very happy.

Do you have or want children? How do you picture yourself as a mother or father? Is it similar to how you remember your own mother or father?

I don't think I ever wanted children. There was no primordial tug, no epiphany upon inhaling the powdered scent of a friend's 3-week-old, no nesting instincts. I say was. Perhaps I am not so sure now.

Is your family a source of financial support or do you find that you need to help support them? How does this make you feel?

Ethan is our breadwinner at present, although we've both held jobs before. The past several months have seen me taking a break for some work on music. If all goes well (cross fingers!), I'll probably start teaching lessons to younger students. I gotta learn this stuff first, though. I'm still a kid, music-wise.

At the point in my life where I feel most unsure of everything and anything that I have ever seen with my own eyes, I have a wonderful night's sleep. I am tense and ready to spring into action, but for the first time in months now I feel rested. It's an odd feeling. When I slept, the darkness was a soothing caul over me. I was cradled in the warmth of real, good sleep.

I have been searching so hard for this sweet relief, and here it is, on the very eve of something inside me breaking through. If it wasn't so readily apparent before, I'd say that my body is taking one last measure of preparedness for the times ahead. Sweet, sweet sleep.

I wish we knew what the next thing was.

np: All I Need Is Everything, Over the Rhine

Ethan says he didn't have the soup, doesn't even like split pea, but that can was not on the shelf. I checked everywhere, searched up and down and all over for that stupid can of soup, and it was just ... not there.

Cans of soup are disappearing on me. I could've sworn I bought that soup just a few months ago - it was on sale, even.

Edit: OK, I found the receipt, and although I remember all the other items clearly, there's no split spea on there for that grocery trip. Instead, there's a line item for french onion, on sale for a similar price. I hate french onion.

This is so stupid. I feel like I am going out of my freaking mind. Why am I obsessing about soup? You may as well ask why I am obsessing over REM patterns, too. It's just as frivolous, and yet I can't shake this feeling that something about it all is important.

np: More Than This, Peter Gabriel

np: Asleep, The Smiths

My most immediate goal is to find a way to get a good night's rest for more than one day in any given period of time. It's not insomnia that plagues me, it's ... well, it's hard to explain. Suffice it to say that it's nothing so terrible that has me spinning my wheels with unhappiness, but it is something that I am almost consantly aware of. Deep sleep, smooth like silk. That's what I'd like.

2. Do you feel as though you manage your time well enough to accomplish the most important goals on your list?

Yes, and this is why it's so frustrating.

3. Describe your system of prioritizing the things you need to do in any given day, week, or even year.

My computer is one of my favorite toys ever. Combine that with a semi-compulsive tendency to make lists, and you've got an organizational wonder that can't be stopped, and isn't necessarily supported by any of the myriad of expensive and tricked-out software programs out there. I don't need something to go 'ding!' when it's time to water the plants, and I don't need a pretty background to motivate me to make sure I have all the indredients for tonight's dinner.

I wish I could describe my system. I suppose I am lucky in that I am able to have a creative life, and plenty of time with which to pay attention to it. I make my own schedule and permit the muses to run amock (much to my dismay).

4. How do you feel when you accomplish your goals?

I guess I am always grateful and pleased to get to the nnext day, happy and fulfiilled, and loved. Sometimes I feel pushed to create more ggoals, because there's this niggling thoughht in the back of my mind that there's something more, something missing. Maybe itt's just me.

5. Have you ever participated in a program or hired a personal coach to help you achieve your goals? Would you consider doing so?

My friend Ben, who's in my neighorhood, is a dynamic man who has just started his own consulting business as a personal coach. I took a free session with him, and it was a little disconcerting to be sitting across from someone who knew me adequately enough to be familiar with me in a friendly sort of way, but who also had an agenda in trying to ... improve me, I guess. He would say that I would be the one motivating the improving, but whatever.

I think it was a helpful session (all those months ago, too, perhaps I should try again?), but overall I was left with this feeling that perhaps we're all pushing ourselves too hard to understand and analyze and help and medicate and 'fix' each other. Maybe the problem's not us. Maybe it's the world around us. Maybe we all need to sit and listen at 4 AM to the nothingness that can descend. You can hear the world creaking and settling into place like an old Victorian house. There is a palpable syntax in the ley lines of our little wedge of the universe.

Rush rush rush. It's time to slow it all down and look more closely, without turning on ourselves.

1. What are the 7 most valuable items in your possession right now?

The piano, any minutes of peaceful sleep I can get, my computer, The Smiths Louder Than Bombs on vinyl, my sanity, a bar of soap that smells like mulled wine, and Ethan.

2. How would you feel if they were destroyed or stolen from you?

Nothing really matters to me more than Ethan. He is inextricably a part of me, and I wouldn't be the same without him at my side (and I do mean that metaphorically when he's on business trips - I can still feel his presence here with me, no matter the distance). I don't think he could ever be truly stolen, and destruction would just as surely destroy me. That's no hyperbole, bub. It's truth.

3. Do you feel as though you hang onto material things?

Hmm, yes and no. There is something to be said for the casting off of material desire and the avarice that surely accompanies this need for 'stuff,' but at the same time, I do like to care for and be aware of the things I do have. I feel like I am keeping the world at bay when I move through it gracefully - whether this means recycling, or re-using stuff, or simply making sure the things I do have last and are repaired when needed.

4. Take a 2 minute tour of your home, in your mind. How many things could you get rid of and still be able to live a happy life?

I'd keep my seven things, and whatever food and shelter needed. Beyond that, it seems quite possible for me to make music without my piano and without all the sheet music, etc - I've never really had to do without, or start from zero, but somehow I think I really could, if I had to.

5. Are you a pack rat or a minimalist? Why are you one or the other?

I am inbetween. Moderation in all things, dontcha know.

And then the effervescent Wongmo himself goes and features one of my songs as part of his student showcase! That was really nice - it was part of a workshop exercise from a while back that was more about free associating than anything. I had to struggle not to rhyme. Since then, it's been easier doing free verse, or internal rhyme, and not sticking to formulaic orange/door hinge type stuff.

I still feel as though I am learning so much, and yet getting little boosts like this is so nice, too. Little pats on the back, for all that is yet so new to me.

Maybe someday I will be brave enough to venture forth and question a bit more boldly the things I see, and be able to share those visions with strangers, but for now, I've pulled contact links and unjoined from webrings and writing prompt lists and such. It all seems so dramatic anyhow.

For those of you who are aware of this place, you are still completely welcome! I value the fact that this is not just me shouting into the night, that perhaps someone out there is taking in what I say, and nodding a bit.

Right now, though, I think it's best to just be here, with myself and my thoughts. I feel more honest that way.

... and, you know? The dreams seem clearer for it, too.

np: Hyper-Ballad, Bjork