Interview: Nothing is going to change my geek status.

I opened up my draft (read “nemesis”) and actually edited two chapters yesterday.

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It felt like a huge victory since I have been avoiding it for so long now. My inner Hiro is rejoicing. Anyway a couple of weeks ago someone left me  a message on my Facebook page. They wanted to interview me. I thought it was a joke because hello I am Geek. I went to their site and they seemed pretty sane so I thought what the hell, so they want to interview a geek. Who am I to judge? Read the interview here : Smart Indian Women 

My sudden and overwhelming fame is not going to turn me into a snob,don’t worry. Nothing is going to change my geek status.

I am good with being a geek.

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Yes Hiro Nakamura is my inspiration.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Depth, The Ugly Truth About Writing

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This is literally me right now. Looking into the depths of my heart, which I have pulled out of my chest. To face the truth.

I am sitting here stalling. My draft lies in a file, wasting storage space on my laptop. I have left it alone for many months because that is what writers are advised to do. Write, leave it. Edit, leave it. Read and edit, then leave it again. But I have left it way too long.

I have tricked myself into believing that I am just waiting for an appropriate amount of time to pass then I will get back to it. I distract myself with other projects, then leave them also. In the back of my mind something keeps eating away at me, I push it away. I write humorous mom posts to keep myself busy. And distract myself…from myself. From the anger that is building up inside me. The frustration of the truth that I don’t want to acknowledge.

I am scared to go back to the novel. Scared it is awful. Scared it won’t ever be any good even after I have put so much into it that I am exhausted. Scared of that horrible feeling when you get another rejection letter. If it never gets done, I won’t have to face all that hurt.

And anger builds up even more. I push it down deep, so that my kids don’t notice. I don’t want them to know I desperately want to write, but I am too scared of the disappointment I will have to face.  I want them to be able to face their problems bravely when they go out on their own in the world.Get back up and dust themselves off after falling. . I want them to be able to keep their spirits up even when things look hopeless and I am not setting a good example. Which means I am failing as a mother now too. More frustration.

I open the draft and stare at it. I get up and go into the kitchen. I have to make dinner first. I always have to do something first. I am so angry I end up putting too many red peppers in the stir fried shrimp. The kids are going to complain and I will try to deal with them patiently, because it is my fault. I will suppress the urge to smack them in the back of the head and yell at them to stop whining about everything. It isn’t their fault. It is mine.

I contemplate blaming everything on my parents and a bad childhood. Blaming someone else makes you feel better temporarily. It gives you excuses to continue being stupid. In the back of my mind I know it is all me though.

I control my anger. Squeeze it into a ball and force it down my throat. It is struggling to come back up in the form of a loud, frustrated scream. I don’t want to worry my husband and kids. But I really want to punch something hard. And break stuff.

I avoid the on-line writing hang out. I don’t want to admit how I am feeling to all those other writers who will understand and try to make me feel better. I don’t want to admit I am scared to keep writing. Putting all my energy, all my hear t and soul into that stupid book, only to find out it was never any good.

And I don’t want any feel good advice. I don’t want to feel good, I am too busy being angry, and all that good advice sounds like BS anyways. We just give it and listen to it to make ourselves feel better.  I am tired of good advice, don’t give me good advice, just agree that everything sucks and then we can go throw rocks at windows or something.

Broken windows remind me of broken down houses. And homeless people, and that I should stop wallowing in this ridiculous hole I have dug for myself because I am so much better off. I should be grateful, happy and stop wasting my time. And go finish the damn book.

Which I can’t do, because I have pulled my heart out of my chest and looked into its depths. All I can find is anger and isolation and the fear of failure. I contain it, but it is building up and I am afraid it is going to explode.

 

(Artwork is mine.)

Laws of Mom Physics

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There are about four days left before school reopens, and I have mixed feelings about this. Summer is ending, this is a nostalgic and often bittersweet kind of feeling. After a certain age it reminds you that  you are at that late summer stage in life.
I will miss sleeping in and being awoken by my twins acting like lion cubs and lounging on me, late and lavish breakfasts and the no stress late nights because no school the next day.
However I also miss the few hours of peace and quiet, the clean house, the lack of screaming after every five minutes and the time away from the kitchen because summer vacation is also basically just one big “I’m hungry…” all the time.
You’ve got to have both experiences or life would be pretty boring…which made me realize that two extremes of people commit suicide : those that have everything and those who have nothing. No this has nothing to do with my blog post, sorry for that depressing thought. It’s just my brain has all these tabs open at once, you know all that creativity and stuff.

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What I wanted to blog about today was the “Laws of Mom Physics”
1. The amount of a mother’s love is constant,  it simply changes from one form to another from mother to mother and even in the same mother. Like “overprotective love” to “please get out of my hair because I don’t want to hurt you” love.
2.  Every action from a child will cause an increased reaction from a mother. For example a hug from a toddler will result in a much tighter hug and many smooshy smooches from an exuberant mommy. A ridiculous demand from a teenager will result in a higher decibel verbal reprimand and an increased possibility of house arrest. 
3.  The stickiness of the floors is directly proportional to the necessity of the reopening of schools.
4.  The capacity of a mother’s bladder increases exponentially with her number of offspring.
5.  The angle of projectile vomit spewing from a noxious child can be calculated perfectly by mommy ready with the plastic bag.
6.  Dinner ready and set on the table will always result in all the kids NOT being hungry at the given point in time.
7.   Pi(e) is always equal to happy children especially when served with ice cream.

There are many more laws, please feel free to add yours.

Art Exhibit at MuslimFest 2014

MuslimFest was lots of fun for the kids. Jumping castles, slides and face painting. Lots of food and music. Big crowd!

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This was painted live (but I missed it ) just outside the art exhibit.

My stuff was right in front and got the best light (lucky me)

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This is the picture that sold. Yay!

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This is some other work exhibited there. I messed up the pic and the lighting wasn’t the best in this corner. But the paintings were good.

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These are prints someone had put up of their original work. There were a lot of other paintings but the kids didn’t want to stay more than five minutes and I couldn’t get any more pictures. The jumping castle was becoming a matter of life or death for them.

Gotta clean the house today (although I am really tempted to start another painting) before the health department puts a quarantine sign on our front lawn. Yes it is THAT bad. The summer vacation needs to end now.

Feeling Artsy

I think it was the fact that spring finally decided to make an appearance, I have been feeling all artsy this past month.

2014-05-18 21.41.20 I stole teen 1’s canvas board and did some clouds in acrylic.

2014-05-18 22.57.00My suddenly blooming garden inspired me to wear down a set of pastels.

2014-05-23 10.30.37 I am almost out of blue pastels.

2014-05-26 20.51.43yup blue is definitely all gone now…

2014-05-28 21.21.07Since I have consumed most of the pastel crayons I turned to acrylic paint (swiped it from teen 1) and started this one. I hope I can finish it tomorrow. I am thinking of dumping the kids on my worse  better half and taking a serious art course. Seriously. Or maybe I should get that novel done, the Best Seller List is patiently waiting for me. The Mayor is retiring too though…that could be fun.

Extreme Parenting or How to Fix Your Obnoxious Brat

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You know that parent you find in random aisles when you go shopping? The one with a UNICEF Ambassador’s concerned expression and the tact of a woodland creature surrounded by hungry wolves?

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Their child is sprawled on the floor causing a ruckus that would shame a South American howler monkey. And they stand there being a good parent and continue to give this writhing, howling hell child “choices”.

“Honey, you can’t have both, you have to make a choice. Do you want the (sugar laden, cavity causing, hyper-activity trigger) cereal (made with loads of genetically modified stuff) or do  you want the (excessively salty) chips (full of saturated fatty acids that will be sure to make you a candidate for cardiovascular diseases in the future) ?”

Devil spawn gets up glares at the parent and knocks down everything on the bottom two shelves. Because it couldn’t reach any higher than that. Not effective parenting.

I say, yes give the child choices. In fact I would give the child three choices.

“I can either whoop your ass: 1 here, 2 at home or 3 you can shut up.”

Being a bad ass parent literally means you have to be bad ass.

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My dad’s cousins were bad ass mothers. These aunts of mine, they are oh so awesome! To this day they evoke respect and can make their grown sons shake in their boots. They believed in extreme parenting. Once one of their very young sons let them know that the story about the stork bringing babies was a lie, babies came from tummies. My aunt’s reply?

“Really? Well come here and I’ll cut your tummy open, let’s see how many babies we can find.”

Needless to say, the son never questioned the authenticity of her explanations again. Their children did not throw tantrums. Sometimes being extreme is the best option.

Some Extremely Effective Options:

1. Your child needs to go pee and refuses to acknowledge this. Options:

“Honey your bladder will burst and you will have a pipe attached to a pee pee bag that you will carry around for the rest of your life. Or you can go to the bathroom and save me a trip to the hospital.”

2. Your child can’t fall asleep because it is too hot. Even with the A.C working perfectly. Options:

“Honey I can stick you in the freezer. Or you can just go to sleep in your bed. Immediately.”

3. Your child can’t fall asleep because it is too cold. Replace ‘freezer’ with ‘oven’ in above option.

4. Your child is unhappy with you because you are an unfair mother. Options:

Pack a bag with some of their clothes and drive them to an ominous looking building. “This is the place for children with moms that aren’t fair. There are no x-boxes, no ipods, no birthday parties and no snacks ever. They are served only with leftovers, they wash their own dishes and clothes, and no one tucks them in at night or tells them stories. You can stay here or you can come back with me and live with my rules.”

Teens?

5. Your teenagers don’t listen. Ever. They don’t even deserve an option, post their bare bummed baby pics on Facebook, Tumblr and Twitter. Don’t forget to tag them. Another great pic is the ‘first time on potty’ pic.

6. They forgot to take out the trash? Dump it on their bed, that should improve their memory.

7. They don’t put away their stuff? Throw it in the driveway.

8. They don’t like what you cook? Kick them out of the dining room and lock the pantry. After two days of starving everything will taste gourmet.

And every night at bedtime don’t forget to tell them how much you love them. BTW I have used #s 1, 2,3,4, and 7. Extremely effective.

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(all pics from Google Images)