Holly is leaving home

This is only coming to me in little phases, which is probably the only way I can process or handle it. I will not always have Holly with me.

I'm excited about the Good Vibrations conference in San Diego, and I'm looking forward to seeing Kirby, and the Sorooshians, and lots of other friends from all over the place, and to the talent show and the passion baskets (I'm taking a "basket basket" and a "trash basket"), and to singing, and seeing people see my new book, which is VERY exciting. I've gotten sick and I'm getting well (check!) and I'm well on schedule to have everything calmly ready way in advance, and...

And that same countdown to something big and bright has, for me, a sad and dark side.

For Holly, she's looking forward to lots of those things AND to leaving the conference with the Maier family, going to Diana Jenner's, seeing Hayden, meeting Scotty, getting to know the dog, exploring the town, maybe getting a Christmas job in a mall or something... Her adventure will get bigger and better.

I'm thinking my own excitement curve is going to have a serious drop-off after we get home from that conference—me, and Keith, and Marty.

Confused? Could be worse.

I got up at 4:00; needed juice. Came upstairs, worked on web pages, thought Keith would come through on his way to work. Waited. 5:30 came; I needed to go back to the bedroom to get the one and only real-paper copy of the Big Book of Unschooling so I could put a page count on the description page.

As I went back through the house it was all dark and quiet. Really quiet. Keith wasn't up. Keith is always up. He must have swine flu. I will take care of him!!

It's Saturday. He's sleeping in (which for him means maybe 7:00 a.m.). So I'm thinking I'm all well and can take care of Keith, and I don't even know what day it is.

Yesterday I did walk to Kinko's and get copies of the insert "booklet" (a 14" two-sided set of instructions and notes on Thinking Sticks) for a set of sticks someone had ordered. I came back and discovered I already had a finished set, with the instructions. So I hadn't needed Kinko's; that's okay. I opened doors with a piece of paper, out there, so I wouldn't germ up the place. I keep washing my hands every time I think of it, and then some. "What have I touched?" I coughed on my shoes; no one will touch those. It felt good to be outside in the sunshine and the breeze. I was sweating, but that's good, immunologically speaking.

Holly's four days ahead of me and Marty on the flu, and so she was going to drive me to the post office to mail those sticks and a copy of Moving a Puddle someone ordered. I packed those up and came upstairs to find Holly had fallen asleep. So Keith went to the post office for me.

Friday morning (yesterday, by my slow calculations) Holly came back to check on me, and I said "I'm all better!" She said "You THINK you're better, but you're not." And honestly, I had woken up at 10:20, opened e-mail and seen a "TGIF" subject line which reminded me I was missing a Friday chat. My chat room had disappeared for the second time, so I lifted another set of code and cobbled up a quickie new one. Had an hour-long chat with several people. I must be well if I can make up a chat room so quickly.

Yeah, I'm not well yet. But I'm better every day.

I hear Marty's girlfriend didn't believe it was swine flu, but she got to work that night (at a medical lab) to a batch of swine flu samples and she thought again. She's been helping take care of Marty. Eeep.

Better now than a month ago. Flying with this headache would've been very painful. Better now than in a week and a half! So the good news is that we won't get sick in San Diego.

The photos are gratuitous New Mexico photos from Holly's blog. One of the early symptoms we all have had was loss of appetite, so seeing those signs doesn't make me want a Lotaburger at all. Both Holly and I had a craving for Cheerios. So my advice is buy some Cheerios (for day four or so), maybe some Advil caps if you're into pills, put some clean towels near your bed to put under you or on your pillow if you get sweaty, and extra tissues, water and juice, breathe slowly if you start to imagine scary "what ifs" and sleep it off for a couple of days. A cornbag or heating pad might be nice for the chills between fevers, or when your back hurts. You might not know what day it is when you do feel better; you might not be as "better" as you think you are; but Kirby and Holly in series and Marty and I in tandem have come through the flu.

New Book, first peek

The proof copy of the book came. This is it; I need to find as many unidentified typos as I can, and fix those few glitches involving page breaks and the table of contents, and then DO IT—order enough for the conference.

And so, now that I've touched and seen it and my confidence is strong, I would like to announce that I'm taking advance orders for books to be shipped in the last week of September.

Attendees at the Good Vibrations Conference will have a chance to buy the conference edition, and any corrections or mushy reviews will be added to the next pass and the second printing. BigBook Pre-Order

Happy Thoughts

Frank Oz, singing doo-wop, with his arm in the air:



Over on Facebook, Pati tagged me to list fifteen TV shows and fifteen movies. Having thought those thoughts, I was happy to find this today. I hadn't seen this video for a long time, but I do sing the chorus fairly often.

My lists of TV shows and movies, given "don't think very long" directions:

Gilligan's Island Mork & Mindy Star Trek TNG Boston Legal Bonanza The Cosby Show Black Adder WKRP Soap Eli Stone Monty Python's Flying Circus Behind the Scenes, Penn & Teller Dharma and Greg Sesame Street Kung Fu

El Cid Guarding Tess The Wizard of Oz Brother Sun, Sister Moon Ben Hur Gladiator Spartacus Crimson Tide (wtf? these are GUY movies!) West Side Story Monty Python and the Holy Grail Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead Stand By Me Enemy Mine Return of the Jedi When Harry Met Sally

Here's a follow-up, with Jim Henson and Frank Oz:

Cathyn & Laina, Holly, Marty

We had some people over last night to see Cathyn and his new wife, Laina. They stayed here a couple of days on their way through to California, and from there they're going to Europe for several weeks.

Holly did the moving gif to put two photos into one (the sign changing). She'll be back tomorrow from her trip to Iowa and Texas.

Marty has been really helpful. I had missed him. He played rock band with the two Jr. J. Cunicos while the adults talked the boring talk. Foot ball. Ray's old print shop, where most of us had worked at one time or another. Mo Palmer, who had been the next door neighbor of the majority of people in the room. I got to hold Liliana Ibarra for the first time. That was wonderful.

It's been really fun getting to know Laina, and catching up with Cathyn, and going to see some things around town. Odd corners of Old Town, Masks y Mas, SW Gem and Mineral shop. Mac's Steak in the rough. :-) (the last one that's open, at Menaul and Jefferson)... Very nice couple of days.

Kelly Lovejoy's Birthday and related thoughts

Today is Kelly Lovejoy's birthday. For those who don't know Kelly, I'll tell you some cool stuff.

Kelly lives in South Carolina where she grew up; she married Ben, who also grew up there. They have a happy house and two sons—Cameron and Duncan.

The Live and Learn conferences were Kelly's idea and design, and several other conferences were spawned from that project, and generally follow her format and lovingly use L&L terminology ("funshop," "passion basket" and others).

Kelly's writing isn't constant but it's solid and she's my favorite kind of writer, which means (in my case) that she writes kinda like I do—straight and heartfelt.

If you want to read some of what Kelly has written and see some more images of her (taken by various others, as are those here; sorry for no photo credits but the Grand Canyon was Kelli Traaseth, I think), go to SandraDodd.com/kellylovejoy

If you want to wish her happy birthday and you're not a facebook friend of hers, you could leave a comment below and I'll send her the link.

Have a very merry birthday, Kelly,
and many happy birthdays to come!

about Holly, where I am not

From "The Unzone" (zamunzo.blogspot):

Sunday, August 16, 2009
Teenage Daughter

I've been so fortunate to try on a teenage daughter for the past week. It's been fun and interesting and surprising and... well, lovely really. Sandra Dodd was so kind to lend me her daughter, Holly, and I will be forever grateful to her for that. Holly was awesome to agree to come and visit us and hang out with us so graciously -- adding her special Holly-spark to our lives.

Chris Sanders (a.k.a. Zamozo) wrote about Holly's visit to Des Moines, Iowa to stay with her family. There's more there, and it's sweet, and I'm glad to know they're all having a good time. I hope Holly will write about it too, because the stories she's told me have been very sweet and postive, and the family has been generous with their resources and attention. She seems to be having a great time.

http://zamunzo.blogspot.com/2009/08/teenage-daughter.html

Holly flies from Des Moines to Austin in a couple of days, and then will be home on Friday, but not for long. When we all go to the Good Vibrations Unschooling Conference, Holly will continue on from there with Frank and Ronnie Maier's family, to Diana Jenner's house in Corvallis, Oregon. In the blog post above, Chris mentions Canada. Holly's also planning to stay a while with Bea Mantovani's family (two very young girls; that will be fun for Holly). They've moving out of Montreal to a house an hour or so away, I think, so I'm not clear on the place, but still Québec. And Holly will also probably be in Ashford, near London, for a while sometime next year too.

I didn't know she would leave home before she was 18. As leaving goes, though, her explorations are pretty awesome. I think in some cases it's because the parents felt trust in her because of my stories over the years, or maybe in a case or two they felt indebted to me and wanted to do me a favor, but mostly I think it's because Holly is Holly.

I'm sorry she won't be here for the Monkey Platter Festival, but she'll be in Santa Fe for the Unschooling Symposium, and I don't know when I'll see her after that. Hooray for blogs and cellphones in our lives, for MySpace and Photobucket!