It is officially summer here.
The deck is draped with drying towels.
The freezer is full of popsicles.
The kids are home, flopping around in their jammies, making collages out of the National Geographics and listening to Harry Potter on their iPods.

I love summer.
I love the sense of closure that comes with the end of a school year.
I love that bedtimes don’t matter and alarms don’t ring.
I love my kids home, flopping around in their jammies, making collages out of the National Geographics and listening to Harry Potter on their iPods.

Still, as a parent, there is always something bittersweet about the passage of time.
The teacher goodbyes ache.
The outgrown clothes stun.
The independence startles.

It is honestly hard for me to believe that when we start back to school in August, I will have a 3rd grader and a 5th grader on my hands. My breath catches when I realize how long my little ones have been around, how fast they’ve grown, how not-very-little they are.

I relish each new idea they grasp, each new step they take into themselves, I really do.
But dang, if it could just slow down, ’cause I really, really, really like having them around…

My own personal antidotes to the poignancy?
Spending lots of time together.
Taking pictures.
A good dose of humor.
Poetry.

Y’know, this sort of thing:

For a Girl I Know about to Be a Woman

by Miller Williams

(Read the rest here…)

This today in Publisher’s Marketplace:

World rights to author of the forthcoming ALL THE WORLD (illustrated by Marla Frazee) Liz Garton Scanlon’s picture book NOODLE AND LOU, about a worm and a bird who have an unlikely and unconditional friendship, to be published in summer 2010 and illustrated by MR. PUTTER AND TABBY’s Arthur Howard, to Allyn Johnston at Beach Lane Books, by Erin Murphy.

Running out the door right now — last day of school for my girls — but I just wanted to say:

Am I blessed in the illustrator department, or what!??!?!???!?!

Pinch me.

My friend Robin just reminded me of this lovely, lovely quote from The Elements of Style:

All writers, by the way they use the language, reveal something of their spirits, their habits, their capacities, and their biases. This is inevitable as well as enjoyable. All writing is communication; creative writing is communication through revelation — it is the Self escaping into the open. No writer long remains incognito.

It’s interesting.
I think it’s the opposite of what I believed when I started writing heavily as a teen.
I thought it would provide the perfect hiding place.
Incognito for all eternity.

But I guess not.
I think White’s right.
We reveal ourselves daily through our words.

Which, it turns out, is a relief and a pleasure.
Because who wants to walk around with a paper bag over her head anyway?

I’d trade intimacy for incognito any day…

In order to back myself away from the brink a little, I’ve significantly lowered my writing expectations
these past couple of weeks.
Revisions? Yes.
But not much day-to-day grind.

Because my day-to-day has been a whirlwind of teaching, critiquing and grading and, other than that, camping out at the elementary school for all the various programs, presentations, grand finales and celebrations. Just this morning, in fact, I was witness to a spectacular Greek Gods and Goddesses Fashion Show and Food Tasting, thanks to a very creative bunch of 2nd graders. My own Small One (a.k.a. Hestia, keeper of the hearth) managed to keep her sacred candle burning for the full event with no ill effects except for a little wax in her hummus.

So.
I’ve got some good photos and a relatively well organized to-do list, but no new manuscript prospects.
Which is… frustrating.
Scary.
Depressing.
Hard.

And that’s where The Dead Waitress comes in.
My first horror story.
I think.

Here’s the deal.
My ten-year-old Tall One started her own horror story, The Dead Waitress, about a week ago.
Early self-reviews were titillating.

So, my husband said he’d write a Dead Waitress story, too.

And then, last night, Small One started work on The Deadly Waiter.

There’s a reading set for June 11th in our dining room.
The gauntlet’s been thrown.

I’d love to stick around but I’ve got work to do…

It has seemed lately that my family owes some sort of karmic debt to the dog world.

A couple of weeks ago, my eldest daughter was bitten on the ankle by a friend’s anxious canine.

A couple of days ago, my very elderly and submissive pup was attacked by a neighbor’s pooch who jumped the fence.

And yesterday, our Arts in Education committee up at school was asked to revisit a mural because the depicted dogs were "off leash". (As my Small One said when I told her the story, "Seriously, Mom. It’s a mural!")

I’m mindful of the fact that we’ve got it good.
During the years when my sister lived in East Africa, we discovered that my mom
has some past life business to sort out with elephants.
For real.
They charge her.

So, dog shmog.
Except for this:

I really like dogs.
Actually, I love them.

I loved growing up with Sage and Smoky .
I loved lounging around with Piney in college.
And when those three dogs all died in their time, I cried and cried and cried.

And now I love Boca.

I love that we got her as a fearful baby and raised her up happy.
I love that she always slept under the girls’ cribs to keep them safe.
I love that she swims like a queen.
I love that she still barks for walks.
I love that she wears silent-film-star-eyeliner.
I love that she loves the cats.
I love that she loves us.

Got that, dog gods?
I’m fond of your kind!
Give me a break here!

Let’s settle this issue once and for all.
Here’s an old slipper.
Here’s a soft bed.
Milk bones all around.
 

Dog Music

by Paul Zimmer

(Read the rest of this gorgeous, gorgeous poem here…)

Aaarf. And namaste.

Would you like to know a little bit more about Beach Lane Books,
home to All the World and its ingenious editor? 

Here ya go….

Lucky, lucky me…

Ten-year-old Texans spend their fourth-grade year studying the state.
Texas geography.
Texas history.
Famous Texans.

My daughter reported on one of the early Mexican explorers, made an iMovie about the mountain region, and is working on a piece about Barbara Jordan. Yesterday, this immersion in all that is huge and mythic culminated in a class trip to the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum.

It’s all a little dizzy-making for a Colorado-Wisconsin hybrid girl like me.

See, here’s the thing about about Texas.
Before it was a state, it was a nation.
And it has not forgotten that.
The battles, the oil, the cotton, the hurricanes.
The cowboys, the cities, the politicians.
Texas has a big, fat, ol’ story to tell.

Seriously. And that’s before we even mention the snakes…

Read the rest here…

"I do now let loose my opinion,
hold it no longer…"

— The Tempest, Wm. Shakespeare

Today I watched my eldest in the first of two Shakespeare performances.
This was a scene from The Tempest; next week it’s Much Ado about Nothing.

The outreach program responsible for all this literary mayhem is the University of Texas’ Shakespeare at Winedale Program. In just a couple of months, coordinator and genius Clayton Stromberger has these kids (from 3rd-5th grade) eating out of old Will’s hand. He throws open the windows on Shakespeare’s humor, his confounding mix-ups, his fools…

Too much for elementary school?
Are you kidding? 
This is the stuff of a ten-year-old’s dream!

This morning there was a good piece on NPR about the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s sonnets.
400 years.
The guy has some staying power, to be sure.

But when you hear him on the outdoor stage behind a sweet little school on a bright Wednesday morning, I promise you it feels brand new.

"Contempt, farewell! and maiden pride, adieu!" — Much Ado about Nothing, Wm. Shakespeare

One of the reasons I rarely post pictures on my blog is I don’t want to show the piles around my desk.

Lately, they’ve been epic.
Peaks worthy of pick axes and crampons.
Topo-maps gone missing.

But I am here to say that I’ve just completed all there is to do for one of two classes I taught this semester.

I’ve critiqued the manuscripts.
Written the editorial letters.
Submitted the grades.

And I’m pretty confident that I’ll be done with the second batch by Thursday.

How am I scaling the summits?

Working outdoors. (It is bright blue and 73 here today…)
A little Peter Tosh on the ipod dock.
Chocolate-and-toffee covered peanuts and a smoothie.
Bare feet.

And the familiar tug of a work-in-progress I really, really, really want to get back to.

What?
You work sitting up straight wearing sensible shoes and a glass of ice-water at your elbow? 

I am not tech savvy.
At all.

I don’t know how many people come to my blog or web site, or where they came from.
My posts aren’t tagged.
I don’t tweet.

But one of my wiser friends told me I need to set up some Google alerts so that I get word when my books are blogged about or I’m mentioned somewhere on the web.

(Does that sound like an adolescent nightmare, or what??? Everytime someone talks about you, we’ll let you know!!! Bwaaahaaaa…)

Anyway, she assured me it wasn’t that bad and it was so easy, even I could do it.

But here are some of the alerts I’ve gotten in regards to my next book title —  All the World:

The College All-Star World Series (about Ohio baseball)
All’s Fair on the World’s Stage (about Israelis and Palestinians)
The best all-around meal the world over (about the Food Network)
Out of all the speeches, I’m wondering how in the world… (about college commencement)
All the world’s a stage (about role playing and the World of Warcraft)

Nothing against the aforementioned topics, but I’ve got plenty of reading material already.
I haven’t even gotten through yesterday’s New York Times.

So.
Don’t tell my friend, but I’m thinking that even Google Alerts aren’t for me.

Retreating back into my cave…
Ta-ta…