Yesterday - I went to my grandparents' house for my birthday. Went well... Nan did something that really surprised me. Not only did she get me a carrot cake (my favorite cake EVER) but she had them decorate it w/ undersea theme. They couldn't do an octopus but they did the fishes and the seahorse. That she thought of it - amazes me. That she went through with it amazes me more. Nan doesn't often do anything that could bring my mom (her daughter) into the conversation - it's just too hard on her. But for me, she did. That made me smile :)  

When I was a baby, my parents owned a tropical fish store. One of their pretties was an octopus named Penelope. Penelope was a smart little thing - her body about the size of my mom's two fists put together. She would get out of her tank at night and walk across the tanks to the anglefish and eat them all. Penelope was my mom's absolute favorite of all the animals they had. I went to work with my parents everyday. My first playpen was an empty aquarium. Mom would wear me in a snuggly on her chest when she did the feedings and cleanings. One day - Penelope reached out of her tank with her long sticky tentacles and instead of saying hi to my mom (patting her face) she reached down into the snuggly and patted me. This happened quite often after that (according to my mom's stories anyway, I was far too young to remember). I was almost two when we moved away from Denver and Penelope had been sold at the last minute to someone Mom trusted to actually take care of her. (I think we would ahve kept her if Mom could have figured out a way to do it). After that, as I got older, octopi just seemed to gravitate to me. At the zoos I went to, the octopus always came down and said hello. I found a charm on the street of an octopus. I have mom's octopus necklace now too.  When we settled in Pennsylvania ten years later, mom put her tanks together. We never did get another octopus but we had scores of seahorses who would wrap around your finger and hug and a porcupine puffer who danced and gave kisses. And a pinatus batfish who had to be the most beautiful fish I've ever seen ( a juvenile, so was still all black with the bright orange stripe). Until Mom died - we had those tanks- two 75 gallon reefs and a 25 gallon for the seahorses.  

Doesn't seem like much I guess -  but it meant a lot to me. Octopi (much like the number 53) pop up in my life at odd times, often. Guess it's a good thing I like them...

Tags: birthdays, life, sweet
Current Mood: nostalgic

With every passing birthday, I tend to take stock of everything. Set goals, figure out what I want out of the next year. I realize that, overall, vast rejection count not withstanding, I'm ahead of the game. I'm not yet 30 but I have 65 publishing credits to my name. That's really not bad. Especially since all but three of them have been since 2004. My first  three were a quirk, an accident, a happy surprise. Two poems and a short story that were picked up by a local small press mag (that was gorgeous when it was in production) when I was still in high school. I ended up working with that mag for a while - but it was not a happy ending. It made me doubt myself and the worth of my words a lot. 

 

As I take stock now - things are looking pretty good. I have a short story collection in consideration, I have a poetry collection in consideration, I have about 30 other submissions out there awaiting editor's responses. I have two novels in the rewriting stages. I have several short stories waiting for their bit of my time to finish, edit, and submit. And I have two novellas in the first stages - more or less - of the writing process. That's not bad. This could be a great year for me. 

I have made several lists over the years of things I wanted to achieve before I was 30. That gives me one more year to do them... Some of them I've done. I have my kids. I have been published by an overseas market, I've been published in the newspaper, I've been published in widely read markets. But there are more that I haven't done. Yet. My first book has yet to be published (or contracted). My poetry collection (though currently out) has been gathering dust. I've not yet been to a Con (though I *do* plan to go to this summer's Pittsburgh Con). I still haven't weasled my way into Asimov's, F&SF, Glimmertrain, or The New Yorker. But I'm working on it. I still have 12 months before I'm 30. I can still potentially do ALL of them. (at least the ones I can control. Hitting the best seller list is a wee bit out of my hands and the product of a girl who didn't then understand all that goes into something like that.)

My 29th year could be almost as glorious as my 21st or my 27th, though nothing can quite  compare with those as they are the years in which I had my boys. I'm looking forward to this next year. A lot. It will be interesting to see just what I can do this year. How close I can get to finishing that part of my list. I've discounted some of the things on my list as the likelyhood is nil that I could, in one year, meet Leonard Nimoy, Forest Whitaker, Stephen King, Orson Scott Card, and Tim Curry. 

~S

Tags: birthdays, goals