It's snowing out when I wake up this morning.  It's still snowing hours later when I go to work;  at this point it appears to be snowing sideways and the snow is moving faster than mere force of gravity could account for.

I'm at work and it's snowing.  Slush underfoot on the blacktop, slickly slidey.  Kids are having a ball in the field, a big white construction set that's more than a foot deep most places but ringed by  piles up to five feet tall which are just right to slide down on your smooth snowpants-clad bottom.  Snow has been around so long that the forts that are worked at during every recess are big and complex.  The kids who construct instead of slide look like worker ants swarming over the site, everyone working singlemindedly.

Kids talk to me about the snow as we gather to go back into the building.

"It stings," says one girl.

"We should have indoor recess," says another one.

"Daniel broke my snowfort.  I didn't see him, but I know it was him."  A boy with a gripe.

We trudge the precarious route back to inside and no one is saying, "Awwww, do we have to go in?"  The snow has been there for weeks and will be there after school and all weekend long;  the kids can afford to rest up with math and science for a few hours.

After the kidlets are safely delivered, I leave the building, taking my life in my hands by wading against the tide of kindergarteners who rowdy their way into the building, a shallow but powerful force.  If you lose your footing, you're a goner.  They'll find your trod-upon bod, but there won't be any life left in it.  The lilliputian horde will have sucked that right out of you.

Plows on the street are broadcasting salt on the roadway trying to keep it clear for the approaching home-time traffic.  Corners are tricky; snow shoved to the side of the road is making them jut out into the traffic lanes.  Still, it's not bad at all.  At last I thread my car between the snowmountains on either side of my driveway and want the warmth of home. 

The car gets stuck just in the drive.  None of my tricksy tricks is tricky enough to make it do anything but get stuck worse.  When I can't get it to go forward or backward, I give up.  I gather up my stuff.  I pen the door and sink my foot into a drift.  I don't curse, I don't think.  I just wade towards the warm-dry.

The iTunes playlist of choice is no longer lovely brooding music with meaningful lyrics.

The iTunes playlist of choice is "music with attitude" and it's not the words that are doing the talking, it's the rhythm.  It beats, it booms, and it doesn't leave room for lethargy. 

There's been another change here as well.   I've gone from "passive" to "active" and it feels comprehensively wonderful.  Was it the music that caused the change in mood or the change in mood that clicked the defiant music on?

I don't know and I don't care.  I've got things that aren't politely labeled "To Do", they're marked for "Damn!!! Done!!!"

I've been a little under the weather, not horribly sick, but feeling just poorly enough to need extra rest and to not want to spread any germs around at work.  I'd taken one day off from work so that Jean and I could spend the first day of her week home together and used it instead to get sick and I've taken another day off, and may just tack on a third if I don't feel pretty darn good tomorrow.

I was listening to some music that my son Eric put on my computer on Saturday.  He showed up unexpectedly and was rather surprised to find his three cousins also spending the weekend here.  It was their usual second weekend of the month visit, but he's a bit out of touch with life around here. 

As I rested and let my thoughts drift with the music, I thought of the comings and goings through my windowed red-painted front door over the past few days.  Three young people in, another arriving, one leaving, another coming in, three going out and all of the ins and outs in between.   I fell asleep and had a dream, a house dream.  Work was underway and I was very anxious to have the job finished.   This was understandable, given that the project was to replace my front door which had worn out. 

My dreaming self is so much more creative than the awake me, which is usually very practical.  This time I think DreamingMe and AwakeMe got together. 

That new front door.

Amanda cuts my hair.  She's lovely.  Twenty-four years old, naturally beautiful and formally trained in how to optimize her assets, she is also friendly and generous in the way she does business.  She takes her time and does a careful job, she converses and smiles a lot while she does it.  She asks questions about what I want, she listens to my answer.  She offers advice and we both end up happy with the result.

And that's why I'm stumped.  I told her I'd want to wear a ponytail occasionally this summer.  We agreed upon trimming one inch from the untidy thatch I was peering through when I walked into the shop today and then opted to go one half inch shorter. 

And then Amanda started layering.

It's not going to be a ponytail this summer.  It looks like it's going to be layers. 

While I was busy with the responsibilities that come with procreative interests, I had very limited time for less urgent creative passtimes, but these days I find that I have more free time to spend on things which have nothing to do with child care or housecleaning.  I was really busy for quite a long time and I was careless about keeping up with things that didn't cry or laugh or need wiping up or laundering.

I always thought that it would be a simple step back into the world that enlivened me for the first half of my life, but it's a long step and the curiosity and confidence I used to have are rusty.  I've gone so far as to invest a little money in the simple supplies I most liked back then and I know I'd like to use skill that I hope I still have, but as far as acting on anything, that is slow to come.

Last night was different, though.  I went to bed wishing that I could stay up all night and draw and play with pencils, paint, and paper.  The site that lit that fire in me is Scribbler.  It reminded me what can be done with simple lines.    Obligations are piled up throughout the day today and I can't get to that sketchpad until late tonight or tomorrow, but I feel the fire again.  It feels like life.

Since Jean went off to school in another city, I find that the house has gone back to Guyville, as it was before my daughter helped to even out the demographic balance around here. 

Males and females are different in many ways, some of them delightful and some of them not pleasingly so.  The lone woman here, I've taken to keeping to myself more than I used to which is sometimes interpreted as rejection by my housemates and after being guilted enough to have me guilting myself in anticipation of what they will say, I pulled together the little bit of something I wanted to work at this evening and took it into the livingroom.  That room has become somewhat of an all-day-all-night movie house where so many DVD's play that recent releases and English language inventory have been exhausted and older and foreign language movies are fetched from the video store, stacked up atop the cabinet, and have their turn on the screen.  The guys install themselves on a couch and don't move for hours.

But there's a cozy chair in there that is a comfortable nest for quiet pastimes and that's where I settled with my books, paper, and pencils.  A movie was playing (of course) but it wasn't asking me to watch it and I wasn't asking it to entertain me so I thought we could coexist without any problem.

I thought that until the screams, the assault, the bludgeoning, the terror,  the blood,  and I suppose the death.  I assume that last bit because I fled.  I must be more sensitive than the average adult because I am revolted by a movie many people saw and I'm revolted by how easily they watch it, and I'm outraged that this kind of thing is brought into my home.

I'm holed up again.  I'm in a place where I can look around and see things that don't make me look away.  I'm listening to music that I've never heard before that I might like or I might not.  After I post this I'm going to go and take a walk in the darkness outside which is far less frightening than my livingroom.

it's four-ten ay em.

Why am i up at four-ten ay em?

because there's a critter in the attic chewing with great determination at some part of architecture that seems to be irresistibly delicious.
the voracious gnawer wasn't there during the day and wasn't there during any previous night and I'm wondering how i'm going to dissuade it from being here tomorrow night.

i'm in the kitchen right now, where parker's computer lives and i don't hear the upstairs tenant above this room.

i'm tired. the only light is the monitor screen and a blue light telling me the speaker is on and the green circley thing that is on the power switch for the monitor and the green dots on the keyboard and (looking around) the digital clocks on the oven and the radio. i'm reassured by the quiet. no critters in here.

so...that thing above my bedroom...what do we think it is? a mouse? a squirrel? a chippy-munk? maybe a raccoon. at this point it sounds like just one of whatever it is. it's better than no-doze. it's better than espresso with an extra shot of espresso and espresso on top. it's done wonders for my hearing as well. i hear every decibel in the house as i've never before been able to.

i've been awake for an hour now. how long can the gnawer gnaw before wanting to give his choppers a break?