“Good luck will be with you this month.”

Even when adding “in bed” at the end, it’s a big fat liar of a fortune.

I punched the fortune cookie paper in the mouth and threw it away.

The end.

Finally getting my husband to a hospital where he’s surrounded by specialized doctors who know what the crap they’re doing:

FRICKIN’-A PRICELESS!

Each of my balls are smallish in size. Nothing too tricky. I don’t necessarily do any frickin awesome tricks with them, I just manage to keep them all in the air.

One of my balls represents the kids. Their general health and well being. My ability to remember and successfully transport them to their various activities is represented by another ball. There’s a ball for Jon, a ball for keeping the house in semi-functional order, a ball for my church work, a ball for school volunteering, a ball for social time (lately that’s been a very, very small ball), a few more balls for whatever. I’ve really tried to focus more on my writing for the last year or so. That ball got a little bigger, a little brighter and shinier… but it fit into the rotation okay. All of my balls were still in the air.

Last year Jon got sick with a weird heart thing — which, luckily, turned out to be nothing horrible — and for a while I was juggling that. Only that wasn’t represented by a ball. A ball is something that any competent juggler can handle. ER trips and medical bills and uber-anxiety weren’t things that I was used to handling. So Jon’s heart thing was something more of a bowling pin.

So I had a bunch of balls and a bowling pin. But still, everything was still in the air. It wasn’t super pretty, but I was keeping it all up there.

Then Deacon had his hospital stay. Deacon’s thing was way beyond the scope of my normal juggling abilities. Deacon’s hospital stay — and all that whole ordeal encompassed — was represented by a large frickin dining room chair. It was hard, and foreign, and — if not handled properly — could have poked out my brain via my eye socket. When one gets a dining room chair into the juggling mix, one is bound to have some balls fall. And some did. I started fumbling, balls started dropping, and I imagined hearing the people of the King’s court booing me. Threatening to behead me… or whatever. But as flustered as I felt about dropped balls, my main concern was just keeping the damn dining room chair in the air. Just the chair, baby.

But the chair passed. I got to toss it out of the rotation. Got a short reprieve. I was back to my usual balls.. even though I couldn’t quite get back into the rhythm of my simplistic juggling routine. The chair really threw me.

Then Jon got sick. And we couldn’t figure out what it was. And he stayed sick. And we still couldn’t figure out what it was. And he got sicker. And they only sorta figured out what it was. And he’s still sick. Jon’s poor health is a long and drawn out situation. It can only be represented by something heavy, weighty, and fatiguing. Watching him in constant pain and frustration feels not so much like something impossible to handle, so much as something that is mentally, emotionally, and spiritually draining. Sort of less like having your legs torn off by a shark, and more like having them sucked dry by leaches.

So picture me again: bright jester suit, pointy shoes. Balls in the air, accompanied now by a bowling ball. A real heavy sucker. And the bowling ball has precedence over everything else, because it just has to. The bowling ball’s not going away. And dude, if you could see me trying to keep everything up in the air… wow. I’d be beheaded for sure. I’m fumbling, faltering. Balls are falling and rolling away. And kindly people are stepping down from the King’s court to help me with my dropped balls. They are picking them up for me, tossing them back. Some people are keeping my dropped balls altogether, pocketing them until I seem able to handle them again.

People are kind.

My juggling act is a joke. But not a haha joke… just a sad-ish joke.

I miss my simple, adequate routine. I miss seeming plain, yet competent. I miss sleeping well. I miss being completely awake. I miss my husband being happy.

And I so very much look forward to the day when I can drop the bowling ball out of the rotation, when all of my balls are back up in the air.

It may not have been the fastest… but who gives a crap. Dude, look at it!

Anyway, I made her stay home again today. She is bored beyond words. I am about to go print her out some math sheets so she can pretend that she is at school.

In the meantime, though, check out the sweet fort she built this morning in the piano room. She built it especially for spying on the neighbors and people delivering things to our door. (Our flat screen is scheduled to be delivered this afternoon… yeah, you heard me. Flat screen. The family who hasn’t had cable — not even local channels — for a year and a half is getting a flat screen. Sometimes we actually like to flush our money directly down the toilet.)

Behold: the “Sick Fort”

Did you see her wallet? Did you catch it? If not, go back and see if you can spot the 86 seconds its on screen again.

And here she shows you the peephole for spying:

And now I’m off to print math sheets and stealthily administer medicine.

(Post script… I realized after watching the videos that the video of her wallet was so long that flickr actually cut it off. You don’t get to see the other objects contained in her “adventure bag” or the sweet Exit sign. Darn.)

Me: “What kind of testing?”

Zoe’s friend: “Diabetic testing.”

Zoe (eyes as wide as dinner plates) : “They’re testing him to see if he’s EVIL?”

Me and Zoe’s friend: *???*

Zoe: You know, an evil, diabetical plan??

Me: That’s diabolical, sweetie.

Zoe: Oh.

Zoe’s friend: Diabetic is when all you drink is Diet Coke.

Zoe: Oh.

Zoe’s friend: I can’t believe you thought my dad was evil…

**beep**

“Hi, Mom, this is Zoe again? Umm, I still have a really, really, really bad headache from looking at the paper, and so I was wondering if you could come and pick me up right away. Ok. Bye bye.”

(I’m wondering what color makes my child’s brain hurt so badly. I hope it’s not pink, or her life will be over. Also — for the love of her brain — I hope she can stop accidentally looking at it.)

Chapters? Are being written, guys. Thousands of words… tippity-typed out. w00t! Are they all genius? No, but that’s beside the point. The first draft is just the bones, right? The understructure for beauty. The rewrite is when you go back and weave in all the pretty stuff. At least, that’s my plan.

And also? I’ve written a lovely, moody little tune on my flute. It’s slow and flowing and composed in some melancholy minor key… and it goes along with a scene in my story. (Not to give away too much, but the scene involves a lovely young princess who is stolen away into the woods by the nymphs… the male nymph seducing her with a lovely tune on his wood flute.) The tune was there in my head so I took a little time and figured it out, and then enlisted the help of my flute instructor to get it written down properly. Now if only I also played the piano, classical guitar, and perhaps the harp so I could properly compose the whole thing… *sigh* oh well.

And now I’m off… there are weird phone conversations to be had, and strange items to be eaten, and crazy yoga poses to be contorted into before I finally check out for the night.

Nighty-nighters all.

(Have I mentioned the yam situation in Africa…?)

You’re a decent guy. You’ve helped bring fame, money, celebrity, and excess (and one or two record deals) to young people who would have otherwise never found such things.

But you and your outbursts of fake percentages — good night! — it needs to stop.

When you say things like, “Yes! One hundred million, three hundred, and a thousand percent YES!”… you sound like there is an 85% chance that you failed 4th grade math.

Here are some examples of real percentages. Please take notes.

* You are 70% nicer than Simon, 95% less crazy than Paula, and 85% more masculine than Ryan Seacrest.
* You have approximately 40% less body fat than you did in season 1.
* Simon has approximately 15% more.
* Victoria Beckham’s bony clavicles are only 35% less deadly than Chinese throwing stars.
* Victoria Beckham weighs 300% more than a teacup chihuahua, which equals roughly 10 lbs.
* Despite all of my snarky comments, I am 45% jealous of Victoria Beckham.
* I can only name 20% of the people who have won American Idol… and one of them I’m only aware of because he lives 15 minutes from my house.
* 75% of the people who audition are terrible singers. You judges will humiliate and crush the spirits of 100% of them.

Now, after looking at these examples of actual percentages, let’s take another look at one of your exuberant “percentages”:

“I like you! You got something. I’m going to say yes… two thousand, million, and forty-six hundred percent YES!”

Let’s put this in terms you’ll easily grasp. Could a person sell two thousand, million, and forty-six hundred records? No, they couldn’t. Not even a really super-duper awesome singer. Because “two thousand, million, and forty-six hundred” is a fake number.

From now on, dawg, if you really like a singer, go no higher than 100% when voting them through to Hollywood. They will be just as happy and jump up and down just as much, and screech and fling around their yellow ticket just as wildly.

I’m a billion, thousand, and ninety-eight percent sure.

That’s the sound of a thousand ideas swirling around in my brain. Those ideas are all colliding with one another. Some are salsa dancing. The rowdier ideas are “crunking” with each other. It’s pretty out of control up there.

Creative flood gates have been opened. Stuff is multiplying, pouring out, overflowing… and my inability to focus and control it is wreaking some havoc.

Mostly in my kitchen. (And my desk… sweet baby Moses, the poor desk again.) Because creative ideas don’t give a care about the dishes, nor about the piles of unread mail. Creative ideas are all, “Suz, write me down!” and then others are all, “No, write ME down!”… and then the ideas go all fistacuffs with each other, and I don’t know what to write down.

So sometimes I just stand in my messy kitchen and stare at the desk.

Focus, people. I need focus. Any one of the ideas could be really great if I could follow it through all the way. I’ve been typing away on my YA fantasy novel, forcing myself to power through the crap. I don’t know how published writers do it… hunker down and get through the crap. It’s like a Jedi mind trick that I haven’t yet grasped. (I’m still a padawan in many respects.) And today, Jachin gave me an idea for a picture book that is GOLD, baby. I asked him if I could steal it. He said sure, if I agreed to pay him $5. He later re-thought the math and told me I had to give him 25% of all profits once it’s published. (He’s sharp, that one.) Plus I still haven’t thought of anything stellar to submit for the Highlights contest this month, and I’m also trying to figure out something for another contest.

My attention is too scattered.

This post is even scattered.

I should probably be on medication for that.

Ow, my brain.

Ok, my attention is now turning back to my warring ideas. May the best idea win.