Tori’s Writing Hole

when you can’t bend. I hurt my back - in bed. Not in a good way, mind you, but in a tossing-turning stressed and can’t sleep way. So I’ve spent most of my day propped up in the corner of my thankfully highly comfortable couch, and I’ve been looking at all the things I want to do but can’t.

Did you know dogs make a lot of mess while shedding? And kids leave tiny, potentially injuring toys everywhere? And by everywhere, I mean places I can’t bend to reach? Ugh.

I’ve been sitting here trying to get some work done, heck, I can’t do much because of the back - but it’s hard trying to think while Dora the Explorer shouts about sticky tape and commercials blare for even more annoying shows like Blue’s Clues. Needless to say, no novels will be written while J still watches toddler TV.

Stumbling, I happened upon death photos, and I’ve become gruesomely fascinated. That and momento mori. I can say this is all research, right? I’m not really this morbid?

I’ve got some ideas though, non-The Others ideas…

backache, writing, death, photography

“This little piggy had a market
this little piggy had a cook
this little piggy had a hooo-eee
this little piggy didn’t have anything to eat
and this little piggy has a *mumble, mumble*”

Heard while counting Mommy’s toes…

toddler, piggies, toes

I was going to write about 9/11… seven years ago, the horror, the still gaping hole in our society and the fear, oh the fear…

But then I decided to move on and write about my daughter, perhaps my favorite subject in the world. You know how photogs have favorite subjects? Well, as a writer, nothing can be more fascinating than watching the development of a mini-me.

She’s naughty now, oh so naughty - I guess all that angelic behavior caught up with us and we’re experiencing the torrid three’s. She’s grown, oh how she’s grown in the last few months (perhaps some of her mood change is because of this?) and wears a size 4-5 now.

The best is her mind - her beautiful, twisted mind. Her new favorite game comes at lunch time, when I administer the organic, tiger shaped chewable (crunchy) vitamins. Julia was used to gummies, but these were better for her and on sale, so we got them. However, the eating of the vitamins requires a bit of coaxing, resulting in the twisted game. Julia eats two vitamins, and makes sure that one is labeled “Mommy Kitty” and the other, “Big Girl Kitty”. I must make the Mommy Kitty talk to the Big Girl Kitty about how nice it is to go into Julia’s mouth, be crunched up and end up in her tummy. Then, depending on the day, Mommy or Big Girl kitty “leaps” into Julia’s mouth and is eaten.

Weird enough? There’s more - then, the remaining kitty (remember, these are vitamins) gets sad, because her mommy/daughter has been eaten. So, I have to coax that vitamin into Julia’s mouth by asking “don’t you want to be in Julia’s tummy with your other kitty?”

The whole thing seems quite perverse, the eating, the personification of berry flavored vitamins, but hey, whatever works, right? I’m not turning Julia into a cold blooded kitten eater, am I?

toddler, vitamins, mommy, eating

We had our old fish for a long… long time. They were fancy goldfish, pretty, and some were here well before Julia. Then the fungus came. We lost two, and then a couple more… finally, with only two left (and after treating the tank) we decided to donate the fish to a store and revamp our tank.

Now we’re the proud owners of a tropical fish tank, which has several varieties of tiger barbs in it. I should post a pic here, but I don’t have a good one and damn I’m lazy. Trust me, it’s pretty.

This has been our focus for the last week or so, making sure the new fish play nice, and making a pretty space for them. Other than that? School starts next week for me and Stephen - online college. Pile the work on!