#WeekendCoffeeShare: Anything But That edition

On October 17, 2015 By Luther M. SilerIn Parenting, Stories12 Comments

Let’s see.

If we were having coffee, I’d…

Hmm.

I actually just got back from brunch with one of my oldest friends and her husband. They’re in town about once a year, when they come in for a home Notre Dame game, and we tend to meet up for breakfast just north of campus. What did we talk about? The last three weeks, mostly, and doctors, and my job. Shared some parenting stories; their daughter is a year and a half or so older than my son, and they have a 2 1/2 year old son too.

Problem is, I’m kinda tired of talking about the first 2/3 of those topics, because they’ve been consuming my life lately. I made it through breakfast without mentioning a certain book I have coming out, too, and I feel like that’s a victory. So it’s the parenting stuff.

Ooh! I never mentioned this: we had our first parent-teacher conference as parents this week, which was kind of fun. I’ve been on the other side of the table more times than I can count as an educator, but I’ve never before been the parent in that scenario. The fun thing was figuring out that the teachers were a little gun-shy, almost as if after several years of working together at my son’s rather ridiculously expensive private school they were used to parents not really wanting to listen to criticism of their special snowflakes.

I love my son rather a lot, and he is a lot of things, but he is emphatically not a special snowflake, and he’s also not perfect. My kid’s four. He’s gonna screw up and do dumb stuff at four. Their job is to let me know about it and my job is to fix it, not argue with them. This is definitely one place where me being on the other side of the table is going to help. He’d had some sort of stupid little personality conflict with another kid in his classroom this week, which required a bit of investigation on my wife’s and my part and a few clarifications from the other kid too. I don’t know how the other parents reacted to it, but the teachers seemed to think we were gonna dig in our heels on the whole thing.

Nah.

Once I get past that, though, I’m not sure how much I’ve got left. I’m looking forward to spending this week and next working on some short stories before I get back to the Skylights sequel in November. I’m hoping to have the first draft of that done by the end of the year, but you all know how slow I write. Not super likely.

Anyway. How’re you? Read any good books lately?

I’ll just leave this here

On October 13, 2015 By Luther M. SilerIn Geek3 Comments

The article doesn’t say “Dyson sphere,” and the whole idea is ridiculous, but holy shit they found a Dyson sphere.

In which I should be working or in bed or maybe working in bed, I dunno

On October 12, 2015 By Luther M. SilerIn idiocy3 Comments

I didn’t sleep well last night. I don’t say that as an intro to discussing my physical or mental health, just noting that I’m tired– y’know, like anybody might be. I’ve been sitting in my living room either staring glassily at my computer or trying to get minor things done and so far have managed a few sentences of fiction and not much else. I can’t go anywhere on the Internet because I know there are Walking Dead spoilers out there waiting for me and I won’t be able to watch last night’s episode for another three hours or so. If I’m still awake.

(Realizes he hasn’t actually bought this season of TWD; fixes that problem.)

(Writes a paragraph, deletes it.)

I may need a nap.

#WeekendCoffeeShare: Mostly Human edition

On October 10, 2015 By Luther M. SilerIn Stories8 Comments

If we were having coffee, I’d clue you in to a monumental development: last night I felt normal for the first time in two weeks. That is not a minor thing. This week I was reminded rather emphatically that my blood pressure medication includes a water pill, which I had completely forgotten about, and that it is sometimes possible to become rather badly dehydrated despite drinking water all the goddamn time. The reminder was rather unpleasant. My doctor used the phrase “perfect storm” to describe the wicked bout of dizziness and exhaustion that closed out my week, and it turns out that I need to start slamming a bottle of Gatorade as my first act of the morning until I run out of the current bottle of blood pressure medication, at which point they’ll yank the water pill part of the prescription. Also, the Lexapro has been cut in half.

I’m out of sick days for the 2015-16 school year, by the way. In October. That’s… kind of a problem, but there are ways to get some of them back that I’m looking into. Hopefully I won’t follow up two weeks of struggling with medication and anxiety issues with actually getting physically sick. But hey! I feel human. Let’s focus on the positive, hmm?

I’m also kind of sick of talking about medication, so let’s hope this is the last time for a while.

This would be the point where I’d realize that drinking coffee is probably not the greatest idea, as coffee is a dessicant. Waiter! More Gatorade!

Book news: Searching for Malumba is out in just a few weeks, so I really ought to finish the damn thing. As you might imagine, the last few weeks have not been good for any sort of creative work, and while the book mostly requires some fiddling around the edges– it’s 98% releasable in its current form without another touch– I need to actually do that fiddling. I’m hoping to be working on the print cover by tomorrow, which will mean the manuscript itself is ready by tonight. Early commentary has been good, so if you enjoy my commentary on teaching around here, you may wish to pre-order.

There’s no #SilerSaturday this weekend, by the way, as I currently lack the time and energy to be a salesman all day. However, my buddy James Wylder’s birthday is this weekend, and he’s put all his stuff up for free, so go download his books instead.

How’re you?

On patterns

On October 8, 2015 By Luther M. SilerIn Blogwanking1 Comment

This post only exists because I haven’t missed a day in 2015 yet and I’m not about to start now. So, hi.

Today was rough

On October 7, 2015October 7, 2015 By Luther M. SilerIn Music3 Comments

I’m taking the night off and finishing Season One of Empire.

In which I tinker

On October 6, 2015 By Luther M. SilerIn Teaching4 Comments

Spent the evening polishing and updating my résumé; I’ve been fiddling with bits here and there but it was time for a more serious overhaul. In particular, there’s a section now highlighting my skills with social media and mentioning oh, I wrote some books. Now, this could backfire on me rather considerably, I imagine. I don’t actually give my pen name or mention my website, but the fact is I’m applying for some jobs where familiarity with social media is a plus and it would probably be useful to point out that I’ve got 10,000 Twitter followers in cases like that. Hopefully it won’t blow up in my face. We’ll cross fingers.

In other news, I’ve been back at work for two days, and so far it hasn’t been that bad. I’ve mostly kept a lid on my temper, a fact helped considerably by the fact that many of my more problematic kids are suspended right now. It’s amazing what pulling just three kids out of my afternoon group, in particular, does for the group dynamic. They’re still not angels by any stretch but it moves them from one of the most demanding groups I’ve ever had to just average, and average I can easily handle. The only problem I’ve been having is with getting up in the morning and (possibly medicine-related?) an incredible amount of morning nausea. If I were a woman I’d be seriously wondering about pregnancy right now. I was completely convinced yesterday in particular that I was going to have to charge out of the room and puke at any moment, but so far both days I’ve been able to keep it together. I don’t know if it’s stress or the meds or just having to get up way before I’m ready for it (the exhaustion hasn’t gone away) or what but I’m kinda done with it and I’d like it to go away now.

Four days until my self-imposed Searching for Malumba MUST BE DONE deadline. I probably oughtta get on that, huh?

#WeekendCoffeeShare: Mood-altering drugs edition

On October 3, 2015 By Luther M. SilerIn Stories6 Comments

If we were having coffee, I’d spend most of my time yawning, possibly mixed with a few by-now patented glassy stares. Week One of being on Lexapro hasn’t been unpleasant, necessarily, but being tired all the goddamn time has officially gotten old, and my motivation to do much of anything has been chopped to the bone. This is a bit of a problem; I have a final manuscript for Searching for Malumba due in a few days, and haven’t really found the will to do much of anything about it, and I literally forgot that I was supposed to write a recap of last week’s Fear the Walking Dead for Sourcerer today.

Forgot. Clean, completely forgot, until waking up this morning, well after it would normally have been published. And the way my mornings typically work on Saturday there’s not an hour and a half to go sneak away and watch the episode and recap it, so right now who the hell knows when I’m going to get that written.

(For those of you thinking “Why not do it right now, instead of the post you’re writing?”: Reasonable thought, but this post will take ten minutes. I have ten minutes. I don’t have ninety.)

This is also a big birthday weekend. Fun fact: my father-in-law’s birthday is the day before my mom’s, and my mother-in-law’s birthday is the day before my dad’s. Well, mom’s birthday is today, so FIL’s birthday was yesterday. Inverting the proper order of things, we saw my parents yesterday and we’re seeing my wife’s today. We’re going to go see The Martian tomorrow, too, which I’m really excited about, in a sort of Lexapro’d “yeah, whatever” sort of way– I’ve been looking forward to this movie since the day it was announced. There aren’t any superheroes in it! And I’m seeing it anyway! It’s like a miracle!

(Skylights is free today and tomorrow. I’m hoping to steal some Martian thunder. We’ll see if that happens.)

This is the part where I’d usually go “Hmmm, what else?” but the simple fact is all I’ve done all week is sleep and stare at the internet. There really is no more “else” here. So I’m kicking it over to y’all again: what have you guys been doing while I’ve been trying to alter my brain chemistry?