~ After 2 months of avid studying and mounting frustrations about my toppling practice test grades, I went in and took the [3-effing-hour] GRE yesterday and somehow, miraculously nailed it. Not only did I do better than I have in any other standardized test but I cleared the minimum score for Ivy League grad school by a cool, comfy margin. Holy crap. (And yes, I’m blaming it all on God.)

~ I’ve been brainstorming premises for short stories and general novels just to keep my mind in that creative writing mode and I took a small list of potential writing projects to my husband for critical review. In the past he’s been a reader but with so many side projects and the whole parenting thing, he’s not been reading too much. (Meanwhile, I’m killing 2 books a week these days. Weird.) So I trust him with his literary opinions.

The cool thing about this is that, while we’ve collaborated on things before (we’re in the process of a huge one at the moment, actually) we found ourselves sitting up for hours flushing out ideas and working on potential storylines. I was amazed at some of his ideas and am really, genuinely excited about getting started on some of these, even though I know the completion of anything solid is a few years away, given my prior engagements. Still, though, it was nice to be able to not only share my creative side with someone and feel validated for it (even though he’s always telling me he’s proud of me and my talents…:::sigh::: I laff heem) but to find that we work really well together developing creative work. I’ve always wanted a spouse who would indulge my weird side projects and have the intelligence and savvy to get involved as well but I’m still kind of amazed at how well it’s working out and how excited he is to get involved (whereas I was halfway expecting him to just smile and nod at my absurd ideas and humor me to keep marital peace.)

So right now I have a small mountain’s worth of notes and brainstorms on three short stories and about four novels, the latter being particularly strange because I’ve never ever EVER had any interest in writing a novel and have always been convinced that I’m better with short storylines and instantaneous dynamics, but these sound legitimately promising. Exciting! And even more exciting is Greg’s excitement in it as well, like he’s not just humoring me… as he’s prone to do… a lot.

Again, I’m not saying I have heaps of extra time to spend on writing right now but the prospect of some really exciting future projects is a nice feeling. That’s all.

~ We’re going to Chicago[-ish] in a few weeks and I am trying not to let my nerves rule my feelings about spending a few summer days in a really fantastic city. The reason for this is not pertaining to the company of in-laws or anything family-dynamic-related but is, in fact, the terror of bringing an 18 month-old on a flight. I’d love to somehow have a guarantee that we’re not going to be the parents of “that kid” who’s miserable and screaming during the whole flight but I’m not about to drug my child with Dramamine as has been previously recommended.

~ I’ve been having some problems with completely unsolicited and unnecessary fear and anger that I’ve been struggling to be rid of. This frustrates me even further because I know that I shouldn’t be having these feelings in the first place and so the fact that I can’t just be done with them even though I want to be so freaking badly kind pisses me off. Anyway, I recently read about a meditative technique and ritual where you drink tea infused with mint leaves and a piece of amethyst as you concentrate on breathing the anger and fear out. Additionally, you’re supposed to envision the coolness of the mint soothing the burning, consuming emotions of anger in your chest. Not being one for “spells”, visualizations, and/or symbolic rituals, this earned a raised eyebrow from me but, after I tried it, I was amazed at how much better I felt. When I thought about the things that inherently make me angry, I felt nothing, which was a huge sense of relief. Even now, a week later, I feel more leveled and soothed about all my unnecessary expenditures of negative energy. It could very well have been a placebo effect but whatever the case, I feel amazing and highly recognize this little ritual in a meditative sense.