Because What Else Is 5:30am For?

I think I fell asleep sometime around 1am, and here I am, four and a half hours later, staring at my laptop screen wondering what the hell I ate. Sleep has been one bad dream after another tonight, something that usually doesn't happen to me. I dreamt sad, lonely things - a cavernous building in which I and my daughter were stuck, while water gushed in from the walls, the ceiling, everywhere. The rest I can't remember, but you know how you wake up with a feeling of desolation that you just can't shake all day long?

In other, better news, Elise is finally attending Don Callejon School.




(With all due apologies to Margaret Hamilton, whom I've long admired. She was, by all accounts, a wonderful woman who dedicated herself to bettering the lives of kids and animals, two of my favorite categories of person...)

Within her first week, her teacher had several suggestions to make to help get her back on track, after her tenure at George Mayne Elementary, including counseling to help address her levels of anxiety, a before-school tutoring program, analysis for potential learning disabilities, and a study group.

This is more help than she got all last year at her old school. She's once again happy to go to school each morning, she's thriving in a welcoming, bully-free environment, she's made friends, and she even enjoys the 6:55am tutoring sessions.

In other news... Well, there isn't too much. Had lunch with a wonderful lady, a friend of Jeff's from middle school named Julie Andrijeski. She was here for the World Fantasy Convention, and managed to find time on Friday to meet us. She's looking for an agent for her manuscript, which has shown me the next steps I need to take. Oddly, it seems a lot like looking for a job (well, duh, Ericka). Julie describes her process as sending out one new query every day.

Anyway, got a direction, yay, got deadlines, double yay... I'll keep you posted.

Oh yah, happy Dias De Los Muertos!



Ciao