Well...It's been a MINUTE.

Litchfield Beach, SC

I'm doing better with at least thinking about updating this blog, y'all, I swear.

So this past weekend I had a marvelous time hanging with my tribe - the South Carolina Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf crowd. Our annual conference was on Pawley's Island this year and even though I didn't make it to the beach (other than to snap that photo right quick from the boardwalk on Sunday before we drove home), I still came away feeling refreshed, renewed, ready...and REALLY TIRED.

Like down in my bones I cannot keep my eyes open one more second if you ask me to stand up I will crumple kind of tired. I am still that tired today, two days later.

This kind of gathering is good for my soul because I live in a family where no one but me signs. I work in an office where no one but me signs (because our other interpreter here is a contract/part-time type of employee and I never see her outside of the classes we team). I basically live in a world where the majority of people I know and call friends and family-of-choice have only a marginal understanding of my career and if they know any signs, it's basic communication.

Now, this is the point at which I apologize for omitting the disclaimer that I am not a CODA nor any other kind of native user of American Sign Language, but the fact that my first exposure to visual language came around the age of 10-11, I claim it as my second language. I think and dream in ASL more than English, even now. I'm constantly thinking about how something I see on telly or hear on the radio would be interpreted. It is part of me, even if I don't have native fluency.

That is why those people that I was with over the weekend are precious to me. I may know them so well that I call them friends or fam. I may have just met them THIS weekend. It doesn't matter - when you find your tribe and you share this language, this culture - this interpreter brain, whether Deaf or hearing - you're home. My hands and eyes are aching from all the extra work that they were doing over this weekend. But I wouldn't have traded a second of it - well, okay, the weird mushroom stalk I discovered in my pasta at tea on Friday night could go, for sure - for anything.

They get me, y'all, in a way that no one that isn't an interpreter can. I love my husband more than I can express. I love all of my greyhound and wolfhound friends, my Rennie fam, my Glisson fam, My Girls that I see almost every week...but this is different. I've said for years that I want to do some kind of scholarly research into sign language interpreters as a third culture, not just a Venn diagram crossover of the sets called Deaf and hearing.

Maybe it's time to look for a master's program. Maybe.

But for sure, I need to have more of my tribe in my life, and not just once or twice a year at the conference - so that it won't be quite so many minutes between feeling this heard/seen/understood.

Conference Post Mortem and the ETR™

Graphic Courtesy of Broadleaf Writers Association

So, what did you do this weekend?

I spent my weekend investing in my impostor syndrome anxiety myself at the Broadleaf Writers Conference, held at the Cobb Galleria in Atlanta. This is the second writers' conference I've attended but the first one run by Broadleaf (which I joined after the Atlanta WDW back in March). 

The two events can't even be compared! The WDW was a bit...haphazard? That's how it felt to me, anyhow. BWC19 was professional. It was not what I had feared - a get-together for the members of the BWA. It was welcoming and friendly, where WDW seemed like an "every writer for themselves" sort of situation. Could that be related to the fact that it was my first writers' conference? Probably. There were more panels at BWC than individually taught workshops, and that format - for me - has both pros and cons. I like the instructional nature of the individually taught workshops (especially ones that mention the Kobayashi Maru) because I am not coming from any kind of formal writing education perspective. But at the same time, the introvert in me would like to just sit back and take notes, and a lot of those sessions involve hands-on work. I may need it - I do need it - but it makes me anxious.

The panels should be just what I am after - a large room, lots of perspectives, no one asking ME questions, but at times they tended to drift off-topic. The tangents were useful, don't get me wrong, but I came to the panel for the topic. Still, it is not enough to register as a complaint, per se - the caliber of the panelists was high enough that I was there for them to say whatever they wanted, topical or not. Furthermore, this year I stepped WAY out of my comfort zone and submitted a piece to the First Pages Critique session. 

Yep, that was not a typo. I asked someone that I don't know - FIVE someones, to be exact - to listen to the first page of a piece I am working on and give feedback. Now, I went to the First Pages Critique at WDW and came away CRINGING at some of the comments. But I have been struggling for long enough that I thought it was time for some objective feedback. Full disclosure: I was certain that they either would not get to mine or that someone would have looked at it upon submission and relegated it to the rubbish bin.

Neither thing happened. They read out my words (which - y'all. I am so wordy! Ugh) and gave me some great feedback which at no time involved the words "Don't quit your day job." I don't think my feet touched the ground for the rest of the conference - or at least until the self-publishing panel where it seemed that the only way to make a living as a self-published writer is to go with an indie press or already have amassed a considerable fortune. I went with an indie press for my first Proud Racer book and it got me exactly nowhere, so that was discouraging to hear.

Overall, though, it was a fantastic experience. Every time I attend something like this, I come away with a list of things to do (or not to do) that will make the next one even better and this time was no exception. The thing that I learned about conference attendance this time is that if you are not careful as you are loading your car to head south to Atlanta, you will leave all of the clothes that you intended to wear to the conference HANGING IN YOUR BEDROOM AT HOME IN SOUTH CAROLINA. Thankfully I have a marvelous sister who, when I said, "We may have to make an Emergency Target Run," was already halfway out the door with her keys in hand at 9pm on a Friday. Big thanks are due to her, my brother-in-law, and my niece for folding me into their lives for the weekend. We MUST do that again, complete with the ETR™ and maybe a late-night bobbin winding lesson. I mean NEVER let it be said that I am not the life of the party.

And another hot minute passes...

Wild Horses Statue, Providence, RI

Right, so where was I? Ciaragh was back, I was done with GARF, and life was settling down so I could get ready for my inlaws to come for a visit.

Yeah, that didn't happen. Not even close.

For those that don't know, my mom had some sort of major neurological event around the 3rd week of June, and she has not been able to recover completely. She is in hospice care now, and we really don't know what the next step is there.

I'm updating right now from a hotel in Rhode Island because I am attending the RID conference. I had completely let this go to the wayside with everything going on at home. I happened to look at the webi

Nope, let's start again.

This has been the weirdest summer of my entire 47.5 years of life. I sort of feel like I'm in the middle of that groovy statue I got to photograph in Providence - only the horses are real and in motion, and if I don't watch out I'm going to get trampled.

Over the summer, I wasn't watching out, and I was most certainly trampled. Ciaragh was back home, and I was settling into my regular summer routine of freelance interpreting, planning for upcoming faires, and writing as much as I could whenever I could. The final draft of the second Clobberpaws book was starting to sit up and pay attention. The first novel in the Forest Wars saga was being actively edited for the...I don't know, umpteenth time, and was on track for publication at the end of July.

And then, my sister took my mother up to see my dad's grave on what would have been his birthday. And then there was the night about four days later that I was talking to my mother on the phone and she was slurring her words and was very confused. I rang my sister who went over there, spent the night there, and then took Mom to Emory the next day to see the doctor.

From there, she was fast-tracked into the unit that treats stroke patients, only she hadn't had a stroke. There was no evidence at all of a stroke. And then she had a seizure and slept for about five days - as one does when one is 86 and has a massive seizure. Her advance directive said no life-prolonging measures - no feeding tubes, etc. And then she was on the hospice unit for something like three weeks, so because nothing was happening, they discharged her to her home, where she died about two weeks-ish later.

Now, none of that is about me. It's nothing to do with me. But the aftermath is everything to do with me, my sister, and our families. I spent a good day after Mom died wondering if I was an orphan now. Is that something that only applies to children? More time than was probably necessary was devoted to wondering what would happen to my sister and me - we had been texting all day almost every day since that fateful phone call because I am a state away from them. Now that the crisis time was over, would we fade back into our typical roles, only communicating now and then?

So here I am, a month and two days from waking up to a phone call from my sister that Mom had passed in her sleep, and I'm still wondering. Still waiting. Still an orphan - I decided I wanted to own that, so I did. Still struggling to find someone to talk to on long days at home or long car rides when I usually would call Mom. Still not quite able to listen to the stack of voice mails from her still on my phone - recordings that underscore what a neglectful daughter I am for not visiting her more often.

Here I am, with a book about to launch in a week's time, a "First Page Critique" away to the folks running the writer's conference in September that I will be attending (in the hopes that it will be chosen to be anonymously ripped to bits by a panel of literary agents), and a big signing event in the works for November.

Here I am, suddenly winning at being a writer for at least a few minutes, and the number one person I want to tell isn't here. I hope she knows. I hope she is pleased. I hope she is proud.

Well, howdy, Houston.

Yeah, I know that people don't really say howdy just because this is Texas. But to be honest, my first hours in this part of the Lone Star State have been so very weird that I first thought I'd booked the wrong flight and was actually in Austin, but that weird is a good weird. This weird is like a WHEN AM I GOING TO WAKE UP FROM WHAT IS CLEARLY A NIGHTMARE weird.

I don't think that it is Houston's fault though... To be fair, I'm not even sure that I'm in Houston proper. I flew into Hobby because the hotel where my conference is being held only runs a shuttle to Hobby - a fact that, in retrospect, should have told me loads about the hotel. But I will get to that in a minute.

I flew Southwest for the first time and after wrangling their wifi (good gracious, I've been here less than 24 hours and I said wrangling) mid-flight, I find that was the only complaint I have with them. It is definitely worth it to do what you need to do to be Passenger A 1-10 to board, and make sure you can check your bag, and it's really a pleasant airline for short haul flights. The seats aren't as comfy as the Delta Economy Comfort that my rear end has grown to love, but the flight crew was nice and it was a good experience...at least until the landing at Hobby.

We were coming in for a landing - literally, I could read the words on the buildings - and then out fo nowhere we started climbing again. Apparently, the plane on the runway to take off was not going fast enough so our plane couldn't land. I guess there is a first time for everything. Poor hubs was watching the flight online and said that it told him I'd be on the ground in ten minutes and then JUST KIDDING, we were circling. But we landed, and I made it off the plane, got my bags, all before my phone's battery died. JUST.

I followed the signs (once I wandered around till I found them) to the "Hotel Shuttle Pickup" spot and waited...and waited...there was lots of waiting. The couple waiting there with me probably wished that I would go away - it should be no shocker to anyone that knows me that I am very bad at small talk. I was two clicks out from going back in the airport to regroup and charge my phone when the shuttle for my hotel arrived. Back on the plan!

Sort of.  The couple I was waiting alongside was either on the phone or on the net from the airport to the hotel (which y'all, is like 5 minutes) and talking about transplants and stem cells and how someone whose name I didn't catch was "expendable...well, not expendable, but expendable." I tuned out at that point. Got to the hotel and they had given my room away. Now two weeks ago I rang the hotel to let them know that I would be there on Thursday instead of Wednesday - which made their website tell me that I had to start over and the hotel was sold out this weekend. The very nice woman I spoke to said she straightened it out, just took the Wednesday arrival off and send me a new confirmation email. The man who clearly could not have cared less had he been dead told me that wasn't the case and they were putting me across the street at another hotel for the night at no charge. Since that was NOT the point, I argued and told him I had a confirmation email. He told me it didn't matter, he did not have a room for me and here's the shuttle, come see us after 8am tomorrow and we will have a room for you.

Well, you can just imagine my happy face at THAT good news. So I come to the HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS - which by the way has not made me any more intelligent by my staying here - which has no restaurant. Did I mention I ate lunch in Greenville at 10:45 and was starving by that point? So I got the shuttle back across the street (which isn't a street, it's a HIGHWAY and very busy and loud) and tried to find the registration for the conference. The terribly unhelpful man that gave away my room answered my VERY REASONABLE question about the location of the registration for TerpExpo by saying that he only registered people for the hotel. What?

Still with me? BECAUSE THERE'S MORE.

So I'm wandering around, nearly in tears from hunger and frustration, feeling an anxiety attack building toward panic when I saw a line of people leading to food. I got in the line, but as it drew closer I found that the food in question was ice cream. There's another group in the same hotel - a church group from Waco learning about mission trips. And best of all, they brought all three million of their children. I got out of that line and wandered around till a very helpful member of the waitstaff from the hotel restaurant took pity on me, got me a table and a menu.

Two things about that meal: The hotel serves Pepsi products and "basil cream sauce" on pasta is basically pesto.

Made it to the registration table, got myself sorted out, and made it into the last workshop of the day. All in all, I'm not that impressed with TERPEXPO so far, and the registration issue was just one of the problems. What kind of interpreter conference has that much talking without signing? I think I've learned that these conferences are not for me, thank you. RID seriously has nothing to worry about in terms of losing folks to this circus. I hope it's better in other cities.

So after hours and hours of "this must be a dream" and "please, I'd like to wake up now," I am in my room across the highway and I feel a little better. Must be the pesto...because it isn't Houston.