I’m sure all you’ve done since I’ve been gone is pray that I’d return, and that’s sweet and all, but I’m still doing what I said I was doing before at a decent pace, so this is merely a brief interruption to my sabbatical, not an end.

(I know I’m pushing it. If I stay away too much longer, the few Record fans left will give up hope and I’ll have to start all over. Just give me a little more time, please. Would it help if I told you that I have missed you?)

I’m just dropping in to share a couple gems I found in a box in the top of my closet today while I was looking at old photographs instead of packing for our trip to Abilene. It’s not really my fault I got sidetracked. Chris is the one who announced that the software update that would make our scanner work with our computer again had finally come out. How I could think about anything else with all that scanning I’ve had backing up?

Anyway, right now, I’m really just focusing on scanning in pics from undergrad. (I don’t know what I’ll do with them. Maybe I’ll put a few on Facebook or something.) But I came across one from way before undergrad and couldn’t resist pairing it up with it’s partner from HSU. Enjoy.

Me (and most of Papa Joe) at our house in New Jersey, Christmas 1985.

Me (and Janice, Darrah, and Kelly) dressed like 1985 outside The Black-Eyed Pea before some costume function at HSU, Fall 1999.

It’s too bad you can’t see the back of my hair. It was pretty incredible. If only I’d been born 10 years earlier. (Incidentally, some of my Basic Writing students thought perhaps I went to Senior Prom in 1987.) When C.C. saw this picture, he didn’t even notice our clothes. He just gave me this disapproving look and said, “Gee, Katy, you’ve really started wearing a lot of make-up since you went to college.”

Break over.

In case you’re worried about me and/or the state of FtR, I figured I better tell you a few things:

1. I’m alive and well.

2. I’ve been doing stuff, namely writing and reading.

I know, I know. It seems like I’ve been doing the opposite, and I guess, in a way, I have been. I haven’t been blogging. I’ve barely been Twittering. And, though I’ve made a few quick runs across the Internet, I’ve been letting my feeds pile up till they reach the triple digits and the only sensible thing to do is hit “Mark All Read.”

But I have been writing and reading. I’ve actually been behaving like a writer — writing, sharing, critiquing, reading other good writing, revising, talking to myself, staying up late, and other assorted stereotypes you surely already know. And I’m probably going to be doing it for a while.

That’s not to say FtR is dead or that I don’t have anything to blog about. . .

One of the things I read is The Mysterious Benedict Society, which Lex recommended — I’d link to where he wrote about it, but in case you haven’t noticed, that’s not an option — and it’s incredible. Caelyn’s been doing some funny stuff like whispering, “Gosh,” and some scary/gross stuff like choking at Tin Star and semi-puking on me. If Chris was writing this, he’d add an extra backslash and “hilarious” because he gets a big kick out of my involuntary responses to things like throwing and/or hocking-up. Chris has been doing some amusing stuff too, like deciding we should bake pumpkin bread, checking the cabinet over the stove for ingredients while I was in the shower, and then clearing out the whole thing in utter disbelief of his wife’s ability to make such a mess, much less create culinary masterpieces in it. I’ve been watching some awesome tween television, although not as much with all the writing and reading. The Office premiered, too, and I’ve been listening to some good music. Chris and I don’t have any more weight to lose, so we’ve been checking out local burger joints. I’ve almost decided my tooth hurts bad enough to go to the dentist and that I can’t take the noise in my ear anymore — it’s only been 3 years. Oh, yeah, and we watched my father-in-law go up in a hot air balloon. You can see all about it on Flickr.)

. . . But, you know, I started this blog to try to get back into my own voice.

I feel like I’ve told you this before, but I can’t remember. Before Caelyn came along, I was an editor/writer for a ministry in North Dallas. Essentially, that involved helping other people develop their distinct voices (which is something I really like doing) and writing gobs of stuff in a voice that’s the total opposite of mine (which is something I don’t like doing) and then letting someone else put their name on it (which isn’t a complaint; I wouldn’t want my name on it.). I did some more formal ghostwriting and stuff too, even though my artistic sensibilities consider that a betrayal. Anyway, writing like someone else 8+ hours a day, 5+ days a week can wreak havoc on your own voice. I probably should’ve been writing my own stuff that whole time, but what can I say? I was pregnant.

But the point is, I think I’m starting to get it back (or at least I’m working on it in a more formal way). FtR has helped me with that, but it’s also kind of caused me to develop My Voice, Blogging Division. That’s a division that I want to call on sometimes, particularly when I work on reviews or humorous stuff. But, although I have a lot of fun doing those, they’re just not the majority of what I write.

Of course, I know FtR has developed other purposes, important ones that I’m pretty fond of, so I’m not saying it’s over. But I am saying that I’ll be focusing my energy somewhere else for a while. (Before you suggest it, I’m not posting poems/short stories/whatever on here, no matter how nice you promise to be. The biggest reasons are personal, but there are some professional ones too.)

So. There you go. Just because we’re on a break doesn’t mean we can’t still be friends.

Unfortunately, I still don’t have those Official English Paper files from middle school, jr. high, and high school. I will one of these days, though, and I’ll share something from them when I do. In the meantime, how ’bout a couple writing samples from my baby book, which, for some reason, I do happen to have?

I was about five-years-old, maybe six, when I wrote these. As you can tell, I had great concern for both the animal kingdom and the Kingdom.

And lots of confusion about apostrophes, commas, and possessives. (But check out that semi-colon use, eh?)

I don’t think this first one is supposed to be a poem. My blue-crayon handwriting just took up a bunch of space per line. (I’ve preserved spelling, punctuation, and line-breaks.)

“Sam The dog”

to Dad

Sam is a dog.
Johny is his,s oner.
Johny play,s with
sam. and Sam
play,s with Johny.
Sam loves
Johny. and Johny
Loves sam.
Sam like,s cats; sam does
not clime fenses. Sam
is a boy dog. Sam
likes pepple too.

Later in the year, I figured out how to spell “fence” and the difference between an apostrophe and a comma. Apparently, I was also learning about using commas with conjunctions. I hope some instruction on pronouns and antecedents followed shortly.

(FYI, this story also included pencil illustrations of Tom, Sam, and the cross on a hill with flowers. There’s also an “I *heart* You” enclosed in a rectangle at the bottom of the page, though the recipient is unclear. Mom taped it to the back cover of my baby book, but, if you look closely, you can see some math work, involving dollar signs, on the other side of the paper.)

“Tom’s Cat”

Tom had a cat. His name was Sam. Sam was a good cat, but one day Tom fowned that he was on the fence and was chaseing a cat up a tree! Sam was a bad cat that day. But, God and Jesus helped him to be better because he died for us that we mite be saved, and that’s just what he did. And, that is how he got saved. And that was that!

As a bonus, here’s a poem (of mine) from 2003 that I’m not particularly fond of, but I’ll share it anyway, because, thematically, it fits well in this post and eliminates any doubts about the authorship of the earlier pieces. (Relax. It’s just a poem, not a theological statement.)

Searching for Maverick at Midnight

The night we left town for
a restaurant where no one
we knew could find us,
my sister called to say
Maverick was missing.

You tried to convince me
he was alive, we wouldn’t
stumble over his body,
the tips of his fur lifting
and falling with the wind
of passing cars. You said
wait until morning, we’d
get a call from the shelter.

Still, you gave up the dinner
we’d traveled three hours for,
headed back to Abilene.

We circled the neighborhood
with the windows down,
slower at my command,
the flashlight illuminating alleys
the moon couldn’t touch.
You didn’t complain about
the cold or ask me to stop
whispering his name, remind me
dogs aren’t worth crying over.

You didn’t laugh when I
suggested prayer, reverting back
to eight years old. You didn’t
scold me for believing dogs
have souls, and even if they don’t,
a God as big as ours could save
the soulless if he wanted,
could whisper one word
and raise a dog from the dead,
make a hole in the dark sky
with the slightest gust of wind,
let light shine right on Maverick.

You just smiled at me for loving
dogs as much as people and
pulled your coat tighter, aimed
the headlights down another road.

Like I was saying, we went to the Fort Worth Zoo yesterday. (Do you think when Caelyn gets to be 13 or so she’ll be telling her friends that her mom listens to such “weird, lame music”? Is the Lorelai/Rory relationship attainable in that regard?)

Maybe you’ve forgotten that I wrote about our trip to the Dallas Zoo, which was a fun adventure, but, honestly, Fort Worth was way better. The animals all seemed happier and healthier, the habitats were larger, only a few of the cages were fully enclosed with wire, and the entire place had a better feel. Not only was it cleaner, but it’s nestled in the trees and well-landscaped, making visitors (and animals?) feel like they’re in a more natural environment. The grounds were bigger with more eating options and interactive kid stuff. We ran into a zoologist who told us lots of interesting stuff about the reptiles we were watching enjoy their lunch. The zoo-goers were more friendly in general, maybe because it was just Caelyn and me. I really didn’t see very many moms there with just their kids.

We got lots of hellos and door-openings. Several grandparents told Caelyn how cute she is. A young grandfather watched me struggle to get the foil seal off Caelyn’s milk and was on his way over to offer assistance when I finally got it. A mom older than me said, “They never want to go until it’s an emergency,” when Caelyn ran away as I started pushing her stroller into the restroom. (She walked the whole time.) One girl gave me her spot so I could get a picture. A man showed me where two crazy birds were having a fight. Another mom stopped me and said Caelyn and I look EXACTLY alike. Two young couples even joked with me.

The only hang-ups were: 1) no straws or lids for Caelyn and 2) honey bees. The flowers attracted bees, of course, and there were trash cans every 20 yards with 10 to 30 bees swarming each. When we got through the Texas village, I saw an arrow sign that said, “Bats, Bees, Insects.” I turned around, but I can only assume there were a lot of bees back there. And I think they were attracted to dried juice on the stroller or something because a few of them moved in with us.

JSmo says she’s making me go back for therapy, but I think I did a good job. I only freaked out 3 times, when actually being chased. I didn’t choose fear over my kid. I didn’t avoid the trash cans. (I didn’t throw anything away either.) Every time we approached one, I just said, “Look at all the people who aren’t getting stung.” Then I picked up Caelyn, squinted my eyes so I could see where to go but not see the bees, and walked quickly past. I didn’t even run or scream!

(Okay, so I had a hard time going to sleep last night thinking about those bees and all the insane people who work there amongst them every day.)

I also couldn’t figure out how to get back to the lions and tigers without descending the stairs with the stroller, but I’m a little challenged when it comes to maps. (I have good natural instincts about which direction is which, but it’s hard for me to see the top of the map as anything other than what’s in front of me.)

All in all, it was a great time.

Chris couldn’t go with us, and managing the stroller, Caelyn, and the massiveness that is our camera is a lot for me by myself. So I was left with the iPhone for picture taking:

Hey Gorilla!

Caelyn took a seat to watch the orangoutangs.

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Caelyn and I spent the day at the Fort Worth Zoo yesterday. For the adventure, I made a little on-the-spot to-the-zoo-and-back mix (hence the length, just about an hour and a half). If you can’t tell, I chose the songs based on their titles, not necessarily their themes. Since it’s a quick mix, it’s not really put together well by sound. I’d definitely arrange it differently if I spent time listening to how they do/don’t blend together. But I did keep like animals together, like at the zoo. (I might try, but I’m not sure I could accomplish both the sound and animal organization at once, anyway. I don’t think I could work in “Bears” sound-wise either, and Caelyn deserved for at least one of her songs to be included.)

There’s a shift too, from watching the animals to thinking like them.

And there are too many of the same artists in there. That’s a mix no-no. But what can I say? Belle & Sebastian and Caribou like animals and they come to mind quickly. (Maybe I should’ve just listened to The Milk of Human Kindness.) Anyway, sorry there’s no artwork or download option. I’m sure you’re not in this for my playlists alone, but I’m the administrator around here. (Nothing on this list is so obscure that you couldn’t find it on iTunes, if you’re interested.)

Please Do Not Feed the Animals

“The Beast and the Dragon, Adored” — Spoon
“Wolf Like Me” — TV on the Radio
“Lord Leopard” — Caribou
“Paper Tiger” — Beck
“The Fox in the Snow” — Belle & Sebastian
“Comfy in Nautica” — Panda Bear
“Weird Fishes/Arpeggi” — Radiohead
“Whalebones” — Man Man
“Funny Little Frog” — Belle & Sebastian
“The Boston Monkey” — Otis Redding
“Bees” — Caribou
“The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades Is Out to Get Us!” — Sufjan Stevens
“I’ve Got You Under My Skin” — Frank Sinatra
“Bears” — Andrew Peterson & Randall Goodgame
“A Good Flying Bird” — Guided by Voices
“I’m a Cuckoo” — Belle & Sebastian
“Side with the Seeds” — Wilco
“My Little Corner of the World” — Yo La Tengo
“Fidgeting Wildly” — Centro-matic
“I Shall Be Released” — Bob Dylan
“Jumping Fences” — Olivia Tremor Control
“Geometry of Lawns” — The Clientele
“Fireworks” — Animal Collective
“Pet Sounds” — The Beach Boys

May all your days be as zoolicious as mine.