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I used to brag about how I never get sick, about how I have an immune system straight out of a science lab thanks to my perpetual exposure to teenagers who leave their snot-soaked tissues on the floor and sneeze on the pencil sharpener for fun. I have probably done some such bragging on this very blog, and if I weren’t sick FOR THE SECOND TIME IN THREE MONTHS I would find an example and include a nice link for reference. That’s right. Sore throat, cough, inability to force air through my nostrils. Mia is also sick. Neither of us has a fever, so the doctor won’t even consider seeing us, and while I can at least get high on decongestant and expectorant, my poor baby has to walk around blowing snot bubbles and wiping them on the furniture. It’s like being in the classroom again.

It should go without saying that this is a horrible time for me to be sick*. I am being observed by my professor tomorrow, so there’s no staying home to recuperate, and I have class tomorrow night. I have a paper due Monday (finished!), and a mammoth group project in the works, and my efforts to convince teachers to use the library have finally paid off–we are full all week! Super. If I manage to get through this week (of course I will, I’m just being dramatic), spring break will be waiting for me in all it’s glory: SEVEN straight days of no work. Just the thought of it makes me feel a little better.

Meanwhile, I am pretty much failing daily at this “I’m a writer” thing. I am trying to figure out what to do about that, and I’m sure after I emerge victorious from my final round of grad school I will have more of a handle on my writing self, but I want you to know–you, with the encouraging comments, you with the daily click only to find the same tired post, you with the email and IM, you who are my biggest fans (hi Mom)–I really appreciate the fact that you’re all still around, still reading, still expecting me to write.

*Even as I type this phrase, a phrase I hear people say often, I have to wonder if there’s really an opposite sentiment. I mean, have you EVER heard anyone say, “I have the runs, but it’s okay, this is a great time for me to be sick”?

Last Monday was the first day of my last semester of graduate school. I should have typed those words with enthusiasm, but I am not at all enthusiastic. I am so over graduate school. Sad, because I am an eager student by nature. But there are so many other things I’d rather be learning right now: how to play guitar, for example, or Italian. There is also so much more I’d rather be doing, like practicing yoga and reading and crawling around on the floor in hot pursuit of a tiny person who growls and then collapses in fit of laughter. That last part I won’t be giving up, not for all the graduate degrees at Harvard, but instead of Downward Dog and Tree, instead of book after book after book I keep discovering right in my own library, I will be “learning how to be a librarian” and “learning how to run a library.” You’re overjoyed for me, I can tell. I view the completion of graduate school in the same way I would view a race, say, a city marathon: at first you are pumped and the adrenaline is flowing as you fly forth from the starting block, but as you get farther and farther away from start you begin to slow down. You are sore and gasping for breath. You are too far in to turn back, but you want to duck into a bar and have a beer or, better yet, you want someone in a car to stop and pick you up and drive you to the finish line. Sadly, the grad school equivalent to having someone drive you to the finish line is called “paying someone to do all your work,” and I would never do that. But I probably wouldn’t argue if it all magically appeared on my desk. Eh.

But amazingly enough, even though I spent almost 30 minutes on that scintillating paragraph, that is not the topic of this post! The topic of this post is my new Best Friend Forever, or BFF, as she will be called henceforth. Some background first. I am a notorious waiting room magazine thief. When I was pregnant I would “accidentally” carry a magazine back to the exam room and then surreptitiously drop it in my bag at the end of the appointment. It was never a new magazine, and usually it was a duplicate. I saw it as a service I provided, a sort of recycling program: one old volume out of the way leaves room for a new one. I was the Masked Recycler. By the late fall, well into the third trimester, I was sick of reading about prenatal health care and gestational horror stories and how much labor was going to hurt, so it was a happy surprise when I discovered a copy of Wondertime in Dr. T’s waiting room. I tried to subscribe to the magazine online the next day, that’s how much I loved it, but I never got a confirmation, never got a bill, never got a magazine. I won’t lie to you: my first four issues of Wondertime were lifted from waiting rooms, first at my OB’s office and later at Mia’s pediatrician. They were not old copies, and there was not always a duplicate, and I am not sorry, because in my humble opinion, Wondertime is the best parenting magazine ever, or at least the best one I’ve come across. It is a smart mom’s magazine, filled with articles by smart moms*. One of those smart moms is Catherine Newman, and she is my new BFF. Catherine, everyone. Everyone, meet Catherine.

When I started reading Wondertime I was immediately drawn to Catherine’s articles. The reason for this can best be explained with a fascinating little story from my past: When I was in college, finding myself and figuring out who I was and blah and blah and blah, I was always amazed to meet someone who “got me.” You know what I mean: you are talking to a potential new friend and she mentions that she likes oatmeal pies, and you say that you also like oatmeal pies, and then she says that her grandmother used to keep them in a cookie jar on the counter, and you gasp and exclaim that your grandmother also kept them in a cookie jar on the counter; and before long you are comparing notes about the indoor/outdoor carpet in your grandmother’s kitchen (green squares for you, gold circles for her), and by the end of the conversation you are astounded to learn that you both imagine yourselves opening your car door while you are riding on the passenger side of a vehicle and tumbling onto the pavement, even though neither of you is remotely suicidal.

Reading Catherine’s writing is like that for me. I am reading along and suddenly I will feel compelled to say out loud, “Oh my God, I have also wondered about topical caffeine!” or “I, too, curse when I attempt to knit!” And as I am going about my life, mentally writing the endless blog entry that chronicles my scintillating existence and mind-boggling brilliance, I will say to myself, “I wonder if Catherine has ever done this,” as I wipe down everything in my bag and wave my coffee-soaked planner around in the air for the millionth time, because I cannot for the life of me remember how to close my travel thermos. Should the little button be in or out? What’s this red line here? Maybe it is significant! Indeed. Not that I think my new BFF is incapable, as I am, of closing a thermos. Not at all. It’s more existential than that. It has to do with connecting on a cosmic level, of finding meaning, and thereby kinship, in the simple act of living. Someone asked me recently why I blogged, and there is my answer: you people help me explain myself to me, to connect with myself, by explaining yourselves, by talking about your days and families and jobs. But I digress. Sort of.

When I first started reading Catherine’s blog, Dalai Mama, I linked to it through one of its two hosts, Disney Family or something like that, and there was much logging in and password remembering involved if you wanted to leave a comment. But I did it, I logged in and (gah!) reset my password every single time,  and even set up a little profile with a picture, and sometime back in November I left a comment, something I hardly ever do unless I know you. Fast-forward to two weeks ago, when, having reset my Disney Family password yet again, I discovered in my little comment profile that Catherine, a published author of books and magazine articles, had RESPONDED TO MY COMMENT! Granted, she did not claim me as her new BFF, but she did compliment my picture, and, did I mention, she is a published author! It was exciting, much in the same way that, years ago when I was just out of college, it was exciting when Dar Williams stepped on my blanket at Lilith Fair during her little visit to the lawn seating area. I take connection in whatever form the universe offers it up to me.

And isn’t that what writing and blogging are all about? Connection? And didn’t I already say that? I think so. I never click through my blogroll without thinking, “Yep. Been there, obsessed over that.” It’s a comfort, even when the mutuality we share is often on the dark side (”Oh, you imagine a plane crashing into your house while you’re getting ready for work every day? Yeah, me too.”). Or even the bizarre side (”Some kid in the library smells like Stetson, which reminds me of my 7th grade boyfriend, who, oddly enough, is now a gay porn star, and now I am thinking about porn. Oh, you too?”). And that’s why Catherine Newman is my new BFF which, I should not even have to remind you, is not an exclusive title, because if you are reading this, you are at the top of my list.

*I am not suggesting that other parenting magazines are dumb, or for moms who are not smart, or whatever. I am just saying that I think this particular magazine is exceptional. I steal those other magazines from work read those other magazines as well.

I actually snickered audibly when I typed the words “living a balanced life” in the title, because the whole thing suggests that I am about to write knowledgeably about those topics. Let me assure you right here at the beginning that nothing of the sort is going to happen. It might as well read, “More on quadratic equations, speaking Persian, and splitting atoms with an eyelash curler and some WD-40.” What’s really going to happen here is this: I am going to pour the rinse-water from my brainwash out onto this screen, and then I am going to ask you all some questions, and then you are going to leave your honest, heartfelt answers in the comments section. Or not, whatever, you know, it’s fine with me.

I’ve got myself really thinking about the writer’s life and what that means to me. I’ve been thinking about how I want that life to look. I’ve been wondering what it is I really want to do. Work from home? Write a book? Work for a magazine or a publisher? All of the above? And how am I supposed to achieve any or all of those things? Yeah, yeah, I know that yesterday I was all “I’m a writer, I’m going to write every day,” but how does a person really get published? How do you even begin to start writing a book? How? (There, right there, those are your first questions.)

And what do I ultimately want to write, anyway? I joke all the time about writing a novel, but I’m not sure that will ever happen. Not because I lack confidence, but because I don’t really believe in fiction. Don’t get me wrong, I love fiction, but deep down I am convinced that there’s really no such thing as fiction. I don’t think it’s possible to separate your own experiences from your creativity, so nothing is truly “made up.” Even if your main character is a dog, a dog who talks. In Italian. Even if this is your protagonist, this smooth-talking Italian pooch, he will inevitably wear a bowler hat like your great-Uncle Howard and call everyone “Darlin’” like your grandfather and drink coffee black with raw sugar like that nice old man who used to ask for your section at the diner where you worked in college. And anyway, reality is more interesting. I can’t imagine trying to make stuff up when I have such a rich store of material, compliments of real people, like this, and also this, which is an actual note my great-aunt wrote to my grandmother:

Hi Sister,

Sorry I wasn’t here when you called, I’m on jury duty and was serving on a criminal case all this week. It was a child abuse by father. It took a lot out of me. We found him guilty. He is to be sentenced in April. Hope I don’t serve on a case like that anymore. Seems as though everyone is doing okay right now. Hope you get compensated for what they did to your hair. Take care of yourself and let us hear from you.

Love, Shirley

Admit it. You started out sort of creeped out by the whole jury duty story, but now you are wondering what on earth it was they did to her hair. Priceless. Still, I think about writing a novel. Some of you talk about writing a novel, too. Tell me about that. How will you begin? What will you write about and how long do you think it will take you? How will you write a novel and not a mostly true story where only the names are changed?

As for reading, it shouldn’t surprise you that most of what I read is online and of the blog variety. My regular reads range from trying-to-conceive struggles, pregnancy stories, and family updates to edgy humor and political banter. Some of my favorite bloggers are famous; most of them are not. Occasionally I get to read a book, a real grown-up book with chapters and no pictures. But no matter what I’m reading, even when I’m having a little battle in my head, that little battle I told you about yesterday (This is brilliant. It makes me feel like I too could be brilliant….Brilliant? Ha! You can’t write like this. This is real, this is published!) I am still profoundly inspired. I used to tell my students all the time that the more they read, the better they would write. I believe that. So who inspires you? What have you read lately (or ever) that made you want to go immediately to the computer or trusty notebook and start creating? Whose writing would you like to emulate?

In the end, of course, it’s all about balance. Life is full, and we spend most of our time on the items at the top of the list: making money to pay the bills, caring for our families, keeping up with details. At the end of a long day of work and groceries and laundry and dinner and bath time and the bedtime routine, there isn’t a lot of time for creativity (case in point: I have been writing this post in 5-10 minute increments since 9:30 this morning–12 hours!). We don’t leave our creative selves much breathing room. My friend P., who is also looking to make more room for creativity in her life, reminded me recently that I don’t have to quit my job to write, that I just need to write something and put it out there. She is right, of course, but what she’s talking about requires balance, finding a middle ground. Even if I don’t get a single answer to any question I’ve asked so far, I’m hoping for some insight about how to move into that middle ground. How do you do it? How do you find balance? How do you make sure the writing (or painting or whatever it is you do) doesn’t get the shaft? How do you live a balanced life?

Talk to me.