If I could stop time . . .

This has long been a fantasy of mine, my dream super power, my fairy-granted wish. There have been times I have wished for it so fervently I almost forgot it couldn't possibly come true. I mean, I really HOPED! I have wasted time imagining the details of my super power. THAT is not the best way to maximize one's time, surely! But seriously, looking over some of the other Sunday Scribblings this week, I saw a few people who didn't really want to play my game, who suggested that there's plenty of time, time is not the problem -- essentially, I am the problem, that I'm not "maximizing" my time or something. But that's not it! I maximize plenty, but there just IS. NOT. ENOUGH. TIME. I want to do so many things, to create so many things, to both LIVE and CREATE, to write and paint and also hang out at a wine bar and gossip, and also go kayaking, and also watch Battlestar Galactica and The Wire, and also find the time to have some babies. And with my new super power, I don't plan to follow the conventional Spiderman wisdom of "with great power comes great responsibility." I am not going to fight crime. I am just going to write more and paint more!

Let me show you two of my four desks:


On my writing room desk sits the "unbound galleys" of my novel Blackbringer, which I am proofreading for the first time. That is, I am reading it for the 6,037th time. It is VERY exciting to see it typset, and to see the chapter heading designs, and to see how many pages it turned out to be (430! Holy cow!) But DANG -- I just want to write the next one! That one is currently put away in the desk drawer. Meanwhile, on the studio desk is a series of patterns I am painting for multiple uses, in Laini's Ladies designs and beyond. At another desk, not shown, a group of 6 new Laini's Ladies is underway. The fourth and final desk is currently buried under a blizzard of papers, desperately needing to be excavated.

And then there's this to consider:

Just a little bedtime reading!

If I could stop time, I would bring Jim with me into my cozy little gap in the space-time continuum, and we would just stay home and dream stuff up. That's about all I would use my super power for. I would unfreeze the world for the daily drives to the dog oncologist that have really been warping my weeks, the get-togethers with friends, the trips to the gym, etc. Life would stay the same, except there would UNLIMITED time to write and paint, and to make puppets and fix up my old dollhouse my dad made me when I was 11, to read books and blogs and write short stories and craft bat wings out of copper wire. I'm getting all dreamy just thinking about it!

What prompted this slide into daydreaming has been. . . commuting. Ack! Not to work, but to the dog oncologist where Shiloh is getting her daily doses of radiation. She's had 8 so far, 10 more to go, and she's holding up well. I've been in a human oncologists office before and felt on the verge of panic, felt oppressed by the weight of cancer in the world, and terrified by the knowledge that it will probably get us all, eventually -- this isn't as bad as that, being dogs and not people, but it's still very sad and somber. All these beloved dogs, tired and woozy, being helped up into the car by their worried humans, being handfed whatever delicious food will stimulate their appetite (Shiloh had rotisserie chicken and rice krispy treats yesterday). And then, there are the dogs that don't come back. I had become familiar with a very sweet Bernese Mountain Dog the first week of treatment, Shiva, and then this past Monday I saw his owner arrive without him, but instead with flats of canned dog food to donate to the clinic. I didn't speak to him, didn't need to, to know that Shiva had died.

But along with the tragedy and the hope and the rotisserie chicken, there is the driving. Oh. My. God. I have been very very lucky to be self-employed and not have to commute -- the other day I got stuck in rush hour for an hour and a half, and I think the experience shaved a little slice off my soul. It will grow back, if given the time and peace, but what happens to all those people out there doing it every day, never getting a long enough break to grow their souls back full and healthy again? I ask you, is this any way to live? Who constructed this world? In context, I know I should be grateful for how much time I do have in the day to dream and draw and write, but I still want more. More, more, more!

P.S. the wonderful painting on my green desk above is by Kelly.