Excerpt from Sam's Computer Journal

25 July 2006
“Everything is purple. Why everything that is purple is purple through these glasses?” Emmett says as he wears fuchsia-colored batgirl glasses. Now he is whining about putting on a movie for him, and I don’t know why I haven’t been enjoying my motherhood role lately. I really haven’t been enjoying anything lately. And his incessant whining and power struggles don’t help. All he wants to wear is pajamas, day in and day out, so when I say it’s time to get dressed in the morning, it becomes a huge power struggle between us because I just recently made a rule against wearing pajamas all day long, especially to day-care. Now that I am at the computer with my fingers running over the keyboard I don’t want to stop; it’s reminding me how much I need to write, I crave to write, even if I just write about nothing…even if Emmett is climbing onto my lap chanting about “Stop, Look and Listen,” a Blues Clues episode he wants me to put in the VCR. When I finally stop, look and listen to him, he looks me in the eyes, his steel, green eyes so focused, and asks in a sweet voice, “Can you please put Stop, Look and Listen on please?” How can I resist? Especially since I know it will buy me more time for myself. I usually shower as he watches a morning video, but now I want to write something. I bet instead, since I am not feeling any inspiration to write anything specific, I bet I will go ahead and shower, but not before eating chocolate for breakfast. Sure, I could eat yogurt, a bagel, cereal, or a banana for a more healthy breakfast, but those don’t seem to fill my need, or stuff it down is more like it. I am disappearing into the real world, my writer self at odds with my need for financial stability, survival, ability to provide for my child. I am so angry I can’t rely on my creativity to make any money. I know I can if I can focus, but I just can’t focus. I am overwhelmed, depressed, not good. According to Steve in Blues Clues, I just need to “sit down in my thinking chair and think, think thiiiink. “ Because I can do anything that I want to do. If only I knew what I wanted to do.