Monday, September 14, 2009

Double Whammy

Early this year I committed to attend the League of Utah Writer's annual author roundup. It's part of the continued commitment to my writing, to take time and (family) money and attend regular conventions and author gatherings to connect with others like me and to improve myself as an author.

I paid my dues as a member of the League, and later committed to share a hotel with another author (it's fun making new friends) and send in my registration and payment for the Roundup. And then I got hit with life.

My son, the one who doesn't like trying new things, brought me the flier for a play and begged me to try out. How can I say no to that? He wants to broaden his horizons, stretch as a person and perform in a play. I'm thrilled. But guess what? They have this fantastic one week timeline where the auditions are Monday (today) and the performances are Saturday (while I'll be in Midway at Roundup). Wait, hold the phone. My kids are auditioning for a play with likely success and I'm going to miss their performance??? Talk about sacrifice!

Then my local bookstore, The Purple Cow, is having Brandon Mull and Lisa Mangum out for this great author fest thing Saturday. And I'm going to miss it. I need some explanation from the universe about why everything is happening the same weekend.

Sure, if it was any other weekend I'd take the kids down and we'd visit with the authors and partake of their wisdom, but let's be honest. I want to see my kids in the play. Even if only one of them is accepted I want to see them on stage. It's their first performance of anything outside of those mandatory school performances where everyone participates. And for at least one of them, I suspect it might be the beginning of a life love of acting in plays.

Why can't mothers clone themselves?

1 comment:

Me said...

It is hard to be in two places at once. It always irritated me back when we had 6 kids at home, 5 in school, that parent teacher conferences were one night only in a two hour window, no appointments but a drop-in thing, and we were supposed to make it to 2-3 school campuses due to age difference and beat out all the other parents for the chance to speak. It was a living nightmare, and generally hubby and I had to split up and run, literally.