Apparently, I am incapable of just taking two months off. Also, I need to buy furniture.

So, writing workshops, in Chicago and online. Please spread the word! :-)

Summer Writing Workshops (in Chicago and online)

1. Writing Your Identity - Six Weeks of Summer Writing (Chicago) - 7/13 - 8/24
2. Intermediate Fiction / Nonfiction - Six Weeks of Summer Writing (Online) - 7/13 - 8/17
3. The Business of Writing - A Weekend Intensive Workshop (Chicago) - Sat/Sun 8/24 - 8/25

Details here: http://www.mamohanraj.com/classes.html.

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"In a landmark ruling Thursday that could usher in an era of greater freedom for gays and lesbians in India, New Delhi’s highest court decriminalized homosexuality."

-- Indian Court Overturns Gay Sex Ban

Oh, yay!

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No word yesterday on our last offer; it was tempting to call and try to hurry the homeowners along, but it's a big decision for them, deciding whether to accept our offer or walk away or counteroffer (and if counter, for how much), and it seems only fair to let them have a night to sleep on it. So we wait, not so patiently.

I had some good distractions yesterday, though. First, Kavi was having one of her super-cute mornings, of which there have been many lately. Kevin was saying that it's a shame that we didn't manage to get our act together in time to go visit relatives this summer, because Miss Kavya is really insanely adorable these days, and there's no guarantee that'll still be true in three to six months, when they see her next. No real sign of the terrible two's yet -- oh, she can pout a bit when she doesn't get her way, but she's generally easily distracted. And mostly, she's just happy singing girl these days.

Kavi plays dress-up now. She wanders around with her dolls and her bike and tells herself (or us) rambling stories about what they're doing and how the penguin is friends with Caillou, and how 'baby' is sleepy (the baby in question being a rather hideous plastic My Little Pony pink-and-orange baby pony that Jarmila let her pick out for her birthday, and which Kavi just loves to death). Kavya sings a lot, including songs I didn't know she knew. The day I started singing The Lion Sleeps Tonight to her (which I have done gazillion times, since it's one of her lullabies), and she started singing it loudly, right along with me, I almost fell off the couch. I had no idea she knew so many of the words. Kavi also still loves dancing. One reason I can't wait to get into a real house is because then we get a piano, finally, and I can play for myself but also for her, and in a year or so, I can start teaching her to play herself. I think she's going to love it.

Anyway, so adorable toddler. And then Jarmila showed up, and I wrote a long rambly post about painting cathedral ceilings, and got those checks in the mail, finally, and then Lori and Ursa showed up. And mostly we socialized instead of writing while the dogs exhausted themselves playing, and that was good too, because I haven't really had a chance to talk to her since Kriti. She finally has a blog! We did talk a little about writing, and I spent a while thinking about "Jump Space" and what would be involved in turning it into a short novel. It could be a lot of fun to write. Very Heinlein-esque, I think, which for me is a good thing, although I know the very idea gives some people the horrors. It makes me want to go re-read some of the Heinlein juveniles -- not that this will be a juvenile exactly, not with all the sex slave etc. stuff, but I kind of want some of the same feel, I think. Family in space, like The Rolling Stones, and it's been twenty years at least since I read that book, so I think it's time to pick it up again.

Then off to a meeting on campus, with the Asian American Studies faculty, whom I really like, talking about the upcoming search and other staffing issues. To be honest, it feels a bit weird being the only non-tenure-track person in the room, especially since most of them actually have tenure at this point. A bit like a second-class citizen, because I'm not allowed to volunteer to be on search committees, etc. and so on. I'm also the only fiction writer, which makes me really want to get going on writing up something critical, just so we have a shared frame of reference there. And then I start worrying that Heinlein-esque semi-juvenile space opera is really not the kind of thing that's going to impress my department, even if I a) manage to write it, and b) find a publisher. But I think I need to let that go -- everyone's been really nice and welcoming to me, and any feeling of being inadequate is a) pretty much in my own head, and b) endemic to both academia and writing. So.

Write what I want to write. Sometimes that'll be space opera, sometimes it'll be mainstream lit., sometimes it might actually be something critical. Write what interests me and let the career do what it will. I'm trying.

After the meeting, a run to Target (through truly hideous traffic, gods know why), where I indulged my frustrated nesting instinct by getting a few basics for baby boy. Two little white cross-over shirts. Three onesies, in blue and green and white. Three flannel receiving blankets, blue and white, good for both spit-up and swaddling a newborn. Two little outfits in case we actually want to get dressed up and go to the park, from hat to hoodie to booties. I am clearly going to need to learn to love blue and green and brown, because there are very few other options for boys. Where is the orange? The bright purple? The red? In more expensive stores, I fear. I restrained myself from buying anything more, because we really are supposed to be saving up money for all the moving expenses right now, plus the furniture we'll need, never mind the actual house purchase. But I think I needed this, to go and get a few things brand-new, just for him. It made me feel better.

I also set up our baby registry while I was there. We don't need nearly as much as last time, since Kavi is passing along quite a bit to her little brother, but somewhere along the way we gave away her bouncy seat and swing, and her moses basket disintegrated eventually (we were tough on it). So, mostly for the relatives, here are a few things little boy Whyte could use. I don't know that we're going to have an actual baby shower -- it feels a bit odd, the second time around, especially since we don't need nearly as much stuff! But if you feel moved to send baby boy a present, either on the registry or off, it'd be very welcome. :-)

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Negotations are proceeding on one of the houses we liked best; we're hoping that by the end of the day today we'll know whether we're able to come to agreement on a price or not. Wish us luck.

In the meantime, we're still holding on most things. Our buyers have until July 7th to get their mortgage finalized; they had the bank's appraiser come by yesterday, so hopefully that's progressing with all good speed. We're waiting until we hear they've been approved before we start actually packing, since if they aren't, then we're back to square one on selling the condo. (There's been some other interest, but nothing definitive.) It should all go smoothly, but you never know.

We also aren't actually buying any furniture or anything yet. But that doesn't stop me from trying to at least think through some of the decisions we'll need to make if all goes well. Thanks for all the feedback on the whole kids-sharing-room thing; we've pretty much decided that we're okay with sticking little boy in a tiny room of his own for a decade or so. Whenever he starts complaining too much about his sister's room being bigger, we can decide if we want to share an office or some such instead. So Kavi is probably getting her canopy/trundle bed. It's a shame that the Madeleine bed is also the most expensive of the beds. If it were two-thirds the price, I'd just buy it. We'll see.

(Dear homeowners we're negotiating with right this second, if you happen to google and find this post, please don't fret too much that we're already redecorating your beautiful home. We love what you've done so far with the place, and if we manage to come to agreement on price, we plan to do our best to maintain integrity with the beautiful design elements that are already there.)

Now my obsessiveness has moved on to our bedroom. Most of the houses we're looking at in Oak Park are smallish houses that have converted their attics into master suites. What that means is that you get a room with low walls (about 50 inches high), but cathedral ceilings. They're nominally large rooms (say 19' x 14'), but the low walls means that they don't actually feel all that large. Kevin bumps his head when he comes near the walls. They're also mostly just drywalled, so currently a bit bland. Here's one of them:

I kind of feel like if you're going to have cathedral ceilings, you ought to do something to emphasize the cathedraliness of them. Something to draw the eye up, to enjoy the space. Plus, I love medieval and Gothic decor, so of course it's tempting to go all medieval on that ceiling's ass. Okay, that doesn't make any sense, but you know what I mean. Yet at the same time, I don't want to put so much stuff on the ceiling that I end up making the room feel smaller and claustrophobic. It's a balancing act.

Here's an actual Gothic cathedral ceiling, with amazing vaulted moldings, and another one, with moldings and stained glass, and Notre Dame, with elaborate murals.

Obviously, those moldings and murals are way too much for a little bedroom, and I truly dislike this yucky blue sky ceiling with wall mural, but could I get away with a little bit of medieval design? Something like this medieval mosaic is more the style I was originally thinking of, maybe just one of the triangular sections above the windows? But maybe that would clash too much with bedding, etc. -- a painting like that would be such a strong design choice, it'd pretty much demand that everything else was coordinated with it.

One other option might be to pin sari fabric flat to the ceiling (not draping, as that would definitely be too claustrophobic, I think), which would get some color up there. And if we decided we didn't like it, it'd be relatively easy to take it down again and turn it into curtains for another room or some such. These utterly gorgeous Indian-inspired bedrooms are tempting me.

I tried looking for decorating advice online, and found:

"In any room that has cathedral ceilings, the "height" is built in, so drawing the eye up is not the goal. Translated, that means it can be a darker color or the same color as your wall. Same color ceilings and walls tend to be monochromatic and clean; lighter colored ceilings and walls tend to be more traditional; darker color ceilings than walls tends to be very contemporary."

Which sounds good, but I think they're thinking of bigger rooms than our bedroom would be, like this large living room in blues, or this large bedroom in purple and white.

I went looking for more info and found this very detailed page on painting ceilings -- but it almost has too many ideas for me. Now I don't know whether to add wallpaper, or borders, or moldings, or what!

The rest of the house will probably be Craftsman-style, so dark wood moldings around doors and windows and ceilings. One house we're looking at has gorgeously restored the Craftsman style on the first floor, and it's tempting to just keep carrying that through the rest of the house (as we can afford to). They even have little medieval touches, which makes me think that you can mix in a bit of medieval with Craftsman and it'll work okay. I could just go with dark wood beams in the bedroom too, for consistency, but I'm worried it'll feel too dark. (Also, maybe super-expensive to add, as opposed to little moldings from Home Depot?)

This ceiling has added moldings, which starts to give a little more of the look of the Gothic ceiling, although they chose to paint them the same color as the ceiling, so it's a very subtle effect. I kind of like it, though it's also a bit barn-like. And this ceiling is more of a barrel vault than a cathedral ceiling, but I like the dark walls with lighter ceiling (though I wouldn't do pure white), and the elaborate crown molding around the border of wall-meeting-ceiling. Also like the switching back to um...not sure what you call it -- baseboard? molding? halfway down the wall, although I'm pretty sure the walls in these bedrooms aren't high enough to get away with that!

Anyway, thoughts? I'm pretty sure I want to do something more than just painting it, or even painting it in two colors, to lend it a bit more character, but how much can I get away with? Can I give it a mild medieval feel without going totally over the top?

And just to complicate matters, you can keep in mind that our previous bedroom was painted in deep rich tones of gold, with a chocolate accent wall (then repainted in bone with white trim, for the sale, and all of our bedding is currently coordinated with that. I don't think we can get away with paint colors that dark -- I don't even think I want to. But maybe a much lighter shade of gold?

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How does my garden grow? Honestly, this hasn't been my best summer gardening; just too distracted by Kriti, and by house stuff. But a few gems -- my favorite is the Happy Chappy shrub rose. That's going to be in the new house!

Happy Chappy:

Nasturtiums (edible flowers, good in salad):

Sweet basil:

Thai basil:

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