The Birth of a Business

Five years it has been, since I first knew that I wanted to sustain a livelihood via a home business.
Five years it has taken, to brainstorm an idea, and to develop a concept.
Five years, and the birth of a business is finally here.
In the grand scheme of things, it isn't that big of a deal. Just a rinky dink ol' children's educational entertainment company.
In the grand scheme of things, I am yet another person trying to make another dollar. However, I am not peddling cheap crap, only quality, educational entertainment.
In the grand scheme of things, it is simply one more day leading to the next.
One more revolution of the earth on its axis.
One more trip around that great circle in the sky.
Nonetheless, 'All Things Round' is up and running.
"Houston, we have a lift off."
Though the website is nowhere near the professional, Dreamweaver image that I conjure up in my fantasies, it is visible and present on this here internet highway. Take a peek, if you're interested, and send me a shout from the contact page.

www.allthingsround.com

When I was in elementary school, I wanted to be an astronaut. In middle school, I had evolved the title into something like this: "When I grow up I want to be a Doctor of Aeronautics."
Now, as 31-year old woman, I have traveled the globe, - albeit within the earth's atmosphere. I have taught space science to young people at Astrocamp. And I have spent soul filling nights under star studded skies becoming intimately aware of the northern hemisphere sky.
Now, as a grown up, I create my own vision of space travel, - of not having to spend upwards of forty hours a week away from my little love nest. Of blending my passions for education, art, and the outdoors into a sustainable livelihood. Of using my creativity and intelligence to earn an honest and fair wage.

"The Ties that Bind: Daddy"

My father was the classic Willy Loman type. Born into post-depression Oakland, California, he was the youngest of three sons. His father ditched out of the family, shortly after his birth, leaving him a bastard. With a lanky awkwardness, a cream and freckled skin, and red hair, dad blossomed into adolescence without knowing the strength of a man's spine or the gentleness of unconditional love. His attractive mother, whose steady eye pierced each tall gentleman who came along, spent her time in saloons and dance halls. She was sociable with strangers, as well as with her favored middle son. Thus, Dad spent his childhood alone, cruising his bicycle (a gift from his oldest brother) throughout the Oakland hills of numbered avenues and suburban villages. He graduated from the technical high school, immediately enlisting for a year of service. Fortunately, with the time being in between both of the great wars, dad was not called upon to serve in any exotic, foreign locale.
Instead, he returned to the backyard of his upbringing, where he set up a bachelor pad and began his lifelong career as a traveling insurance man. It was also in San Francisco where he and my mother were set up on a blind date. They spent their courtship period in bars, engaging in intoxicated, pedantic communion. Within a few years time, mom was pregnant. They eloped on the balcony of dad's penthouse, on Gary Street.
Early on, dad forthrightly admitted that he had little to no parenting skills, - for he had greatly lacked any role models as a young boy. Initially, he asked mom for help in this terrain. Mom, knowing only the control from which she had come (for she was raised underneath the heavy thumb of a teeming and raging alcoholic), easily took the reigns. She neglected to note that dad was asking for guidance. Rather, she heaped all of the roles and responsibilities of parenthood onto her own two, broad shoulders.
Years elapsed as dad worked, traveled, drank, and returned home to his growing family. Meanwhile, mom raised the children, a daughter was born after the first son, kept the home, and continued to work part time as a registered nurse. Communication between mother and father deteriorated as the

The Happy Hooker (Home, The Series, part V)

I had anticipated spending my high school years chasing varsity letters. As a natural athlete, I sought to continue my forays into the world of love and tennis. Rather, I auditioned for a performing arts marching group simply because this was what my best friend, at the time, wanted to do. I managed to make the team while she, however, did not and, by the end of our freshman year, she was pregnant.
Instead of chasing balls and running laps around the large suburban school, I spent my high school career as a member of the pageantry corps, - an odd mix of a drill team and a dance club. I was taught how to count hash marks on a football field, and how to keep time with the band. I mastered the art of gracefully tossing and catching flags, sabers, and rifles, into the air. I displayed my developing body daily, - in the quad and on the blacktop, during class and after school practices. And I deepened my experience with the ugly spitefulness of competition.
By the end of my fourth and final year, my flair for the dramatic had been sealed. During our last spring season, we flaunted our post-pubescent bodies in full-body, black spandex outfits, that had bell bottom cuffs made of black lace. Around our necks, and dangling from our ears, were strings of fake pearls. Our cunning and expertise on the basketball court had faltered over the years. Our three-song tribute to Pat Benatar played out like a heart-pounding wail interrupted by the consistent clanking of rifles hitting a wooden floor. Had our technical skills produced less drops and fumbles, we might have been able to salvage a diminishing reputation.
Becoming more and more frustrated, and eager to get out, of high school, the small town I had grown up within, and my parent's home, I continually spoke up about our lack of awards and accolades. I blamed our coach, a non-descript man who had spent the past three years creating the concepts and designs of our program.
On one particular Saturday, we performed at two separate venues. One was an early morning show located at a school two and a half hours north. The other was a late afternoon performance in southern San Diego, where we were allowed some down time for rest. During the reprieve, my two closest friends and myself headed over to a play structure on the school grounds where we met and flirted with a group of local boys.
Later that evening, as we took to the court of the gymnasium, Pat's voice began to belt out,
"We Belong
We Belong to the light
We Belong to the thunder
We Belong to the sound of the words
We've both fallen under
Whatever we deny or embrace
For worse or for better
We Belong, We Belong
We Belong together"
and as I was jazz-running to the back line of the court, with a white rifle in my hand, I heard a popping sound. Immediately, I felt a singular, fake pearl gliding effortlessly down my neck. I looked up and into the rafters of the back audience where I found the rapt attention of the young boys whom my friends and I had just become acquainted with an hour before. Noting their riveted glances, I threw my outstretched arm up to my neck and I yanked the cheap necklace off of my body. I flung the broken line of opaque circles. They tumbled out of my hand, and onto the floor with a delicate clatter. They went scrambling underneath those same rafters, and I careened down to the black line, replacing a rifle for a flag. In a mere matter of seconds, I had switched equipment and I was back on the floor, sashaying my way back into another moment.

Neva (The Home Series, Part IV)

I am sitting here with a photo in my hands. It dates back to 1990. It's edges are
only now beginning to curl in towards each other. The scene is of a narrow hallway, where two young women are in the foreground, positioned just left of center. Behind them is a white-paned window and to both their right and left off-white walls lead to doorway entrances. The young woman on the right has a hand firmly placed around the narrow shoulders of a younger, and shorter, female. Both women are looking directly into the camera, each with a smirk on her lips. In their eyes is both mischief and agreement. The hair on their heads is nicely manicured.
The woman on the right has long, dark brown tresses that fall in waves down the left side of her chest. Her face is adorned with the markings of popular culture, - lipstick, blush, and eyeliner, all highlight the features of her round face. She is wearing a leaf patterned, brushed silk dress shirt that jumps out in vivid hues of magenta, mustardseed, and teal. Her fingers sit plumply on the other girl's black shirt, which has rolled cuffs at the short sleeves, and from which tanned, slender arms jut out. Gold, lame lettering adorns the front of her t-shirt, -
"IMTA Presents Hooray for Hollywood," it reads. Her hair is pulled out of a tear drop face and back into a thick braid. A black and white hair tie sticks out from behind a hidden neck. She has a puff of ringlets above her forehead. She, too, wears a gentle smattering of makeup, - black eyeliner underneath brown eyes; lip gloss accentuating pearly whites. On her chest a pink, square badge is pinned.
This photograph was taken during the summer between my exit from middle school and my entrance into high school. I had spent a week on the UC Davis campus participating in a 4-H Leadership camp. My memories from that week, eighteen years ago, are hazy. I recall a suffocating heat,- I passed out, for the first time in my life, while sitting at an outdoor picnic table and waiting for a presentation to begin.
I also remember the envy I felt over watching my sister move around in considerable ease. She had been to the camp before; she knew a number of people there; and she was part of the "cool crowd." I felt stuck in between, somewhere in the midst of lost and found.
As a thirteen-year old, my body was slow to develop. An innocent brain accompanied my pre-hormonal frame. I had followed my sister's footsteps into 4-H. Unlike her, as she had been drawn to working with both domesticated animals and exotic creatures from an early age, the classes I partook in did not involve the raising of livestock or the handling of guide animals. Rather, I took lessons in clowning (yes, as in those imaginative beings of white faces, red noses, and big feet) and in Japanese cooking.
I had been elected to our local 4-H governing board yet, I tried hard to fit within a milieu that I had little to no understanding of. I resented my sister's comfort.
In the photograph, the woman standing to my left, is Neva. She ran with my sister and her gang, - a group I tagged along with but, given my rank as 'little sister,' I knew very few as 'friends.' On this particular evening, we had dressed for a communal dance.
Throughout my three years spent at Washington Middle School, I reveled in the after-school dances, when the cafeteria's tiled floor was turned into an open space onto which the lyrics of Top-40 tunes streamed. During these afternoons, and on the rare occasion an evening, I would be found shaking my groove thing to all of the latest hip-hop moves. The Running Man? Check. The Cabbage Patch? Check. The Robot? The Kid N' Play? You betcha. In the span of what felt like mere minutes, hours would elapse.
I danced alone, and I danced with everyone. I danced in circles, and I danced in squares. I danced, and I felt different. The lunches spent hiding in the bathroom (from the girl who wanted to kick my ass because my boyfriend was an absolute hottie, who just so happened to be black like her) melted away. The cyclical nature of abuse that would wrap itself around my parent's home disappeared. The confusion and the turmoil all seemed to evaporate. There was only the beat and the rhythm of the moment at hand. There was only one giant pulse to which, for what seemed like both an eternity and a wink of the eye, I felt deeply connected and whole.
Neva was a voluptuous young woman who took to the dance floor with a mission. Her vibrant energy, powerful grace, and hip moves, drew the attention of others. Like satellites attracted to a larger body, Neva would spin circles around a developing fan base. She was a force to be reckoned with. In vain, I attempted to meet her, eye to eye. She danced me under a table, and she danced me off of the floor. She was the reigning queen of the dance floor, and I wanted to be just like her.