Tales of my demise are vastly overblown

From the lack of posting on both of my blogs, one could be led to believe that something grave had happened to me. And, gentle reader, it did. But not in the way you think.

As some of you know, I moved to Santa Cruz late last year. Since the move, I've given birth twice. Once, in February, to a beautiful baby girl (the aforementioned Z-Baby) and then again this month to a bouncing baby web magazine.

How did that happen? What was I thinking? What am I doing?

Well, I got struck upside the head with that fatal thing known as inspiration. I swear, all I did was take a drive with my husband. We weren't even going that fast! And then, out of the blue, there it was in all its glory, the idea and plan for Weekend Santa Cruz.

It's a hard time in American journalism. Print media is being squeezed by its online counterpart. Online media struggles with navigation issues, identity and, lets face it, a need for editing. And I think the people who lose out are all of us.

To a certain extent I think that's what I found happening in Santa Cruz when it came to my speciality, arts and features journalism. The local newspaper, suffering from obvious cutbacks, had decimated its features staff and all but killed its online presence for arts. The local weeklies have a wonderful presence as print media, but fail with outdated templates and navigations to make it easy and intuitive to the reader to find what they want.

It's hubris to think that I could turn that around with a site dedicated to arts and entertainment features and listings in this town. But, for the past four weeks, Weekend Santa Cruz. has gone to bed each Monday morning with a fresh homepage and listings.

With what staff, you ask? Well, you're reading her. All of the content is generated by me. And there's not a press release in the bunch. I have gone out looking for all of these stories. The fabulous thing is what amazing stories there are in this town I now live in.

There's the steampunk Wizard of Oz at Cabrillo Stage, Shakespeare Santa Cruz's new season, Chef Chris Avila at Soif, the bartenders at Blue Lagoon and the Poet and the Patriot, the many amazing acts (and the fabulous Chef Cheryl Simons) at Kuumbwa Jazz Center -- and I feel like I've barely scratched the surface. The listings kill me each week, since there always seems to be more and more to write up. For such a small town, we have a lot going on here!

And yes, I still have that five-month-old baby. I also have a wonderful amazing husband who makes time for me to do this thing I love. And I pull an all-nighter every Sunday after the baby goes to bed. Hey, one thing I've learned as a new mom is who needs sleep! Actually, I learned that as a new journalist in the '90s, when I used to work a 2 a.m.-4 p.m. every week putting the Key West Citizen's arts and entertainment tabloid to bed.

I don't know if I will ever make Weekend Santa Cruz pay any bills. Someday, in the near to mid-near future, I will need to actually work to sell an ad or two. But before that happens, I want to honestly have the traffic to say that buying an ad on Weekend Santa Cruz means something.

I won't do reviews on the site. It's not so much about personal opinions (though sometimes, like with Mads Tolling or Eric Hutchinson, I can't help my enthusiasm), as it is about learning more about the artist. And just learning what's going on. I take the tagline "hey, what are you doing this weekend?" seriously. I want to help people figure out what's out there. And support the arts, whether they're local or touring in from out of town.

Is this the new paradigm for journalism? I have no idea. All I know is that I'm trying to get the word out about the arts in this town, one Monday at a time. It's what I know how to do. It's what I'm good at. I love it. And hey, working as my own boss, no one cares if my work day is scheduled around my daughter's teething or my cat getting sick. As long as the online magazine gets out.

So that's where I've been and what I've been doing. Hopefully, I'll find a moment to post my next recipe on Twist soon. But if not, you can catch my writing every week, rain or shine, at Weekend Santa Cruz. Drop by sometime.

New Rhythms

Time passes with a salsa beat -- quick, quick slow. The Z-Baby is now three months going on four, with neck control and a penchant for grabbing things. She has one new cousin, a girl. Her other cousin is now in New Jersey, transplanted from Texas. Quick, quick, slow.

The quick moments whirl around, keeping me on my toes in the dance. It's in the slow moments that I stop, catch my breath, and take a moment to be grateful for my life. Take a moment to pause, marveling at the sweetness of my baby's laugh, the wonderment of her easy smile.

I can hardly wait for her to get older, to see her walk and talk and sleep. Yet I know when those days come I will miss these days, when she cooed at me from my lap, when she fed at 3 a.m., nose buried in breast.

The bittersweet center of parenting is that you wish things would change, that quickly, quickly your child would sleep, would pass the age of SIDS danger, would hold her head up. Then, when it happens, as it happens, you wish your child would stay the same, would slow down, would stay your baby even as you see her down the path to eventual toddlerhood.

Three Months

... that's how long it's been since the Z-Baby was born. I thought by now we might have a schedule. I thought by now, I would be writing again. I thought.... Well, in the spirit of the Mama Zen book given to me by Mary, I think I thought too much. Motherhood seems to be about letting go of any conception you have, besides the conception that is the baby.

Not a complaint, just an observation. I'm a lucky woman with a privileged life. I have a baby who is bright and smiley and sleeps between 4 and 6 hours depending on the night. For a little one as young as she, that's a full night's sleep.

I usually get between 3 and 5 of those hours myself, plus another 1 or 2 when she goes down at 2:30 to 5:30 a.m. I'm not a morning person, but by 6:30 most mornings, I'm feeding Z again.

In case the sleep portion leads you to think I have a miracle perfect child, I should mention the 30-minute crying session that happens every morning around 8 a.m., right before she sleeps. Norman the cat now joins in, as he sees it as a possible route to attention.

And then there's the daytime naps themselves, which are either almost nonexistent (20 minutes or less), or only last longer if the Z-Baby is sleeping on mama. I have seen so much closed captioned Food Channel while she sleeps that I have their schedule almost memorized. Next week I'm going to try to help her out of this habit. This week, we set the bedtime routine (which so far she is totally OK with).

I never thought I'd be making choices like: should I take a shower tonight or face not getting one tomorrow or should I try to take time to write my blog post or go straight to bed at 10 p.m.? I haven't really taken an afternoon off from Z yet, though I did make a doctor's appointment and a trip to the farmer's market without her last week. This weekend, we're committed to giving me at least a few hours. To be honest, I know all I'll want to do is sleep.

In two weeks, the darling husband is free to watch the baby a few days a week. Then I will be back to writing. At least that's the plan.

Come On Baby...

Let's do the twist. That's right, I'm at A Twist of Taste again. I meant to have an in-between post at One Page, but the Z-Baby came down with a virus that meant a lot of time spent as baby furniture. I'll be back next week. Meanwhile, this week's recipe is Cumin-Scented Apple Crisp.