Monthly Archives: December 2007

New Years Perspective

In 2006 I reflected. For 2007 the five most memorable moments are:

1. Looking down and seeing a positive pregnancy test. I went into the other room and picked up Noah’s hand and pulled him bodily into the bathroom to look with me without saying anything. It was overwhelming.
2. Looking at the ultrasound screen and seeing the alien growing inside my belly for the first time. Now that’s proof.
3. Watching a gorgeous sunrise on a boat with my favorite person in the world.
4. Snuggling with Crystal and sharing all of the deep down scary stuff.
5. Camp Everytown was more than a moment, but it is a time of my life I will never forget.

And to copy what happened in 2005 Post a New Year’s resolution that you think I should do. Then post this in your own LJ, and see what resolutions people think you should do.

I think I am going to crack open a bottle of sparkling cider soon. If I make it till 9pm I will be shocked.

Home!

Been home for not quite 12 hours so far. Laundry is going. I dumped the contents of the two (enormously overstuffed) suitcases on the floor and now I need to deal with actually putting stuff away.

Disney World was… interesting. Loved Epcot and Animal Kingdom seemed neat (we didn’t actually do much there because of sleep needs). I wasn’t that impressed with MGM Studios and Magic Kingdom was noticeably inferior to Disney Land. It was pretty neat being in this All Disney All The Time world for a little while. I started to have a little bit of a hard time with the eternally plucky staff at times. Amusingly, I didn’t like the waiter who acted like we were impositions much more so I guess there is just no pleasing me. Luckily I had more good-body days than bad-body days. I think I need to invest in serious black out curtains because both of the rooms we had on the trip could be completely pitch black during the day and we slept 9-12 hours each day. I suspect that we might both be more-sleep-is-good people.

Andrew–we went to the slavery museum in Nassau and it was just as interesting as you said it would be. Thanks for the recommendation. 🙂 The visit to the warm was nice, but I’m really glad I don’t live there. If it is this warm in the winter I would die in the summer. I got my hair braided on Nassau–just shy of 100 braids and it looks neat. I was probably overcharged, but I think that given how much money I make and how much money the braiders need to live on… I’m ok with that.

Noah had maybe two hours of cumulative grump on the whole trip and I probably clocked in four or five hours of cumulative grump on the whole trip. All things considered that is bloody amazing. Spending time with him continues to be the most wonderful way to spend time I have ever experienced. He is freakin awesome to travel with. I love my easy-going baby. I scored big time on my Christmas presents to him. I got jammies this year. 🙂 And a trip to Disney World and a cruise. So I can’t really complain. Dude we shopped. Went more than a little nuts. I’m surprised we got it all home… The funny part is: a lot of it is just getting put directly into boxes for storage for the next 8-9 months. I’ll get to feel like Christmas is coming early next year when I unpack. 🙂

Speaking of which: I need to get off the computer and start packing. The folks are coming to measure for carpeting in a bit. We need to get a bunch more stuff packed before the kids come over to finish up the painting touch-ups later this week. (I love my aides. I love them. I love them. The kids who painted this summer are coming back because they love me so much. 🙂 We have about two weeks to finish emptying the house out for the staging. I’m trying to get a bunch of the stuff packed and in storage so I won’t have to worry about it for moving. I also need to respond to a bunch of TNG emails today. I am going to wait until after the carpet people come because I need to get stuff off the floor…

I doubt we will make it out to any of the NYE festivities tonight. Love you all, but my body is terribly confused right now as to what time it is. We are going to have apple cider around 9 and call it a Disney World New Years. 🙂

Maybe more later. Maybe not. 🙂

Acupuncture leads to food.

I think that is an amusing headline. 🙂 And it did! This is fabulous. I’m not going to say that acupuncture is the most AMAING THING EVAR, but uhm… it’s pretty damn neat. I managed to eat solid food on two separate occasions today. I haven’t managed that in almost a week. The second meal was tiny, but that’s ok. It’s something. The neato chica sticking me with sharp things also seemed amused at my attempts at silly jokes. She can stay. Which is probably good seeing as Joe kinda likes her. 😉

And today involved some incredibly hot sex. If I was feeling good enough for food *and* sex after acupuncture I am totally going back. Best $100 I have spent in months.

Not to mention that I got a great phone call from one of the most awesomest people I know. My day so rocked.

Stolen from my Sarah

I know very little about some of the people on my friends list. Some people I know relatively well. I read your journals, or we have something else in common, and we chat occasionally. Some of you I hardly know at all. Perhaps you lurk, for whatever reason. But you friended me, and I thank you for your interest in my words.

But here’s a thought: why not take this opportunity to tell me a little something about yourself. Any old thing at all. Just so the next time I see your name I can say: “Ah, there’s so and so…they enjoy the savory aroma of monkey brains a la mode.”

I’d love it if every single person who friended me would do this. Yes, even you people who I know really well. Then, if you like, post this in your own journal and see what gems of knowledge appear.

Awwww

I sent out email to my kidlets and parents explaining that I am still pretty sick and I don’t know when/if I am getting back to school. I’m really tired of not being able to keep down a reasonable amount of solid food. I’m dropping weight again. 🙁 I also gave instructions as to what the kids should do between now and Friday. I told them that I miss my daily dose of kidlets and I hope to get back soon.

The return emails are making me smile. They miss the water bottle. They miss my snark. They miss the class being “more fun”. I feel so loved. 🙂

{inner circle} Thank god that is over.

Maybe the best thing about moving is I will never have to deal with a DHP again. It was lovely seeing the 25 or so people I liked a lot. It was less thrilling seeing the 60 or so people I don’t know at all. Even less thrilling to see the 10 or so people I knew and don’t like. And the 3 or 4 people I don’t know who were specifically rude to me basically ended all fun for the party. Some bitch asked a question about the house or the party or something and I was sitting nearby so I answered. She turned to me and said, “And who the fuck are you?” I responded, “I live here.” She turned her back and ignored me. I think that part of the reason I get so mad when people lecture me telling me to be nice is that when she did this I got up quietly and walked away. That is actually what I generally what I do in those sorts of situations. I really wanted to say, “Get the fuck out of my house you stupid cunt.” But I didn’t want to ruin Noah’s party. 🙁

So I mostly hid back in my bedroom and declared it an invitation only space. Amusingly, for most of the time there were people standing in the door blocking entrance entirely unintentionally. That *won*.

And I tried to go to sleep around 11 with a little bit of success. I woke up around 1 needing to go to the bathroom and with a stomach ache. I’ve been up since then and not happy about it. 🙁 I don’t feel good and I can’t seem to calm down. I’m frustrated and angry and my back hurts and my stomach hurts and my head hurts and… And I didn’t find out till about 2am that Noah invited people to come back at 10 for breakfast. I’m torn between wanting to stay so that if that cunt comes back I can tell her to leave and leaving so I don’t have to deal with more stupid people. At the rate I’m going I wonder if I will sleep at all and that will distinctly lower my patience in general.

On the plus side, I think Noah and I just had the best sex we have had in a month. heh

Wow.

Putting all of our alcohol on a table is quite daunting. I’m really hoping a lot of people come because I so don’t want to move this crap.

Come drink our alcohol! We have various and sundry really neat alcohols! Really and truly! We have shit you have never even heard of before! 🙂

Hell, come take a bottle home with you if you don’t want to drink it here….

Odds and ends

The last few days have been pretty incredibly up and down. I’ve been hit really hard with emotional stuff for a variety of reasons. Getting through this has been very difficult. I wouldn’t exactly say that I feel great or fine at this point, but I’m working on feeling less crappy. I feel like I’m past the honeymoon phase on some things in my relationship but I don’t know if that is so or if my body is going nuts from pregnancy hormones. All I know is that some things are being much harder right now than I can remember them being. There are some very specific people who came through for me on Thursday night and I am so incredibly grateful that I have such amazing people in my life. Thank you and thank you and thank you again. I love you so much.

Last night I went to a party where I knew maybe 10% of the people and it was a crowded party. I had more social anxiety than I have had in a long time. It didn’t help that my stomach was hurting basically the entire time I was there and that limited my interest in being actively social. Being that close to hoards of humanity was difficult so I spent a lot of time hiding in corners. I did get to talk to a few people whom I rarely see and that was pleasant. In the past around this social group I have been pretty boisterous and I noticed how different the atmosphere was when I could not manage that. I think my one regret was that when I sucked up the courage to ask someone to dance I was turned down and I didn’t have the courage to ask anyone else. *shrug* I generally have about one dance per day in me at this point and I really don’t have the chutzpah to push for partners the way you have to when you aren’t one of the “in demand” dancers. Such is life.

Tonight is the DHP. I’m torn between being excited and being terrified. I’m scared that no one will show up. (I know that at least some people will though.) I’m scared that an enormous crowd of people I don’t know will show up. (The hazards of an open-invite party.) I’m sad about scheduling conflicts. (Such is life in this area.) I’m hoping that my body cooperates and lets me have fun. I’m hoping that more than five people show up whom I actually want to talk to. I’m hoping they show up *before* I pass out. (Or that they come late climb in bed with me so I can sleepily talk to them while cuddling. That could be good too. Uhm–if you worry that I wouldn’t want you in bed with me, probably a better idea to err on the side of caution. Please only do this if you really *know* I would want you to.) Well, we are most of the way to ready but of course there is still stuff to do. Time to get moving.

Ironic timing there Rob

Virgos were told: “At Free Will Astrology, we love to turn things upside-down and inside-out every now and then. It keeps our mental hygiene sparkling clean, and yours, too. This week, in order to incite a purifying ruckus, we’re offering you a challenge from psychologist James Hillman. Please suck the following thoughts into the deepest recesses of your understanding, and enjoy the brainstorms they detonate: “By accepting the idea that you are the effect of a subtle buffeting between hereditary and societal forces, you reduce yourself to a result. The more your life is accounted for by what already occurred in your chromosomes, by what your parents did or didn’t do, and by your early years now long past, the more your biography is the story of a victim.” What I’m trying to tell you, Virgo, is that it’s a fine time to rebel against your genetic heritage, your upbringing, and your conditioning. Imagine a life for yourself in which you don’t believe that those factors control what you’re capable of.”

Funny that I am doing my best to do this just as I am told that I am failing. Awesome timing.

Also amusing timing on the Libra end of things: “It’s the Season of Returns and Recoveries, Libra. You will generate good fortune if you look for what you lost. Here are some suggestions on how to proceed: Recall important memories you’ve almost forgotten, retrieve any valuable things you rashly threw away, and bushwhack your way back to a promising path you strayed from. For best results, you should forgive yourself of any mistakes you think you made that led to the loss.”

I take from this combination that I don’t need to “get over” the things that I am being told to get over, rather that I don’t need to let those things limit who and what I am. I get to decide how I react to those factors, not those people who wish I would move on. I get to decide what I should move on from and how I do so.

silly

Sometimes I feel like Kirstie Ally in a scene from Look Who’s Talking. In the movie the kid kind of tugs on the umbilical cord and says, “Hey, how about a little milk down here?” Then she chugs half a gallon of milk straight out of the container.

Uhm, I’ve had three glasses of milk, equal to about 6 cups today. 🙂 So greatful I’m not lactose intolerant like the entire rest of my family.

I’m fucking brilliant.

I think I know why I crashed so hard on Tuesday and Wednesday not long after lunch.

“MSG can trigger headaches, nausea, vomiting, dizziness, or sleep disturbances. For this reason, you may want to avoid it during pregnancy. There’s no evidence that MSG is harmful to a developing fetus.”

I’m kind of a dumbass. Ok, no more instant noodles for me…

Very irritating

This morning’s not feeling so hot only deteriorated today. Damnit. At this point I have a nasty headache and my neck is locked up and my tummy hurts and it feels like I am running another low grade fever. Looks like ribbin {fuck lj formatting} didn’t manage to help me out with his good wishes.

And the internet is not doing enough tricks to entertain me. 🙁 I feel like my attempts at IMing today haven’t been responded to as much as my whining would like. Darn it.

Amusing synchronicity

Noah and I normally don’t really agree about what clothes look good on me. He is inherently biased towards the non-skinny chicks (I’m not really complaining) and that means that he appreciates how I look in clothes that I don’t think I look good in. I’m all biased by society’s standards that it is my job to be skinny or doomed to ugliness.

But! We have found a way we both appreciate how I look! I’m *thrilled* that I am looking more and more pregnant. I’ve been waiting for this for a very long time. Now when he says, “I think it looks great–but it makes you look very pregnant” I squee. Usually when he says I look great I doubt him. This is awesome.

Job irritation.

I hate parents. Ok, that is too broad. I hate the parents of my students. Ok, still too broad. I hate the parents who are sending me obnoxious emails. Ok, that’s fair. No, I will not go back and change your kids grade on the last progress report because he made up an assignment later. No, I cannot have a meeting with you Monday morning to discuss the fact that your son has had an F from the beginning of the semester. (WTF people, what do you think I do all day?!) Whining, bitching, and moaning is just nuts in my classes right now and I want to beat children over the head with sticks. Hates them all I does. Ok, not all. Some of them are just silly/obnoxious and I get to squirt them–that makes my day better.

I am going in to work today because of a parent conference and to help some kids catch up on work. I don’t really want to. I’ve been taking Fridays off and it is going to hurt that I worked five days this week. I have next Friday scheduled off and dear-lord I will need it. I can’t miss any other days next week because I have conferences scheduled with the kidlets during class all week and I am not physically up for making them up after school. 🙁 Only 14 more days until vacation. There are only 19 school days left in my contract.

The sophomores are trying to talk me into making the final just vocabulary–they keep claiming it is so I will have an easier time. Horse pucky I say. The lazy gits don’t want to have to actually study.

Come! Take our stuff!

Taken from the Noah…

This Sunday, December 9th, we’ll have a big pile of stuff, especially books, that we don’t want to move and are looking to get rid of. There’s likely to also be alcohol, novelty juggling bags, decorations and whatever else we look at and say, “I’m *not* moving that three times in the next year.”

We tend to be early risers, but don’t show up before about 8am. We’ll be here to give stuff away in the morning and afternoon ’til about 3pm. First come, first serve, take it by the armload or carload.

Possibly more details as we figure out what we’re getting rid of. Possibly not, and it’ll just be a grab-bag. Hope to see you then!

Edit: there will also be clothing (at least some uhm fun sorts of stuff because I don’t wear it enough to keep it anymore), one or possibly two TVs, and old computer monitor, one or more bookshelves, a couple of small table-type furnishings, and no doubt more.

{my shit} Interesting feelings observations.

In the interests of fair warning: if you offer unsolicited advice that I don’t want to hear I may simply delete the comment, I may take you off this filter, or I may unfriend you entirely. Sharing similar experiences doesn’t generally feel the same way to me but weigh carefully in your mind how you think I might feel about receiving the comment given that I am getting a really large amount of unsolicited feedback. It isn’t that I despise any all feedback/comments it is just that I don’t need any more messages telling me what to do right now.

I have noticed that lately I am experiencing far more shame reactions to things. I suspect that a lot of these are springing from indoctrinations about who/what I “should” be as a parent and as a person. Even the fact that lj comments are sometimes bothering me and I don’t know how to handle them is causing some serioius shame reactions. I think mainly because I have been getting angry about a lot of things, often even things that normally wouldn’t set me off. Given that I have a lower than average bar for becoming irritated this is pretty noticeable and significant. Almost every time I get angry I mentally (and often verbally depending on who is around) go through all of the things that my sadistic/mean-spirited mind would really like to say/do in response to whatever stimulus is currently getting to me. I rehearse it and visualize it several times until I feel almost like I *have* done whatever mean thing and then I feel guilty then ashamed that I am the kind of person who does that sort of thing… even though I didn’t actually do it. Even thinking harsh things is enough to set me into a spiral where I am convinced that I am an awful person who deserves every bad thing in the world. This is intensified significantly if I share those mean-spirited vents with someone I think of as close and they tell me they don’t approve or that they express that what I am thinking is awful. Then it just seems to be confirmation that I am indeed a disgusting awful person who deserves whatever thing set me off in the first place.

Example: recently someone IM’ed me to tell me, “OMG you are HUGE” after seeing me at Dickens and being unable to actually talk to me. What I actually said to this person was, “I’m going to do you a favor and explain to you that pregnant chicks don’t like hearing that any more than non-pregnant chicks. You should rethink that comment.” We went on to have a conversation about how he didn’t know I was pregnant and felt excited and wanted to kind of comment on the experience and we worked through a better way of expressing that. This conversation took a while as he was multi-tasking and slow at responding. My immediate mental response started going through various catty ways of responding to this and being that I am big on chatting with several people at once I IM’ed a couple of people and talked through possible responses to this that were far less constructive and my favorite was “So are you. I’m pregnant, what is your excuse?” (Note: person in question isn’t actually huge or particularly fat.) But I had a moment of sadistic glee wanting to be more defensive than I actually was. I shared this mean potential response with a friend who did not find it funny and said that I might cause mental damage to someone if I said this and then proceeded to long-windedly tell me all the ways that I “should” respond. Me being me, I first got pissy because I don’t like being told what I “should” do in a judgmental sort of way. Second I felt upset that this person thought I would actually say that. Third I felt like there was a judgment that I was a bad person for even *thinking* a response like that. This all cycled down really fast. This was a few days ago and I still feel shitty thinking about it.

That’s a really good example of the kind of situation that is leading to feelings of being disgusting/bad/awful/terrible/mean/etc. My reaction is out of proportion. I’m aware that my reaction is out of proportion yet I can’t seem to stop it. Interestingly my therapist thinks that saying something like that when I get those sorts of comments is just fine because I have no need to be polite to someone who was not polite to me. (I picked a great therapist for my personality type.) We also talked about how people are telling me I shouldn’t smack the hands of the belly-touchers and she offered to print up cards saying, “If you touch me my therapist says I get to hit you” and put her business card on the back so I can hand them out as explanation *after* hitting people who touch me. (Have I mentioned I love my therapist?) On one hand I feel like it is entirely justifiable that I want to smack the hands of people who reach out to touch me (and geezus-fucking-christ people it isn’t like I am slapping anyone in the face) because words are too fucking slow. On the other hand I feel the weight of society’s messages telling me that if I were “nice” I wouldn’t do those things and I feel wave after wave of crushing guilt that: Look! One More Example of why I am a horrible bitch and no one should like me.

When I’m really honest I know that at least part of the crushing guilt is coming from the low overall rate of support I’m getting from people I talk to. Most people who bother to comment to me at all about these topics are telling me that my instinctive defensive reactions are inappropriate and people are going to fairly great lengths to convince me that I am wrong. Even Noah is neutral/apathetic about these topics and so doesn’t qualify as much support. So I feel like I am fighting an uphill battle against all the people who think I am horrible and if so many people think I am horrible I must be. (Like Rebecca’s fucking horse analogy.) It doesn’t help that I am having more contact with my family (strangely neutral to positive) which makes me feel more vulnerable to all of the old “you are bad” tapes anyway. I wish that I could actually see my therapist every single week because most of the time it feels like she is the only real consistent serious cheerleader I have in my life but things keep happening that necessitate canceling appointments. I’m feeling very alone and unwilling to talk to people more because when I do talk to people they tend to tell me what I am doing wrong and what I should be doing instead. Thanks, I can sit at home basically silently by myself and feel like shit without any help from anyone else. The internet tells me often enough that I am a bad person–traveling for the privilege seems dumb.

{inner circle} Why stay?

Some of the conversations I am having around the DHP are showing me why I don’t really need to stay in CA. I’m not slamming anyone, it’s ok that people have other priorities in their lives. It’s just making me realize how few people I actually consider friends. It isn’t that I am the best person about making it to events–I’m really not. Usually my reason for not going to events is that I am too tired to make it out of my house. I’m not trying to claim this is a morally superior reason. In fact, the people who have told me they would love to come to the DHP only X, Y, and Z are going on the days before and there is no way they will have the energy–that I really get. But “I already have plans with X friend I see every week” is… something I notice. I don’t think it is bad. Everyone needs to pick priorities and making sure that you follow through on solid commitments to the people who are your good friends is a wonderful thing. But I know that I am not one of the good friends.

Once upon a time I had a very active social life. If an event invitation was sent out I took it as a given that I would be going to the event. I didn’t prioritize much beyond “who sent the invitation out first” because I wasn’t actually close with 98% of the people doing the inviting. My life changed. Now I try hard to make it some events because I genuinely love the people and I skip everything else. This means I rarely go out. I am losing contact and priority among the people who have only been acquintances anyway. And my world has shrunk more quickly than I would have thought possible. I’m actually really ok with that.

There are people I am going to miss a lot. The funny thing is, some of the events I prioritze going to now, I will fly in for in the next few years because they are high enough priority. I’m really not going to miss the rest. And now that I am not going out constantly and people know that trying to fuck me is a futile effort I’m really not someone to draw a crowd the way I used to. That’s ok. Learning who your friends are is important.