Ok. The minute I get to Scotland where I will no longer feel as bad about baby girl screaming I am night weaning. I. Cannot. Do. This. 10, 11, 12, 1, 3:30, 4:30 and 5:30 wake ups to nurse are not. fucking. ok. Hell, I turned her down the last two times. If my down stairs neighbor objects I don’t fucking care. I barely get back to sleep and she is waking me up screaming in my face or kicking me in my face.

I am so fucking enraged.

Why don’t you act niiiiiiiiiicer to everyone. BECAUSE FUCK YOU. THAT’S FUCKING WHY.

I am up to over 3 years of my life lost to this bullshit. My pain levels are back up to a 6/7. I hurt. I am exhausted.

But be more giving!

Be kinder!

Be more gentle!

No. I have nothing to give. Today I am going to sit still until I go do everyone’s fucking laundry then I will sit still again; I ain’t taking care of any other shit. The big kids can get away from me.

I can’t deal. I can’t be patient. I feel like dog shit.

And I think I am getting sick based on the volume of crap coming out of my nose.

I have already started working on packing. The airline we are flying to leave here has much tighter restrictions than the one we used coming here. We can’t check as many bags. We can’t have as many carry ons. So I am already working hard to pack and figure out what to get rid of. Luckily all three of my children have grown so maybe their bags will get lighter and I can shove a bunch of stuff into their bags. It just occurred to me that the pants that EC has outgrown might fit MC and I should have him try after I do the laundry. That would be hecka smart. He’s outgrown so much in the past few months. He looks much thinner than he did when we arrived in Japan. He was deliciously pudgy in Hawaii and now he’s stretched again.

Growing like consciously planted invasives.

We each get one checked bag and one carry on. The “personal item” can’t be bigger than a purse. Fuck. We arrived here with 6 checked bags and 8 carry ons. I will probably pay to check one extra bag. I don’t want to but I might need to. Noah will be carrying more crap to Minneapolis and then Scotland than is strictly necessary for him to have and I don’t care. He is carrying the maximum weight limit for his bags, not what he needs. I get to carry the absolute maximum when I travel by myself with three kids. Nothing is fair. Nothing is easy. He will cope just bloody fine.

I will be moving very very slowly and using a lot of trollies.

I get to have three 50.5 lb bags that we check, four 22 lb bags that I *think* all need to be carried on, and the stroller. I suspect we will all be wearing extra layers of clothing that we don’t really need to wear and we will take them off and put them in a grocery bag on the damn plane. Ha. Tell me I can’t have an extra carry on, will you? I’ll get around that nonsense.

I am already packing all the grown up clothes we won’t wear in the next week. I will just do laundry slightly more often, that’s not a problem. I just about flipped out in Hawaii trying to pack because getting it all done in the last few days when we wanted to be “having fun” sucked. I can’t do that again.

I’m hoping ECs knee heals fully so we can explore in the last few days we are here. That means everything else needs to be ready to go.

The biggest suitcase currently weighs 36 lbs with the high chair inside it and most of the big stuff I would want to get packed in there. That’s promising. I will find more clothes to shove in the nooks and crannies. The kids are getting rid of clothes/books that already total like 8 lbs so far; more will have to be culled. Several of the baby toys are ready to go but they need to be washed first. I have used up many bottles of bathroom stuff so the volume is greatly reduced. I am ditching all of the medications that will expire in the next three months because I will need to replace it soon anyway. I am considering combining the very different looking kinds of vitamins into one bottle so I have less to carry.

I will get us there.

Frankly, this will be easier anyway. I have been trying to reduce weight and volume. This is an excellent spur to truly get that shit done.

I may decide that it is better to ship gifts to the US from Japan instead of sending them in Noah’s bag for him to ship from Minneapolis. That may be important. This is why I am starting to pack nine days in advance this time.

Now it is eight days in advance. I am going to do laundry today and I am going to put all of our extra cooking stuff in bags. We aren’t using all of it here. We will be more likely to use it in Scotland. I think the kitchen alone in Inverness is bigger than our entire apartment here. Then there is a living room bigger than the second apartment here. Then there are multiple bedrooms.

Space sounds so nice right now.

And the house in Portland! It will feel FUCKING PALATIAL! (It’s a fairly small house. It’s about comparison.) The first thing I will need to buy there is a baby gate so that baby girl does not fall down the stairs into the basement. According to truly the house is 892 sq ft. So it is almost as big as the house in Fremont minus the third bedroom and expanded bathroom. Awesome. It’s really funny that we started this journey partially because the house wasn’t going to be big enough for the long run. (None of these temporary lodgings are for the long run. But my kids all want to have their own bedrooms by the time they hit high school. Ok.)

The refrigerator in Bangkok will be three times the size of this one. There are many more kitchen cabinets. The counter space still isn’t extravagant, but at least they have a rice cooker (up on a shelf so it doesn’t dominate the counter), a convection oven, and at least twice the prep space as we have here. I will make it work. We have a separate living room there. The kid room is much smaller and they will just have to deal. We will be in Bangkok for three months. The entire booking will only cost $3,138.

Portland for 2.5 months is $6,731. Inverness for two months is $5,850. Fukuoka for three weeks: $2,820. Thank goodness for Bangkok bringing the average down. And Japan is by far the smallest, most difficult to live in space. I suspect folks will be more friendly to us every where else too.

Not that everyone in Japan has been unfriendly–that’s not true at all. But this is not a multiple cultures promoting place. I miss seeing a sea of different kinds of faces. Kuala Lumpur was incredible for that. But their government is persecuting LGBTQ+ folk. Can’t go back.

I want to go to South or Central America. Asia has turned out to be way better than I imagined; pero yo quiero hablar español.

Pienso en español. No todo, claro, pero mucho.

Noah really is heading towards New Zealand in his heart. Turns out he has cousins there (through the queer/trans branch!!) and getting work visas would be a cinch. He has already been approached by a tech company that would be happy to sponsor him while he keeps his current job for US dollars so he can start the immigration process. Their goal would be for him to ultimately found some sort of company there.

He’s thinking a code school. I can’t think of a better thing for him to do with his personal goal of helping to “build the railroad”. He wants to help people learn. He wants to help people get into the ability to work with computers. Opening a code school in semi-rural New Zealand sounds pretty fucking rad towards that goal.

But maybe it would work in South America too? Let’s go find out.

If we move to New Zealand I want to learn Maori. There is an interesting cross cultural psychology program at one of the universities that requires knowing Maori. Hmmmm.

But first… I need to fucking sleep. *glare at baby who is once again nursing*

fuck my life.