I have managed to construct a complex and multi-layered argument to something someone said. I found about 10 sources to back me up. I need to drop this.

I’m feeling freaked out and weird about money. Holy shit we go through money. I always thought that if I moved up the privilege ladder it would involve less freaking out about money. Nope. Now I stay up late at night freaked out because how in the hell do I share financial security with more people. It’s not ok that only a few people in the whole world have financial security.

There are developmental windows for learning socialization skills. Many of them occur in the first seven years of life. During that time it is important to practice interacting with as many different kinds of people as possible all day long. You know how people learn to be kind and thoughtful? They practice. They are gently reminded over and over and over again about their place in the world and reminded to think about what they have to give instead of what they want to take in interactions. It is tremendously hard work.

Early childhood education teachers should make six figure salaries.

So instead we neglect this stage of education and wonder why we are getting epidemics of mental health problems and physical problems and we wonder why suicide is a more and more common option for people. It’s the tenth leading cause of death.

People don’t know how to connect. Connection is what keeps people striving.

But if you were neglected during your own crucial periods of development, how can you provide that sort of training for someone else? Well, you can do obsessive tremendous amounts of research and work and learn how to behave and create behavior plans and fucking follow them religiously whether you god damn feel like it or not or you can outsource it.

I support schooling children. I really do.

There are many fine individuals working in education at all levels. There are men, women, and non-binary people who are drawn to a particular age or stage of development and they work magic with helping children learn the exact skills they need at that point in life.

Why in the world would I be against working with such people?

Ok, I recognize some evolution in my thinking here. I was once a lot more uhhh pushy about home schooling. Then I spent a few years home schooling and dealing with the extended home schooling community.

You’ve gotta do what is right for your family. That means right for the parents and right for the kids. No one is capable of teaching everything. Some things need to be outsourced. There is no shame in that. It’s human. Interconnectedness is necessary for a happy life. In my judgmental as fuck opinion.

Outsourcing is saying, “Hey I can’t do everything. You person over there. Let me acknowledge that you are just flat better than I am at Thing and I would love to help support your life by exchanging money for your help.”

Outsourcing is awesome on so many levels.

I outsource shit. I pay for some child care. I do trades for other child care. Do you know why child care is important to our family? A couple of reasons: they learn that I am not actually omnipotent (that’s a big god damn deal and something every child needs to learn about their parents), other people have patience for different kinds of activities than me so my kids get to experience different ways to live and pass time, my children are required to really learn how to follow the rules of different spaces–that’s a huge whole life lesson, and you know what? I need a damn break.

People need breaks. People need breaks of different intensity and different lengths of time. Some people are better parents if they have their children for 12 hours out of 24. Some people have that amount of support in them to give whether they have a job or not. Don’t judge. There are millions of reasons this can be true.

In my life I have been a pet owner, a teacher, and a parent. I have learned that these are all substantially different roles. A pet owner forms a bond that is about mutual dependency until death. A teacher drops into your life for a period of time, helps you over some bumps and then goes on their way. A parent pours their life energy into another living being and says, “Here is all I can give you to help you be independent of me. Go. Thrive. I hope you will call sometimes but I know you have a life to live of your own.”

These are all valid and worthy and important parts of life. Not everyone is called to fill every role. Not every person would succeed at every role. There are many roles in this life where I don’t even try because I believe in advance I would be a failure.

Do you know what I’ve never actually been? A financial provider. I have given people a lot of money. I have made gifts and loans of incredibly amounts of money. (To my, poverty-background self.)

Do you know what the universe did to me this week? It smiled on me. My Dad repaid the $10,000 loan I made to him several years early. He’s been working on installment payments for a while and now he is able to pay it off in full. I’m really grateful on a lot of levels. This is a magnificent time to have that money drop into my lap. It does a lot to shape my schema of trust in humans to see him pay this off early. It was a five year loan. I was terrified it would fuck with the relationship if he didn’t pay it off.

I can now breathe a huge sigh of relief.

That’s a release of tension and strain. Will he be honest with me? Will he follow through? Can I trust him?

That has lived in my mind for a while now.

I feel an enormous wash of gratitude that I can let that go.

Thank you, Dad. I appreciate your actions more than I can say. It helps me feel a whole lot more secure about turning around and loaning a bunch of that right back out to a different old friend. She needs a car really badly. Let’s get one. I’ll call her today. I could afford it anyway. I’m grateful to feel like I got the universe’s blessing at the same time.

Trust in people. Invest in people.

I differentiate heavily between gifts and loans. I have given tens of thousands of dollars over the years. Someday it will be tremendously more than that. I loan very selectively and only for specific good reasons. Often involving pride and support of separate identity. Gifts can hurt people.

It’s complicated.

I had a truly fantastic conversation yesterday. I got a new construction guy this week. He’s a whiz. He’s got almost as many years of experience as I have years of life. We talk about his daughter who is a year older than me and his grandkids who are are barely older than my kids. He was delighted when I told him I understand most of his Spanish and he is now trying really hard to get me to practice. But he’s friendly and upbeat and encouraging about it instead of taunting at all. It’s… really awesome.

We talked about spirituality and the problems Christianity causes in the world (among other organized religions). We talked about faithfulness and honor and how to pick your path in a changing world.

Pam, he spent a lot of time talking about how worried he is about climate change. People are listening.

We talked about the value of connection and relationships. We talked about technology and family and bonding.

I’m telling you. I had a fun work day yesterday.

That was really nice as I stood there with my hand cramping painting stupid flowers. Fucking fussy ass details suck nuts through a straw. I hate painting. Fuck painting. Painting is for idiots who don’t know how to manage their god damn time.

I’m totally going to paint more today.  FUCK EVERYTHING. I want the results. But working is for chumps. Sigh. I’m having a Baron Wulfenbach moment. Hello, I am Chump.

Do you know what I get to do next? PUT A TINY FUCKING DAB OF YET A THIRD GOD DAMN PINK ON THE FUCKING FLOWERS BEFORE COVERING THE MOTHERFUCKERS IN GLITTER.

Fuck.

FUCK FUCKING CHERRY BLOSSOMS.

At least I get to look at you fuckers for a very long time. So there.

I’m having very stupid feelings.

Today Noah is having dinner with his parents. The children are going. I’m on the fence. The reason I am inclined to go is so that I can do that reality distortion thing I do if they start talking about the kind of shit they like to talk about. I.E. shutting their racist, bigoted asses down.

I mean, I sorta trust EC to do it for herself. I suspect Noah will just change the topic. I don’t blame him. Get through dinner and get out and talk to the kids on the way home is an approach. It’s just not my approach.

But driving to San Francisco for dinner kinda sucks. And seeing his parents totally sucks. I could work. Or rest. Or do literally anything else and be happier. Watching the paint dry would be more fun.

I think I’ve decided. The kids are in camp today, the family is off to dinner without me tonight. That sounds like a 12 hour work day with a break in the middle to go to the dispensary. Numb the pain so you can continue working long past when it is healthy. Like a dumb ass. (I almost wrote like a grown up and then decided that was fucked up.)

I’m moving the needle on this project. Finally. I’ve been staging and prepping and accommodating other peoples share of the work for so many months that it feels really good to be moving the needle towards the end. Now I can see the end. Now I can list concrete tasks and say, “When this is done the project is done.”

Oh sweet cheese and crackers I need to be done.

It’s going to take till February. Mayyyyyyyybe mid month since now I have two guys who work independently and really hard. That’s a change from one guy who does lots of stuff and a guy who kinda assists and can follow out some tasks but spends a lot of time checking his phone. I will say that the new guy is… less of a perfectionist than the guy who has been here the longest. So I still want the one guy doing most of the tile work. He is fastidious as fuck. I like that in someone I’m paying to help me install a humongous piece of art.

Also: one of the new walls isn’t square. Not sure if the house wasn’t square to start with (totally possible) or not but the vanity couldn’t be installed properly without cutting a hole in the drywall. Just a small one to allow the corner to fit. Whoops. It will be covered with the tile back splash so it won’t be visible… but whoops.

Emailed pictures to the lawyer.

I would share some pictures but whoops I’m on the wrong computer. I’m on the computer that has a working battery.

Speaking of which, because my life is fantastically charmed, a MacBook Pro is on its way to me to help me reduce how much time I spend arguing with the tech in my life. Because some problems can be solved. Yes I have a lot of fucking data. Give me a terabyte of storage and leave me the fuck alone, a’ight?

At this point I spend 5ish hours a month arguing with my tech trying to make it work. That’s time I could be god damn resting instead of getting pissed off.

Done.

I lead a charmed life. I don’t have any right to be so god damn anxious. Yeah? Yeah? Watch me shiver like a fucking chihuahua.

I mostly have my living room back. Mostly. It’s coming along super well. I don’t really have the playroom back yet but I’m storing shit in there anyway because I’m about to lose my mind. The house is already feeling less like any sudden movement will cause hours of work. That helps. The garage isn’t better at all.

I can’t move most of the clutter out of the vestibule area until they finish painting the exterior of the house and the dudes can put my sheds back in place and I can move alllllllll this crap out of the garage back into sheds where it fucking belongs. We have a lot of tents, yo.

And I can’t get the main floor of the garage back until the tile is on the walls. It would be very hard to get the tile past all the shit in the vestibule area.

Like how I’m the kind of person who describes stuff as shit in the same sentence as the word vestibule? And fuck. I said fucking and crap, in a different but related sentence ,with vestibule too.

I’m classy like that.

It was the best of times! It was the worst of times!

And I’m not even talking about politics in this post.

Ok. Off to paint a wall. Motherfucker.

I was reading through this article (go read it) and it talks about how things are improving on a variety of axis throughout the world. We see so much negativity. Read this. Think about how far we have come as a species. Feel a moment of pride. We aren’t completely a shit show.

Then read this about history repeating itself.

Having human beings be my religion means that whereas Christians can say “Sometimes God works in mysterious ways” I can say “Sometimes we need to fuck up real bad before we can learn enough to stop doing a particular fuck up.”

It’s basically the same thing.

Tribalism has been the driving force behind so much violence and anger. “My culture says that if you look at me I should hit you for disrespecting me.” Oh. But you think that the hitting is “teaching” not violence. Just the looking was violent. Why? I don’t understand that dynamic. That is… bizarre to me.

Because my associations with violence are based on my personal experiences. In my experience, looking at someone can be provoking but it isn’t violence.

How do we come to peace on issues like this as larger cultures?

I read a lot about “violent speech” which I put in quotations marks not because I think it doesn’t exist but because that’s the search term I use a lot.I use it in combination with lots of other words to try and see when it comes up in relationship to other topics. I usually put those in quotes too. Not to denigrate them.

Man, scare quotes ruin everything.

I read a lot of points of view because I don’t know for sure what I think yet. I’m still taking in information and I don’t know. It’s big. It’s complicated. For some people violent speech is when someone screams streams of profanity, usually including specific insults. For some people violent speech is about threatening physical harm. For some violent speech is about a man having a strong opinion in front of a woman. I am not trying to be a minimizing asshole. I’ve read a rather lot of people that believe that men have no right to be forceful in front of women. To be fair, such women usually opine that I’m not allowed to speak forcefully to them though. It’s not straight up misandry. Also: these folks usually tell me this quite forcefully which leads me to believe that they can’t hear themselves or that they think that only their authority is allowed to be forceful and no one else.

Thing is, I didn’t sign on to an agreement where I had to abide by such behavior. I can totally see how it comes up for you based on your experiences though.

But what about consent for behavior between people? How do we negotiate it? That’s a problem. I’m an ask-not-guess person. I mean, I’m not always good at advocating for what I really want but mostly I’m good at asking for needs for other people and asserting how I want to behave. Even if I don’t advocate for all of my needs, I do assert how I will behave and what I will do.

It is fascinating to me that folks will hear me, disbelieve, tell me that my behavior is totally cool and acceptable and they are looking forward to it…. and then blow up because I did as I said I would.

Yo, truth in advertising, babe.

For reals. What do you expect from me? You expect that I will all of a sudden stop behaving how I said I would and instead start behaving submissively towards you and your culture?

Bwahahahahahaha

No.

I know I’m an asshole. I wouldn’t be alive if I weren’t. I know I can bully people. But I generally announce up front, “I have very strong feelings on this topic and I can be kind of a bully. If I start making you uncomfortable tell me and I will shut all the way up. I’m not good at being moderate on this topic.”

But there are an awful lot of bullies on this planet. Often the only way to get them to leave you alone is to show that you will bully right fucking back.

The first example that comes to my mind is on the road trip when someone wanted to spend time denigrating home schooling, tell me opting out of the public school system is just about evil, and women who stay in domestic violence are poisoned by their estrogen.

Guess what? I argued until I got folks to look at the floor in dead silence. Then I left.

All the nope in the whole wide world.

Yup, I can seriously be a bully. Yup.

I’m not only ok with that but sometimes it brings me great joy.

I never cowed.

I did not give an inch.

Did it matter? No. Not really. I don’t hate the people I was talking to and in other circumstances and other environments I can have conversations without an ounce of bullying. But pick up some of the topics that touch my life and I’m not going to let you win one god damn inch of conversational space.

Nope.

It’s part of the reality distortion bubble I live in.

I’m going to paint today. I’m going to try and work on spring and see how far I get with it. I would really love to finish the cherry tree today. Maybe add some sparkly butterflies to the room. I feel like maybe somewhere in the grass there should be a nest of animals. A mama and a daddy and a nest of babies. I haven’t picked what species yet.

I should ask my family.

I think the current construction company has decided that the best way to handle dudes shit talking me is to not send them to my house any more. So now this one dude toils alone. Progress has of course slowed down like whoa. He only got through 20%ish of the floor yesterday. He didn’t even finish summer, let alone do the autumn/winter room, shower floor, or spring.

So ok, the floor… will probably not be done till next week. That’s fine. Maybe I will have time to completely finish spring before the beautiful tiles are on the floor and I risk wrecking them. *phew*

I’m nervous about painting on top of the tiles. I’m going to have to in order to finish the willow tree, I’ll be careful. But it’s going to go sooooo sloooooow to be careful like that. Oh well. Oh, I should start with the ceiling in autumn/winter first today. He’ll get to that pretty quickly and the greenish stuff up there… can’t be the only color. I’m not going to cover it completely. I’m going to blend an icy blue, and a good cloudy white, and a nice grey together over it and let it shine through in places.

It’s going to be the start of a beautiful morning on the crux of autumn falling into winter.

Just wait and see. Invigorating and bracing.

With a heated floor. Ahhhhhh.

And it is electric so comes out of my solar panels instead of using gas. Hippie win.

I have room on my roof for 8 more panels to be just plugged in. All the wiring and bracing is in place. I feel like I should investigate battery options someday and see how I could possibly store more of what I make. Or I could just put way more back onto the grid to share with my neighbors like I do now.

We’ll see. I’m not doing that research this year or next year.

Oh goodness. Speaking of what I need to do this year… dunh dunh dunh… financial review. Ew. It’s going to take three days to get through all of the nuts and bolts of it. Fucktastic. Not today, Satan.

But… probably next Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday. Shit. (I need a break in the middle so I don’t overload my brain and get to the point of being ANGRY FULL TIME. I find money to be very stressful. This year was… expensive. I’m going to have big feelings. Plan for them.)

2017 is going be so much cheaper. It’s going to be a better year for me for just that reason.

Even with having a damn baby. (We hope.) That says too much about 2016.

Good grief. I started out thinking, “Maybe I don’t want to bother with cloth diapers this time. The drought. The time. The constant energy to deal with it. Maybe… I’ll use a different option.” Then I looked at how much it costs to use any other diaper option. Uhm, spend that much money on stuff that is peed or pooped on once then thrown away (or washed by a service or composted by a service or whatever other hippy-dippy option)….

I’m not sure I can do it.

Oh god.

You pay more money over the long run to evade labor. I can’t handle that trade. Not with diapers. In the scheme of my life this is stupid. My time… could be more productively used. By far. I know.

It’s an existential thing. I just can’t fucking spend that much money on diapers.

It freaks me out.

I just went and looked at a cost estimator for how much I will spend on the first year of having a baby. It didn’t include “pay for hospital” so uhm, that’s low. But it says around $6,000. It’s not including the diapers (many of which I resell, to become nearly cost neutral) or the hospital. So, closer to $15,000-$20,000depending on how the birth goes. Cheers. That little detail needs to be accounted for in next year’s budget.

Because it’s a hospital for me this time. It’s a little weird living in this little drama where all three of them periodically say spontaneously, “I’m glad you are going to a hospital this time. It’s important that you be here after this baby is born.”

It’s fucking weird. Because everyone in the house says it to me. Youngest Child said it yesterday as we were just doing random chores. It was… interesting.

It is going to be interesting to try and develop a relationship with a doctor. I am nervous but I feel up to the challenging. This is going to take a liberal application of all the charm I can come up with combined with a specifically and carefully chosen list of specific traumas that have happened and why they will complicate our relationship.

I come into this with a lot of wounding and difficulty trusting medical providers. Let me talk to you about why and tell you what I need from you in order to build a relationship of trust. Because you haven’t earned any yet.

Hi. I’m Difficult Patient. Nice to meet you.

But I’ll make it up to you by expressing extreme gratitude that you are getting to know me as a person.

I know I’m a pain in the ass. Thank you for putting up with me.

I’m thinking about folks from the past. Folks who were absolutely integral for my healing but whom I cannot know any more.

The layers of building a person are so complicated and layered. Do we take in parasitic ways? Do we give back enough?

Not many of my relationships are strongly mutually supportive. Most have a flow of energy. Some change over time, but in most there is more of a receptive or a giving feeling on my end.

I can’t say for sure how it feels to the others involved.

I acknowledge that I’m an energy-sucking vampire for lots of people in my life. Hopefully I’m only taking in a way that benefits you though. Like symbiosis. I’m good at encouraging people to talk about themselves. I ask good questions. I make connections and listen hard. But I get so much out of it that… yeah… I’m receptive here. I know it.

People have to pour energy into me in order for that to happen. It is like blood sucking. But hopefully more like a barnacle on a whale than a mosquito. Or maybe more like an orchid, which grows on a tree but doesn’t hurt the tree…

The circle of life is complex. Where we all fit on it… is hard to see. That in particular is what I’m good at giving back to people. Perspective. I see you in ways you can’t see yourself. You exist in this shining schema in my head. That’s kinda an awkward turn of phrase but I’m an awkward sort of woman.

Last night two of my wonderful people came over. It was great to talk to them about what it means to be alive right now in this time and in this place.

There are a lot of levels to think about. Which ones do we focus on, why, for how long, with what intensity?

Speaking of which, more fuckery on the arbitration front. Now there’s another two week delay. Because stuff. Oh the post I shall write when this story is over. Search Engine Optimization for the win.

Any minute now I should get off my ass and go work in the bathroom. Because dude is arriving in another hour and I should finish the part that will be near his head first and then I can work farther form him when he’s here. Be polite about the small space and all that. Preplan.

Time to press go. Motherfucker. My body hurts. I’d like to just… kinda lie around and rest. I’m still tired. But there are miles to go before I sleep. And art work to create before I rest.

When I hit the end of this run, I plan to be very very lazy for a long time. I’m even going to suck it up and pay someone to clean my house. Because I need a break.

I will not stop until my house is back to being a yes environment. That’s the end goal. I can’t keep doing the art in drips and drabs. It has to be done and put away. It creates too many ‘no’ zones. I can’t handle that for the next few years. I can’t handle the mental strain of coping with it.

I need a yes house.

I’m working on it about as fast as I can. There are pieces that are out of my damn control.

Today will be a work day. Today I will produce a lot of permanent change with my hands. I’m going to take that kind of seriously. The kids will work on academics sitting on the floor near me so we can talk as they work. Then the glorious baby sitter will come over and play with them for hours while I work. I will probably barely break till bed time. Then I will sleep. Then I will wake up and paint all day.

Christmas is going to be interesting. I am going to participate… and I’m going to paint. But it will be all Minecraft all the time for the afternoon. Eldest Child wants some group Minecraft play (I have to sit with them and give opinions and directions for a while) and then the playroom will get painted.

I will have a playroom by Monday. This is my happy face. The furniture will be out of the living room by Monday. Oh I am so happy. You cannot possibly understand.

My shoulders are dropping. The end is in sight. Soon I will be done working on painting the house for a few years.

It’s not that I’m done painting the house. Goodness no. But I need to take a few years off. I need to save money for the next round of fixing stuff. Which will include insulating the remainder of the house and updating the flooring.

Not in this round of work. Can’t. I’m losing my mind.

I hate remodeling. But it is inevitable if you own a house. Sob.

I hate it and I love the results. Kinda like how I feel about painting. Painting sucks. I hate painting. But I have these things I see in my head and I need them to be real and painting is one way to do that.

It is a way to share what I see of the world.

Sometimes I feel like typing is my true native language. Painting is becoming a secondary one. Then there are those pesky words out loud.

That’s so much harder.

Go. The sun is up. There is work to do. Move.