The only clothing that isn’t in the garage are the adult day-to-day hanging clothes, and the jackets in the hall closet. Everything else is in here now. Really… just about everything is in here now. We’ve really gotten rid of a lot of stuff. I am enjoying burning candles right now because when I use up the ones that are lit it is time to get rid of a bunch of candle holders and two more shelving units.

I think the only stuff left in the kitchen are the two drawers of stuff (silverware and the odd cooking supplies random assortment), the fridge, the microwave, and the tea. Because tea is accessed waaaaaay too often for me to move it to the garage already.

Middle Child has moved his bed into the garage. I like this mattress more than the one in my bedroom so Her Sweetness and I have been sleeping out here too. Once everyone is out here we can run the little space heater to keep the chill off (it’s electric) and not use the gas heater much (super expensive) which will be a nice bonus.

I have updated AA with our frequent flier stuff. Which is good because I’m sick of thinking about it.

I have not yet done my PT exercises and I need to.

I haven’t even the tiniest tiny bit yelled today. I pulled back instead.

Middle Child is no longer scheduled to do 3 pages/4 days a week. He gets to do 4 pages/5 days a week. That will have him finish his book on time. I will be checking daily so he literally isn’t capable of falling behind again because he isn’t catching up and he isn’t showing signs that he can handle it. I have to adjust my expectations.

At this same age EC was doing like 1 hour of homework a day and she had not yet ever looked at a real textbook. Two years later she can easily do 8-15 pages a day and rarely make an error. I don’t think my approach is wrong. I think I’m not giving him quite enough grace. But it’s complicated. I don’t know.

He is making progress. He’s at grade level. If he transferred into a public school next week he would be fine. That was absolutely not true for his sister at the same age. She was dramatically behind. I should have more faith in him. I believed she would catch up and she’s doing so rapidly. She’s most of the way through the 4th grade textbook now. She just started her third notebook because she’s done so much math already.

They are both writing about what they learned in Malaysia. I wish they didn’t want me to dictate their topics, but I think it’s normal.

They are both doing more religion writing. MC is still doing a lot closer to copywriting. He was forced to start reading and writing before he wanted to with the charter school. I wonder how much his reliance on copywriting is part of not getting to it with his own voice and timing. I’ll never know.

The religion study is feeling so relevant these days.

Guess how many cubes of books we still have in the house? (We started off with over a hundred?) 9. 3 will be packed up and put into storage (language learning and religion) but the other 6 are things we are going to hurry up and read then pass along.

Time’s running out….

I should stay off the computer in the next few months and read some dang books.

I have three boxes ready to mail to Jenny. I’m glad I didn’t send them earlier because I found more stuff.

I need to wrap up a few more pictures and take a handful of boxes to storage, but it’s maybe a trunk load.

This garage is looking remarkably like a studio apartment. Because we don’t want to deal with staging a house we are going to mostly leave it bare. We will leave the coffee table and use that for meals until we go.

That’s going to be a really fun Christmas.

For Christmas planning this year we are looking into all sorts of fun food gifts. And I think we will donate a bit more than usual.

I am not moving the boxes already by myself because my back is sore and if I hurt myself while Noah is gone it’ll be really rough on the kids. It’s fascinating how much I base my decisions on other peoples need for me.

We need to exercise more. But today has been wonderfully restful and maybe that’s a good thing too. I have made two meals. Washed two loads of laundry (about to go start a third). Watered the yards.

Oh, that’s another thing that’s eating at me: I haven’t been working in the yard because the air quality is so bad I really shouldn’t bring the baby with me and I can’t leave the baby inside with the big kids because they don’t feel comfortable being responsible quite yet. They think another 6 months or so.

I’ve been thinking about sex a lot more. That’s fascinating. I haven’t thought about it that much in years and it’s just… kind of there in my brain. I even reached out to the neighbor to ask about babysitting so maybe we can use these canes before they go away.

I want. I want something. I want…. I don’t even forking know.

I want Noah to come home. What was I thinking? (I booked him extra days in LA because good golly he needs a break.)

I am really enjoying my kids. I get irritated too…. but I still feel like I am living my best life right now. I’m tired. I’m in pain. So? Such is life. I get to hang out with people who explode with joy when they see me. My life is awesome.

I’m still getting a lot out of the private chat forum I’ve been hanging out in. My social anxiety is ramped up because of course I am feeling like all I am is an angry monster. I’m not. But I feel like that is the accusation that has been made. I don’t think that is something that anyone else said. I feel like that is the accusation.

Feelings.

Where is the middle path?

I need to get started on that Buddhist book for Pam’s reading group.

Oh! I sat down when I had some actual good moments of quiet and I did a bunch of catching up on Jenny’s vlog! I think I now understand why people tell me they binge catch up on my blog. I have, of course, been eager to know everything about Jenny for 25 years and counting so it was absolutely delightful and wonderful to get to listen to extended periods of her talking about herself. I don’t understand a lot of the knitting stuff, but I love that she will explain it to me. And I am a huge dork who was giggling and excited/amused about her going back and forth from centimeters to inches. I live that world.

Watching the vlog was neat because it made me wonder if other people get those waves of pleasure and delight as they read what I write. My friend wants to share her thoughts with me (and the rest of the world). It feels like such a gift and an honor. It’s like the epic emails Pam writes. They feel… like a mirror into a happier place.

I keep reminding myself that we probably have less than three months in this house. The rest of November, December, and as much of January as necessary to get an offer and get out. I really need to get started on the yards…..

Noah will come home. I’ll get it done. It will be truly smashing when I’m done.

Leaving is going to be hard. But I was up late last night crying about my mother. It’s time to leave. It’s time to not worry about running into my family any more.

I don’t think my nephew’s wife kept the baby. I have been a horrible stalking person and all the recent pictures of her show no signs of a pregnancy. The gossip I was told would indicate that she should be second or third trimester at this point and it’s pretty forking rare for someone’s body to stay that static so late in a pregnancy.

I feel really sad that both my niece and nephew have almost become parents recently and have been unable to actually do so. That has got to hurt them tremendously. Poverty is probably the main reason.

Life is not fair.

I have no idea what I’m going to do for dinner tonight. I should probably figure that out.

I am feeling bad for Middle Child. He can get through how many pages he is supposed to get through. Catch up… is brutal. He just doesn’t want to and his brain shuts down. He may be back to screen time by puberty.

Oh, after we got back from Mexico he stopped doing math. After watching his sister be in trouble for weeks. I just…

I need to be watching them more closely. This is my fault. I am getting overwhelmed and not babysitting their work enough. That’s totally my fault.

But! I’ve been watching closely for the past couple of weeks! I’m checking in constantly at this point. No more slipping. He missed like two weeks. But if he really refuses to do a single extra page in a day…. being only two weeks behind is a lot. So me missing two weeks when we got back I feel a little bad about but not that bad. I mean, if I really have to sit on your neck like a poisonous toad we have problems.

I am feeling pretty dang confident in “You can use the screen for mandatory school activities and no fun until you catch up.” It’s motivating because they want to play video games and they can’t right now. Not motivating enough for them to catch up…. but hey. They are working hard and doing a lot, I don’t want to make it sound like they are doing nothing. But not quite enough.

I am having a hard time with physical therapy needing to be an hour drive away twice a week. But, if I can make my body feel better it is worthwhile. Let’s just hope. Ugh. Don’t wanna drive.

I just got all the billing for the last year of chiropractic care for me, Noah, and EC. Over $600. I think it is professional to send these bills out a bit more often. Sheesh. (Noah, don’t you dare feel like you should stop. Your bill was $30.)

Beautiful asked if I was up for seeing people and I totally am. I’m lazy as fuck and I’m not sure how much I want to drag my kids all over the bay…. but I’d love to see people. We can’t get together at a park because we can’t breathe… so uhhh….. All bad.

So if you have any interest in coming over for dinner or something… you have till January. Then we are gone.

Time is running out.

Phew. That was a lot of work. I haven’t figured out how to deal with the clothes on hangers yet. I am eyeing the rail for the garage door and maybe some pieces of the palm tree bookcase for baby clothes. There’s a handful of food items in the house that need to come out. I kind of looked around and noticed tonight that I can probably move the books from the green bookcases to the black bookcases and get rid of two more pieces of furniture. That makes a slightly better place to put the coffee table, which will be where we work and eat once the kitchen gets ripped out.

Another day, more progress.

This week will be a gnarly work schedule. The kids and I will keep our noses to the grindstone: academics, sifting through stuff, getting every book shelf out of here we can before the remodel starts so we have as much floor space as possible. We are going to be basically living in a studio apartment for a few months. Eep. Not really. Once the painting and flooring is replaced I’ll be putting the kid mattresses back into their rooms so that I can have some forking space.

I am slowing down the rate of putting things on the table. I am not going to create a huge spread. A few things at a time over the next two months will be fast enough.

I need to update frequent flier miles. I need to go through paperwork again. I need to update Mint.

Tired. Go to sleep, Krissy.

Noah is driving away for a conference this afternoon. I’m sad that we get him for like 8 more hours then he disappears for another week. This is why we are going to follow his ass. Being without him sucks. I know that people do this living independently thing… but it’s no fun.

Today the bedrooms are all being stripped down to nothing but mattresses.

Tomorrow I meet with my contractor. Weeeee.

I went to the dispensary for the first time in a long time. The selection sucked. Oh well. I have marijuana. The industry is resettling after the new rules came in. Bummer.

Took a bath with Noah this morning while all three children slept. That felt lovely.

Ok. Gotta move furniture and make tea and eat breakfast and ALL THE THINGS

There are a bunch of things muffling my fingers. I want to express my feelings but I also don’t want to bag on people. I want to talk about what I see changing about myself but I don’t know how to do so without sounding like I’m blaming other people and that’s not the point. It really isn’t.

We all make choices about what we accept in life. We make those choices for a myriad of reasons. Things like accepting that I have to have daily sex even when it was shredding my vagina. I make stupid choices sometimes about what I accept. I make my decisions based on what I perceive to be important for other people and I don’t really look at the cost to myself. I am not saying that I pick people who hurt me. I am saying I pick situations where I tell someone that it’s ok to expect a certain kind of behavior from me that is quite a strain and quite difficult and I allow them (or encourage) to think of it as a base standard expectation they should have of me.

Then when I break down from strain and difficulty I can be angry with myself for failing. Cheers.

I lean on my friends too much. I want them to be my family and uhhhhh yeah. That doesn’t work out. I know people who claim that chosen family works out. The people I know who are most devoted to the concept are pretty much not leaning on the same people they were leaning on 20 years ago. Things and people shift. But I notice how most of those people keep going back to the same families. Because it is different.

With every day that passes that I have a real family I feel the difference.

It’s ok for me to stop leaving open huge gaps in my schedule and my heart for friends. It would be healthier for me to do so. I need to stop looking to other people to make me feel ok. They are busy. They have other concerns. That’s appropriate and right. And when they promise me that they will show up for me and they drop it at the last minute because they got busy I feel destroyed. I can’t stay on this cycle.

What is this going to mean going forward?

I don’t know. I haven’t seen anyone since I got back. I have plans with T and maybe L (must confirm) and dinner with some former students.

My circle continues to get smaller and I feel pretty happy about it. I’m not chasing people. I know there are a bunch of people who are waiting for me to reach out and say I’m ready. I’m not ready. I don’t have anything to give and my friendships require me to give a lot. I set up my relationships like that. They all need a lot from me in terms of energy or time or work… I’m tired. I have nothing to give. I guess I don’t need to call up my friends.

This weekend will be spent shifting things to the garage and the table on the drive way. It’s becoming very real to the kids that they get a rolling back and a backpack and… that’s it. What toys do we want to bring? What toys are worth packing for storage? It’s a process of discovery.

We are having some changing feelings about Legos, apparently. Now the big kids are maintaining that we need a bag of toys for Her Sweetness and all the Duplos definitely need to come with us. I think they just say that because they want the dang Duplos. Ha.

I am starting to suspect I lost the ring sling because I can’t find it. There are a couple of other things I’ve been looking for and I can’t locate. Damnit. I’m going to do this over and over again. UGH!

I need to ship the box to Jenny. Erf.

I have a long list of things to do. But… I have a deadline. I’m selling the house. What gets done gets done. What doesn’t get done…. won’t be my problem much longer.

Realtor says forget updating the kitchen. It’s not worth $40k+. Paint the whole house, replace the flooring, replace the doors (this is a serious need and I agree), update the baseboards, fix the yards. Sell the house.

Ok. That’s the plan. I have a meeting with the contractor on Monday and my goal is to be able to say, “I’m ready. When are you ready to start?” Which means all of our shit has to be in the garage or in the storage unit or given away by Monday. Painting/molding/doors will only take a week or three. I hope. We’ll see. Sigh. But we have a very good chance of being done with remodeling stuff before Christmas, which would be nice.

I am, of course, collecting stuff for Christmas. I am feeling happy about needing to restrict my shopping to stuff for travel or immediate consumption (food). This is feeling very good right now. But everyone has a luggage bag of their color with stuff in it waiting. Because folks will still get stockings.

It’s weird that I don’t know how many weeks past Christmas we will still be here.

Noah comes home today and leaves again tomorrow or Monday, I forget which. We get him back for a while on the 16th. Back to back trips lasting over a week total are hard. We miss him a lot. I manage to keep the kids eating healthy food (so many vegetables) but life just feels less fun without him. Not that I expect him to hurry home and be entertaining. I expect that right now he’s going to be sad and slow. But I can snuggle him when he is home and I cannot when he is traveling.

I’m really glad that in general he wants us to go with him because it makes travel better. I know a lot of people who are grateful to get away from their families. Noah doesn’t feel like that. I’m so grateful I found this partner.

I have hit the lottery and I bloody well know it.

Middle Child slept in my room while Noah was gone. Solo rooms are not as exciting as they seemed on first blush. Seeing as Eldest Child had to get to 10 before it was truly a draw… that makes sense to me.

The kids think that my mood has improved since we got back from Malaysia… but I’m still being really insistent about school stuff. Yeah, that’s going to stay true for a few years. Complicated. I’m glad to hear that I am overall doing less screaming and fussing. EC says I am still yelling, but it’s not of elevated volume or fierce and it’s more of the “I’m tired of repeating this direction” variety. So the pot is definitely helping. I’m not angry about other situations in the same way and that’s helping. But I am going to sit on my hobby horse and repeat “Math. Math. Math” for a few years.

I’m having some fun because they are caught up on math enough that I’m assigning more writing work and that’s really fun to read. Grading math sucks. Grading writing is fun. I love seeing how they are progressing and changing in their thinking. EC is frustrated with how my standards are increasing. “This is not written as a fact it is written as a personal story. Let’s try again.” EC is working on writing on a few levels: she has the writing she’s doing about religion, her fan faction, she’s working on a report about Malaysia, and we do a bunch of supporting work on grammar and spelling. This is a fairly new work load for her. She’s had pieces of this at times before but having all of that worked on in a month is new. She’s both feeling overwhelmed (more work) and feeling really happy about having a variety of tasks on her plate instead of just one or two things that feel big. Task switching is improving her mood. I’m struggling with it.

Middle Child is still working on reading fluency and writing skill enough to turn in the same kinds of reports. He still leans heavily on copy writing for his stuff instead of producing his own… that’s what we are going to work on this year. But we are also going to work on the neatness of his writing because I literally can’t grade it without him reading it to me right now. That’s not sustainable.

Both kids have just in the past two weeks hit sections of math that are much harder. It’s interesting seeing how they cope with this. MC still doesn’t want to ask for help. EC is banging the drum of “Give me help so I don’t waste time.” She is tired of having to redo things. Ha.

I feel like they are both doing pretty well this year. It’s kind of loosey goosey but we’ve always been. I feel like we aren’t doing enough science lately but we have times when we mostly do science for weeks. Enh.

I get everything I have to get done…. done eventually. But I am struggling with timing and feeling efficient. Bah.

I’m researching what Slow Travel families believe to be essential travel stuff. So far no one really  packs a kitchen kit. Uhhhh I think we will. We cook a lot and the shoddy cookware we had in KL really cramped our style and made meal preparation unpleasant. I think this means that for our family…. some combination of pans and pots will be essential. I’m looking around at options that are both lightweight and not too bulky in size. This is not as simple as it seems. Backpacking stuff isn’t big enough–we don’t want to have to cook 4 volleys of each meal.

So far stuff in this collection is looking the most interesting to me. I don’t know that we need the whole set. I may try to get a couple of individual pieces.

We will need at least one sizeable frying pan. At least one stock pot because we make a lot of soup. Do we need another pot or pan? We probably should bring a modest cookie sheet? A knife? The squashy silicone food storage packs that I use for forking everything? One or two wooden spoons?

The full set of those pots and pans are about 7.5 lbs. We get 50 lbs in a checked bag. Maybe cookware needs to be under 10 lbs total?

Our bathroom supplies are currently pretty heavy. That’s a lot of weight.

The physical therapist I’ve seen has indicated that a TRX unit will be a really strong component of what she recommends going forward so it will stay in the bag. (It’s a strappy exercise thingamabob.)

We are hoping to go to the park today but air quality is bad. I will feel guilty if we don’t go because the kids busted their asses to get caught up on academics. They are both less than a day behind at this point.

That’s awesome. They are less than a day behind on math (after months of fussing that’s AMAZING) and they are back on track doing religion writing, fan fic writing (it counts!), and they are each working on a report about Malaysia. We restart yard work and all the botany/biology that goes along with it on Monday.

We’ve been doing pretty dang well at maintaining walking distance. We won’t be fussed about 7 mile days next time we head out. We are training to 6-7 miles/day at this point. I made the kids walk to Tae Kwon Do last night. That went pretty well all things considering. The kids really blossomed with having a pit stop at the local coffee shop for a cup of (non-sugared) tea. They felt energized and ready to come back and do a ton of homework.

Mood wise I feel like things are settling down a lot. A lot less fussing and fighting and bickering. Not nothing…. but not a lot.

We all miss Noah. It’s hard that he has to be so far away right when he was hit with a massive load of grief and he could use extra comforting.

We are doing ok and that feels good. I have spent a lot of the past few months feeling worthless and wracked with doubt. When I constantly set aside a big chunk of my spoons for someone who then disregards my effort, time, and energy… that hurts me.

Maybe it is time for me to consistently make choices around not hurting myself anymore. Maybe 37 is old enough.

I have hurt myself to cope with how I am treated in the past year. That’s maybe a sign I need to change what I tolerate.

Which isn’t to say that anyone is terrible or bad or wrong. I just… I need to deal with my shit.

Being in the bay feels like too much already. So many chores to catch up on. So much work to do. So many friends we really should be reaching out to.

And I’m tired. This baby still isn’t sleeping independently much.

I’m feeling more calm–I think? It’s hard to tell? I’m doing a lot of work but I’m not being a jerk.

We are getting home to put our noses to the grindstone and seriously make academic progress. Not to mention that it is time to get the yards together for selling. There is still stuff to get rid of in the house… but not much. That part isn’t the hard part.

We found out that some of the folks we loved a lot from the home school group have splintered off. We are going to try out park day this week on Friday if we get our math done. Tomorrow will be crucial. I’m looking forward to it.

Noah is moving slowly and not sleeping. He’s clearly sick but he’s also really upset about his brother. I don’t know how to help him but I’m trying to take work off of his shoulders.

We are doing one of our periodic sugar fasts. Not that we truly cut out all sugar because we eat fruit and dairy. But we don’t have added sugar for a bit. It’s like my tolerance breaks for pot. They are useful in the long run even though they suck as they are happening.

Noah is in Austin. I have no idea how he is going to be doing. I’m worried about him. He’s sad. Noah isn’t sad much.

I feel like I really should be reaching out to a bunch of people. But I’m tired. And Noah is gone for 4 days this week and like 5 days next week. 11 days out of the next 23 I have to leave Fremont. That’s feeling like a lot. So many medical appointments for me and all the various kids. Ugh. But, it’s life.

My shrink asked me how I was doing with losing a major piece of support. I told them shockingly well. I’m waiting for the grief to hit.

I hate how much my sleep cycle is interrupted by bodily functions. Rude.

I have not finished packing school stuff for the kids. It’s two weeks so we need noticeable school stuff. We will pack that together this morning.

I am grateful we are not taking a car seat. Dealing with that in the airport is a royal pain. (No rental car on the far side. I read that you are absolutely suicidal if you try to drive there. There is instead a handy train that goes from the airport right to city center.)

Also, Philippine Airlines allows up to two checked bags per person for free! *faint* Less shit to fight with on the plane sounds great right now. When I was younger and single I flew with only carry on. Now that I am an old person managing three kids… checking bags is so awesome. We are going to check four this time. That way all we will carry on are electronics, diapers, and on-the-plane entertainment. That will be easier on us.

My lovely neighbor is dropping us off and picking us up from bart for this trip because the last leg between our house and public transit is rough on the kids when we get back. She’s happy to take us both ways though. That’s easier on me.

Eldest Child is one week behind on math. I think she’s going to do four hours of academics, then come explore with me, then come back and do more math until she hits her count every day. Missing a luxurious Mexican vacation at Club Med is different from missing the chance to see a major city in a country we will probably never come back to.

I am totally going back to Mexico someday. And I will not go to a resort. I will go to real cities and see real things. Club Med was a lot like Disneyland. I don’t feel she missed anything important by not playing in the kids club all day.

She would miss out if she didn’t get to see Kuala Lumpur.

Who cares if she misses out on Disneyland. No school work, no Disneyland. But Kuala Lumpur….

I think she will be caught up by the time we get home. *cross fingers*

The schedule I hope we will be able to settle into: breakfast-chores-academics-lunch. Go explore. Come back for a rest. Go out enough to figure out how to arrange for dinner (might be a grocery store trip, might be to a restaurant). Then more academics for EC and playing games for the rest of us after dinner.

If we do our work promptly then we should be able to explore the city for 3-5 hours every day. That’s a fair bit of walking.

And Noah was helpful and kind and put the case on my phone so hopefully I will have pictures of Malaysia now that I don’t have to be paranoid about breaking my phone again.

In a few more minutes I am going to go to the store and get breakfast stuff. We really have nothing in the house (as we should!) and breakfast is soon.

Stop typing, Krissy. Just…. stop.

I’ve deleted over a thousand words. Talk about yourself, motherfucker. You are the only person you can influence.

I want to stop feeling anxious. I want to be a good mother. I want to have sex. I want to feel untethered. I want my fucking contractor to get back to me with the estimate he said I would have 14 days ago. I want to find the middle path. I want to stop yelling so much. I want to sleep more. I want to exercise every day instead of most days. I want to stop feeling like I am a terrible person all the god damn time. I want to feel like I am doing the right thing with my life.

I don’t.

I am terribly insecure about this home schooling shit. My children aren’t really having the boiler plate “standard American” childhood because I am literally incapable of providing it. I want to be able to help my children be ok.

I want to know what ok means.

I want to see all of my people.

I want to hide in my house and not see anyone for a few months.

I want to do ALL THE THINGS for Christmas. I want to not do anything at all.

I want to feel like what I do is good enough. I don’t.

I want to stop feeling like the best thing I could do for the planet is die.

I want to understand why my baby had to scream before sleeping tonight.

I want to have something I can do for myself that feels like a positive thing that isn’t eating sugar.

I want to write about appearance stuff. And trauma. And I want to read more. I’m so tired. My brain hurts.

I want to feel like a person with brain capacity. I want to be done with work for this lifetime. I want a new career. I want a graduate degree. I want to be taken seriously.

I won’t ever be taken seriously. What a joke.

I want to understand what the future needs from me.

I want.

Today I need to just… back off. I can’t hound Eldest Child about math any more. She will catch up when she catches up. Is she going to Disneyland? No. Will she get to explore Malaysia? Errrrrr, maybe a little. Will she be caught up by Christmas? Yes.

This is hard because when I have to go do fun things without her because she hasn’t done her bit… I feel… pain. It’s physical pain. I don’t want to be away from her. I feel like I am doing something wrong and bad and terrible and I never deserve love again because I am enjoying not being with her.

I’ve got some serious enmeshment shit going on.

This is part of why I say it is healthier for me to not have one child. Holy shit the enmeshment would be a real problem.

Having three kids means I need to go have fun with the other two. It needs to be part of life that we are not a pod 100% of the time regardless of the work that needs to be done. We all have work to do. We all have shit that if we don’t finish… we don’t get to go have fun. That’s life.

But it’s hard. It feels like a big nasty punishment when it’s really just a natural consequence.

Allowing my children to experience natural consequences feels like I failed as a parent to encourage/guide/help them be where they need to be. It feels like all my fault. But it isn’t.

If I treat her like she is doing something wrong when she fails to propel me to happiness… oh that’s all kinds of fucked up from top to bottom. I can’t do that. It would be wrong.

I can’t hurt my baby just because I’m sad I don’t get to have fun with her. Hi, fucked up dynamic much? But I am sad. This is hard. I will get over it, but that’s life. Life doesn’t give you what you want. Life is about coping with what you get anyway. I mean, I’m bitching about having to spend a day in Disneyland without my kid.

Shut up already, you fucking hag.

Sigh.

But I don’t like doing anything without her. It sucks. Everything is better when she is there.

Ok. Not everything. But most things!

My body can’t tell what time zone I’m in. The photo shoot is done. Given that I slept two hours in the 24 hours before it happened I think it went really well. We had fun and giggled a lot. We do want to remember this phase of our family.

And now… I’m done with serious packing. I won’t be cleaning much more because they are going to come make a mess soon.

Eldest Child is about a week behind on math. This is exciting! She really has busted her butt to catch up. She’s doing great. I know I’ve sounded critical of her progress… I’m feeling like a turkey butt. I should have been more encouraging all along.

I am exhausted and weary and I feel numb. Today I get a massage and fold one load of laundry and pack for Disneyland on Monday. Then this weekend…. I do not work. Fuck work. As a family we are going to sit around. Ok, Eldest Child will do math. sigh but it’s coming along! I plan to sit next to her a lot. She has such a hard time focusing. Well… that’s not true. She can do really well but she’s seriously burned out right now. I do not blame her. After this I am glad that she is going to go back to about 3 hours a week of math. That’s going to feel like a vacation. Other subject will reappear! It’s going to be awesome! And I sincerely hope we don’t have an issue like this again. I won’t fall behind on checking.

The house is pretty much ready for us to go to Malaysia. That’s exciting. I think we have ~2 hours of last minute work (moving the mattresses and clothes to the garage) and the house is cleared for the remodel. Eeek.

When we get back from Malaysia… that’s when I’ll face the yard. That’s going to be a lot.

I wonder what the pace of our life will feel like without home ownership.

Yesterday we saw Noah’s uncle and grandmother for a visit. I… I felt a little stunned by the sheer quantity of bile that was spewed at speed. Hatred of fat people. Hatred of some ethnic groups while promoting rude stereotypes that are meant to be “positive” about other groups. Comments about trying to cause the death of family members because they deserve it.

Just… ugly.

After the bullshit with Noah’s mom and the uncle and the grandmother… we had a conversation with the kids about what they were hearing and being influenced by. We asked them if they are surprised that I’m not blowing up at people left and right. They said they had in fact been expecting me to react to the nastiness they heard and they were surprised…

We are here because of an impending death. I’m not going to start blowing up about social justice shit. But I am going to explain to my children in great detail, “You see why I don’t allow these people to have an impact on your developing mind. My family is worse. Do you now understand why we are alone as a nuclear family every holiday?”

They get it.

EC in particular talked about how sometimes she feels mad at us because we are alone at every holiday… but… being alone is better than A) pretending those things are ok to say or B) exploding at people over and over.

Option C) don’t visit bigots is the winner!

I don’t think I’ll come back for the next death visit Noah feels compelled to do. Depending on how soon it is… the kids might or might not come. Cause holy shit these people are nasty and vile and fuck you no you don’t get to tell my kids what to think or believe. No. No. No. No. No. No.

My kids deserve better than this bullshit. This hatred of people having bodies. This nasty venom about people being lazy and horrible just because of how they look.

The jokes about, “I give my brother in law a knife every year hoping he’ll use it on my sister and he hasn’t gotten the message yet.”

I was shocked into mute horrified silence. These aren’t my people. This is one of those situations where it “isn’t my place to be the problem”. So my kids don’t need to be here being “polite” and shutting up to listen to this disgusting language.

I am torn between wishing Noah would tell them off and understanding why he doesn’t. They wouldn’t change. This is why he just doesn’t come back much.

I am feeling a lot of appreciation for Noah in general. He came from this. They intended for him to turn out like them. And instead he works very hard to not be derogatory towards people. He does not joke about murdering people for fun. He doesn’t sprinkle racist stereotypes through his conversation. He doesn’t talk about people being less than him because he has been more successful in a certain way.

Noah was intended to be a complete piece of shit. Like his relatives. Instead he works hard on being a nice person who helps people. He gives as much as he can.

I suppose if I am looking for the silver lining, this trip is functioning a little bit like talking to Jenny does for me. Oh how far you have come. It is incredible what Noah has done with his brain and his personality and his verbal impulses. That’s a man who has worked to not be a fucker. It would have been so easy and automatic. So… instinctive. But he doesn’t want to be. He wants to be something different. He wants to be better than that. He wants to appreciate people and value them and build them up.

I am consistently impressed that when Noah is out in the world talking to random people and they mention that they are trying to learn programming stuff he never hesitates to give out his email address. “I’ve been working on x for y years. If you run into a problem and you feel stuck and frustrated, send me an email. I’d be happy to help.” He’s tutored a lot of people. He knows he was given an easy window into his profession and he tries to pay that forward.

There are reasons I wanted to marry him. He wants to pay forward the access to privilege. Holy tomato am I all over that.

It was interesting watching the venomous toads squat over their position in life with him sitting on the opposite side of the table representing a whole different set of choices and way of handling choices. It felt like watching the death cries of a dying way of life. Sorry low key white supremacists. The high key white supremacists (who you don’t agree with, partially because you know they are going to ruin your way of life) are out in the streets marching so you are not looking good in comparison. You used to be the moderates. Now you are sitting on the wrong side of the line of “good country people”.

The future is queer. The future is not white. The future is quite possibly going to be fat.

And that’s ok.

You can accept this future gracefully, with eagerness… or you can look like the evil poisonous toads you are.

Your choice.

I know that I will go swim in a different pond to avoid you.

But this is going to be constant. This is going to be everywhere. The flavor and manifestation will vary… but people suck. All over the world people suck. That’s not going to stop. How are we going to be like a willow and bend but not break?

That’s the lesson.

Well… the house isn’t going to look how I wanted it to look when I scheduled two weeks to get ready. Sad face. But pushing anyone else or myself harder is not going to get it done and we have to be ready to leave the house for the airport in a little less than four hours.

What will be, will be. Sigh.

I am really really really struggling with how upset I am about going to Texas. I don’t want to go to Texas. I hate Texas. I thought I got to break up with Texas. If the baby were no longer nursing… I would not be going.

Fuck cancer. I don’t want to go to Texas.

I’m not going for any of the funerals to come over the next few years. But Noah and the kids want to say goodbye to a nice guy. The baby still needs me. So I’m going to fucking Texas.

I am struggling with how explosively angry I feel about going. I don’t want to go to Texas. I struggle with how much I place the happiness of my family members over my own.

I have a lot of shit to do. I could be here in my own space doing. Instead I get to spend a lot of time and energy on Texas. Which has not been a source of good in my life. So I get to go drain myself dry for a place and people that are just a source of pain for me. Fuck Texas. I hate Texas.

I am really sad for the poor guy who is sick. That’s really not fair.

I’m being a self pitying asshole. I’m trying not to take it out on the people around me. This is hard.

Fuck.

I got a bunch of boxes packed yesterday. I am one tiny thing away from three boxes being ready to ship to Jenny. I think I have 1-3 last boxes in the house of stuff we are using till we move. Today Noah will bring 9-10 boxes to the storage unit.

Today I get to clean the house because the day after we return from Texas… we are having a photo shoot. Wheeeeee. I’m actually really excited about that. The photographer is one we have worked with before and she got fantastic pictures of us and my art. I also need to figure out what we are all wearing because hoo boy I’m not doing that at the last second.

So I’m cleaning the house and setting out clothes today. Oh yeah, Middle Child has his long awaited evaluation at Stanford (like Eldest Child had two years ago). We are going over a bit early to have a date together and talk for a while. Then he has martial arts. Then we are heading north to drop off stuff with a friend in Berkeley and to drop stuff off in San Francisco before going to see Mona Haydar! She’s a really really really cool up and coming musician. I am ridiculously excited that I get to meet her before she is too famous to talk to assholes like me. The kids and I love her music. (If you don’t know it, Hijabi, Dog, and Barbarian are the three songs she has released so far and I’m excited about what is coming next. Here are links: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOX9O_kVPeo, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idMJIEFH_ns, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfDQ5REWCu0)

Wonderful Muslim rapper/singer. She’s got a lot to say.

Oh, I also need to pack for Texas. The three kids are packed for their clothes. I haven’t packed mine or Noah’s yet.

It’ll all be fiiiiiiiine. I will get a lot of work done today. I will wake up in the morning tomorrow and finish setting up the house. Then tomorrow morning we go to the airport. Oh shucks. I sure hope my damn global entry card shows up today. We have 4 of them. Not mine. That’s getting irritating. According to the website I was approved… I just haven’t gotten the card yet. Damnit.

Ok. Need to snuggle baby more.

(ETA: last day here before the photo shoot and the house needs to be ready to remodel. Not last day in the house or last day in the country.)

Yesterday I hit the wall. I had 40mg of marijuana in the afternoon and my body went, “Hahahaha. You are done working.” Oh.

I could push through. But I would scream. I would be nasty. I would be actively hurting myself. My back and my arms and my neck are doing quite poorly at this point. I only have a few more boxes to pack before I get a break from packing. A few more boxes and… everything is just waiting to be put on a table in the yard. That’s a wee bit terrifying.

We’ve already gotten rid of a lot and we will get rid of the rest.

I am afraid that Eldest Child is not going to be going into Disneyland park this year. I don’t think she will catch up on math. She’s getting real bored of doing so much math. So she’s doing how much in a day she needs to do for maintenance. She uhhhh is less interested in catching up.

That’s fine. You can hang out with whoever is in the hotel room resting. We have a bunch of adults going (5-6 at a time!). We will trade off.

I feel like an ogre. Only I really don’t. This is the natural consequence of your actions. This isn’t a punishment. She still gets to have fun things…. but not much. Dude, you need to catch up. Apparently 4th grade was the Year of History and 5th grade is the Year of Math. I plopped her 5th grade textbook next to her current book and said, “You are finishing both of these this year.”

She’s a bit freaked out. But it would be so manageable! If you didn’t fall behind.

We talked about how after 5th grade…. uhhhh…. then we are getting into pre-algebra, geometry, algebra…. you don’t want to be catching up at that point. Or you will literally never catch up and you will spend the rest of your scholastic career feeling frustrated that people talk down to you because of your math level. This year matters.

It is absolutely irrational the way that we depend on math scores to determine someone’s “smartness” in school… but EC wants to go to high school. She can’t be behind on math. Is it fair? There is no fucking fair in this life.

I mean, she is catching up. Verrrrrrry slowly. At the rate she is catching up she will be fully caught up by the time we come back from Christmas break if she doesn’t take a break.

We aren’t going to do expensive Advent activities if she is still behind on math. Because we will sit around all month doing math. Just…. no.

So this math experience is something she will remember. And let me tell you, Middle Child is keeping up. He doesn’t want to get behind at all. Wise choice.

She was not ready to seriously do math before she was 8. And last year she didn’t want to seriously catch up. Ok. But…. now you have to pay the piper.

I can’t make everything easy for you. If I could I would destroy you. You have to have struggle in this life, kiddo. You have to earn things. That’s life.

I’m doing better with yelling. I pick my authorities carefully and I do my best to comply with orders/directions. Stop yelling. Medicate.

I am less worried about Malaysia because Noah says I did great without medication… until we got to the heavy work part of the cycle. Yeah, I can’t work like this and be nice without medication. It hurts.

And plans with another friend were cancelled because of illness. We can’t risk exposure before going to see a sick person. Which is feeling so bad right now. I miss my friends. And that’s going to accelerate when we move.

Complicated.

I’m trying to not be angry with myself for my limitations. That’s really hard. I feel savagely angry at myself because I am failing and there is so much I want to get done.

I’m feeling a lot of pressure to get the house and yard into a condition where someone will pay me huge bundles of cash. We are not in a bad money position, but I am not being as careful like I would prefer. I do not have the ratio of savings to debt that I want to have. In October or November Noah will get a stock grant from work and then I think I will be able to pay off the small credit card balance, have a bunch in savings, and pay for the remodeling stuff for the house.

And in January all of our debt will go away; I hope.  We’ll see how long it takes to sell the house. Everything near my house is listed for less than $10,000 below a million.  The Trulia current picture for my house is recent and fun. I haven’t even put it up for sale yet with deliberate pictures.

We will definitely not have debt soon.

I keep thinking about IDB stuff. (Incest DataBase) I keep thinking that security is going to be the biggest and most important hurdle. Because the DB will need to be a series of walled gardens. The various sub groups of people will need to have ways to segregate themselves at will.

We need to find a way to get some kinds of metadata out of responses without violating privacy. And we need to find ways to give permission for different levels of disclosure. Like: there will probably need to be a chat room sort of space that is not archived or monitored and it vanishes every 24 hours. So that people feel safe being in there. There need to be layers of “It’s ok to share this data with people in x group” while preserving that security away from other groups.

I need to always be ok with being excluded from a lot of conversations as a white person. I want to help figure out how to make this space. That doesn’t mean I will have full rights to everything there.

How do I help build a system that will partially exist to keep out assholes like me? This is going to be really important.

It cannot exist as a large, multi-ethnic research project unless each group gets to control their own data.

We can’t just automate such roles though. I’m going to have to recruit point people. I am going to have to spend most of my time associated with this program looking for people to promote above me.

It’s interesting learning, through thinking about this, that probably the best character trait I am going to bring to this process is believing that basically every one else is more important than me. That’s not something to eradicate from my base programming package.

That’s useful. Complicated. And useful.

I’m going to find my cohort. I am going to offer up the best of myself and I am going to do everything in my considerable (fuck modesty) power to help us find the best pieces of ourselves. Because we are so different. We have so much to offer the world. Being in the cohort changed us and I want to understand what that means.

I want to help amplify. I do not want to talk over. That’s going to be interesting.

Do you know what is magical about my life? I happen to know some folks who know a fuck ton about security.

I don’t have to know how to do every piece of this work. I have to help make the connections and then get out of the way.

I can do that. I’m good at that.

I uhhh insisted on help packing this weekend. My family did great. Noah and I took a load to the storage unit. I think we have one more small van load of stuff going into storage and then… we have suitcases and stuff we are giving away. !!!!!!!

Except for the refrigerator (which is going to be a nuisance) like 80% of the kitchen stuff is in the garage where it will stay as the kitchen is ripped apart and remodeled. I can’t sell it in the current condition and get top dollar.

I used 40-60mg of pot per day to keep me from screaming. Very effective. Not enough to make me feel good… but enough that I can clamp my jaw on the screaming. I have to take what I can get.

Eldest Child is now only 62 pages behind on math. But more is being assigned this week. And going to Texas is going to be disruptive and hard. I am becoming afraid she is going to miss out on going into Disneyland. She can stay in the hotel room and work with Noah. Bummer.

Don’t. Lie. To. Me.

I’ve spent the entire weekend working with a tens unit on. My body hurts so badly.

Noah tried to be nice to me and tell me that I could finish the packing *hand wave* later. I almost snarled at him. I already have work booked for all that later time. Work that is going to make me tired and cranky and stressed. (I have to get the fucking yards together.) Saying I can do today’s work while I do tomorrow’s work will not make tomorrow better for me.

I am very certain that the only reason I successfully finish as many of my projects as I do is because I do not kick the can down the road to be a problem for later. If I want something done, do it ASAP. Even if that makes today hurt very badly. Future Me will appreciate the gift even if Current Me thinks I’m a bitch.

And every dollar I spend on paying someone else to do a shitty job of not really following my directions is money I can’t spend on medical care.

Only so much money in the pot.

When I pay people for help 80%+ of the time I end up having to do most of the work myself but then I’m short on money and time. It sucks.

I didn’t blog about Mexico. I should have. I feel like a complete fucking asshole for going to Club Med. But it was nice.

And good golly I need to write about appearance stuff again. This trip was…. a revelation.

I have arrived at being able to pass as upper middle class! Like, I can do it! Guess what?! It didn’t end the verbal abuse based on my looks! It just got passed around the room to other people.

That was super awesome to learn in a completely shitty way.

I cannot do anything to get people to stop verbally abusing me for existing and having a face and appearing female. I exist and people will be nasty to me. That’s just going to stay true.

Well that’s freeing.

I am so tired. Every day but Wednesday involves driving out of town for appointments. Then we go to the airport on Friday to travel. This is why I didn’t wait on the packing until this week. If I were trying to get that done while in and out of the house for appointments…..

Well. Uhm. I made it through the weekend without screaming. I would not be able to do that work *and* drive *and* not scream. I have limits.

This stage is drawing to a close. This frantic work cycle is followed by fewer house/yard chores for years.

All I will have on my plate is parenting, home schooling, travel, and feeding us.

That sounds like a dreamy small load compared to what I am used to.

Before I found out that the kids had been lying about math I made an agreement with Noah that his load needs to be lightened. His job requires an intense amount of creativity and learning. That’s hard to do when exhausted and working non-stop. His job will allow us to live in ridiculous comfort forever if he can keep it for just a couple of years.

Then I found out the kids lied and I didn’t get a vacation of rest time.

Then we found out that Noah’s brother is dying and we have to go to Texas. So all of the work I had planned to do over multiple weeks… I now have eight days in which to do it.

I am on a medication break. That sucks and always makes my life harder.

I have a nursing baby. That’s incredibly hard on my body and I don’t sleep much.

So yeah. I’m yelling too much. I have been working so much it is a problem. I am sleeping with a tens unit on.

I also haven’t seen my massage therapist in like a month. No acupuncture either.

We are spending so much money. That means I pull back on medical spending. There’s only so much in the pot. I’m holding my breath till the next stock release because that’ll pay for the remodeling stuff on the house, pay off the (small) balance I’ve been carrying on the credit card for two months because I’m trying to have more liquidity given all the travel, and… pay off the mortgage entirely so they can stop lying and stealing money from us. I hate Bank of America. They are stealing money from me because they claim I don’t have home owners insurance. I do. My broker fights with them all year long. But BofA says I don’t and they take money to put in escrow. It’s robbery and I’m pissed.