Category Archives: to do

Like Ursula I am wasting away

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I have lost a solid 10 lbs since I left California. I am eating cake when I want it, candy bars, daily massive quantities of tea with 3 teaspoons of sugar in every cup. I am not on a diet. But even with days that I barely move from exhaustion I am up to averaging 4.5 miles/day. As my tolerance builds that average will go up and I will have fewer collapsed from exhaustion days. I am working on meeting the neighbors. I have now met a few houses down the road (no one up the hill yet) and I have chatted with several of the folks who walk past our house for exercise or to commute.

I got to the school super early yesterday and talked to several parents/grandparents. “Hi I’m Krissy and I’m new here.” It’s like old times. Only now I follow up with, “What should a new person know about this community?” I am getting some fascinating answers I won’t write down because if people find my blog and see themselves quoted it could go sideways. But the answers are great.

The general consensus is that yes I should get a dog if I want to do a lot of exercise on my own because no it would not go well if I defended myself like I would in California. But a dog is allowed to attack someone on my behalf. Social mores, yo. I am happy that I was reading that right. I am a bit freaked out that it is true. I will be getting a dog. But first: cats. I want the dog to come into a house with cats so that the dog adjusts to this being the norm. Which means we should get cats soon. Our house is going to be pretty insane for a while as all of the humans and felines and canines adjust to one another. I am going to need to spend a fair bit of time at home helping everyone learn appropriate behavior. Everyone involved will need to understand that I am the alpha. Mama sure wears the pants in this family. I wear them under my skirts.  (Noah gets to wear pants too. Trousers as well!)

Noah is working on meeting people for his purposes as well. He is less focused on neighbors and more focused on computer nerds far flung around the country. The kids are having a great time meeting kids at school. One of ECs new buddies suggested that if we (ECs parents) are willing to pay for the airline tickets that EC could go to Spain with them for school holidays. I declined that gracious offer. But I think the kids are sliding into place at school just fine. My kids are really unhappy that there will be two weeks off of school after this Friday. They want to be in school. It’s hilarious and wonderful.

I am diligently working on getting the recycling out of the house now that I know where I can walk it to. I would like the back log of recycling to dwindle before the boat stuff arrives because then I am going to be swimming in a sea of cardboard. I will be advertising that lot on freecycle because they are all lovely standard sizes and super sturdy.

I think we will use the school holidays to start seeing about getting cats. And to practice bike riding. And to rest and read books. Excellent. For once I am not sad at all about the Christmas creep. Given that we want to go slowly with our budget we bought four pieces of garland and two strings of lights yesterday. We have a huge house and no decorations. It will be fun to have stuff trickle in. Time to eat.

Well this sucks; ok not everything sucks

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We were just about over jet lag. Then illness strikes. Her Sweetness has a fever and she is super cranky; I assume she is in pain too. Eldest Child is having intestinal problems. I have full body pain (as someone with chronic pain this is enough pain to make me want to sit very still in a chair and cry–I am medicating for pain with tylenol and ibuprofen alternated), a low grade fever, and I am producing a river of snot with the associated coughing, sneezing, and sore throat. If you have followed me for long you know it has to get BAD before I medicate with these drugs because I am so afraid of my tolerance level going up.

I don’t think we will see much of Bangkok and I am very disappointed.

The food has tasted great. The garbage is omnipresent and overwhelming. The traffic patterns are reminding me of Kuala Lumpur only they are very different? It’s closer to KL than Japanese traffic patterns. The gridlock is massive. I can understand why the advice around driving here is don’t.

We are right next to RCA (Royal City Avenue) which is the designated clubbing/entertainment/tourist area. It’s a short walk down a relatively safe stretch of sidewalk. Relatively safe because the motorcycle taxi service has a stand in front of our building so they have to go back and forth on that stretch of sidewalk. If you pay attention and get out of their way it’s ok. And all the motorcycle drivers love Her Sweetness. They want to cuddle and hang out with her.

Her Sweetness is my most reserved child. I used to think Middle Child was incredibly reserved because I compared them to Eldest Child. Holy sauce buckets was I underestimating the amount of reserve a child of my blood can display. When people try to touch HS she cries. She wants her people and that’s it.

I am going to have to stagger downstairs and do laundry today because I am about out of hankies. Dude. I travel with more than a dozen hankies. Hankies are life. (We also have a full laundry basket. But the hankies will be the motivation.)

I was a serious bitch yesterday and I feel kind of embarrassed. I am sick and the kids were pushing me for attention and to do work for them. I blew up about how unfair it is that when they are sick I let them lie still and do nothing until they feel like doing things and I am not allowed any rest. I sort of feel like I “should” have found a nicer way to express this. But I tried a variety of “I’m not feeling well” and “I can’t do that” before I started getting harsh. There is this complicated balancing act where I try to be as nice as I can be to them until they just refuse to recognize that I have boundaries too and then I’m really not so nice. Because fuck that. I get to have rest when I am fucking sick and you can go in your room and play and stop bothering me. No I don’t have to pay attention to you today. You can bloody well cope with me taking care of myself today.

It’s weird. I feel guilty and proud of myself? I need to set these boundaries. I set them as softly as I could. I escalated ,when they completely refused to allow me boundaries, to being more forceful in my language. I did use the word fuck a lot. “I am fucking sick and I need to fucking rest. You don’t fucking need me to play with you. You can fucking play by yourself.” That was after a couple of hours of using soft language and having MC continue to head butt me and be rude and demanding and aggressive about wanting to play.

MC has asked me to use the word fuck less and I’ve been doing pretty well so this flood of fuck-fuck-fuck-fuck was definitely a sign of degrading ability to communicate. But I feel like my head is in a vice and if you don’t leave me alone and stop talking to me I am going to literally melt down and start screaming which would really suck in this tiny apartment. I have limits. I don’t talk to you like this even once a year. But I am sick and I need to be left alone to take care of me.

My kids genuinely think I am a river of love and support and work and they can’t understand when I can’t do that. It’s a weird dynamic. I feel both good and bad about it. I am not sure I am presenting them with a healthy, balanced view of what parents should be like. My mother under-responded and neglected me. So I half kill myself doing the martyr schtick so they never know a minute of boredom or want. I am hurting myself so they never have to be bored. That’s not healthy either.

I really can’t wait to have my own bedroom and for them to go to school. We need to start separating. I feel like a mother bird who is exerting more and more pressure to get the baby birds to get the fork out of the nest. I need some space, kiddos. I love you. I need some space for me too. I matter too. I am not the most important person in our family but I am not the least important person either. We need balance. If we sacrifice my health on the altar of “Happy Family” then this family is going to fall apart soon. I have to be healthy enough to carry my side of things.

I suspect this is related to just how hard I pushed my body over the past few months culminating in the last week. I have done a lot of work. We leave Bangkok on the 9th and we arrive on the 10th because it is another 30 hour travel day with getting to and from airports. Today is the 5th. So close yet so far.

The former owner of the house and Jenny’s Super Spiffy Husband (JSSH) both sent us long explanations of how to set up utilities and services. We are so incredibly lucky that we are following Jenny. She has helped in ways big and small that blow my mind. I feel like we are sliding into Scotland on greased rails. This could have been a nightmare. Instead it is a series of steps. Yes, we feel tension and stress as we go through the steps because lots of things are out of our control… but things are actually going as fast as they possibly could. We made the decision to move to Scotland, got absolutely everything done, and now we are returning in less than three months. That is miraculous in terms of government bureaucracy. Greased. Forkin. Rails.

And once we arrive… we have no deadlines to hurry up and get anything done. There are no foreseeable sprints in my future. We don’t need to hurry up and get anything done. We need to get things done as quickly as we get them done. I mean, utilities getting set up might be the most “Uhhh do that now” step. But furniture and cookware and all that stuff can trickle in. We will probably go shopping on the 11th to get some things, but not a lot. Realistically we will go to the store every day for a while and we will get what we get. Sometime in the first week we will probably hire a van and clean out the charity shop of anything we can use and do a massive grocery shop but it’s not a big rush. If it happens on our second day or our fourth day or the seventh day… whatever. We are right between three stores that are all dandy for supplying us with food we can eat without stress. I’m just not worried. It’s a lovely feeling. I will slowly acquire the things we need to keep house. Drips and drabs. It will be easier to do most of this shopping after the shipment of our belongings arrive so I have the big double stroller.

I got a double bike trailer that can be used as a stroller so that I can pull the baby AND groceries. This is my compromise on not having a car. I am already aware of how awesome Tesco’s delivery service is (THANK YOU JSSH!) but I really like going to the store. And I want to experiment between Tesco and Aldi and Asda. I will get a little notebook for comparing prices. We are going to be trying to be that tight with our budget.

I’m not sure if I told y’all this. Noah’s current obscene California salary is going to last till January. Then he’s going to work on books, teaching, and maybe a wee bit of contracting on the side. We have enough money in petty cash for 2-3 years of run time if we are very conservative and we hope we can figure out him working for himself. This is part of why we decided Taipei is not wise at the moment. If we are trying to live on £40,000/year all of a sudden spending $6000 on a trip to Taipei seems… uhhh not in the budget.

I have lived on much less. While snowballing our debt we lived on a similar amount of money at the beginning of our marriage. We will see!

On the money front: I was watching a session of Scottish Parliament yesterday and there was a lot of hand wringing over how they can’t get enough people to work with mental health care for children. The waiting lists are long and they are incredibly stressed out about it. Do you know what I have a unique background on? Helping kids with mental health problems. Sure, I’ll have to hit up the local university for some specific training and degree hoop jumping but that doesn’t scare me. Maybe when Her Sweetness starts nursery in a year and a half we will have four people in school in the house. That would be kind of cool.

I would like to have a job. I would like to have a job specifically because I dream of a conservatory added to the house and if I don’t figure out how to earn the money for it myself Noah will feel like he needs to get a remote job from California for ridiculous money and then he will work 60 hours a week and I will be very sad.

I don’t need to earn the money in the first couple of years. In my head I wouldn’t be ready to start that kind of project for at least 3-5 years. That gives me time to go to school and get started in the field. I will be 100% hiring out the work and the former owner gave me the name of the person who could probably build it for me because he did all the other remodeling in the house.

This is not abandoning the idea of IDB (Incest Database) but it is helping to keep me busy until then and helps me gain qualifications that will help with the research and it helps pay for retirement stuff so Noah doesn’t have to supply 100% of our retirement safety on his own. I still think I couldn’t really get going on IDB for almost 20 years. Not the way I want to. 20 years is a long time and I could do a lot of valuable work between now and then.

I want to be part of the community. This would be a really great way for me to meet people and find a place for myself.

I don’t have a plan yet. I am not rushing. I am waiting to see how things shake out. I am coming up with ideas, potentials, hopes, and dreams.

And nothing is in a big rush. No sprints. Settle in slowly. Exercise. Establish house. Help the kids adjust to school. Wait for HS to be old enough for nursery. Enjoy the next year and a half of extra alone time with my precious last baby. I feel lucky and blessed.

I won’t be doing much today. Noah has a speakers dinner tonight. We have instant noodles in the apartment that will probably be most of our food while he is doing his conference. I should go down to the 7-11 (holy shit these things are ubiquitous internationally) and get some yogurt and juice and maybe other snacky foods. Maybe I’ll do that run while I’m dealing with laundry.

I feel so bad. I did more yesterday than I probably should have. Today I can’t. As I plan to go to the laundromat and do grocery shopping. I am such a twit.

These things have to get done. It’s not optional. Being the mom is not always fun. But it is always worth it. I did not have children because I wanted convenience. I am so very loved. It’s worth it.

Even if sometimes I have to say fuck fuck fuck fuck to be allowed to rest.

I think it is kind of useful that EC is reading these Warriors books because the mama cats take no shit and that is causing her to change how she views me. It’s hilarious.

I have been dizzy on and off for days. My body is so unhappy. Her Sweetness is waking up every two hours to nurse and I don’t feel like it is fair to complain given how sick she is.

Miss Jenny picked up our keys. The solicitor has been paid off. We have a home to go back to. A home that pretty closely matches drawings I’ve been making about my dream home for years. I am so lucky.

We are going to be highlanders! We start this next phase of our lives on the day I turn 38. Seems like a good time for a rebirth.

Not dreaming, chores, screens and friends

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Apparently the way my brain decided to handle “I am sick of fucking nightmares” is “I am not going to let you get into REM sleep because I am going to wake up every half hour.” It was a rough night for me.

Yesterday was mixed. It was mostly good with some frustration in the middle around fucking screen time. I hate computers. (Yes, I recognize the irony that I am typing on one and typing is basically my inside voice.) Yesterday Middle Child and I got up early and got on a bus to go downtown to rent a car. On the bus we worked on homework and snuggled and it was fun. It was frustrating on the way back because Google Fi has decided that I get phone service everywhere…. and data when I am on a wifi network and that’s it. Noah’s phone has data all over the island. Urgh. So I had to call Noah and have him talk me through getting on the freeway. Luckily he is a patient man.

Middle Child and I stopped on the way home and had a snack. Eating together on dates is like a thing.

I dropped him off, picked up the baby and the laundry and headed to the laundromat for two hours. Woo. It took so long because only one washer was available while I was there. That’s ok.

When I got back… it got frustrating. With the recent introduction of Parental Controls… a lot of websites aren’t working anymore. Netflix isn’t working because it is tracked in so many ways that Parental Controls blocks it. (I am sorta unhappy about Google and Facebook tracking my Netflix usage anyway now that I know it is happening. Fuck Google. Fuck Facebook. Evil motherfuckers.) I started getting loud and Noah told me this wasn’t worth yelling about. He was right.

I decided it was better to make the kids go outside for a while. Noah and I looked at the controls again, decided that because the kids get 4 hours and that’s long enough to whine about not getting everything I will let them have 1 hour a day on weekdays (it will mostly be used for school time) and 2 hours on weekends, which will let them play a game or two but not long enough they will demand movies.

Because I am god damn sick of fighting over their computers.

I waited until I chilled out. Then I went outside and talked to each kid separately about why they lost unfettered access. At the end of these conversations they both hung their heads and said they agreed with the restriction because they have not been polite at all about their computers. (They were supposed to set their own timers and limit their screen time. Never happened. They were supposed to do school stuff…. that was mixed.) They both agree that they have not been responsible and I need to take that responsibility away from them. They also understand that me standing over them to monitor them while they are on adult accounts isn’t fair either. So here we are.

I mixed in talking about things I was frustrated about in other areas (each kid got very different feedback because they are frustrating in such different ways) and how I am off my medication and I will be for the foreseeable future and let’s talk about how that is going to impact my body and my mood. Phrased that way they both said, “I’d rather be limited and deal with that frustration myself than keep making you track my screen time. That will go poorly.” Yup. It will.

After that Noah was done with work for the day and we drove up to explore the western edge of the end of the highway on Oahu. We played there for about an hour then drove down to Pokai Bay so Noah and the three kids could play in the water while I talked on the phone to one of my friends. (No data= no video chat. Dangit.)

I don’t have consent to talk about her in detail so I won’t. I will say that we have been friends since the 7th grade. When I talk about how Noah’s friends are rich and mine are poor…. she’s on my mind. She is someone who I think about a lot. I don’t write about her for lots of reasons around her privacy and people being judgmental pieces of shit. But it’s really nice talking to her. She asked why I don’t call more often. I said, “well… I do this thing where I find people who are really crazy like me and I try to enmesh with them and then I get really anxious about bothering my less crazy friends and I withdraw.” She said, “Well I’m a little bit crazy so you should call a little bit more often.” Then she laughed. It was nice. She has a tremendous amount of experience with kids and I learn a lot from her. She’s one of the most giving people I’ve ever known. Her kid has had some interesting life experiences and she has told me she was really glad she’s always known me because she learned about a lot of things from me and when it came up with her kid she felt calm and collected about going with the flow.

I am grateful for her perspective and time. I will try to call more often.

I need to schedule a call with my other buddy in Salt Lake. He completes the trio of my middle school friends I’m still in touch with. His mother in law hates me and he finds that delightful. Ha.

And I get to see Jenny soon. I am trying as hard as I can to put my intensity in a box because I can’t explode all over Jenny and her family. They are all very reserved people. It is overwhelmingly important to me that I create a healthy connection with her kids and they are sensitive souls. I have to meet them where they are. I am the adult. That feels like a lot of pressure. It’s self imposed! Mostly? I want this meeting with my namesake to go better than the first one. I feel pathetic about it, but I want her to like me. I was too assertive the first time and she was like “Fuck you stranger lady” and that was fair… (She was under 2. The fuck you was entirely body language.)

I earn people pushing me away when I am too intense. But I am really fucking intense. That’s just a fact. How much can I put that intensity in a box and still be an authentic piece of me? I struggle with that balance.

You know, like how can I diplomatically talk about my feelings so I order my brain versus how much do I get to the point of screaming “Fuck you, fuck you, and fuck you. Who’s next?”

Sigh. Balance. I continue to lurch towards it.

Last night I had a chat with Middle Child about his allowance savings. He said he feels like he doesn’t deserve to have it because we are walking past so many people who have nothing. I talked about how sometimes he uses his allowance to pay for things he breaks, sometimes for things he wants and I will not buy, sometimes just for splurges and if he gives all the money away he won’t be able to meet any of those needs he has for autonomy.

I talked about trying to find the middle way. (Thank you Buddhism. I am not a true follower, but every faith/religion/cultural path has some value for me to learn from. That’s what California Woo means to me.) I talked to him about trying to find the balance between saving up for yourself so you can meet your needs versus sharing what you have extra. I asked him what would happen to our family if I gave away 80% of his father’s income every month because I don’t feel like I deserve it. His eyes got big as he processed what that would mean in terms of housing, food, medical care, everything changes. So instead I share 10%.

We can meet our needs with 90% and we don’t have to stockpile the last 10%. We can share it and help other people have lighter loads. I can’t really give away more because I have a lot of medical expenses that are going to go up as I age. I have to prepare for that or I am deciding that I need to die early.

But it’s not about giving it away because you don’t deserve it. It’s about recognizing that our life is really good and we have the ability to share…. so we should.

He’s working on writing up his feelings about the values in a book called Islamic Values for Children. (DUDE! It’s online! Oh that’s awesome!) It’s neat helping him process what he agrees with and disagrees with in this book. Like, he said that we need to pursue (I’m paraphrasing slightly) understanding creation because if we don’t we make bad decisions and we hurt ourselves and the people around us: like killing off 80% of bugs in the world. Humans have used pesticides for a long time and now we face the possible extinction of our species because food is going to have a hard time growing.

I love hearing where his values differ from mine. But he has been raised hardcore in an environment where “Enlightened Self Interest” is a big deal. Being selfish isn’t wrong, but you need to be selfish in the concept of helping yourself be ok loooooooooong in the future.

It’s neat seeing how that plays out for him.

One of the hard things about Noah’s job is that he always feels like he isn’t quite doing enough to earn all those buckets of cash and all the conference invites so he works… constantly. Today and tomorrow he is taking off work! We get to go play on the island. I’m happy about that. I don’t have a plan for what we will do. I want to take the kids all the way around the island because then the kids get into these intense chats about how the plant life and rocks change. They are observant in ways I never was as a kid. Yesterday Eldest Child was talking about what the rock formations mean in terms of lava because she learned about it in one of her books. That’s so awesome.

“Hey, the plants aren’t so brown. That means this side gets more rain. Hm, I wonder why this is the line where that changes?”

This kind of thing didn’t occur to me as a kid and I love standing near this. I like them so much.

But first… we should pack 90% of our stuff this morning. In 48 hours we go to the airport.

I need to spend most of my time focusing on my family because I need to feel what that means. But I won’t forget my friends.

Oh, by the way: the place in Longview fell through. The AirBnB host said that we couldn’t have the independent apartment that long but we could rent two bedrooms in her house and share her kitchen and living room for the same price! Uhhh… no. That’s not a good deal for us. My kids are essentially nudists. They need to be able to have their own space where they can unwind without having to perform certain behaviors for a host. So I found a place closer to downtown Portland that is actually about $600 cheaper for the whole stay. It is in a much more crowded neighborhood, which will be mixed. Less ability to just “GO OUTSIDE” and more ability to walk to grocery stores. That’s a balance I will cope with. The house is sparsely decorated and one floor. That was shockingly hard to find in the region. The houses on AirBnB available for a long stay are mostly multi-story or decorated to within an inch of their lives. Yeah, I’m not dealing with that shit with a nearly-walking-baby.

Last night we had pho for the third time since reaching the island. We are really on a kick. I ordered the spiciest one on the menu then added three heaping spoonfuls of chili because it just wasn’t spicy enough. I wanted my lips and tongue to burn. It was awesome. Afterwards we had our first dessert since reaching the island: shaved ice with ice cream on the bottom. I added mochi balls to mine. We all had very different flavor profiles and it was funny how much the differences really are indicative of our personalities. EC had caramel ice cream with mango shaved ice, MC had coffee ice cream with cherry shaved ice, Noah had gosh I can’t remember his ice cream but he had guava and passion fruit shaved ice (with coconut sauce). I had cookies and cream ice cream with vanilla/pineapple/pina colada. The other three of us had mochi balls instead of sauce.

The baby went nuts trying everyone’s. She thought it was the best thing that’s happened to her in a long time. She is starting to understand “We look at a menu, then people go away and bring us good things to eat.” It’s fun to watch. She does a lot of intently looking at the menu then pointing at pictures. We often order what she points at. She is certain that the world is working as it should. Ha.

D–you didn’t do something terrible when you left that comment. The timing and the phrasing were not my ideal. But that happens in relationships. I am almost done being an exploding asshole. I am so sorry you got swept into all the upset about other things and other people.

Some of my grief is legitimate and real and totally deserved. That doesn’t mean I should lash out at everyone. Sometimes I do though and that is really fucking shitty. I try as hard as I can to limit my explosions to being here. I love you and I appreciate that you have tried to share what you have spare over the years. That wasn’t a lot and that’s ok. I don’t get to demand more from anyone who doesn’t have it going spare. Really I don’t get to demand more from anyone.

My black hole is not your job to fill. It really isn’t. I know that. It’s why I try to retreat when I am being inappropriate. Sometimes that retreat involves inappropriate yelling in my space. I imagine that is not easy. You don’t want to feel like you are hurting me. You don’t want to feel like you did something wrong.

I try to withdraw when all you have to do to be wrong is be near enough to hear me as I am screaming about being in pain.

Phone calls I need to make this week.

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If I give myself a week to make these phone calls I might get them all done today. If I planned them all for today I might get none of them done.

Good grief.

  • AAA
  • Wyndham
  • Capital One
  • Jenny

We need international driving licenses and for everything else to have the new address. We are almost done. We need to go visit our banks this week. Once the rain fully stops I am going to put stuff out on the driveway again. Looks like Tuesday afternoon.

I have a bunch of travel arrangements to make. I have us getting to Hawaii. I have an apartment for Hawaii and a different apartment in Japan. I don’t know how we are getting from Hawaii to Japan. I don’t know how we are getting from airports to places. I need to do some research. Eeep.

We are going to be in Hawaii for 4 weeks. I think we will only have a car for 1 week. And it’ll be half a week at the beginning and half a week at the end. There is a grocery store as far from the house as our local grocery store is from this house–basically, that’s no trouble.

Lots of time spent booking arrangements in my week. I need to book:

  • waxing before we go because I am vain
  • hotel for one night between cruise and Hawaii
  • transportation between cruise and Hawaii
  • car for beginning of Hawaii
  • car for end of Hawaii
  • plane to Japan
  • how are we getting from airport to house in Japan
  • travel in Japan? (look at trains, look at rental cars–with 5 bodies trains might be $$$$$)
  • plane from Japan to Minneapolis for Noah
  • hotel in Minneapolis for Noah
  • plane from Japan to Scotland for me and kids
  • where are we staying first in Scotland? I assume Inverness but I should schedule a chat with Jenny
  • plane from Minneapolis to Scotland for Noah

That’s probably plenty of planning. That gets me up through May. That’s a 3 month window. And we’ll be in Scotland May/June/July except for weekend trips. I will probably book those weekend trips from Hawaii.

Phew. That’s a thing or three.

If you fail to plan you plan to fail.

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It’s hard to get my thoughts organized. I’m struggling on a few levels. I’m struggling with the need to organize my thoughts and my possessions for the move. I’m struggling with all of my feelings about gender and people transitioning and gender conforming behavior. I’m struggling with my various levels of tolerance for teaching people who are different points on the path regardless of age.

It was refreshing to me to see the counselor visibly coping with how upset she is that so many children at a camp for gender nonconforming kids are doubling down on the binary. Fluidity is valid. There is no trait that belongs to a gender (liking toys, tv shows, or colors, long hair).( deleted pissiness)

I am sometimes foolishly optimistic.

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We’ve done a little bit of packing today. I am two boxes away from being done with adult fiction. I need more tape before I can continue. Whoops. We are instead sorting and organizing and putting stuff out on the table. All of the kid stuff that isn’t a book or clothes is now in one room. That’s a huge accomplishment for our little household. They have thrown up on my house over the last few years.

And realistically I haven’t taken things off the walls yet so there’s still school posters up. (Some are down already but not all of them.)

September

With a weekend long party that ends on the 2nd of the month I need to have the house cleaned up and mostly packed by the end of August.

11: Mexico trip. The only stuff left will be stuff that is coming with us on the permanent travel or stuff we will drop off at Goodwill on our way out of town.

I suspect I should order the pod/packing unit for September 24 and finish filling it by October 5.

October

Disneyland

Malaysia

Halloween at our house.

November

5-Ortho

9-Austin for KRW

10-Tay

Deal with selling the house? I’m still a hair fuzzy on how this is going to go. I am waiting for a few details on their end because that’s Important.

LA mid-month

Head to DC?

December

DC

January

8-mouths for all

hepatitis follow up

check in at Santa Barbara?

Feb

UK?

Mar

Bath Ruby? -England

UK?

April

Isle of Ruby? – England

Ruby Elixir? – Taiwan

18-20- Japan for Ruby Kaigi

probably schedule trip back to bay area check on dental stuff.

30-May 2- Rails Conf Minneapolis

May

Ruby Hack- Ut

up in the air.

June

Ruby Nation? – Va/Md

July

Brighton Ruby? – England

dental cleanings due

August

Euroku? – not sure where

south east Ruby – Tn

September

UK?

October

UK?

November

UK?

Rubyconf? unannounced for date

 

That’s the end of my steam for today. I’m weary.

To do list for moving/travel

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  • Update all passwords because I’ve been using the same fucking thing for over 20 years and that’s ridiculous. Luckily, I have infosec friends who will help me be less stupid over the next 20 years.
  • Go through pantry and make a physical list for Noah with meal suggestions. (It’s not fair to leave this mental task all to him.)
  • Fill out medical forms for travel clinic
  • Fill out legal forms
  • Contact lawyer for updating the trust & will
  • Drop off form to doctor
  • Pack books
  • Keep dispersing personal possessions
  • Make giant list of camping gear/trailer stuff for an ad. It’ll be easiest to get rid of all that in one go as a “Burning Man Special”

 

I’m sure there’s more. I’m so tired.

 

Hurry, hurry

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This week might be the end of construction workers in my house. We’ll see. I’m hopeful. In the bathroom there are two towel bars left to hang, a piece or two of baseboard that have been cut perfectly and just need to be nailed to the wall, and then the whole damn bathroom needs to be sealed.

I think that’s one day of work left…

The we get to go in my bedroom and knock out the drywall and replace it with new drywall and insulation. Because my bedroom has mold problems from the lack of insulation. Fixing the stucco will help… but the lack of insulation is always going to create a pocket of wet over there. We have to fix it. I don’t know why the other two remaining uninsulated walls don’t mold in the same way but they don’t.

Then we pick up garbage from the yard. Then we are done.

Except for all the painting I haven’t completely finished yet. I’m really far!

I need to touch up the ceiling in the hallway. I need to touch up the green through the house. I need to fix the flower on the hallway mural. I need to repaint my bedroom. I have a day or two of painting left in the kitchen. I need to paint all the door frames and doors.

That’s the end of the list, I think? The door frames are going to be proscenium arches and every door will lead you somewhere different. I’m looking forward to that part. Each door will probably be a day of painting. I’d like to paint five doors.

I think I have a solid 10 days of painting left. I don’t mind doing that after the guys leave.

Hurry hurry hurry… almost done.

My main assistant/lead guy is gone now. Yesterday was his last day. So I had him sign the wall and I slipped him a large cash bonus. Thank you for all of your hard, dedicated work. Your attention to detail is going to be making me happy for years to come. I’m so grateful I got to work with you. The assistant who is left is a very can-do sort of guy. This will be a good few days.

Phew.

Almost done, almost done, almost done.

Then I’m going to collapse and not do much for a few months. Oh god.

I have all the stuff to donate in the back of the van. I think I will have that emptied out on Tuesday. Also on Tuesday I plan to go to Ikea for the few remaining things I need (a cabinet for right next to the bathtub so I can put bathing supplies within reach, hopefully more of the plastic drawers) and then I’m down to collecting plants.

PLANTS

I will have plants in my bathroom. I’m so excited. I want the air purification, desperately. I think it’ll help.

Ok, so lets call it three more weeks of work for me. But a semi-relaxed three weeks. It doesn’t have to be 12 hour work days or anything.

And I’m already sneaking outside to weed and garden. This year will be glorious.

Ok, time to get dressed and get started on today. Lots to do. Only a little ways to go. I can do this.

Almost done.

What shit do I want to do?

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In no particular order:

    • ✔️prep the hallway ceiling: ✔️clean, ✔️then fill cracks, ✔️then clean again
    • ✔️paint the hallway ceiling
    • ✔️prep the hallway mural: ✔️clean, ✔️sand,✔️clean
    • ✔️paint the hallway mural
    • ✔️add more magnetic paint to hallway
    • ✔️add top coat to magnetic paint in hallway
    • ✔️✔️✔️✔️laundry
    • ✔️✔️load dishwasher
    • put dirt in pots
    • ✔️spread out wildflower seeds before it rains on Saturday (and Friday is SO BOOKED)
    • prep the kitchen for more painting
    • paint more in the kitchen
    • NOPE (fix the door to the playroom with putty and sanding, then clean it well) – kid veto
    • NOPE (paint doors (to playroom, both to bathroom, kitchen door needs a little more blackboard paint)) – kid veto
    • ✔️put the god damn books away (the kids add to a pile that they don’t know how to shelve)
    • (done all that we can!)✔️label every book and shelf in the house with stickers so the kids can put their own god damn books away
    • ✔️get rid of pile of to-donate clothes and toys
    • get rid of faucets and skylight that aren’t useful
    • ✔️get rid of tile (scheduled for Friday!)
    • ✔️start thinking about scheduling with a cleaning service. I’m thinking I’d like my house cleaned for me on April 3rd & April 10th. I honestly don’t think a cleaning service will want to do my entire filth trap in one day. It’s been over a year of construction filth adding up. Every shelf needs to be scrubbed. Every item in the house needs to be dusted. It’s going to suck
    • organize all the paperwork in storage and label the containers so we can find stuff when it is required instead of hunting for hours in frustrated futility
    • ✔️trim/prune bushes and trees
    • ✔️message C about cookies
    • figure out how to get this harp out of my house
    • ✔️put reminders on my calendar so I don’t forget to do a thing for a friend

 

 

I can’t think of more right now. Maybe that’s a good thing.

Looking forward

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Goodness. I feel kind of like a bastard because 2016 has had some serious high points for me. It’s been a dumpster fire of a year, don’t get me wrong… but I had more good than many. I feel pretty good about where 2016 is ending on a variety of levels.

I would say that my marriage needed the strain it experienced this year. I think we both learned a number of things we weren’t really on our way to learning. We decided to have more kids. We decided to stop waiting on M/s stuff. (That’s going. And going pretty well so far… we are going slow.)

Things with the kids are…. well… I’d say that I couldn’t expect better. In pretty much every way I feel like things are going better as a parent than I expected they would. I thought we would have way more problems. Our relationships are pretty good and improving. We are getting better with every year at talking to one another about what we need. They are really excited about the prospect of more kids.

The house remodel… is absolutely driving me bonkers. But every person who walks into my bathroom gasps. It is worth it. Just keep plugging along. Art. Moar Art. I guess at this moment that I have somewhere between 100 and 200 hours of painting ahead of me between now and the finish line. Fuck.

I’m a painter. It’s a thing I do. I do a lot of it. I’m an artist. How will this play into my future?

No clue yet.

We watched Rogue One today. It… it’s a heavy movie. I feel kinda stunned. I think this is the only Star Wars movie I’ve ever really liked. Of course I like the hit-you-in-the-head one.

I’ve said for a long time that I suspect I will live to see some kind of revolution. Then we elected Trump. You know what?

The next four years need to be full of active resistance. The next four years need to involve making concrete actions in the direction of living in the kind of world I want to live in.

It’s kind of funny that I started out vehemently hating the idea of the American Dream. When I studied it in college and grad school I felt so much anger. I did not think it was attainable for me or anyone like me.

Then I arrived.

Holy shit. How do I share this shit.

How can more people have this kind of safety and security? What can I do to help other people have more access to education and choices and medical care?

Revolutions are made by the people who show up. What does showing up mean? It means different things to every person because you can’t make a revolution out of people who are exactly the same. That’s how you create an empire. By wanting people to be all the same so you can use them interchangeably as spokes on a wheel.

I don’t want a well mechanized empire.

I know what that means.

Even if I would be considered one of the “winners”… no. No. No. No. No.

Fuck that. No. But when and where are different levels of aggression worth countering with other levels of aggression?

How do you have a revolution without having a war? How many people have to die to call it a war?

How do we even know what a war means anymore?

There were 10,000 casualties of the war with Kuwait. In the last one hundred years, how many black people has the US government killed when they weren’t doing a damn thing wrong?

What is a war?

I spent my childhood reading books about the Resistance in WWII.

I need to spend a lot more time thinking about what I’m going to do with my life. I know what i want to do with my life in the very long-term. But what am I going to do while I’m growing up? What will I do to shape the person I need to be someday?

Fuck. This will be a lot of work.

Lots of people do lots of things to shape history. Where do I want to stand?

Busy busy

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I woke up at 3:30 this morning and started painting. I did it by candle light because the breaker in the kitchen is turned off. I need to finish the ceiling today so we can turn the light on and put the fridge back.

I painted behind the fridge first. Both to get it done and so I could practice some techniques. God damn I’ve improved. I’m way the hell better at painting than I used to be. It’s a shame that tree will be covered. It’s gorgeous.

I finished the first layer of ceiling color and stopped at 6:30 for a break. My shoulders ache. This is going to be slooooooooooooooow because I have a lot of work on vines and leaves I want to do. Not to mention that Eldest Child wants me to go back over everything with glitter. We’ll see.

This project is going to take many days. I look forward to it. I want to finish the ceiling today. I want the light back on.

Which means I need to figure out where the trees are coming from on the walls so I can plan animals, and plants around them. Argh. IF ONLY THIS WEREN’T FUN.

With every passing year I like my painting more. The moss is downright eery and pretty.

Combine this with how much yard work I’ve gotten done this year… 2016 is a beautiful year of growth. And houseguests.

I bought the plane tickets for my friend and her kids yesterday. They are coming out for most of July. Originally I had kinda expected them to drive… with all the health problems involved that was a stupid and unsafe thought. I’m so happy she was brave enough to ask for plane tickets. I know it is hard to ask people to spend money on you. It’s hard to feel worthy. But I’m bugging her about coming to visit and there’s no way she can pay. So I bought tickets. I get them for 18 days. Sounds wonderful to me.

I’m just sad the house is in chaos. But oh well. Life is what it is.

Oh crap. I need to clean up the spare room for Dad today. Whoops. That’s kinda important cause he arrives tonight.

It will be fun. Maybe he’ll sit in a chair and talk to me while I paint. I will enjoy that.

Oh crumbs. It is the end of the school year. We need to go through boxes of saved materials for the year and cull for the portfolio. That can wait till I’m done with painting.

Side note: I feel good about life when I can look down and see paint splotches on my hand.

Other random thought: my Dad has met all of my Serious Relationships in the past 12 years. It sorta makes me think I ought to invite folks over for supper this week to meet him. I’d invite you-who-plays-with-Noah too. Cause I’m like that. Tuesday or Friday would work. What do y’all think? I’m only sorta kidding. Not really. I’d do it.

When I say “I’d do it” I really mean “How serious do you consider yourself to be?” Because no really, my Dad has met every even slightly serious relationship I’ve had as an adult since I met him. And he lives in Washington. So. How serious do you consider yourself to be in my life? This might be something worthy of direct conversations instead of passive aggression but whatever.

It’s a bonus that Dad already knows my submissive and Cupid. He’d like Daddy and Deity just find. I need a nickname for you Ms. You, the one I talk to so much in DMs on Twitter. You come up in conversation in our house at least four times a week… so you are totally in need of a blog name. Who do you want to be?

Sarah is just Sarah because she happened long before nicknames for me. And Jenny. And fuck Noah’s privacy. He gave it up with the marriage contract.

Really, if anyone in our sexin-web wanted to come, please do. We obviously want you.

Ahem.

Sometimes I stop and wonder why do I feel alone? I’m not alone anymore. Not emotionally, physically, energetically… not even spiritually. I may not be Dagora, I may not have my ancestors following me around like a flock of crows waiting to hear from me. I may not be a Christian who believes that Jesus will carry me when I falter.

But I have you. That’s enough.

Then why do I still have this keening alone alone alone feeling? Why am I so scared of myself? We are born alone and we die alone and I’m afraid afraid afraid of when I will make myself die. Please, not too soon. Don’t do it until I am completely out of good days.

Why am I so afraid of being alone? Because I’m not very nice to me. Alone means hitting, cutting, burning myself. It means the meanest words I know said over and over and over. Because I believe I deserve that.

But when I am not alone I know that it is not ok with Person X that I do that to myself. They love me and need me to at least pretend I love myself too.

I am so afraid of being alone.

I feel so lucky that I found people who want to be nice to me. I feel so lucky that I found people who, when I explain how I am being hurt by something, work to change problematic behaviors.

It isn’t that this behavior is wrong for all people. It is that it hurts me and I need you to notice that you are interacting with me.

I am not just like everyone else. I fall far outside the standard deviations in almost every metric. I have to be learned.

The trouble is that I do not believe I am worthy of such effort, time, and commitment.

My friends show up for the amount of time, with the amount of effort and commitment they have to give. Thank you. I appreciate your generosity. You don’t owe me the time of day let alone what you actually give me. Thank you.

I know I sound ungrateful. I’m not. I‘m grateful. I‘m grateful. I‘m grateful. I‘m grateful. I‘m grateful. I‘m grateful. 

Please don’t be mad at me for not being grateful enough. I’m trying.

On Wednesday I am leaving the kids home with Grandpa and daddy and I get to go help my friends for a change. Including driving (ugggggggg) I’ll probably take about six hours to go help them with a project that just exploded in their life.

I feel honored to be asked. They don’t ask for help much. They instead offer a lot of help. I am so grateful to not just be sponging off of them. Instead I have something to offer. This feels so good.

It hurts me when I ask people if I can help them with a project and they refuse. It feels like they do not trust me. It feels like I am not worthy. The quality of my work is too poor. I do not deserve to have that time with them.

I am sorry that I insulted you by offering you substandard, inadequate help. I will not trouble you further.

And that globalizes. It becomes hard to ask for other things. I am not good at asking for help. I am good at offering help. I kinda need people to let me help them so that I can get to a place where I am able to accept help in return when someone sorta bossily pushes it on me.

Oh I love bossy people. Love love love.

The satisfaction of people believing that my help is worth something…. that is huge. Whether it is a wood working project, organizing, writing, parenting, bdsm, whatever.

When people act like I hold wisdom and experience that is useful… I feel like my life has value. I should not die. See… I have things left to give. I am still a useful tool.

I need to be useful.

This isn’t a “healthy” part of my makeup but it’s there.

Ok, I’ve been writing for about 40 minutes. 1400ish words. Should I stop now and save spoons for painting? Yes I should. Future me needs these arms. I typed slow so I wouldn’t hurt myself too much. I was careful.

I love making art. I love making art. I love making art. I love making art. I love making art. I love making art. I love making art. I love making art. I love making art. I love making art. I love making art. I love making art. I love making art. I love making art. I love making art. I love making art. I love making art. I love making art. I love making art. I love making art. I love making art. I love making art. I love making art. I love making art. I love making art. I love making art. I love making art. I love making art. I love making art.

Ok. Now I’m ready to stop resting.

Forward, ho

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I’m moving forward. The remodel stuff is creaking along the lines of “I’m about to fire your ass” and I have support. Today two grown ups are coming over and they will help with yard work and painting tasks.

Yard work tasks:

  1. transplant the blue agaves
  2. transplant YC’s plant
  3. fill the palettes with dirt and transplant the strawberries
  4. finish moving the remaining dirt into more planters for YC’s “own bed for growing things”. Sorry it has to be divided up.
  5. Some weed pulling and moving of yuck to the green waste bin
  6. Filling all the bird feeders
  7. Trim the roses and distribute the thorns so I get fewer cats. Fucking neighbor cats
  8. Water both yards

Painting tasks:

  1. Remove cupboards & hardware
  2. Scrub walls with intensive cleanser
  3. Sand walls
  4. Rescrub with cleanser

Doesn’t that sound like a full enough damn day?

Regular chores:

  1. Laundry (must strip bed) working on this
  2. Load dishwasher
  3. Hand wash sink of dishes
  4. Clear counters and finish finding “during painting” homes for everything

Contact peeps chores:

  1. Where am I sleeping on the 25th? Must look at options on a map. Thank you generous, kind friends. Decision made. Beginning of the parade route.
  2. Write a letter. To whom is yet to be decided but I should do it. Wrote 2
  3. Look at Jenny’s birthday box, see what has to be added and make the shopping list. I should fucking mail it this weekend. I’m already in the next month. I know she forgives me, but I’m feeling like an asshole.
  4. Schedule acupuncture
  5. Schedule pampering w/Sarah

To be fair! The kitchen prep is only from my waist up today. Because I’m painting in stages for reasons of not exhausting myself.

Noah told the kids yesterday that surely we were about out of room for plants. The kids both argued. He argued back. I said, “I expect we’ll have 40-80 more plants before I’m done.” Noah said, “Whoa.”

Well, after the house is painted I’m ringing the fucker with plants. There are going to be a lot of indoor plants once we are done painting this time.

I’m going to spend the next year of my life trying to learn how to take proper care of my garden. This is going to take a fuck-ton of time.

I’m looking forward to it.

Next mood swing: cranky

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It has been true so long that now it is almost funny. When I am being really really self-hating… the fastest way to break that mood chain is to get cranky at someone else.

This time I’m cranky at a friend who said something true but in a very unkind way. It isn’t that this friend is wrong. It is that the delivery… wow that was… shit dude. You never ever get to comment on my lack of tact again. Fuck.

Who is the asshole in this relationship? I think that answer is both of us.

I also think that the solution to my problem isn’t completely where my friend thinks it is… even though that was a true statement.

It was also a very blamey statement and whoa. Given the shithole I have climbed out of, telling me that all my problems are because of _____ is a bit uhm.

Yeah.

I had kind of an interesting set of realizations. (This won’t be as long as I want it to be because of pain.) I do not aspire to have a concrete set of boundaries I present to the world as “who I am”.

I truly don’t. I don’t want to have a set persona and this is who I am and this is how I must be treated. How I must be treated varies from person to person and is in large part constructed based on our past experiences and reasonable expectations between us.

I exist in context of my life. Different people have different kinds of access to me for very complicated reasons and those are not strictly tied to how long I’ve known them nor what kind of previous exchange of relationship duties we’ve had.

Even though Jenny is my oldest friend and has been there through some of the most fucktastically intense moments she isn’t one of the people I can be most assuming with. She has boundaries of her own. So that relationship is shaped by our mutual agreements.

Ok, this is what I’m arguing with. But I’m not going to give you context for why it was brought up.

I think I am mostly motivated to argue against it as hard as I am right now because I am so pissed off with the delivery around it. I am not very rational like that. I don’t overall mostly think it is wrong. Only I strongly disagree that I have to want autonomy and to not compromise.

I do make special rules for people to show them that they are special. I like it that way and I am not going to give up on that because someone else thinks it would be a superior lifestyle. Maybe you have had the kind of life where you can have one united front of personality. I didn’t.

I don’t think each relationship with outside persons is independent. I think that a relationship with X is compounded by the fact that they are dating Y who is dating Z who is dating A who is dating…

That whole chain impacts my life. I care about the whole fucking thing and that makes discussions about boundaries not about a bunch of autonomous people negotiating one to one in my opinion.

Long story short: it occurs to me (after being asked, cause I’m a self absorbed bastard like that) that we should talk to the folks we want to see in the future this month before we finalize agreements and stuff between us. We aren’t negotiating about imaginary possible people. We are negotiating about people who are already embedded in our lives. That’s a lot of layers of extra complication.

Oh. Shit. Yeah. Thinking about everyone’s feelings. Shit. Shit. Shit. Yeah. We are supposed to do that.

Oh.

Whoops.

Usually I like coming to folks and saying “I want x. Yes or no.” But this is deeper than that. Quite frankly, these are mostly folks where we already love them and that means this really should be an actual conversation.

Oh fuck polyamory.

I DON’T WANNA BE A GROWN UP. FUCK RESPONSIBILITY. FUCK CALCULUS.

Then be monogamous you skank.

…. Ok fine we can talk.

Fuck.

A “lazy” day.

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How come my lazy days involve many hours of work? And driving for 50 miles. And running a bunch of errands. Lazy always means “I didn’t do this one job (tiling) today.”

Laundry. Babysitting in the morning. Running errands. Driving 50 miles. Dishes.

I… think I’m going to manage to sleep well tonight. *flop* Good. I’m going to a munch tomorrow. Noah is going for the first time. Deity is going for the first time. Cupid is a regular. I have lots of friends there.

Oh this should be fun. I will… go to bed reasonably tonight. Like, whoa. Like take night pills part way through Krav class early because I need sleep.

Krav makes it hard to sleep. I kinda hate the night class portion of it.

Yeah. “Lazy” day.

No wonder my elbows hurt.

I am also on day 30 of my cycle. I’m at the “joints exploding with burning pain” portion of the month.

Hey bleeding. Start now. Then maybe you’ll finish before my date next Wednesday. That’d be awesome-sauce.

(Haven’t started yet.)

Stop typing.

These are a few of my favorite things…

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Lest I sound like a one trick pony… My Bonus Kids spent the night! As usual, this is thrilling and wonderful. I’m doing my best to smile pretty at their parents and say, “Wouldn’t split custody be niiiiiiiice?” Not 50/50 custody… but couldn’t I have them like 10% or 20% or 30% of the time?

It’s rather awkward to be all, “Hey I’d like to have more kids but I would die… can I borrow  yours?”

So far they are willing to share somewhat. How much we will find out in the fullness of time. I’m thrilled.

Part of what I love so much about my Bonus Kids is that I am not the mama so problem solving is an entirely different process. I have mad respect for their relationship with their mama and I can see how she is the best mom in the world. She knows them to the marrow of their bones in I way I just can’t. They are foreign to me.

But it makes me think of my kids differently. Oh. That’s why things are so easy. That connection.

I don’t think that having biological children is the be-all/end-all of all of life… but I’m having a lot of fun.

My kids validate my existence in a way nothing else can or will. They needed me for survival. They have a lot of my weird/wacky traits without having lots of complex trauma stories behind them. That’s fascinating to watch.

My kids don’t need me for survival any more. They still need me, but it’s different.

A friend was over helping me with tile on Monday. All four of us got hungry. I asked the kids to make lunch and they did and it was good. (My hands were doing gross things.)

Tile plugs along. I probably have 15-20 more hours of removing backing from tile. I’m working on taping spring down. Then I want to finish winter. Then autumn. Then I have to figure out summer.

Oh goody.

Four more hours of taping spring? I think the mountain will take 4-8 more hours. Autumn is probably 10 hours away from done.

So that’s like eight days of work before I get to summer. No… closer to two weeks with how slow I’m going. Depends on how much help I get unbacking tile. Fudge. Uhm, at least the remodel is stalled and I don’t have to hurry. Ugh. This Friday I’ve been waiting nine weeks for a letter.

Once they move back in to start work they have about three weeks to go. So… I need to get my butt in gear. I need to be only working on summer when they get back started. Or be done with summer.

I think summer is going to need to be a different style of mosaic. I am looking at different techniques and options. It is so much fun to not have any idea what the hell I’m doing and just… make something cool.

Fuck yeah.

My garden is coming right along.

Last night I only got 7 hours of sleep, but I still feel better after two nights of sleep. I felt much better by yesterday afternoon.

I appreciate when I can misunderstand something and get over it in a 24 hour period. That was quite literally not possible 10 years ago. Progress is awesome. Noah patted me on the back and said he was really surprised how well I handled it. That’s nice of him. Thanks Noah.

I really have worked hard on mellowing out. It’s a process. You need to be safe to be mellow.

Thank you, Noah.

Oooh, another sweet point. Two wonderful friends asked me how I would feel about them asking Noah to play. Awwwww aren’t you the sweetest things? I feel charmed and delighted. You asked me first. Nobody is asking Noah first. But my friends ask me first before they go slide on up to my husband.

That was not required but hot damn you managed to slide into my magnanimous zone. Now you were so awesome that I’m going to put a lot of pressure on Noah to handle things right and be deserving. “Do you know how lucky you are to get women like that?! BE NICE.” Or not nice. Whatever y’all negotiate. Have fun!

Slutty women deserve to be treated like the angels of mercy they are. Be grateful. Or I’ll be pissed all the way off.

All hail slutty people of all possible gender configurations. Huzzah!

I love you all.

Not just because you are slutty… but that does make you feel like kin and I like that feeling.

What makes me happy? Noah. Noah is handling me hunting better than I am. When I over react and want to flip out over something he patiently reels me back in and explains why my feelings are out of proportion and I really should be giving people chances.

Maybe the reason I am more calm now is because someone is intimately aware of my thinking process and he helps me manage it. “Ok so you read this in an upsetting way. Let’s talk about that.”

For the record, folks, I don’t have a lot of privacy from Noah. Partially because I just don’t desire that kind of privacy but mostly because I need help managing my disordered thinking and Noah is willing and that requires access. So I give it to him.

If I keep secrets from Noah I will need some way of color coding that information in my brain so I can keep it from Noah. That sounds hard. I have enough hard in my life. I’d rather keep letting information pass through me like a sieve when it comes to Noah. That is the most comfortable part for me.

So that when I screw up and don’t tell him something right in the first place it’ll still come up because I have complete diarrhea of the mouth and I tell him everything so even if I do it in a dick way… everything is coming out and we can process it. Sometimes part of the processing is, “You told me that in a dick way.” Yeah. That’s true. I did.

I remain convinced that no one on this planet could love me like Noah does. Thank you Noah. I am so grateful for you.

Other happy news! We are going to be house-guest central. (Finish the bathroom, damnit!)

In April Dad is coming down to spend a weekend. This will be entertaining because he wants to see his bio-kids a fair bit too and they are having big feelings about me since my kids were born. They can ignore the slutty daughter-girlfriends. I’m… something different. They aren’t so sure they are ok with him adopting an adult child and being a grandparent. That is stepping on their toes. But it also looks somewhat like I may be the only one of the three of us to have kids. So yeah. Complicated. I’m trying to be as nice and accommodating as I can there. I like his bio-kids and I hope that we can long-term get more friendly. I hope. *cross fingers*

In May a friend from the Bay who moved east then moved west (but way the fuck north of here) is going to stay with us for a weekend. I’m excited about that. I haven’t seen her since before the kids were born.

Also in May we have a fun overnight adult-only camping thing I’m wicked excited about. I don’t know how it will go. When I used to go to these events, in the dim recesses of my memory, I remember lots of bdsm and fairly little sex. Some, but not a lot. These days… I’d uhhhh… yeah. I’m no longer content with a weekend of bdsm and no sex. I’ve changed. So yeah. I have no idea how this will go.

I had this really slutty idea about how to handle play at that party. Maybe I’ll write about it separately. Maybe I’m not quite that brave. Ahem.

Ahem.

Then in May I’m going to the grief ritual with Sarah. I’m so grateful she wants to come with me. I anticipate a full weekend sob/hug fest. That’s going to be magical. At the other grief rituals I have attended, I always went alone. The organizer always encourages hugs/physical support and… I’m me. Don’t fucking touch me who the hell are you? Especially when I’m freaked out and feeling vulnerable. Strangers just shouldn’t touch me. That’s not safe for any of us. Don’t do it. Sarah is safe. This is going to be a night and day different experience. It’s a full weekend retreat instead of going to and from a college campus every day on bart.

I’m looking forward to this. We have so much to talk about. So many different levels of wounding. We’ve already looked at a lot of this together over the 12ish years we’ve been doing whatever it is we are doing. But this is going to be super intense and heavy. In a way we both need. Thank you my friend. I am so grateful.

June is blissfully unscheduled and I think it should stay pretty close to that way.

July I get to host my friend and her two sons for three weeks. They are coming in from Arizona. I’m so excited. I met her on the road trip and we’ve talked a whole bunch since then.

I am really proud of how well I’m keeping the house up despite the chaos of the remodel and the amount of work I’m getting done. This is remaining a good work space. It feels accessible and functional. *pat myself on the back* (Let’s be real here: the kids are amazing these days. The road trip was worth it.)

I haven’t been gushing about the kids lately. Mostly cause my arms hurt and I’m obsessed with my sex life. But the kids are knocking my socks off. They are making such tremendous progress.

I’m happy that both kids say, “Can we take a break from classes?” It isn’t just coming from me and financially motivated. *phew* We could all use a break from trying to become something different and just… be for a little while.

August/September is the cruise. Looks like another family might be joining us after all. I am completely fucking thrilled and surprised and happy. I think that all four families might stay in Florida for a week after the cruise to see stuff. 7 grown ups and 6 kids sounds way more like a party.

My life is so ridiculously good I just don’t understand how I got here.

A child is waking up. It is time for the day to begin.

Slow day, I hope.

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Today I need to call and schedule a buddy class for TKD for the kids. (A friend is using a studio walking distance from our house–they want us to start with them. YES!)

I need to call their dentist and update insurance information and schedule an appointment for EC’s cavities.

I need to call my chiropractor and schedule an appointment.

I should schedule pediatrician visits for both kids.

Maybe call the exterminator? The ants are getting festive in here.

Do I want to go ahead and make appointments with the contractors I have had recommended in the last month?

No. I don’t want to.

 

Fuck.

But the weekend was glorious. So much love. I married the right person for me.

Bitch Better Have My Money

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Thank you Rihanna, you inspire me. Nicki Minaj does too.

I’ve been thinking… it would be interesting to go through our financial records. Sometime in the next year before our 10th anniversary it would be interesting to see what we each started with, compare it to Noah’s salary, look at investments, look at the gains and losses for businesses tried and failed…

Who is responsible for which? Noah makes a pretty astronomical salary… but our investment portfolio is growing at a prodigious rate. Some of that is stuff he owned pre-me. Not all of it.

What have I done in the last ten years? Sometimes I have a hard time believing that I have done much.

Ok… even I know that sounds stupid.

I have a hard time being a dependent. I know I “get” 50% of his salary. But what have our separate investment choices resulted in? At this point we can figure out data to see who is actually better at those sorts of decisions so we can assign more of that work in the correct direction to maximize for growth.

I’ve been talking to a lot of womyn about independence and I’ve been listening to a lot of very intelligent women who want me to get my money for my labor.

What has been my cut?

I think I’m going to do that. Oh dear. Another Fucking Project.

And y’all just know I’ll tell you all about it.

Slowly getting through chores.

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Went to the drug store, dry cleaners, and hardware store. Got anti-diarrheal medication, dropped off all bedding for cleaning, and got lock tight. Now I need to go do the next step on the trailer. Ugh. Don’t wanna!

Tonight we are going to a concert in a park. As a result I’m not staying that busy today. Tomorrow the van goes in for servicing. Not sure how that’ll work out but it’ll be fine. Today we need to clean up the van and get it more organized. It’s kind of a mess.

I’m feeling amused that me and the kids are attacking piles of meat like it is going out of style. Apparently we are feeling like we need protein. We can skip just about anything else right now, give us bloody steak. Mmmmm. Apparently, my friend keeps a mostly vegetarian house and because I’m stupid it didn’t occur to me that the folks in Minnesota would be vegetarians so I bought steak. Shit. Shit. Shit. I wouldn’t make that mistake in California. I ask people about meat.

She said she isn’t a real vegetarian she just doesn’t cook meat in the house and her kids don’t like meat. So she wasn’t mad. She was happy to eat the steak I cooked… her kids didn’t try one bite. Ok, no biggie. We like meat.

Put the lock tite on. Fixed nuts, attached bumper stickers, and did a food inventory. I done did work.

Holy crud out of the blue

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I was sitting at dinner with my lovely family and out of the blue I had really strong visualization of cutting myself really badly. Cutting myself in flamboyant, very attention-getting ways. Razor blades from the wrist to the elbow. Screaming and flailing at the same time.

I have no idea where this visualization came from. It was sudden. It was intense. I had to really consciously choose to not beat my head on the table because my first impulse was to try and get it out of my head by beating my head on the table. Like I almost slammed my face into my dinner. It was disorienting and weird.

I have no idea what the fuck is up with that. Not fun.

Otherwise I’m pretty sure I’m done packing other than perishable food. It will take about 15 minutes to round it up.

We leave in just over 17 hours. I’m tired and feeling kind of flattened.

I’m going to sleep a lot. Tomorrow I want to take a very very very long bath. With epsom salts.

I find it weird that I had the intense visualization given that my general anxiety level has been going down all day. As I get closer to “go” I’ve been settling down. I’ve been feeling better. All of a sudden I feel completely not ok. But I’m going to sit on this.

How I feel doesn’t really matter. What matters is what I do. I noted to Noah, “I’ll write about it later. This is when it started.” I’m pretty sure that other than blinking more times than usual I didn’t otherwise act inappropriately.

Right this second I’m scared of going so long without a consistent witness. Who will make sure I’m appropriate?

Well tonight Noah asked/gave Calli permission to call me on having a negative attitude. I suppose she will be the one to make sure I’m not too much of a bitch.

Have I mentioned lately how much I fucking love that my children have the courage to stand up to me? Grown men are afraid of me. Not my bad ass little babies.

Shanna is developing a very negative attitude about the trip. She doesn’t want to leave Noah. I’m… trying to be ok with it. I’m being supportive of her having feelings. I am sympathizing. I’m still implacable. “We’re going. Why? Because we have things to learn.”

I feel like I am drowning in waves of guilt. We are leaving because I want to run away. Because I need a break. Because I’ve been standing in one place too fucking long. Because I have always wanted to see what the country is like. Because I wanna.

Because I wanna and I’m selfish and you have to come with me.

For just a few years you have to keep me company. I hope it isn’t too awful. I hope you will have some fun. Calli is acting like she will have fun.

I’m trying not to be an asshole about “At least one daughter likes me.” Shanna does like me. But she really likes her dad and her computer and she wants to stay. Not too long ago she was happy to follow me to the ends of the earth and I was enough. I’m having feels. I’ll get over them. This is appropriate.

I hope we will have fun together.

I hope she will not remember this as something her crazy mother dragged her through. I pray.

Both kids are still absolutely adamant that they want to keep home schooling. I’m not dragging them through everything. Shanna says that if Noah were coming with us more she wouldn’t feel resistant to the road trip. That makes sense. She says the around-the-world trip sounds awesome because he will be with us.

Yeah honey… but there are steps here we need to figure out. If we can’t make this work we can’t spend a year away. We have to manage five months away first.

We can do it. But will you still like me?

I like you. I know there are going to be years where you don’t like me much. I’m trying to be ok with it. I know it isn’t personal. It’s normal and appropriate. Lots of books tell me so.

Sometimes I find it startling how “normal” and “text-book” my kids are. They have normal, happy people problems. I love watching it. And I will continue to do whatever I must to not beat my head in front of them. I will not cut. I will not let them see me harm myself on purpose. Just no.

I will not be how you learn about these behaviors. Or, rather, you will not learn about them by watching me.

I will teach you to love your body, to say kind things about it, and to be gentle with yourself. That’s my job.

Every single time I’m having a hard time emotionally I want to say mean/petty/vindictive things. So far I have managed to bite my tongue because I chant in my head, “Their negative inside voice will not come from you.”

My goal is to ensure that my children never hear nasty tapes in their head of my voice dressing them down. That will not be our relationship.

I hear my mom scream that I am a stupid cunt. A bitch. Unwanted. Dirty. Nasty. Pathetic. I don’t know how to stop those tapes.

I can’t stop them in my head but I can make sure I don’t put them in my daughters’ heads.

I mean… I tell my kids that they are obnoxious and annoying… just like their parents. I grin while I say it. It generally comes out something like, “WHY DID YOU HAVE TO TURN OUT AS ANNOYING AS ME?!?!?!” They laugh.

“You are supposed to be obnoxious. If you weren’t obnoxious you would have to turn in your kid-badge.”

When I’m being scary my kids will stand there, straight and tall, and tell me, “You are using a mean voice and you need to stop.” Sometimes they are crying… but they do it. I tell them they are right and I do stop. Thank you for telling me.

I’ve had an interesting thing with Shanna lately. I love her hair. I have always loved to stroke her head and she has mostly barely tolerated me touching her. Since it was dyed… I uhm… I’m being annoying. I want to play with it and braid it. I PAID SO MUCH MONEY! I WANT TO PLAY WITH THE COOL TOY!!! Uhm… Shanna has these opinions about it being her body or some bullshit.

Who has been telling her this crap?!

Anyway, I was trying to cajole her into letting me braid her hair. Cool pink and blue streaks are super duper fun and I like playing with plaiting. Shanna resisted some and I cajoled some.

At some point I said, “You know what… I’m pestering which isn’t cool; it is your body. If you really don’t want me to play with your hair I won’t.”

She said, “I feel like you haven’t been very respectful of my body lately.”

I felt like I got sucker punched.

I said, “Oh. Well, I think what is happening is that your boundaries are changing and I didn’t notice. We are going to have to have lots of conversations over the years. We started out with you being a little lump I carried around at all times and it was ok for me to touch you whenever I wanted. That will change slowly and sometimes quickly and I’ll need to be told. I can’t read your mind to know when you change. Also, I’ve been pushing harder on brushing your hair for a few reasons. Know how we make a lot of unconventional choices like not going to school?”

She nodded.

“Well, when you choose to not do what most people do most of the time then you risk people having to come check up on you. Unfortunately when folks from the government come to check on kids… one of the first things they look at is whether you are clean and your hair is brushed. It’s stupid. It isn’t a measure of how well you are taken care of, not really. But people can look at it from a distance. I’ll try to be more respectful though.”

She asked a few more questions about the government checking up on families and then agreed that a basic brushing is reasonable daily. I’m to back off on wanting to play though.

It sucks.

I have watched a lot of movies about mothers and daughters this year. Lots. Dozens maybe. I’m on a kick. It is surprising to me how mother/daughter relationships are twisted around appearance and hair and the perceptions of other people. My relationship with my mom was complicated. She wanted my hair to be about 2″ long so that she didn’t have to be embarrassed all the time about how bad I looked.

I have to respect it when my daughters say no. Even if I don’t want to. Even if it would make *me* happy to ignore their wishes. I’ve got a long game going. I want them to be my friends in thirty years.

Given how cool I am at 33 I bet Shanna is going to be way fucking cooler at 37. Yeah, I really want to know them in thirty years. I want to be friends. And that means I have to be appropriate when they are kids.

It is harder some days than others. Today being appropriate is hard. I think I did ok though.

We went to get passports. We went to the bank; both girls are now square when it comes to allowance. Their savings accounts are up to date. My kids get $2/week for saving. So Shanna has over $700. It’s… honestly a bit weird. I couldn’t have imagined having so much when I was that age. Heck, it isn’t real to her. The $5/week of walking around money is what she sees. I’ve been talking to them about the save money for a while. They only kind of get it.

I drew the watering diagrams for the yards. I’m ready. It’s time to go.

I love you, Wonderland. I’ll come back.

Should I stay or should I go now

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I leave in 32 days. On one hand… I’d like to leave tomorrow. On the other hand… I am scared. I’m scared of pain and failure. My hands hurt. Sometimes gripping things is a problem. Notice how good I’m being about not typing much? Trying to heal.

My belly hurts. I’m hungry. Dinner was light.

So many feelings. My shrink is pushing me to change how I interact with people. Make my plans and move forward. Don’t try so hard to get people on the same page. Don’t ask for specifics. Don’t try to nail people down to actual agreement. Either they show up or they don’t. Either their plans work or they don’t. She wants me to stop canceling a whole day of plans when someone in an inner circle speaks up and wants time. She wants me to reserve less time for people based on the emotional weight I give the relationship.

People will show up or not and I burn a lot of energy on planning and trying to get people to commit. Folks don’t like committing.

I feel like my shrink is being really fucking bossy lately. She’s given me more specific feedback on “X friendship doesn’t seem to be meeting your needs and you should step back” over the past few months. She’s pushing me to push people away. I have feelings about that.

She wants me to have more boundaries around me.

One of my lovely neighbors asked if I wanted her to come over so she can help me weed the garden. We will work on my abysmal Mandarin and her moderate English at the same time. Sounds fabulous. (Oh, Pam: she was sad when I said you were not available to join us. She wishes your grandmother a speedy recovery; she wishes more grandchildren were so dutiful.)

Splitting the kids into separate rooms was the right choice. As was coming down like a box of hammers over eating out. That stopped the fighting that was reaching a fevered pitch. Calli hasn’t felt the need to get in my face and tell me off since. Thank goodness. Having separate space is such a fabulous novelty that when I declare cool-off-time in separate rooms everyone is cheerful and excited. I’m aware that it will change over time.

We are going to have adventures with “I get to decide who is allowed in my room”.

We are still slowly dividing up belongings to figure out what gets stored where. It’s a process.

I think it is funny that Shanna wanted her bed flipped back into a bunk bed because this way it has sides and she doesn’t fall off the platform. A low bed isn’t safer for her.

Calli has been exhausted lately. She must be growing. She’s been napping more days than not for a week or two. Good timing. Outgrow your clothing now, before we leave on the trip.

I’m bleeding. This will be my last period using cloth pads until December. It’s disposables for most of the year. Ew, tampons. Owie, yucky, fuss, and ick. And yet the cloth pads hurt my tail bone.

32 days to go. I’m slowly getting the house cleaner. I’m not sure why I prioritize this as much as I do other than… when we come home it will be such a pleasure. I won’t have cubbies of delayed work waiting to crash on my head. I’m even doing my fucking filing.

My garden is wonderful. I have taken pictures. I should post them. Which means I should plug my phone in and transfer pictures. erk.

Things to do

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With luck I will talk to the city today about remodeling stuff. We need to drop a paper off at the bank. I have therapy. Today is park day. We should go to Urban Ore after the park. Maybe before the park because of driving distance stuff.

Wednesday we get to have visitors during the day and a different lovely guest for dinner. In between the kids have a make up swim class. I will probably spend all the nooks and crannies moments of the day cleaning because the house is slipping and I haven’t done much in a few weeks.

Thursday we are driving to San Francisco for home school day at the Charles Shultz museum. I feel like there is something going on Thursday evening–dinner? But I only wrote it down on the white board and I can’t see it while Noah is sleeping. I think Thursday has two events.

Working with lovely gardener on Friday to move plants for the remodel. Some of my stuff in the front yard will have to move and I don’t wish to break my back on my own. This is going to be heavy and really really hard. Yay for help! I love my gardener. We’ve worked with him for at least 6 years and he’s mellow and not too assertive but happy to help with my projects. Perfect. I *think* I will be done moving yard stuff for the remodel on Friday. I have more yard stuff I want to do in a bit, but not yet.

Need to go to the hitch store to get the electrical system hooked up on my van so I can go to DMV and get a license plate and register the trailer. I want this done in February. I don’t know how long it will take paperwork to process and I’d really like to run off with the trailer by April. Ack.

Also: I need to prepare for presentations. Eeep. I feel nervous about public speaking with adults. Teaching kids is so easy in comparison. Kids are way less judgmental. They don’t have the experience to know I’m an idiot. Adults… adults are scarier. The first weekend in March I get to talk about imposter syndrome and on the 15th Noah and I will present on sustainable ambition. March is going to be a fun month. Then I get to go to a grief ritual. I haven’t been crying much lately. I think it will be good for me.

I’m feeling a lot of guilt and shame lately. I don’t deserve to have the life I have. It should be taken away from me and given to someone more deserving. I’ll get over it.

I read books about historical religious women. There is a lot of precedent for folks giving everything they have to the poor because they feel unworthy. I choose not to be a religious martyr though.

In March I get to start ordering bathroom fixtures and doo-dads because the remodel will start in earnest. My credit card bill is going to be insane but I’m incredibly happy that I will get mileage points for this remodel. Those points are probably going to pay for Noah’s plane flights to see us on the road trip.

I feel like I’m not being a good member of the home school group. I feel like I’m being flakey all over the place.

Deep breaths. I can only do what I can do. I got my email inbox down from 30-something. It’s been full for a week. Now I have one email from the bank and that can go away after I turn in the form today.

It’s going to be a busy week. And I’m not ready to think about next weekend or next week yet. Oh man.