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When one blog is filled, another one must open. |
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Coming soon: more work from someone creative, ambitious, and determined - often called a variant of insane/crazy. Notes: Genderfluid. Preferred pronouns (they/them) [& denotes married couples] Immediate Family: soon-to-be-ex-Dilbert, Tempest, Dogbert My Extended Family: (s)Dad, cousins (K, D, G, J, F, N) I guess it's good to be on speaking terms with someone. Voluntarily. AuntS Dilbert's Extended Family: SIL (+5 kids)& BIL, FIL's gf (only for holidays, mostly) Important People I Don't See Enough: Owl + Partner, Paradise ICON crew (which owl is a part of) People I've Known a Long Time/Long Distance: Doc & [husband], Sheer & DocSheer, Mrs. Light & [husband], Trillium & Diego (not married but close enough), Steph Local People: MotherDroid, Owl&Partner ... There are about to be new people on this list, because, well, I'm evolving. And it hurts. DnD: used letters, S (DM), D(doctor), Y(because I like him!), K(old RPGer friend who also attends church), P(church guy who does game night and is local and our families are also friends), A (went to church but moved back to Chicago, moved back locally then i moved) Tempest's friends: I don't know very many of her local friends. She's got an internet buddy who also talks to CousinK's younger daughter. the younger daughter is DRAMA. Dogbert's friends: Has a new group of friends based on a Pokemon thing and they have a DnD club at school and outside of school. Lucky kid! |
| 1. WorldCon was pretty neat. Except I feel so tiny and unknown. Not that it's entirely bad. More about that later. 2. Tempest wants to be competitive in gymnastics. She says she's bored where she is and I tried to move her up before but they won't- because of her age.  So I'm finding her somewhere new. 3. This new schedule needs some adjustments. I feel like I should have more time and I don't yet. Perhaps tomorrow will be better. 4. Went to dentist and I have a terrible bit of jaw clenching going on. He's never seen someone flinch from ice on the gums like I did today. And i could feel it on all my molars on that side, too. So new mouth guard - they just called and it's ready - and hope I don't need another crown. I mean, it won't be a tribute to Hallmark if I have two, right? 5. I need to have Tails in perfect order this week so I can send it out to a magazine editor- because my friends talked me up. 6. I need to stop taking others at their word when they say they have a good con but then tweet about how it was too big, too high school, not enough anonymity. That feels confusing and two-faced. I might catch up on sleep eventually. But it doesn't feel like it. Trying to get subs for when I'm on vacation, which thankfully is in September and not Prep/Nano season. |
| And this isn't one of those times. I was packing. I'm leaving for World Con at some point today. I'm very excited about this, and this week has been INSANE trying to be ready. Luckily I had everything together for the kids to go to school - they start next Tuesday. Why am I awake at 3am? Partly I have a super-sensitive tooth. I swear it's been worse since my dentist appointment a few weeks ago, and even water near room temperature is painful right now. My shoulder also hurts, and a little my neck, from injuries that happen with rambunctious children who still yank and jump on me - and I'm hungry. But what's going through my head isn't what I ought to eat, it's the painful life with Dilbert. He kept looking around as I packed, and saying "I don't know where you put it." He's been saying this a lot lately, like he needs to be responsible for my wallet or something else. And this bothers the shit out of me, because I know very well where it is and I purposefully did not bring it to his attention. He didn't need to know where my ipod was at that moment. Or my wallet, or anything else. When Doc was here, she lost her wallet. He admitted this made him super paranoid. That was only last weekend (Wed-Sat that she was here, loss of wallet on Fri night). So he insisted on scanning the cards I'm taking with me. He asked why I hadn't cancelled the one that I had said I would cancel - and I told him that was a DEBIT CARD like he asked for and not a credit card (which I'm not letting him scan). At least he wasn't angry about it, supposedly. But I was prickly from a headache earlier and just sheer annoyance at him later, so he might have thought I was angry. He also insisted on showing me the secret pouch in my suitcase. {e:boredandbalefulglance} Uhm, it's my damn suitcase. And I HAD IT PACKED ALREADY. So i had to pull everything out so he could put in my debit card in a ziploc bag. Seriously? YOU DON'T TRUST ME WITH MY OWN DAMN CARD? I didn't mention a hotel snafu, because I took care of it. And I'm sick of his complete nonsense. And he is mentioning which purse item i ought to take, and why can't i just carry the backpack around all the time, and ON and ON and ON. It's my trip. I didn't ask him for advice and I'm not very happy about getting it unsolicited. The upside is when he asked about my cash, he traded me all of my ones and a five for 4 twenties. (It was less than 20 total, probably about 13-15.) He also fixed the damn dryer, which I mentioned weeks ago was taking forever to dry clothes. He mentioned that he had done a lot of the laundry, and I reminded him I had told him about the dryer, and he admitted that if he had fixed it sooner I might not have been so behind. R&D's new baby arrived last week, and he's a sweetie. But I look at them and I'm still reminded of how Dilbert pushed me out in the snow with two small children less than 5 days after I had my little linebacker baby, and how I had to carry 50 pounds of children and diaper bag to the car. This is NOT conducive to being nice to him. It was over four years ago. Why can't I let go? - oh, right, because it's the same crap every time. HE wouldn't let me wear the shoes I wanted to wear, and he wouldn't let me leave the heavy diaper bag even though I'd only be gone an hour, and he wouldn't let me leave the non-breastfeeding child because i needed to know what it would be like when he was gone the following week. It was WEDNESDAY. (The following week was much happier because my mom came and spent time with me and ACTUALLY HELPED with both kids.  Mom.) Dilbert never left the house all week. He watched TV, and so the kids and I got sucked into that the way we normally do. It was like that when Tempest was born, too. No wonder I'm surly. So i found my lovely CON badge holders and I guess I'm ready to go. Gonna get some tooth-sensitivity toothpaste at some point today and see what I can manage. And get something to eat. I'm going to be Dilbert-free until Sunday. He also didn't want me to bring home our bikes with my new bike rack on his car. Afraid I'd scratch it. While Photogirl thought this was hilarious, on top of everything else I'm just numb. I asked Dilb if this was one of those things that he just had to have his way on and he wouldn't leave me alone until I allowed whatever he wanted. And he sort of admitted it. So he wants to go pick up the bikes without the kids in my car. He thinks he's going to fit all three of them INSIDE my damn car. {e:shakehead} Like that's better than putting two of them on a bike rack and the little one in the trunk. Whatever. He can go pick up the bikes if he really wants to. I'm going to use that bike rack. I even checked to see if it would fit his car as well as mine. And it does! Just not with a spoiler, which he doesn't have, and I'm pretty sure he didn't research this. Then he's going back and forth with me, while I text to Photogirl, about what time. Because he wanted to do it after work but they have unpack your backpack. So he doesn't get to do it when it's convenient for him but when it is for her. She offered to bring them Monday, but if Dilbert doesn't pick them up I'll tell her we'll ride Monday and I'll drive them home with my car then. Unless, of course, I con crash. With the rate I'm sleeping tonight, I might crash when I get TO the Con. The line to kick Dilbert starts here.  The line to explain how I am the one who is in the wrong starts here.  Now I'll go have a snack. And breathe. And hopefully get two more hours of sleep until we go biking for the last time before school starts. My kids are getting really good. Almost good enough to remove those training wheels. (All they have to do is believe they can.) |
| "Trump gave a speech last night, and he stayed on topic, thank god." Says FIL's gf. *shudder* save me, someone. There are three against me. And they say Obama's the first president in history who "only" had 1% increase in the GPD, vs 3% for any other in history? |
| The kids are terribly rambunctious but it isn't their fault. Suppose I should not be so hard on G's mom for suffering so much about her parents only a year after it happened. I mean, bad things happened today, and the worst was over half my life ago. And I don't feel myself and I have a headache and I can't connect with anyone. I just want to go to bed, but I talked Dilbert into ice cream once I finish more words. (I have 200 left for my goal today, maybe 300 to catch up.) I hope tomorrow is better. 11 more days of July. 34 days until school starts. I'm so tired. |
| 1. Starting to get emails that I need to fill out my educational license or it'll be invalid. So of course I'm pushing things back because I want to have my substitute teaching license, but I'm falling through the cracks of 'everything online must be submitted through the site' vs 'i already mailed it to you back in Feburay'. [Update: he said it is found but i can't find it online... ] 2. The Y has had a lot of upheaval. I kept telling my class they had to be vocal about the other class - and they do. It's important to be heard when it isn't just complaining. I guess there was a meeting of all the people who can do something (except the summer camp leader ) and the teacher has folded. They offered it to whomever, and whomever was the teacher before me. I didn't see that email until it was too late. 3. I had been talking to my supervisor about different classes, and I stopped because family arrived in town. I'll pick that up - but for the first time someone is asking if my schedule is too much or if I want to continue in the fall. Usually when fall comes around and my class was cancelled or something I had to ask to get it back. I don't know if this is going to continue but I think it's sort of nice. 4. I'm still conflicted about the Y and I'd like ot transfer some time to the studio, but I can't just choose a "Hatha 1" to do. I have to make it something special - like 'we deserve yoga' or another friend's 'inner reflection'. And I'm not sure I feel prepared for that from my class. A couple girls got it easy because they took over an existing class. Sigh. And now I need to sort through this. My cousin was here for 4 days, and I had to get up at 4 this morning to take her and her family to the airport. I like them. I hadn't met her family before, nor she mine, but we had a lot of fun. The only committment I kept up during that time was the writing- at least 750 words a day. It's probablyl time to start more laundry, do some words, and try to be awake. ALL of our sleep schedules are so wacky after this week. |
| #blacklivesmatter But you knew that - and if you'd seen my facebook page this month it seems a mishmash between that and rape culture. Why am i posting here? I read an update from G's mom last night, and she was all behind the blue, and she Actually said ALL LIVES MATTER. And I need to figure out how to explain that her skin is so pale it glows in the dark, that she has white privilege even if she hasn't had all the money privilege, and I am not certain how many black people she knows. I don't mean that she's racist. I mean she's ignorant of the struggles. Because as an ER nurse, she treats everyone the same, as they ought to be. And I wonder if she hasn't seen others treating people differently because of the color of their skin. Of course a cop will come out to her house to dispatch a 'rabid raccoon' or check her apartment against knocks from possible intruders. And when they show up, they see the white girl she is who was raised to trust in the police. My mother has had interview processes turn wildly when they see her in person- in all-white offices. In IOWA. My old Geometry teacher (a woman I very much respect) posted a StoryCorps animation of The Traffic Stop about Alton Sterling, and explained how she had been ignorant for so long about these troubles. To be fair to my geometry teacher- we didn't have black people in that community and probably still don't. It was big gossip news when the Mexican family moved in. I think she may have lived there her entire life, but to see her post that? I am hopeful. But it still leaves me how to approach G's mom. Especially since S's mom was born in El Salvador. I wonder how the white privilege has affected her. And it might say something about my mindset that I don't doubt that it has affected her somehow. In our last apartment, the people across the hall would invite us in. We were the white people, and everyone else at the party was black. It never bothered us. They were wonderful people who adopted us because even though we weren't military we moved enough to be understanding of the lifestyle. Make friends while you're here, move in a few years. I miss those people, because most of them have moved on by now. Do you miss the days when you didn't realize you were white privileged? When everyone treated you as a person because you are a person, and not part of the majority race that doesn't get treated the way everyone else does. So people are starting to post about the Japanese interrment camps and how several pundits are using this as a piggyback for how we ought to inter Muslims. Because, you know, they might be promoting jihad to terrorists. Because those Japanese might have been giving information to their old homeland - even after being second or third generation American citizens. This is why Persia has (successfully) open enrolled her children out of our school district, because they are the only Muslims in our school and because she is afraid of the backlash. And the school supported her decision even though it saddened them. This is also why Persia considers leaving the US her only option if Trump is elected. And I can't blame her on that, either, though I will miss her terribly and I hope to still see her. Tempest has two birthday parties today, and one of them has a good chance of G's mom being there. But I don't think I can address it at a party, no matter how heavy my heart. And I'm resisting bombarding G's mother's facebook page with all the ways that black lives matter rather than all lives matter - or how they don't. Of course a quick scan of FB tells me G's mom has exactly one non-white friend that has made it to FB friend level, and that's S's mom. (A quick scan of my own? 18 non-white, though a few of them would have to legally label themselves white. Laws are so weird.) |
| I'm exhausted. I can't help those little thigns in my head: like Daisy doesn't want birth beads from me, doesn't want ot see me, didn't exactly tell me she had her kid all thrown into the summer school all summer. I'm feeling abandoned by friends. The preschool moms are grating on me, and I don't know what to do about that. they talk about how they text all the time and I can only see how I never get texts from them, and I'm often playing catch up on their plans. All I feel is not included. For Tempest's friends and families, I'm only doing a little better, but still mostly radio silent. And at least S's family doesn't deserve that and G's family is out of town. Another of Tempest's friends is also out of town. I've been so focused on the yoga but it's starting to drag me down. A couple yoga girls are gonna continue to be around, I think. In a general friendship category. I'm hopeful, but I'm still feeling mired in my thoughts. I might be kicking ass in the mouthly goals but that also shows how little I'm interacting outside of books and study. I'm not sure if that's good or bad. I know my kids need to be thrown out there to do stuff, but I just don't know how much more I can manage. Ifeel like I'm terrible after a conversation by the pool where the woman is like "yeah they'll come into it when they're ready and you can't push them" and since then i haven't pushed Tempest to do any homework, really. Why is Random Woman so crucial to my summer plans now? I want to get my kids out of the tablet, which they won't do on their own. She doesn't even have that problem. Her kids won't watch movies, even, and I doubt they're glued to their personal tablets like mine are at the moment. I do hate summer, I think. And Dilbert always talking about how we have to clean (read: declutter and tidy not actually scrub. i find scrubbing less exhausting) and he was talking about it ALL NIGHT FRIDAY. I went off to yoga, i told him I had to finish yoga stuff, and all the declutter talk just makes me more keyed up and stressed and WHY HAS HE NOT FUCKING FIGURED IT OUT YET? No wonder I went to "lunch" with the yoga girl after yoga was done at 4, and stayed until 5 (Dilbert knew we'd be at yoga until 4). And while I had to eat more food when I got home and I was overstuffed, it was worth it to talk shop with her. I know I should feel guilty about leaving him alone, then going gaming in the evening, but... damnit... I don't get a break. Ever. It's his damn fault for not taking the kids out of the house at some point. You can only keep them contained with the tv for so long. And then they'll drive you nuts. (I say "lunch" because we had snacks and expected lunch when the lady about meditation left. but that was 2, and then we just finished. I was STARVING.) But it'll take even more work to overcome this mindset of abandonment. That everyone has gone and I don't really have friends at all. My cousin is coming 3 weeks from tomorrow. And my new supervisor sent out two identical emails to introduce herself last Friday. Remind me I can handle all of this, that I shouldn't quit the Y for all the crap they give me, and that these feelings are temporary? |
| While I'm waiting for more rejections I'm killing my monthly goals. Dogbert woke me screaming at 3am. I calmed him down, that he didn't like not sleeping in my bed, but it was hard to figure out from my random sleepy head. Then he wanted water. Got that. And then... I thought I got him back to sleep so I tried to sneak out of bed, and he opened his eyes, stared directly at me, and said "Thank you."  Tempest asked me this evening if I could help heyr with Candy Crush, and I said I could after I got the laundry and Dogbert started in his bath (lots of swimming today) and she said, "Wait. Have you done your words today, Mom?"  I had, but she changed my yes to a maybe just in case. Sweet girl.I've been working on running them into the ground. Wednesdays are hard, Thursday involved a lot of swimming. And I'm exhausted. I'm not sure if that means I'm succeeding. But we're trying to have fun. |
| I'm looking for a number. Of reasonable agents to find, query, and get rejected from a project before deciding to send it somewhere else. Like self-pub or something along those lines. I hate reading that some agents are not taking queries now, but looking for self-pub hits like Wool.  DTYM rejections: 6 and out to 2 more spots, one of which said they will not respond if it's a no. So we can sit that at 6.3 right now. |
| I woke confused from the dream. I'd started some sort of war, but I hadn't been the one who originally set the rules. There were different items around and many people involved. But I escalated it, because the tools (a drill) hadn't been used in someone's knee until that point? I should write about these things before breakfast bot the kids distracted me. And the woman whose knee I put the drill in a ouple times? She stared at me, with the same face she stares at me with in my silver sneakers yoga class. Nothing happened to her knee except the drill got bloody. And she made moves to retaiiate.... Except I woke up. And I got Dogbert dressed and then had to yell at Tempest because she wasn't. Yesterday wasn't stellar. My 7 year old still has accidents and she's still trying to hide them. *shoulders slump* She's still afraid we'll be mad at her, but it's hard not to do something when she HIDES it and you find it on the furniture. So accordingly to the deal that Dilbert set up and Tempest agreed to, she lost her big reward from being dry three days. She can earn it back, but it's gone for now. Of course she keeps asking for the damn apps on her android, and she almost lost the tablet this morning because she wasn't getting dressed. I should have just taken it. At least she did get her classes on. But there's too much to do for her to keep just sitting there. Parenting is tough work. I did send out DTYM again and I have two more places to send it written out. Dilbert and I got into it yesterday because I want to try the sunday morning yoga class before i graduate. I've been trying very hard to get through to do all the things that are yoga, even though my daily practice has still suffered. Getting to classes that I don't teach but are taught by people from the studio gives me different perspectives. He thinks I can't get back in time for church. There's half an hour between end of class and start of church, and I think that's enough. So I have another week, because I won't be able to go after father's day because I think we have to go to DBQ. Final class to teach my teacher scheduled for tonight, and I still don't know what I'll do. But I'll get there. Mom's also coming and I'm supposed to help at the church rummage sale. I have a rough draft for my yoga project and I need to decide if I'm going with it and to fix it or to try something else. And I'm tired but I don't want to sleep anymore. I want to get back into a schedule because it is easier to wake up and go to sleep that way. |
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