Category Archives: Uncategorized

Words

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Reply to this meme by yelling “Words!” and I will give you five words that remind me of you. Then post them in your LJ and explain what they mean to you. *edit* Or just five words that I want to see your associations with/thoughts about.

Aging: What a way to start. Overall I find I enjoy aging a lot. I’m figuring things out over time and I’m pretty happy about that. It’s really neat to see what my body is doing. I’m trying hard to get to the point where I actually enjoy myself all the time so that I can stop looking back and saying, “Why didn’t I like myself more!” I find I am far less critical of myself physically now and that’s nice. I think what is bothering me the most about aging is I thought I would figure stuff out faster/earlier/better/something and I just haven’t. I spend a lot of time still feeling as stupid/confused as I did when I was younger. Being an adult looked way easier from the point of view of being a kid.

Mother: This is what I have wanted to be for much of my life. I think I’m doing an ok job of it. I feel hesitant about calling myself a good mother because I feel like those sorts of judgments can’t be made in the moment; I won’t know if I am a good mother until Shanna or I can look back and actually decide. I feel like being a mother is one of the primary ways I can heal from having been an abused child. In being a good parent to Shanna I can simultaneously parent myself in the ways I needed. I find that more than at any other point in my life there is a ‘club’ that I want to be part of. I feel like there are many parts of this experience I simply can’t talk about with people who are not mothers. To start with, there are all the biological changes I want to talk to other mothers about. Do other women feel like they have to start from scratch with their sexual identity? Now I want a community of women more than just about anything but I don’t know how to create it or find it.

Healthy: I’m trying so hard. I want to be physically healthy. I want to be emotionally healthy. I don’t understand why these things take so much bloody work. I feel very discouraged by the fact that no matter how much progress I make towards being more healthy it seems like there is some freakish goal of ‘health’ that is out of my reach. I hate that there is no ‘good enough’. My diet (not in the lose weight sense) is by far the healthiest it has ever been in my life. I eat good food that is good for me in rather reasonable portions. But there is still this specter hanging over me because I am not thin. I’m not actually in bad shape. Walking ten miles in a day is not a big deal to me at all. I don’t feel sore or uncomfortable unless there was extreme uphill involved. But I feel like I am lame/pathetic because those uphills are a bitch and I can’t run to save my life (my knees suck). So I think that being healthy is something that I struggle for constantly despite feeling like I will always be a failure. And I’m not going to get into psychologically healthy today because that’s just a quagmire I don’t need at this moment.

Bisexual: I actually really hate the word bisexual. I actively shun it for myself. My problem with the word is that it presupposes that there are only two genders and people have to pick one. On one hand the word queer has other issues (painfully heterosexual perverts often love to use it for themselves) because it is so broad that it seems meaningless but I still like it more than bisexual. I feel really weird about referring to myself as queer anymore because I get all the heterosexual privilege and it feels kind of weird/pretentious/uncomfortable to try and get any benefit from also being not heterosexual. It feels too much like I am trying to have my cake and eat it too. On one hand I was strongly into girls long before I was into boys, on the other hand I’ve only ever really fallen in love with one woman. I seem to be much more romantically attached to boys. It’s all so very confusing.

Writing: Shame. That’s my instant reaction to that word right now. For all that I write constantly (the internet is my primary connection to the world) I feel like an abject failure. I feel like failing out of the masters program decided for all time that I am a pathetic writer and I should just stop trying. That’s hard because there is more than one book I would really like to write. I have started writing two and I periodically will work on them but then after a while I feel so critical of my efforts that I delete all progress because I’m obviously too awful of a writer for anyone to want to read a book I have written. It’s hard. I have never identified strongly as a writer and yet I have periodically had things I’ve wanted to say and I communicate best in text. I think some of my short stories have even been good–but it’s so easy for me to feel like that was a fluke. I want to write. I want to be a writer. But just like dancing/being a dancer I feel like I just don’t deserve the title/activity.

Jealousy and cliques

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I realized something important tonight. I don’t think I am any more jealous of Noah going out on dates than I am of him gaming. I am just about equally as hostile to both. Well… ok so somehow I manage to actually verbalize and lash out more when it comes to the jealousy around other women. I think that part of the reason I feel more secure in being actively hostile towards him dating is because of the overall cultural/social acceptability towards being jealous of nonmonogamy. It’s not nearly so culturally acceptable to throw screaming temper tantrums about gaming, especially not in the very limited and controlled way he does it. That’s really interesting to think about. Ok, so I’m jealous. I’m so jealous I want to hit things (and I have) and I want to cry (and I have) and I want to make him hurt/angry/upset too (I think I did that too). Why am I so jealous?

I think it’s because this plays into some of my core insecurities. I don’t feel wanted. I don’t feel liked. Ok, I’m aware that people do like me. The readership of this journal alone won’t let me follow that pity party too closely. But how many of you do I see in a week? In a month? In the average year? Yeah. I don’t have a close group of friends. I’ve never had a close group of friends for any length of time. That came about because of moving around so much as a kid. I never learned how to deal with people on an extended basis. I can do short bursts and then I burn out quickly. I feel like I have to always be ‘on’ and let me tell you I am good at that act. I can be interesting, sexy, supportive, or obnoxious depending on what I think will play best to the crowd. I can’t do it for long though. In the past week and a half I spent not quite three days with a couple of friends and then about four days with a different couple of friends. I flipped out on both sets. I think that being overall kind of down contributed heavily to the fact that I didn’t have as much energy to be ‘on’ as I needed for those lengths of time. I desperately want to be able to do the long stretches of time with people but I always lose it. I want to crawl into a hole and hide because as I start running out of energy for putting on the front I get snappy which means that I start feeling bad about being mean which leads me to think about what a horrible person I am which makes me question why anyone wants to be friends with me anyway. This really is a sucky cycle. I don’t know how to change it.

Back to how this relates to Noah. Noah is the one person in my life I really trust to want to be around me. But he wants to spend time away from me doing things without me. It doesn’t really matter whether it is gaming or dating it hurts either way. Because knowing that he wants to go off without me makes me doubt that he really wants to be around me. It makes me feel like Noah is just one more person who can’t handle me because I am such an awful bitch. And when I feel like anyone doesn’t want to be around me because I am such an awful bitch it makes me get mean. And things cycle from there.

Ok. If I can look at the cycle that means I can find a way out of it. I’m just not sure where to start. Ok, I do know where to start. But he’s not home from his date yet.

Dropped my basket

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So I’m not really sure how to talk about this here but given that I’m me I feel compelled to try. I have crashed really hard. I now get to experience how difficult it is to take care of a kid while depressed and it really sucks. I’m doing it anyway because life doesn’t wait for me to feel happy or good about myself. There is still a baby to cuddle and read to and feed and change and nurse whether I feel up to it or not.

If you sum up the last year and a half it kind of makes sense that I’m losing it. One of my close friends died after an overdose and then my therapist, whom I saw for years and years and was very close to, did the same thing. And another death in my extended family was kind of the topper even if this one was expected and less tragic. I failed out of the masters program after seven years of work. I’m not sure why my writing was good enough for all those years but it just wasn’t in the end. I didn’t manage to have the home birth I was so set on; I suppose I should just be grateful I escaped the hospital without a c-section. I’ve had a miscarriage of a baby I wanted very much. I’m having an extremely hard time with some stuff with Noah; I’m really feeling very inadequate and pathetic. And on top of all that I had Shanna–which has been wonderful and fulfilling but a lot of work and physically stressful and my system is not recovered yet anyway. Many things about my core identity have been challenged in some pretty difficult ways. I feel like I don’t know who I am.

So I’m lonely and depressed and I desperately want to cut. I’m not doing it only because in some weird way I feel like it would be unfair to Shanna.

Hilarious

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I just got a message on okcupid:
Heya,

I recognize you from the dancing community. It’s fun hearing about the ways your life has been evolving lately. Let me know if you’d like to meet one another in person to get to know one another more.

J.
PS I’m good with you being into country :o)

Wow. I don’t think he has any idea who I am. Or that we have been on more than one date.

So awesome.

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I realized that I have gotten to have four dates in the past three weeks. (Ok, two of them are technically happening this week.) That’s amazing. I remain absolutely convinced that as wonderful as Noah is to be married to, he is even better to have an affair with. I have played with people who might have more technical skill in some specific area of bdsm but no one who has ever been able to climb inside my head and fuck with me the way he can. He is hands down the best lover I have ever had. He is attentive and sweet and a mean son-of-a-bitch. I so win. I get to keep him forever.

(Oh, and that cryptic entry… geez folks. Yes the sex will be with Noah. :P)

And then it happened

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And it wasn’t a big deal. I went hiking with Laura in the afternoon and came home after he left. Shanna and I snuggled and played and went to sleep reasonably early. He woke me up accidentally when he got home and we talked and figured stuff out and then had the hottest sex we’ve had in years. I guess feeling competitive is good for my drive.

I’m really surprised that I’m not upset. Now that it is over with and done there is nothing to anticipate and get nervous about. What’s done is done; there’s no sense in crying over spilled milk and all that. That’s really interesting to learn.

So much for the filter…

Talked to Noah lots.

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See, this is why I married him. We spent hours and hours talking last night. We went through all of the things that are bothering me, all of the myriad of ways that I’m upset/nervous/insecure. It was really good. He listened when I was ranting and gave me constructive feedback when I calmed down. We talked more specifically about why this is happening. It took coming up with some silly examples before I could get him to understand what this feels like. He’s a big foodie. I asked him how he would feel if I went up to The French Laundry with someone else and left him at home. He said that would upset him a lot. Ok, now you have some idea of how I feel. It’s not really as bad as all that but this is really hard. I feel like if I can get through this to the other side things will be ok. Let me rephrase: things will be ok when I get through this. No doubt in there. It’s like freaking out about getting blood drawn. It’s not my idea of a good time but afterward there won’t be a problem anymore.

Why do relationships have to be so complicated?

Fucking sucks.

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In general I don’t make posts that Noah can’t see. This is one of those times though. I feel like I’m going to puke. I’m so angsty and upset and freaked out. Noah has a date on Friday. When we originally started negotiating this it was stated as a “play date” and I come from the bdsm community where that frequently doesn’t include sex–that is my base assumption. But they are negotiating whether or not to use barriers on oral sex and he plans to fuck her.

I am so freaking out. My stomach is a ball of knots and I want to vomit. I hate this feeling. It doesn’t help that Shanna is having a hard day and I’m having a terrible time being patient with her. I was very open to the idea of playing but it snowballed so fast. We were supposed to have sex last night (yes we schedule these things) but I just couldn’t do it. The idea that he is anticipating and planning sex with someone else made me feel really revolted by the idea of him touching me. I don’t know how I am going to manage to have sex with him on Saturday at a play party when we’ve scheduled that.

This is so hard for me. I feel so completely inadequate and pathetic.

I’m doing at least some processing with him but it feels like a full dose of it wouldn’t be fair. This is the result of a lot of negotiation because it really sucks that he has to compromise on his needs so much.

But god I don’t have patience for Shanna right now and she’s been crying all day. AHHHHHHHHHH

{milestones} Shanna at one

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So I never posted acknowledging the fact that seven days ago Shanna turned one year old. I continue to be impressed and delighted with her. The day after her first birthday she decided, “Enough of this crawling business–that’s for babies and now I’m a toddler.” It’s been remarkable.

She is now saying something that sounds a lot like “up” when she wants to be picked up. When she eats food that she thinks is especially tasty she goes “Mmmmmm!!!” She babbles pretty much non-stop when we are home alone but she is somewhat more shy when around people she doesn’t know well. She now understands and correctly follows the command, “Gentle” when touching people or animals; it’s quite sweet.

She is nursing substantially less though her last round of teething screwed up her sleeping through the night and she is back to at least one nursing session in the middle of the night. We are unlikely to stop nursing any time in the foreseeable future as the continued benefits of nursing far outweigh the fairly minor inconveniences of nursing (for us–I am not judging other people who choose to wean I swear).

She is only up to five teeth and I have no idea when she will be getting more. Lack of teeth doesn’t seem to slow her down much in eating just about everything she wants to eat. She has favorite foods, of course, namely: bananas, dried cherries, ice cream (duh), mini-meringues, sharper cheeses, and all things bread.

She is playing with her toys more and more. She cuddles her dolly. She adores the dump truck that sings a song when you push a button. I kind of want to throw it out the window, but she’s having a blast so instead I just pray for the batteries to die. 🙂 She loves her xylophone and ball smacker thing.

She noticeably recognizes Sarah the best and she treats her as a perfectly adequate mommy-substitute in crowd situations. This pleases me enormously for many reasons. I love that her monkey sphere is expanding because it means that she is developing actual attachment to someone other than me and that shows me hope that she will stop being as dependent on me soonish. 🙂 At this point I’m not sure she has “stranger anxiety” but she no longer eagerly goes to all people she meets as a matter of course. She has a strong preference for people who are familiar and it takes her a bit to warm up to new people.

She now shows a decided preference for going in the potty and will hold her bladder/bowels for a bit trying to get a chance. Unfortunately she isn’t signing consistently yet so we still have a lot of misses because I don’t offer enough. I should start working on this because she shows all the signs I can see of wanting to be done with diapers. It’s really cool.

She shrunk back into 12 month clothing. This is cute and kind of neat only… I sent pretty much all we had to Texas for the arrival of Noah’s brother’s child because I thought we were done with it. Oops. Luckily I have friends with kidlets and we received another batch and some of hand-me-downs so she is certainly not running around nekkid (well, at least not more than she would be any way).

She starts vaccinations next week. Of course I am nervous about this, but I’m going to hope that the universe sees fit to keep her out of the group of kids who has side effects. Before the hysterical pro vaccination people start harping on me about mercury and autism (neither of which hit my radar in terms of worry) I will point out that the package inserts for vaccinations mention Guillain-Barre syndrome, Encephalitis, Encephalopathy, SSPE, and death. There are other serious reactions to vaccinations like Lupus, MS, arthritis, blood disorders, seizures, diabetes, pneumonia, life threatening rash, paralysis, and a few others mentioned on the package inserts. None of these things are hysterical reactions from ill advised people reading faulty medical information. Yes they are by and large rare; I don’t think I will feel comforted by the thought, “Well it’s only about a 1 in 100,000 chance that a child will have a severe reaction to a vaccination” if my kid is the one damaged by a vaccine. So I’m nervous. It’s time to start though. She is starting to get out and actually interact with the world and that means she needs more protection than just my milk. Though my milk continues to be awesome for her, of course.

She loves to “read” her books and she goes back and forth between her board books and older picture books. She is rather gentle with our books at this point so I don’t feel cranky when she pulls down a grown up book or two to play with.

I think that is about all I have the gumption to write about right now. Maybe I’ll put up pictures later (and hopefully I will be sent pictures from the birthday party. 🙂

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I’m cleaning out the memo section on my phone. We found a bunch of neat bracelets in New Zealand that struck me as potentially interesting incognito collars: http://www.f3design.co.nz/cms/index.php?page=browse&key=/BODY_ADORNMENT/bracelets

Jesus Fucking Christ

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I am so angry. I am angry at all kinds of stupid, petty things. I want to hit people and not in that fun way. I want to scream. Everything is irritating me. I feel like I am almost vibrating with negative emotions. I feel almost psychotic. This is the kind of irrational anger people get medicated for.

I yelled at Noah. 🙁 Ok, so maybe the stuff I was yelling at him about was stuff that deserved a conversation but not my foul language and temper.

I don’t know how I have managed to keep it together with Shanna. This sucks.

I don’t actually put much store in this

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But I’m curious nonetheless. I’ve been reading up on astrology stuff (hey, that’s as good of a basis for when to try to conceive as anything else) and I’m not sure what I think about some of the signs. We are probably looking at kind of the middle half of the year: maybe Pisces, more likely Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo and I’m not sure how I feel about most of them. One brother was a Pisces and we had a lot of conflict. It’s hard for me to judge how much was about our astrological differences and how much was because we came from an abusive home and were really fucked up kids. The same statement can be applied to Gemini except we are now adults and he hasn’t dealt with his shit. Noah and Shanna are both Gemini’s (God help me). My niece, nephew, and a close cousin are all Leos and they drive me batshit; just too lazy and immature for me. Other than that I don’t know too much about these signs and I’m not sure who else I know in them. (Ok, I know the obvious Geminis but that’s it.)

Any feedback?

Hm. I’m not sure second kid should be known as Lizard as well but I can’t think of a good nickname. I guess I’ll go with Noah’s suggestion for the tag.

Not writing

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I have all this stuff I want to talk about. Moving. Houses. Writing. Evolution of sexuality.

But I don’t seem to have any energy to write about any of it. Even when I have uninterrupted time to sit down with the keyboard (or paper) I just… can’t do it. But I’m thinking about a lot of things. I’m thinking all the time. I just… can’t write.