Tag Archives: friends

Weekend Report!

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We went out on a hot date on Friday! Whoo hoo! We went to the swinger party at Edges. I discovered that I am really not in a position to be doing any play with other people. I had this visceral, physical, instinctive feeling of NOT THE DADDY when a playmate touched me even slightly. I just couldn’t handle that. So I only played with Noah and I had a great time. I was quite thrilled to be the initiator of a bunch of other people getting lots of play though. 🙂 That was really fun for me in the space I was at.

The only problem with such events is they keep us up very late at night and Shanna is not interested in sleeping in. 🙂 We spent Saturday very zombielike not getting much of anything accomplished and it felt wonderful. We have both been needing some together-slacker time. We also had hot sex again for the third time in a week. I am pretty sure last week involved more sex than the whole rest of this pregnancy combined. I’m feeling physically much better. 🙂 Yay for second trimesters.

On Sunday I went up to Mo’s Tea Party in San Francisco. This was not a kid-friendly event so Noah and Shanna got to have a date at the Discovery Museum. 🙂 I had a really great time. I got to catch up with folks I like and meet a bunch of new-to-me people. I stepped pretty far outside my normal comfort zone and it was a really good thing. It was a thoroughly excellent event all around. 🙂 Then I went over to Wicked Grounds for some real food (I had not had much real solid food all day that wasn’t sugary and by 5pm that’s a problem) and had an awesome sandwich. 😀 I also got to enjoy fun, festive, sassy conversation with a fair sized crowd of wonderful people. I think all of whom are on lj. 😀 Thanks everyone! I felt very included and loved. It is nice to remember that when I get out of my house there are still lots of really neato people who are happy to talk to me. 🙂 Whoo hoo! One of the people said she would be thrilled to take bart down to come visit with me and Shanna and someone else said, “I’m sorry I never visit… but at least I never promise I will!” Both comments were awesome in very different ways. 😀

Nice day

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In an attempt to remind myself of the people who love me I called one of my friends last night and asked him if he wanted to grab dinner since I was giving Noah the night off. 🙂 It was lots of fun. It was really nice to reflect on how much our relationship has grown and changed in the last ten years. He is pretty awesome about listening without trying to ‘fix’ at this point despite the fact that it takes conscious out loud reminders (he does this for himself) don’t fix! Don’t fix! It’s pretty cute. 🙂 He said something to me that I appreciated a lot. I told him I was pregnant (he is kind of out of the loop) and that I had been last time I saw him at Dickens but I didn’t know yet. He said, “That explains the level of emotional you were displaying then” and I quipped, “As opposed to just being generally crazy?” and he said, “Despite your desire to self-identify that way you really aren’t crazy.” I kind of stopped. That was interesting for me. Let’s just say that if he thought I was crazy he would say so. He’s really not one to uhm pull punches. So it was kind of startling.

What am I getting out of describing myself that way? Something to ponder.

Not to mention that I spent the earlier part of the day with a girlfriend. She asked to come over and that felt nice. It was nice to catch up with her because we haven’t done that in months. 🙂

And I was right to cancel the massage. There was no way in h-e-double hockey sticks Shanna would have tolerated me lying on the table. She’s starting to feel better physically today but now I’m getting a cough too. I’m glad I didn’t send this bug home to Ms. I Have To Take The Boards On Tuesday. 🙂

Ha. What a life summary.

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With yet more thanks to facebook I found a fella I was good friends with in high school. He was one of the guys I cheerfully beat the crap out of nearly daily and he has the distinction of being the first person whose ribs I cracked. (He told me I couldn’t beat him wrestling. I did.) Catching up on 12 years of missed contact was pretty funny. He and I both dropped out of high school, though I ended up with a diploma anyway. He has been traveling the world and seeing awesome places. He doesn’t have a college education and really doesn’t care. He is currently in the Middle East and has been for a couple of years. It sounds very exciting to me.

He was shocked when I told him about the bdsm stuff–which, as Jenny pointed out, shouldn’t be shocking at all compared to the current domesticity. 😛 He told me that he admired that I worked in service to the community as a teacher. I wasn’t sure if he was mocking me given the choice of language. He said the thing he is most envious of is that I’ve had way more sex than him over the years. 🙂

Summarizing my life over the last 12 years quickly does sound way way more interesting than it feels to me at the moment. Perspective is funny.

Much awesome

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In the past week I worried that I offended two of my longest term friends. I was feeling very nervous about alienating them because they are very important to me. Both have since responded very positively to me and said point blank that our relationship is too important to them to give up over any small disagreement. I’m not sure I can express just how happy that makes me. I feel valuable. I feel loved. I spend so much of my time feeling like if I say the wrong thing people will abandon me. I am grateful beyond words that they both took the initiative to assure me that they aren’t going anywhere.

I love you Britt. And I love you Debbie. Thank you.

It’s official

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I’m going to Portland. Just to visit people, I’m not moving or anything. 🙂

On the 16th of November I leave my house and drive to Eureka. I will be staying with a friend overnight and chit-chatting. 🙂
On the 17th I drive to Eugene and stay with a different friend. We have lots and lots to talk about because I haven’t seen her since before I got pregnant.
On the 18th I drive up to Dad’s in Vancouver. I am staying there till the Friday after Thanksgiving. It means I am missing Turkeyfest, which is very sad. Noah is thinking he might go without me. 🙂

So, would anyone like to see me up in Portland?

Holy shit.

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{f-locked so that it doesn’t port}

Facebook has been one long series of surprises today. This is actually really awesome. I have plans next Thursday evening with a girl I was good friends with in junior high. I spent a while messaging back and forth with another chick I knew from junior high; this is the one who introduced me to goth and vampires and all that shit. She’s now a lesbian living in London. I think that is pretty awesome. 🙂 A guy I started being friends with in junior high and it continued through high school is hitting on me. A guy that I admired a lot in high school for his brains is in grad school at UC Berkeley after graduating from Harvard and man did he get hot. He grew into his face. 🙂

And… my brother accepted my friend request. This is a HUGE deal. My brother hasn’t spoken to me in years. I get to see pictures of his kids. He has been unwilling to allow pictures to circulate in the family. I almost cried when he said yes. His kids are so big. The oldest is in fourth grade, the middle is in first, and the baby is four years old. I’ve never met the youngest and I haven’t seen the middle child since he was a few months old.

Holy crap. Ok, I’m glad I joined Facebook.

Two things

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Noah’s parents sent us a box of stuff for Shanna. She loves the duck. The book is a bit over her head so it will go on the shelf for later reading. The clothes are all very adorable. There is something funny about the clothes though. They sent a mix of sizes. As in: 6/9 month, 12 month, and size 5. She wears 18 month and is rapidly heading towards 24 month. I find this kind of funny. 🙂 The too small stuff will go into the baby clothes box and Little TBD might wear it. Luckily we have a box of WAY too big stuff (started with that excellent juggling shirt from Andrew) so we can store stuff for later. 🙂 At least his parents send clothes I like unlike my mother. 🙂

I think I need to give up on having friends. My life is pretty lonely and I need to figure out how to come to terms with it because fighting against it is making me really miserable. Very few people are willing to make any effort to see me and even those people are too busy to do it often. I’m tired of being the one to put in 100% of the effort in relationships. I’m tired of trying to make new friends and having it go pretty badly. Like driving 30 minutes to south San Jose for a play date only to find that the mom I am meeting brought a friend and they sit there talking to each other…in Russian. I feel like going through a list of the things I try to do is a comedy of errors but it’s gone on long enough that I’m not laughing anymore. Scene people have dropped me completely. Shanna goes to sleep at 8/8:30 so dancing just isn’t an option. This is my life. People don’t want to visit me. I need to stop fighting it and just accept it so that maybe I can stop crying.

Social issues

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So there is a weird situation in my life. There is this guy I’ve known since high school. Many of the people I am still friends with from high school hang out with him quite a bit. They really wish I would “get over” my issues with him and come hang out with the group because it would be fun. They think I should give him another chance.

But you see, the problem is that he tried to rape me. He was physically pulled off my kicking and protesting body by another friend. I’m really not interested in finding out if he is an awesome guy these days because I will never ever trust him.

So it’s all awkward and shit. I get the impression that folks think that since I wasn’t actually raped it’s no big deal. But it is.

An excess of riches

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Or at least, too much stuff. About nine years ago I bought some wrapping paper from my nephew as he was trying to win a prize in a fundraiser. I’m uhm, still using it. From the looks of the rolls, I may have another four or five years. I’m getting somewhat sick of it and would rather not have more than a decade of the same wrapping paper. So I would love it if some folks brought their presents over here and we can wrap your presents. Hell, I’ll do most of the work if you play with Shanna. 🙂

So c’mon… you know you want to get out of wrapping presents…

Associations

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I was thinking about how things become associated with another person. I won’t be able to get all of mine in this list, but here are a few:
English muffin with blueberry jelly = James
Long clingy rayon nightgowns = Brittney (I used to borrow one from her when I went to visit. It was the coolest thing ever.)
Brussels sprouts = Ali
Really sweet late harvest Rieslings = Anna
Driving slow in the fast lane = Debbie
“Where I come from” by Alan Jackson = Bailey
Fast cars = Tom
Ice cream, hedonism, speech ticks = Noah
Naked slacking = Sarah
Macaroni and cheese with tomato soup = Miss Jenny
Spice cake = Miss Sara
Chocolate = Anthony
“No one can make you feel anything” & “Generous”= Deborah (Yeah, but they can make me a sandwich!)

There are many more, but Shanna woke up and is wiggling. I like how many reminders of my friends I have in my life.

Drained

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Today I went and gave emotional support to a friend who is going through some pretty rough stuff. Trying to manage his needs with Shanna’s simultaneously was very difficult. And then she screamed the whole way home. I did all this having eaten a few bites of yogurt and granola (I accidentally dumped the rest on the floor), a rather scant amount of leftovers (a little chicken, a couple bites of potatoes, and about four bites of squash), some mostly-veggie soup, and a bowl of vegan stew. That’s very little calories in a day for me.

I’m so tired and emotionally wrung out that I want to cry. My head hurts. I’m really grateful she is asleep in the swing right now. And that we bought the mozzarella and prosciutto roll.

Birthday reflection

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I didn’t make a cake. I ran out of time. Instead, I went to Mommy and Baby Yoga and helped my back feel better. And I had lunch with a dear old friend and got to see how much he has changed recently. Then I went and bought a jogging stroller via a craigslist ad. It’s in nearly new condition and I paid less than 1/2 the sticker price. Rebecca will be proud of me. I went and gave food to Laura’s cats. Then I came back to the house and got Noah so we could go to dinner with a small-ish group of people. It was lovely.

I got comments from dozens of people. I got text messages and phone calls and emails. I heard from people I haven’t heard from in a long time. (Hey Miss Jenny–remember Grant from Fisher? Holy shit!) I guess putting it out into the universe that I really wanted people to acknowledge my birthday worked. It even extended to people who have no idea about livejournal.

I feel loved and blessed. Thank you all.

Just noticed…

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I’ve been blogging for five years (on lj, I was on g-blog before that). I have posted 1,794 times. I have posted 8,185 comments and received 13,489. Wow. I guess I am more popular than I thought.

It’s been an interesting five years. Most people currently reading my journal have been doing so for quite a while. Thank you. It’s interesting that so many people (150 mutual friends and 61 others) have bothered to friend this journal. I’m sure there are some people who are stalking the public entries without having a journal (there is Debbie for example). Even as I’m struggling with finding out how I fit into old social groups no one has unfriended me out of disdain for my writing and only a couple of people have blatantly said they don’t want to hear about the baby. I can only presume that they skim those entries. 🙂

LJ has been good to me overall. I’m happy it exists.

Interesting conversation

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I have always gravitated towards computer geeks. Back in high school I used to sit in the background while they coded and I fell asleep at the MST3K showings. I wanted to be around them, but I’ve never shared their passions and interests. It’s always been hard to find things to talk about. This has only compounded as I’ve gotten older. I don’t share interests with most of my friends so I sometimes wonder what exactly makes us friends.

For quite some time I’ve been aware that my interests: psychology, literature, my students when I was teaching, and now Shanna are not shared by most of my social network. As a result most socializing consists of me trying gamely for the first 10-30 minutes then slinking off to a corner while Noah talks to people. I should specify that this is group socializing. One-on-one people usually demonstrate an interest in hearing about my life but then again the number of people who want to have one-on-one time with me is quite small. I’m not particularly sad that there aren’t more people, quality over quantity and all that. I am sad that they have busy lives and I don’t see them much.

I’m fairly tired of feeling like my interests are boring. It isn’t that my interests are boring it is that I am hanging out with mostly adamantly child-free people who only want to talk about technology. I am starting to feel hostile about the degree to which many of my “friends” are dismissive of the things that interest me. Maybe it’s time to start pulling back from social groups. This is a pretty easy transitional time. I want group interactions but unless they are about sex I don’t know what to talk about. *sigh* Time to find some new people I guess.

So this is what this feels like.

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Someone I love very much is hurting. Lots of different things have hurt her. Mostly it is just existing that is hurting her. She doesn’t like herself very much and she doesn’t see why I adore her so much. She’s talking about not wanting to be here anymore. There’s not really anything I can say or do to make her stay if she really wants to go. But I don’t want her to go. I see such a beautiful, wonderful person who has the ability to do so many wondrous things with her life. I see so much power and strength in her. I wish I had the magic words to entreat her to stay.

This is probably how other people felt about me when I really didn’t want to be here anymore. I wish I understood what it was that eventually got me to stay. Maybe it was just knowing how much people were hurt when my brother and my father killed themselves, maybe that was enough. I don’t really want to share the knowledge with her of how bad that was. I don’t think I actually could.

I want a magic wand. I want to make things better. And I can’t. I feel so helpless.

Yay productive and House Guest Information

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Today I have done a bunch of reading. For the record: Northrop Frye may have one or two points that are interesting, but in the main he is a twat. The other critics I read today bothered me far less. I have also folded the laundry, made the bed (Arbus–I don’t know why you like making the bed, I hate it), cleaned up the kitchen after a weekend of use, and did a bunch of random picking up to allow the house to once again look “staged”–aka, boring. I’m all proud of me.

I have also been thinking about how I want to do more actual cleaning this week, partially in preparation for the open houses next weekend and partially because we will have a fabulous house guest. Very excited about hosting Brehen. 🙂

Which brings me to my point about house guests. I have had a number of people (it’s got to be close to 20 at this point) mention coming to visit us in Pittsburgh. This is awesome, wonderful, thrilling news for me to hear–but it also freaks me out and terrifies me. I’ll explain why. I am massively territorial about my space. I want things to be set exactly so, cleaned exactly so, and I want to feel like *I* have more history in my space than anyone else. This leads to all kinds of weird things about guests in my house in general. It’s part of the reason that I freak out about hosting events. I have slowly been coming to understand the depth and breadth of my neurosis on this topic as time goes by and more people want me to host parties/weekend stays/etc. I am not complaining about people wanting to visit me or stay with me or what have you. Really, I’m not. What I am saying is that in order for me to feel fully comfortable with that I need to be respectful of my own needs for boundaries.

Which brings me to the blunt part. I don’t want to host anyone for an entire weekend for the first six months we live in Pittsburgh. I may make an exception if there is some kind of emergency situation–but it would take something pretty damn extreme. I know that sounds like a long time, but it probably won’t feel that way to me. I want to settle in to my house slowly and feel like there is no pressure around needing to entertain anyone. I will also be settling into seeing how things work with the Lizard because if things go according to plan, the end of the six month period will mean the Lizard is only about eight months old. After that six month period I will probably be missing people like mad and I will be begging people to come stay with me. It’s just very important to me that I have it. I’ve told a number of people this individually, but I think that a couple of people felt like it was a personal rejection and it really isn’t. If I don’t want *you* to come stay with me ever I’ll bloody well tell you that. 🙂

So if you tell me “I want to come visit you” anytime soon I may cringe and say “Not until spring.”

Oh… unless you mean coming to stay at the Disaster House. Feel free to ask for that. I have all kinds of feelings about this house that mean I am not real attached to who stays here. 🙂

Running away

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Today I run away from home. I’m going north. I’m only go to be there for three days before Noah joins me. I think that is for the best because more than three days and we are pretty pathetic. I look forward to the time I am going to have with friends. I look forward to taking Noah on his first backpacking trip. I look forward to showing him Portland and Seattle as I feel very comfortable in both towns. Look! Stuff he hasn’t done! Squee! Maybe feeling consciously the things I am sharing will make me feel less twitchy about the stuff that he shares. Here’s to hope!

I will be back though. California, and specifically the bay area, is home. But running away from home can be fun at times.