Tag Archives: friends

Something else I’m thinking about

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I’ve noticed that with a couple of friends I have a particular issue. So my friends are eldest children and they were assigned a lot of child-minding duties growing up. They very automatically step in and start doing what feels like parenting my kid. I have mostly bit my tongue about this but I’ve felt kind of butt-hurt. Recently I started talking to one of the people in particular and I think that I’m having the feelings I’m having because I have so many issues with my own sister and her attitudes around doing the same thing. But I don’t like that I’m feeling this way about my friends. They aren’t my sister and they don’t behave like her at all. Even if there are some surface similarities in ‘caring for nearby children’ it’s just not the same.

Ok. I’m going to make a resolution for myself. I’m going to work on my butt-hurt feelings. In all seriousness these friends who take these kinds of self-imposed caretaking roles are going to be the closest my children have to family experiences. I really want my children to feel what it is like to have people other than me who love them and take care of them. That means I need to get comfortable with it and not fuck it up for them because of my issues. I really wish that the list of ‘shit to work on’ was getting smaller instead of longer.

(Shanna asked to watch videos so I got to type again. 😛 )

Brain dump

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I just kind of want to babble and I feel guilty doing it at folks on IM sometimes. 🙂

We bought into the Disney Vacation Club. It is probably not the very best timing ever given all the other financial schtuff coming up right now (teeth issues, birth, increased health insurance costs with the new job) but it’s not going to screw us over in any way. I have been feeling really trapped lately and just knowing that I have that ability to go to a hotel for a few days and it is already paid for is actually helping me feel less panicked. Not to mention that as I’ve had a few days recently of feeling fussy/not well I have really enjoyed the escapism of getting to look into possibilities for future vacations. It’s kind of like playing Lottery Fantasy only I will almost certainly get to actually do it. 😀

Loneliness comes and goes. I’m doing better than I was for a while. I have started scheduling specific time with a friend and it’s actually helping. Knowing that he cares enough to carve out a specific day every month even though he is pretty frantically busy is giving me a hefty dose of, “Yes I’m worth some effort.” It helps that he and I share some very strong core values of shared labor. Granted I can’t do a lot of physical labor right this minute, but I can provide a big vehicle that enables him to get supplies for his projects in a way that doesn’t cost him extra money. 😀 And he knows I will start doing labor as soon as I am able. And he loves my kid. 🙂 Stuff with other people is less predictable so I’m kind of hanging my hat on this hang-out with this friend. It’s a lot of pressure for him but he has indicated that he doesn’t mind. And it’s only once a month. 🙂

I’m strangely excited about the kids resale event this weekend. (www.outrageousoutgrowns.com) I’m selling stuff we don’t want/need and I’m getting a cheap thrill out of making at least a little bit of money on the stuff that we have already used as much as we want to. I’m hoping to make enough money to pay for the next size up in Shanna’s wardrobe. Given that I don’t spend much money on her clothes it is a relatively modest goal and I’m selling an awful lot of stuff. So it’s random but I’m excited. I’m less excited about going to drop the stuff off early tomorrow morning with Shanna because I have to place everything out on the sales-floor by myself. That’s going to be uncomfortable. It’ll be ok though. Would anyone have any interest in going with me to the sellers early buying time on Friday evening?

I think it is really funny that I have turned Fetlife into a place where I go to argue about parenting stuff. Not how I pictured that involvement…

I don’t feel all that present in this pregnancy, which is kind of a hard thing to explain. I had that lovely haze of pregnancy euphoria a bit for a few weeks a few weeks ago. Lately I just feel kind of clumsy and lazy but not particularly excited about being pregnant. I have constant low level sour stomach (it always feels wrong to call it heart burn) but Tums make me feel disgusting in a whole different festive way. I’m having trouble feeling really attached to this fetus. I’ve been feeling movement every so often for a while. I’m definitely growing. But… it’s like the miscarriages made me afraid to love the baby before it arrives. I don’t like feeling this way.

I’m having a hard time processing how I feel about the upcoming delivery and how I feel about Shanna’s birth in retrospect. I feel… kind of defensive. I feel like the fact that I got pain meds means that I can’t ‘really’ handle labor even though I never got to the point where it felt all that painful. I feel like I must be lying to myself about the experience. Even though no one has ever contradicted my experience of my birth in any way I feel like there must be people who think that I am weak because I went to the hospital. I feel overwhelming shame about the fact that I needed sleep that badly. Which is really pretty stupid. I know logically that I am not a wuss/weak/pathetic because I needed sleep but I feel like those things are true. I’m scared I am not going to be able to handle the second labor. I’m scared that if it takes a long time I am going to cave much easier and not see a point in fighting for a natural labor because I am obviously too pathetic to handle one. I really don’t know how to handle these feelings. This physical sensation of being too weak/pathetic is overwhelming and I can feel it shutting down huge parts of my brain/body. I know that being afraid is going to cause me problems. My labor with Shanna wasn’t painful until I was beyond exhausted and terrified wondering how many more days would go by before it ended. I really don’t know what to do with these feelings.

Shanna says I am out of babbling time today.

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.