As the truly long-time readers will have noticed, Sunday marked my twelfth anniversary of keeping this journal online. Twelve years and no domain to call my own! To celebrate, I uploaded a funkload of pictures, correlating to the appropriate entry. Yesterday I made the first setting change since I added Blogger comments, which is that I disallowed anonymous posting. I've been noticing that when people want to tell me that Mason is creepy, they do so anonymously. Feel free to judge our attractiveness, just tag on a name from now on. Also, have you noticed how fat I'm getting lately? Discuss.

To address an (anonymous) comment from the last entry: yes, I am surprised that the Boy has served the papers. His only action thus far has been to leave; I've been cleaning up the legalities ever since and have been paying the bills of nearly 3 grand. Perhaps in retrospect I should have expected that he would jump on the cheapest, easiest step…but I didn't. Be clear: I don't consider myself a victim here, but that doesn't mean that I can't acknowledge when things are done suddenly and without warning. It was a shock. Wondering why is not productive…although it may help to know that I dream of reconciliation 3 nights out of 5, and wake up feeling worse than ever. (Last night I dreamed of a Christian rockband that solved mysteries, so it's not always like that.)

A lost anecdote from Renfaire day:

On the way home, we discovered that Sage could "sing" "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star," although it was a lot like listening to Frankenstein's monster & Tarzan sing holiday greetings. He skips words, syllables, lines…sometimes he'll produce 6 garbled sounds before awarding himself a flat "yaaaaaay."

It was far past his bedtime, and halfway through the long drive home he became incredibly tired and cranky. He started to produce the long, sustained crying that doesn't stop until a bed is produced…but if asked, he would still "sing". So we sang with him, over and over and over. Near the end of this litany, Blake turned to him and asked, in all seriousness, "Sage, do you know any other songs?"

Um. Stats? Of a sort.

• So. I suppose that, except for waiting for my heart to numb during brief custody hand-overs, I can reasonably claim that my relationship with the Boy is now completely over. That means that I get to add another milestone to the journal stats, which is that I have written of the birth, the flowering, the withering and the death of my marriage, all in one series. Yee haw.
• I have developed an interest in photography, and am starting to be able to (sometimes) produce the pictures I've visualized since I was a child.
• My child has gone from a surprise union of two cells to a fully literate boy who dresses like Spiderman, demands his own copies of Neil Gaiman books, and sings hooks from Apostle of Hustle songs in the other room while I'm making dinner.
• I have accepted my occasional nature, and stopped apologizing for it. To compensate, I make sure that my feed links are working, and I have Facebook trolling for notes as well.
• I have redeveloped a love of music not really present since my earliest journal years, and spend much more time at concerts and listening to new music than I would have thought possible five years ago.
• I have permanently lost touch with Poet (by his desire), Palaver is too sick to venture out much of the time and Preacher lives in another country. Of the three, I am closest with the one who lives farthest away, and our sons get along famously.
• I have added a third person to my monogamy series. The first is getting married sometime soon; the second will be divorced from me in about three weeks.
• I finally found a job I loved with friends, love, yarn, and mutual respect; these elements have disappeared or been co-opted so that I am more than ready to move on next year. And yet I can't imagine being anything but the World's Worst Teacher. (A label to which Blake strenuously objects, by the way. He thinks I should get it changed to World's Best. I already have the t-shirt, though.)

two years ago

five years ago

seven years ago

eight years ago

twelve years ago

Labels: achievement, angst, blake, comments, mason, music, nostalgia, on-line diaries, photos, the boy

I have just taken my once-yearly tour of all things Blogger and I am very excited about the idea that I can consolodate my knitting blog into this one. What's that? You've never seen my knitting blog? Well...I don't really care. It's not a good blog as these things go. It's a project journal more than anything else, and my last entry is from March Break. Now that Ravelry has come into my life, all of the detailed scrapbooking I felt compelled to do fits neatly into their searchable database. I may even move my projects over, as I'm doing with this. Or, not. So, you won't notice anything much on this end, unless you're seriously into my archives or you're a knitting person who's come here out of desperation and wants to know where the other blog went.

The other thing I want to do is add a Twitter feed, which is a new thing I started to do because of Ravelry (of course). I can be a sheep, but it usually takes me a year or two to pull my head up and figure out where the rest of the herd has wandered off to. And in this case, the sheep wants to tweet.

Heading into my last full week of the first semester. This year has gone the fastest I can remember. St. Stephen used to say something about how time goes faster the older we get because of its relation to our total age. All I know is that it's never been this easy to get through a season. I think that being busy every night of the week helps. Tonight is the first American Tribal Style class - it's expensive and far, but I'm doing it with Jessamyn & Juuki and we're pumped. I expect to be bewildered, sore and exhausted when I get home tonight. Here's hoping.

Also, knitting like mad. I haven't really slowed down since Christmas deadline, and since I'm gearing up for my yearly finish-athon, I'm not trying to slow down. I don't get to start anything in February until I clear out my old projects, so I might as well rip through as many hats as possible in the meantime.

Labels: bat masterson, dancing, knit, on-line diaries

Trying to gather my thoughts. I’ve been painting for 2 days and it’s taking a toll on my coherence. It's not just the fumes; it's also the fact that I listen to the same CD over and over until the painting is done. Last summer my album was “The Else” by TMBG (I still can’t listen to “The Bee of the Bird of the Moth” without thinking about edging my kitchen). This year it’s “In Our Bedrooms After the War” by Stars. Yes, I still manage to be electrified by bands everyone else has known about for years. At this point it’s a lifestyle choice.

So! Painting. The good news is that the second coat is drying in Blake’s room, and it is BLUE, baby. The bad news is that now I really, really want to make him some curtains. With some appliqué stars and planets and a rocketship. I think I need someone to talk sense into me before I go to Fabricland and set up my new-to-me sewing machine and spend days cursing about my seam ripper.

Speaking of crafting obsessions, here are some photos of the projects I was yammering on about last time:

As always, click through for more.

This Friday I got a haircut, which I immortalized at the same time Strong Bad was trying to get into Scherezade’s email.

This isn’t so much a photo of my hair as it is a photo of me and Scherezade in the park near the flatiron building. We tried to get a photo of my hair, but the results weren’t that striking. Suffice it to say that I walked into Destiny’s salon with serviceable but boring shoulder-length hair* and walked out with a bob. I even let her give me a fringe, as it’s summertime and it’s not critical that hair stays out of my face. It makes me feel like a flapper. And so damn cute besides, especially when I wear one of the few baby doll dresses that hide in my wardrobe, and I’m not speckled with blue paint. Cosmic Pluto was inspired to ruffle up the back without warning. It’s that kind of hair.

* Tomorrow is my eleventh anniversary of this journal. I’m pretty sure that when I woke up on Friday morning, I had the same hair as I had when I banged out that first semi-coherent entry. Plus ca change, etc.

Labels: crafty, friends, hair, house rich, on-line diaries

The best part about living on my own is that on mornings like this morning, when I go to do a load of Blake's pee-smirched bedding and find that the dryer and the washer are full of loads I can't remember putting in, there's nowhere for that frustration to go. So it just goes away. Having made the mistake myself, I deal with it and move on. There's a lot to be said for shared chores, but I'm really starting to prefer this total responsibility model.

The worst part about living on my own is that on nights like Thursday, when I'm completely exhausted and want nothing more than to go to sleep early, there is no one to take care of Blake if he doesn't feel like quietly going to bed hours before his bed time. That was a bad night, and not just because he pooped his pants at 5 and peed the bed at 2. I made it worse than it had to be, simply because I was at the end of my tether. He is one of the chores of which it is good to be relieved once in awhile. But I love him madly, and I know that our time together is better simply because I don't have the option of ignoring him. We rub along pretty well most days. I only wish he could be sent out to the movies once or twice a month. At most.

Juuki has decided to take a sabbatical from teaching, so my lesson nights are suddenly free. They wanted to transfer me to another belly dance class, but I don't really want to screw myself up at this stage in the game by trying to absorb another style of bellydance. So I think I'll try to transfer to African dance or Bhangra or something like that. It can only help and totally not confuse, right?

Also, I'm still crafting like mad. I'm trying to figure out a way to consolidate my knitblog with this one so that I can give it the mercy killing it deserves (poor neglected knitblog) (poor audience members who don't like hearing about knitting!). Any ideas are welcome. Especially ideas that involve creating imaginary punk nights with band names that Mason & I made up. Although that might not be helpful with this particular problem, it's still fun!

rocking word 97 like a girl from the suburbs

Labels: blake, dancing, house rich, imaginary bands, on-line diaries

...has gone away. Please adjust your caches accordingly.

Just a brief word on why I took down yesterday's entry. I believe the comments that were offered were made in the spirit of kindness and helpful advice. They were politely phrased and good-intentioned. Even if they were none of those things, I don't believe that my comments should be positive, supportive or even polite. I don't want an audience of sycophants. I want you to call me on my bullshit if you think I need it.

But at this point I am very very sensitive to the suggestion that I am a bad mother in any way, so while I don't feel the comments were even indirectly hinting this, and the comments themselves were perhaps not worthy of my reaction, my reaction is what it is. I told a few people this story face to face and I think that privately is the way to go sometimes. I just thought it was a funny little anecdote. Sorry to give any other impression.

Labels: comments, on-line diaries

So, as I said yesterday, I saw the doctor. She's the replacement for my older family doctor, to whom I was grimly resigned to stick with rather than trust myself to clinics & the ER. One of the worst parts about seeing her was how kind she was, how compassionate. She looked me right in the eye and told me how sorry she was. I was afraid going in that I would be told that I wasn't feeling depression, but grief (which doesn't require a prescription); I was relieved that she took me seriously. The other bad part was her advanced pregnancy; she was so clearly young and energetic and just about to get to the really good parts in life that it made me feel 1) used up 2) hopeless 3) that my life was over. I coped with this by bursting into tears during the first sentence, and not stopping until the appointment was over. My stoicism is apparently overrated.

Ladies and gentlemen of the listening audience: please don't fight with each other. This is my biased, subjective account of my marital problems; no doubt if the Boy had kept a public journal you would feel just as much sympathy for him as me. Maybe more. So although I appreciate the tremendous amount of support I've been shown lately, it needs to stay friendly. Or it needs to be taken to the mud-wrestling arena, with bikinis and trash talk for all. One or the other.

Labels: angst, health, on-line diaries

Two days ago, my tenth anniversary of this online journal quietly came and went. No cake, no cards, no fireworks, no telegrams…just me and my slippery memory. But since that's what I started with, that's enough.

What I find most amazing about this milestone is that I am one slender month away from celebrating it where it all began: in my parents' basement. Back then, the basement had silver reflective wallpaper in hexagonal patterns and orange shag carpeting halfway up the walls, and it was always at least ½ full of my dad's stuff. Now it's suave and sophisticated, with blue walls & new blue carpet, finished with white moulding, plus a sunshine yellow bedroom and a functional kitchenette. Now, 2 weeks before Nic moves in, it's so empty it echoes.

I started this journal because I was very nearly completely alone, my social life having noisily exploded that spring when the Poet-Ophelia-me-Alexi thing wound up. I was wracked with guilt over what I had done, guilt that was even more intense because it had all come to nothing in the end. I could only blame alcohol for so much; the rest I had to take home with me. And it was social China Syndrome. The only people who wanted to see me on my 21st birthday were Dirk, Scherezade & the Lawyer. I was out of the city and home for the summer, working away in my parents' house for next years' tuition and eating my heart out with solitude. I wanted new friends, and the Internet seemed as good a hunting ground as any.

Also, since I was 8 I wanted to be a writer, and I hadn't given up on that dream at 20. I thought that this would be a good chance to write something that other people would read. The Internet was less saturated with personal writing then, and I could still stand out with my white-on-black website and my picture of myself in Ophelia's PVC dress and my grandmother's fishnets.

It was good for me, it really was. I got feedback and praise from strangers, which boosted me out of that dark place for at least a few hours. My writing improved and improved and improved, until I got to a place where I could read my own entries without wanting to jump out of my skin with embarrassment. I met Stacy, I met Javina; later I met moms in the same boat and even later, knitters. I love that so much of my life is available to me, and I can search out little stories and moments to give myself whenever the present seems overwhelming.

I also love that I am a happily-ever-after story, at least for now. I've dated, married, graduated, moved, given birth and changed jobs, all in the time I've done this project. I've travelled from sitting alone in a psychedelic cellar to sharing an office in my new house with my sweetie and pausing my sentences to zip a pre-schooler into a Buzz Lightyear costume. There is less dancing, and no sleeping away the weekend on Dirk's couch, but more snuggling and far less unhappiness. It is a very good life, la dolce vida to be sure.

Thank you for being with me for some or all or none of the journey. I owe at least a piece of my happiness to you, my readers, for just doing what you do and for letting me into your lives for the space of a few minutes. You make me very happy. You always have.

And here it is: my first post in all its ugliness. Enjoy if you can.

Labels: basement, blake, dancing, family, friends, house rich, nostalgia, on-line diaries, the boy, threshold experiences

I witnessed THE GREATEST STUDENT PRESENTATION EVER today.

It was a bit eerie how everything came together, really. The student is the high-maintenance sort, and earlier in the year I offered him a graphic novel to pacify one of his loud fits of complaint. The collection: Spookshow, by Dav. He decided to do his project on it. So far, so good.

Two weeks ago it was time to decide on presentation dates. I asked the students to draw numbers out of a felted flower pot; he refused. I made the offer more than once and then snapped; told him that if he refused to pick, his date would be picked for him. He ended up with the first date, which he later negotiated to 2 days later (today).

All week he's been impossible to manage. He spends the whole period working on his drawn collage of images, pausing once in awhile to sneak headphones into his ears and disparage my teaching/the lesson/fellow students. When he found out that today was a half-day, he flew into a rage and declared his intention to stay home because, "no one comes on a half-day." I told him point-blank that if he skipped the period he would receive a zero on his presentation. He muttered something about "ice water" and continued to complain all week long.

He showed up on time today (more or less), his completed collage and written work in hand. He went last (of course) and had his friend hold the collage.

Stop and picture this: two black boys, the one with corn rows prone to fits of sulking and wild demands, the one with a pick stuck into his hair prone to lapsing into a thick Jamaican patois. The first speaks confidently about Spookshow while the other holds up the display, shuffling patiently from time to time. It was not the most detailed commentary in the universe and many of Dav's more subtle points were lost. But it was thorough, it was thoughtful and the collage was hand-drawn. Plus, he wore a shirt that said: "Watch out for the Alphabet Boys" over silhouettes labeled FBI, CIA, DEA, etc. It blew my f*cking mind.

I got sick this weekend, but I'm feeling better. I'm trying to muster the courage to kill my Facebook site, as Alexi found me within 48 hours. Mason & I have a Facebook suicide pact, but we have yet to firm up the time. I'll let you know.

Labels: bat masterson, comics, friends, on-line diaries

I've had an unusually busy weekend: yesterday was entirely taken up with a visit to the Nightshades' villa and today was a blur of sleep-church-veggies-real estate. Our agent took us around four houses in our price range, which, um ranged in quality. We looked at a quad (a self-contained quarter of a four-house block), a new-ish 3-bedroom with hedonist-size tub, a spacious older 4-bedroom missing part of the fence, and our agent's first house (coincidentally back on the market). The quad was new & clever but I would always feel like an awkward kid trying to fill someone else's shoes. The three bedroom was clearly designed for a family with wee kids, but it will go faster than I want to make an offer. The four bedroom is kind of awesome, but it's a little bigger than I wanted & will need a new furnace & appliances. Our agent's old house has been changed in one or two places but is essentially the same as she left it in 1983 (plus new smoky smell!).

We also took a detour around to the first house we tried to buy this year. It's not ready to be shown, so we tramped around in the mud and peered in the windows. The developer is doing some neat things in there: the hardwood floors have been brought back, the rooms cleaned & painted, the ceiling fixed and the kitchen gutted. We also heard that he's finishing the basement, which'll bring the resale up more than anything else. Still, the question remains: can I bring myself to pay eighty thousand more than I was willing to pay in February, even if all my renos are done for me?

I've decided to let this stew for a week. In lieu of making a conscious decision, I started work on a log cabin pillow for the new house. Knitting: the cause of and solution to all of life's problems.

Also, I joined Facebook yesterday. Nic asked, in typical Nic fashion, if we minded that a bunch of our wedding pictures were on his Facebook. "You've already put them up, haven't you?" I replied. I wanted to check it out, but you have to register. So I did.

I feel so gross. I feel almost bulimic, and despite my years of body-image problems, I've never crossed the line into unhealthy psychological syndromes. And yet, after 10 years on-line and three distinct but continuous on-line journals, it's Facebook that makes me feel so disgusting and filthy that I want to do the virtual equivalent of vomiting up everything I've posted. Except maybe 'vomit' describes the posting process.

The worst part is that, now that I've satisfied my curiosity as to which pictures my brother's posted of me (you can find them on this site, too, if you want to see), I can't bring myself to delete my profile. Ick.

Labels: basement, friends, knit, on-line diaries, outings