anagram of brat

So I mostly "wrote" this post with the Dragon Dictate app on my phone. I downloaded it at the recommendation of Ruthy, who apparently uses it for everything. Since she swears by it, I figured I'd give it a go. It'll be interesting because I speak very differently from how I write... I sense there will be a lot of editing in post. (ETA: Oh dear gods yes wow my spoken rambling makes NO sense written down, lol.)

So, what's been going on... Ferguson. *sigh* It's been really upsetting me, for reasons that should be pretty damned obvious. I don't really want to write too much about it, honestly, both because upsetting, and also because people out there and on the ground have already written, tweeted and livestreamed quite a bit about it in the past couple of weeks as everything unfolded. But yeah, it's... it's been bringing me down, so much that I can only take twitter in small doses now. It's also deeply affected Drew - the other night we had a talk about how he came to the realization I'd been kinda carrying since Trayvon Martin was killed - that if by some miracle (or if we accepted Nuke's still standing offer on paying for a vasectomy reversal) we had a kid, that one day it could be them dead in the street for little to no reason at all. Needless to say, it threw him for a loop, and he got further thrown realizing that I've lived with this constant threat all my life. It's funny, almost anyone else I'd be all *raised eyebrow* yeah, welcome to my life, have a T-shirt, it sucks. Not so much this time - I guess what I'm feeling regarding that discussion is less the usual racial schadenfreude and more of a "ohh, he actually really gets it." I mean, yes it sucks major balls carrying the knowledge of just how much the world sucks around. They're not kidding about ignorance being bliss. (And judging by some of the shit I've seen online, there are a lot of very blissful people out there.) At the same time, it's on some level a relief knowing he does think about it and understands some of it. Not going to lie, it's a nice change from several years ago and him being irritated by the very idea of privilege and how it applies to him.

In other life and adulthood suck news, lol... actually I have some reasonably good news on that front. Reasonably because money still sucks and is going to temporarily suck a bit more than usual, but the suckage will be in service to money ultimately NOT sucking in the reasonably near future. I know, that was clear as mud, and how about I say reasonably a few more times? I guess lets just say I'd been avoiding handling a particular chunk of financial stupid and it had been feeling like an anvil about to drop on my head, but I finally gathered my gonads and dealt with it this week. Again, the dealing with it is still gonna make life annoying for a little while, but at this point I will willingly take being slightly annoyed and inconvenienced over the weight I'd been dragging for the better part of two years. So go me? I guess? Ugh. After rolling around in the relief of finally getting that handled I fell into a sulk about the various little ways my life has been slowly spinning out of my control lately. In slightly less melodramatic turns, even before this week I've noticed there's been a gradual uptick in anxiety/avoidance/self-sabotaging behavior on my part this year. Well, really since about when Dad passed, but its lately gotten to the point where if it hasn't already, its gonna start marching up my pants leg to bite the inside of my ass. So I need to get a firm handle on the plates I already have spinning, safely remove a few, and then seriously sit down and start looking for therapists again. Because fuck this shit.

There has been Massive Monkeyspace Drama on Facebook this week too, which got to such a patently ridiculous level that it looped into hilarious. I'm sure modern incarnations of the purity tests we used to forward around in college have a question concerning "have you ever lost a friend in an online fight?" and I'm also sure I'm down that point as of Monday night, but honestly considering how things fell out I'm okay with that. While the actual drama itself was eyeroll-worthy at best the aftermath seems to be causing some old previous relationship scars to flare up again which just adds some delicious flavor to the mild suck soup that is my head right now. But, eh, it will pass and I will deal with it. I don't really want to get into it much further than that.

It's not been all suck either, but a lot of the not sucky things I can't put into a public post and I also have to go put the laundry in the dryer and return to the massive pile of work that still needs to get done tonight, boo. So I will just leave you with the high point of last weekend, which was cosplaying Carmen Sandiego for Bon Appetit Burlesque's "Around the World in 80 Twirls" show:



I can't remember the last time a costume made me so fucking happy. I've been a Carmen Sandiego fangirl since the game show used to air on PBS and I'd watch it with Roy Jr when he was wee tiny. Hell, I can still sing most of the theme song from memory, but that might have more to do with me also being a Rockapella fangirl. If the wig and the hat weren't so bloody hot I'd just be Carmen Sandiego all the damn time, though I am woefully incapable of pulling off national landmark level heists. I got a lot of compliments on the outfit. Desrvedly I think... I apparently can rock a red trench coat. :)

But back to life, back to reality. *sigh* *hatred*

I commented to someone recently that while large groups of noisy bickery people all in the same place exhausts me, I nevertheless find myself drawn to them. It's pretty obvious where THAT comes from considering the size of what I consider my immediate family, which as a group of people has the unique ability to both nourish and drain my soul all at the same time. It's come up at different points in my life since - while I need about a week's worth of sleep sometimes in between encounters, I've seemed to attach myself to small tribes of people rather than individuals and form family-type bonds. Obviously, right now the Squirekids serve that function in my life, but it's a repeating pattern.

Obviously, there are groups that can be considered family in a more traditional sense. I think I've mostly adapted to my in-laws, for example. It's funny because while I've married into that clan, there's still that degree of removal from immediate and required... embroilage? (I know, not a word, but it's late, shut up) that makes them a bit more fun and quite a lot less stressful than dealing with my own NFL team of Brownes. Then there's the other family group I've been pulled into that while I'm not knocking the acceptance at all, still on some level has me scratching my head. This would be cell23's gaggle of extended ex-in-laws, with whom we spent much of the day today, owing to their paterfamilias celebrating his 90th birthday.** That was interesting, fun and stressful in all the same sorts of ways dealing with my own and with cell23's family is, except, there is an additional degree of removal and I often find myself sitting and marveling as the dynamics flow around me. They all work remarkably similar though, no matter which living room we're currently sitting in: which cousins get picked on more and why, fights and rivalries that have clearly begun in childhood and are merely continuing two to five decades later, the clear generational tiers: the elder folks, the parents/aunts/uncles, the squabbly cousins/siblings at the bottom, and depending on the age of the family, the fourth generation of kids making their appearances. I guess what changes for me personally is how much of an observer I feel like in each situation and how much I participate as opposed to merely watch.

...I didn't have much of a greater point in this post other than to be all like "huh, that was interesting and incredibly tiring."

In other news, I'm happy to say I've gotten through my nine days of late January baby-waaaahngst more or less intact, though having my uterus decide to wring itself out like a sponge during this time was quite unhelpful. It made this year's round of pwecious widdle fee-fees about it somewhat more dramatic than usual, by which I mean I couldn't just roll my eyes at myself and just refuse to acknowledge it's even registering in my brainpan as I've done in recent years. Part of me is wondering whether it's signaling that maybe its time I unpack and deal with that shit in some constructive way finally instead of walling it off like the goddamn telltale heart, as it's now six years since the initial incident that triggered all this shit, and it's been five and three years since the subsequent events that all managed to fall within days of each other, much to no doubt someone's cosmic amusement. I suppose it's a tiny measure of progress that I've hit the point where I can be all "yep, that happened" in a public post instead of squirreling it away behind filters and walls, but considering I'm only doing it after the fact and just have been kinda stewing in angsty silence about it for the last week,*** well, that's the reason why it's a tiny degree of progress. Certainly not enough laurels to rest on or anything. And quite honestly I'm in all likelihood just going to stuff it back in its box until next Jan 19th (or at least until Mothers' Day,whee), 'cause I do not have the patience for this stupid shit. I feel bad enough for even devoting a paragraph to it.

Eh, IDK, more stuff happened this weekend (mostly cute zooey kids being cute and zooey), but it's 1:30am, I'm working in the morning, and I haven't showered yet, so...


* seriously, what I consider my immediate family is huge.

** he must be drinking from the same fountain Dad is - I wouldn't have guessed him to be more than mid to late 70s.

*** My husband has shown an uncharacteristically saintly amount of patience with me this week. Bless him.

Day 16. A song that you used to love but now hate



Jefferson Starship, "The Baby Tree"

Okay, I don't quite HATE this song, it's adorable.... but I can't listen to it anymore without choking up. Saying this was one of sundart's favorites should pretty much sum up the multitudinous layers of why not.



ANYWAY personal angst aside, yesterday was hot and lethargic and kinda bleh. Even nipping down to the Taste of Amherst was disappointing because other than getting some absolutely heavenly Mapleline Farms ice cream, not a single thing aroused my interest. It also seemed rather... sparsely attended, like there were barely any restaurants there. Meh. But the Stop & Shop in Hadley finally has a gas station. Woot, cheap gas!

So yeah, the day was kinda meh and stuff (though there was some very intense grown-up fun had!) and then cell23 and I watched "The Pandorica Opens" and OMGWTFBBQ. Like seriously WHAT. THE. BLOOMING. FUCK. Well done, Moffat, I haven't watched anything with a running mantra of "ohshitohshitohshit" going since the last half of Serenity.

Also can I please be River Song when I grow up? I am so in love with that woman.

Anyway, happy father's day and such like to you dads on my F-list. Keep on doing what you do best.

So guess whose pap smear came back "mildly" abnormal?

Because apparently I can has no end to the reproduction-related drama.

I was having such a good day too. FML.

Mostly because I haven't used this icon for a while. :)

If today's any indication this is shaping up to be a bad cycle - I've had a persistent headache since yesterday, not to mention the usual cramps and digestive side-effects. Also see emotional stability on the fritz, page 387. Figured I'd give everyone fair warning to flee in terror, and forgive me if you hear me cursing your quickly disappearing backs. Couple this with the fact that I've been on a steadily worsening depression spike since, oh Wednesday (may or may not be related), and yeah. Bitch of it all is I can't soothe myself with either ibuprofen or my usual I'm-eating-this-don't-you-judge-me food owing to intestinal 'splode potential. *sigh* really, if this continues, I'm going to ask my gyn next week about the practical ramifications of ripping out the whole apparatus entirely, since it serves me no practical purpose other than causing me various forms of pain.

So far the snow is wet, nonsticky and heavy with disappointment. I suppose this is good considering in about an hourish I take off from the office to Worcester to see Dr. Cave and non-slippery Pike is good Pike. Still, dreary bleak weather is doing nothing for my overall mood/outlook on life/what have you. *sigh* Thank heavens for shrink appointment on Monday, eh?

Kitchen shears are wonderful things when you're too lazy to cut up chicken with normal knives. Snippety snip snip snip oh hai, lookit, cut up chicken bits! and hay, leftovers for today, if I get a chance to eat them in amid running hither and yon all over Massachusetts today.

In side news, Netflix streaming is a wonderful thing sometimes if you need the sort of television you can leave on and idly listen to without really having to pay too much attention. I just got through a PBS documentary on the history of Broadway from the Ziegfeld Follies to Wicked. Shit, I miss Broadway. Mom loved showtunes more than a gay florist, so I was pretty much raised on it, and there was the insane wonderful season around 1989 or so where somehow we managed to hit every major production playing. And of course there's a part of me that still feels a little betrayed that after years of stating "Now and Forever" Cats actually closed, making forever roughtly equivelant to 18 years. (you'd think I'd have learned something about the changeable nature of forever from that.) Bah. I did want to see it again sometime. I honestly haven't seen anything new in a very long while (try pre-RENT), and I do want to see The Lion King and Wicked at some point. I think one of these weekends I'll go home and then hit up the tkts line.

Anyway, enough woolgathering for the morning. Off to get productive things done before I hit the road.