I'm 37...

 ...and I'm not really here to hear (see what I did there?) that my husband doesn't want me to wear fishnets to work (at a coffee shop ffs, not the Bush Company). It is 2023. They are a leg covering with a fun pattern. I am not "dtf" (his words). I am fucking tired and wearing literally shorts over them under a dress under a sweater and an apron. I AM TOO OLD FOR THIS SHIT and too tired to be properly angry.

Nothing spookier than the patriarchy if I'm being honest

The Barbie Movie has been on steady rotation at my house, which is pretty great. I never thought I'd consistently cry during the part where she's running away from the executives, but here we are. Oh right - spoilers.

Just got together with K's mom who is now estranged. I am and am not caught in the middle. I feel a lot like barfing. I feel for both of them. I don't know what to say. In quiet moments after conversations I find myself thinking "your trauma responses are just incompatible". There's something here. Something uncomfortable. And I worry about it. For them. Individually. Maybe by next year I'll be able to find it in myself to say things like "As a parent, it's not yours to belittle the experiences your children articulate having as children." You really can't say: no, it didn't happen that way. There's that adage that resurfaces every so often about not remembering what you said but remembering how you made them feel.

Kids don't always remember details. But they remember how you made them feel. If your kid tells you they always feel scared it's your job to listen. Not explode on them. *sigh* I do see what K is saying. But what do I say? How do I say it without getting exploded at? Do I just get exploded at? Maybe.

I am concerned about cognitive deterioration. Go to counseling. Look inward. Nobody wants to hear that. Go to a damn yoga class. I don't know.  Maybe relate it to couples counseling where the other person can't or won't go. 

I, myself, want to go to a damn yoga class.

It does hurt when you can't or won't remember why you're being ghosted. That describes me too.

But for today. Just feeling sad with. Hugging. Listening. I wish I had more insight to offer but I don't know. I wasn't there. I'm not a sibling. I can't say to do x or y because the comprehension just isn't there; but also because things have already reached a point at which she no longer has access to K. 

On a different topic: maybe, if my delusions allow me to live through the days and be more or less okay.... Maybe that's okay. Maybe that's enough. Humans do a lot of shit to deal with the parts of their lives that are or feel dangerous.

Anyway bye I have to go care about cranial nerves now. Turning off that spigot. Running up that hill.

Here we go

 My first 4:30 AM shift! I am on time. Early even!

The parent-teacher conference luckily fell on a day when I was hormonally primed to feel the warm and fuzzies from L’s teacher’s clear love for L versus jump off the cliff of irritation the total lack of communicative systems in place hath wrought.

Win win win

Seasons Greetings

 I wish I did not

Feel like such a fuck-ah-ing

Alien, and yet-

I truly don't know what I'm waiting for

 I just know that I am. 

Trying to appreciate the quiet moments when they happen. Doing the lectures. Doing the practicums. Taking the quizzes. Doing the laundry.

I'm going to watch Conversations With Other Women tonight, I think. There's a line in it about how Helena Bonham-Carter's character's skin is different now that she's older...more papery. I think of that line often.

Pacing. Work simplification. Grading.

It's Me. Hi. I'm a Bitch. It's Me.

You didn't understand when I told you I was handling drop-offs for the rest of the week and showed up at my door interrupting our morning routine me bleeding and wrapped in a towel and then L cried because NOW THINGS ARE NOT AS PLANNED? Of course.

I get stressed as we enter the building of our Very High End Public Optional School where L tells me the days are too long. People are nice enough but I feel like I set them on edge. It's probably just me but my skin is crawling.

We do the drop-off routine; that goes fine. Teacher 1 approaches me to tell me that it's better to store the chewy necklace she asked me to get for L high on the wall (where she cannot reach it) than in her cubby in a basket (okay? This is a Teacher 1 versus Teacher 2 problem. I do not care.). I say fine, but L has informed me that she's somehow misplaced her necklace between the time she went to independently put her snack in her cubby and come back to the whiteboard to complete the morning instructions.

Teacher 1 says no - it's in her cubby. It is not. As long as we're here - and since I have read the email that states the "parent-teacher conference" is really rather a child-led portfolio presentation - and it's a quiet moment, I take the opportunity to ask Teacher 1 about the seaweed problem.

The problem, she says, is that it's processed. What about applesauce pouches then. Should I not send those? Oh no. Those are fine. Actually, it's that it makes too much of a mess. L is told that she has the choice to eat the seaweed at lunch or after school. Okay. Then, the whole if I send seaweed I know she'll eat it if I send something else she probably won't and maybe that's where some behaviors are coming from (not all of course - but some)? No no they give her an applesauce pouch if she doesn't eat her veggies. Okay?

I know that I am sounding firm and making eye contact and perhaps making other parents uncomfortable at this point. I am not raising my voice however, and discussions (even high stakes ones!) are important for children to see adults have. Otherwise it may not be clear how to have them themselves!

Although I could just be whipping this out as a bullshit metaphor. 

Then comes the bit where she asks me how much the chewy necklaces cost ($25; and I have to order them they aren't really available locally, and then I reiterate that if they can't find the one she already has I will order another one). That's a lot! she says. Then asks that if I can could I order another one anyway so I can take other one home and sanitize it.

Okay. No. Why? Context, sanitization, variables. 

Context: this needs to be a tool for school not some shit she can wear around wherever so that it loses its contextual relevance. She can do other things for other places (the car! the public space! the home!) including EaT sEaWeEd but generally speaking she's not as oral in those other places because she's a) not as uncomfortable as she is at school; I'm not trying to guilt anyone, I just understand where's she's coming from because I, too, have trouble with that b) I don't have sitting still expectations built it for most places I take her because I've FUCKING MET MY DAUGHTER and c) I or another adult can usually provide more one-on-one attention and scaffolding for her in those contexts because they're. Just different. And they should! Be different.

Sanitization: My house is not clean my dude and I do not have anything at my house to sanitize whatever's hanging out in saliva better than you do at school. You already have what I assume is food-safe bleach spray or, I don't know, whatever hydrogen peroxide spray and if not why the fuck not?! Good for you! The only thing I can do better at my house is add cat hair and gluten. Are those things you want at school? Dust maybe? Canniboid particles (because of S)? LMK.

Variables: She straight up left her chewy necklace in her grandparents' car for a full day on Monday. There are a total of FIVE people to coordinate with regarding transporting this fucker to-and-from school and that's a big ass no thanks from me. I know that this will just end up with me, M, S, G, or my mom leaving it somewhere forgetting to pick it up, L wearing it to the car and dropping it in a snowbank and none of that is procedurally productive and my in-laws do NOT listen when I talk or read what I write (no shade, just facts) and adding a layer of complication is not going to help me not have uncomfortable conversations like this with you in the future! 

...and then I cried on the way home because I felt like a monster.

...and then I texted S updates and have heard nothing in response. L. Oh. El. 

...and then I tried to do some homework and just ended up writing this out before a Teams Meeting about fieldwork. *sigh*

Although I (kind of) know why I'm like this, it hasn't helped much in contexts like these because I just get SO FRUSTRATED. I absolutely DO NOT think I'm smarter than everyone else (don't start with that again, S) but I also DO NOT UNDERSTAND why when I ask questions or talk at fucking all lately I just get shut down. I will fucking as the questions until the answers click for me or change. Or some third option. 

The "why are you talking" vibes are very strong these days! Actually they mostly have been. With most people. But there are layers of NOPE. I NEED you to acknowledge this because I am ADVOCATING for my child and, in a sense, for the perhaps future families whether they give a damn or not because fucking as a teacher one DOES have a relationship with a child's entire family. It. Is. An. Ecosystem. And that's simply not yet getting acknowledged. And we're halfway through the first semester.

There's time, for sure. But I am going to be HELLA relieved when L goes to 1/2 grade. Probably.

In the meantime, ASSUME POSITIVE INTENT ASSUME POSITIVE INTENT ASSUME POSITIVE INTENT ASSUME POSITIVE INTENT.

It snowed today; I don't hate it

 - I took this online questionnaire that seems pretty reputable. I do have some indicators for autism. So, yay?

https://embrace-autism.com/raads-r/?fbclid=IwAR00f1INQFpkTMqVu9p2u91SIKfJ53NxMz2B_5UyM3dYHm0Dc5_ClztENNE

- Maybe the incessant discomfort around other people I've always felt isn't...neurotypical? Or something that will magically go away if I just FiNd ThE rIgHt PeRsOn And, like, maybe everyone else didn't spend a disproportionate part of their adolescence obsessing about geishas.

It SpOoPy SeAsOn

 Things I love for you for spoopy season:

- soup

- Spooky (Gay Bullshit) Pod(cast)

- Next year I want to do Twee-tember for September if I'm alive and have two minutes to rub together. Like watch Amelie or God Help the Girl and take my kid to tea at Indigo Tea Room. ...I'm sure there are others. I just can't think of any. Take long walks in the Fall Weather? Bike rides? Not yet the pumpkin patch though. Gotta ease into that. I just this year took her to the fair!

- Reading about NCD - especially Alzheimer's has been alarming. HEART. TEETH. The third thing. TRIPLE WHAMMY.

- Time to start thinking about Summer camps. Blarg.

- Instead of properly swearing I've been thinking: "Space lord mother mother" to myself lately

- I used to love thinking about the person I wanted to be (goals goals goals goals goals) or the home I wanted to make. And anymore I just get distracted and tired and want to SLEEP. If it's at all likely to be stressful and unrelated to flashcards I can't with it.