My dad had a minor stroke in the wee hours this morning (he is fine; it was scary as hell at first when he couldn't talk and I thought he was going to be seriously mentally impaired permanently, but he recovered speech in just a couple hours) and I spent most of the day watching him be a minor pain in the ass to all the doctors and nurses and technicians. (He wasn't horribly obnoxious as he often used to be and he has some fucked-up childhood reasons to have trust issues especially when the stakes are so high. But I digress from my main point.) While watching him and then going off to do self care, I noticed the ways that I have similar habits. Like, I noticed myself thinking how people should be really nice and caring to me because it's so stressful having your dad have a stroke. And then I realized that I almost /always/ have a reason for why people should cut me a break or be extra nice to me (e.g. I'm pregnant & sick; I have a baby who wakes me up every couple hours; I'm having a rough time in my marriage; I'm having an identity crisis; and on and on and there's never an end to it). So I decided that I'm going to like watch really carefully for a time when there isn't a huge crisis going on (maybe a night when I only have to wake up once or twice or something) and then during that time, notice how other people around me might be having a reason that they need to be treated especially well and try to be extra considerate to them. You know, like, balance.

So I've totally been meaning to post about the concept "can you change your diet without dieting" that I saw on the lovelivegrow blog and I've also been meaning to do an in-depth response to this atheist book wild_irises sent me and my thoughts about how the arguments do and don't apply to my religion as I practice it.

But I have no time for these interesting long posts. So instead, here's me seeking info.

I went to the doctor and she said there was nothing I could do about my elevated liver enzymes/fat-marbled liver except lose weight. (To be fair, she didn't say it like she was prescribing weight loss or like OMG OBESITY!!! either.) So I was like, "That's interesting because I was just reading about how studies show there's no way to do that in the long term." And she was like, "True. Except there's some more studies that show that if you do these three things, you'll gain back 10 - 30% instead of 95-110%." I asked her if she knew which studies, but she didn't know off hand. So I'm wondering if these were really studies, or just "what everyone knows" or "some shit the CDC said." Do any of you know? Because if it's true, that kind of changes how I look at the choice to diet for me personally (not my opinion that people deserve human rights, respect, and good treatment regardless of body size, btw). Do any of you know about these possible studies, or know of a resource where I might be able to dredge them up (in all my copious computer time these days).

Incidentally, the three things are:

- Lose weight gradually so that you don't trigger your body's "I'm starving!" response.
- Do a diet that you can switch to a modified version of when you're done losing weight. (I'm assuming "modified" doesn't mean modified back to how you were eating before?)
- Exercise at least 90 minutes a week, 45 of which are something like weight lifting which will build muscle mass.

If any of you all have info on this, I'd totally appreciate it!

So, when I first read the Readercon official statement, I was like, "Hey, that makes sense! I'm glad there was another explanation than that established/influential people get special treatment. How awesome to transform creepers into feminist allies!" So when I started reading peoples' negative reactions to it, I was kind of puzzled for a while. But then I thought about this awesome essay in this year's Wiscon Chronicles (when I have more time, I'll look up the author and give credit) about Moonfail, and how important it is to pay attention to whose point of view you're paying attention to. Like, instead of thinking of the poor distressed author, think of the poor distressed Muslim folks she was attacking. I see a strong parallel here--instead of poor, contrite stalker, maybe it's better to focus on the person who was stalked, and what might make her and the guy's other victims feel comfortable at Readercon.

So, whoever came up with that clever little adage apparently didn't know that some babies only sleep when they are being rocked or walked or bounced. Thank God that's not my little dude most days, but yesterday it was.

This time around, I have a ton of help--my sister and mom are mostly both here and my spouse had time off. But yesterday, my sister was gone all day with appointments, my mom was still down in CA on one of her regular "breaks" she takes back at home, and Spouse was at work a full day. At first it was awesome, hanging out with the big kid and the baby and getting All The Things Done! I could do it without guilt because the baby wouldn't sleep without me being up anyway. But then around 3:00 or 4:00 my energy suddenly gave out entirely and it was miserable. It reminded me of everything that didn't work about postpartum with kid 1.

But that evening my mom came back and today has been all about the napping while Grandma got the baby to sleep in the bassinet and then cleaned my whole kitchen! My relationship with my mom can sometimes be sticky, but right now I am just appreciating her so much. I wish every postpartum mom had a couple people hanging out helping full-time.

Both last night and tonight, as I was lying down trying to sleep, I got all fixated on something causing me anxiety. I thought tonight I'd try writing about it, because maybe some of you have ideas about something constructive I can do about it, or some suggestions for a different way to hold it, or something. Anyway, here it is.

When I was sixteen/seventeenish, I worked for this really creepy guy who hired me to care for his elderly mother. Basically, it was my job to talk to her, keep her company, encourage her to walk around the back yard, and make sure she washed her hands after she went to the bathroom. It was a great high school job in many ways--it paid $10/hour (which beat babysitting rates at the time), the schedule was flexible but the hours were reliable, it felt like a genuine contribution and meaningful work. But the problem was that the guy was creepy.

He would constantly try to get me to kiss him. exerting these weird manipulative pressures when I refused. One time I was there on his birthday and he like seriously seemed to think that I ought to give him "just a little kiss" because it was his birthday and he deserved it. After I had worked for him a while, he offered to buy me a car in exchange for having an ongoing sexual relationship with him. Whenever I would tell him to back off, he'd talk about his mom needing care and how great a son he was or about how he and I were friends, right?

Okay, so now, the whole situation would be like a no brainer. Obviously the thing to do is to tell my dad (the parent who was raising me) and see about talking to the police or something so that he would not only stop harassing me, but he wouldn't be a danger to other young girls. (At some point he told me that he had, in fact, been successful in convincing one of my predecessors in the job into sleeping with him and that, now, married and in her twenties, she still sometimes visited and slept with him. I did not believe this until she did, in fact, show up one day at his house. <shudder>).

But no. I did not go to my dad or the police. I actively hid it. (Also from Boyfriend who is now Spouse.) I felt ashamed about it and I also wanted to keep my job because I liked my job. I even kind of liked creepy guy when he wasn't being creepy. And I totally felt responsible for the little old lady I cared for. (I know it sounds terribly stupid, but remember, I was sixteen/seventeen at the time. I hadn't had classes with those awesome feminist professors or met any feminists or anyone who could provide a framework for me.) I did talk about it with my therapist (thank goodness I was seeing her!) and she helped me work out my feelings about it without taking over and insisting that I do X (my dad would have, which is a big reason I hid it from him). Eventually I got to a point of "this shit isn't worth it" and quit.

Here's the part that really kills me now. One of the last times I was there, I met my replacement. When creepy guy left the room, she was all "Um, he said this creepy thing to me? Did that happen to you?" and I said "Yes, that's why I'm quitting" which was a good thing to say, but then I said, "But I don't know, someone has to take care of Little Old Lady." I don't know why I said that. I didn't really think that this other girl should have to put up with what I went through, just because I had. I mean, I really was concerned about the little old lady, but why would I dump that on the other girl? It's so messed up. I wish I could go back in time and say, "OMG, you should totally run! Do not work for this creepy guy!" WHY did I not say that???

I also wish that I could go back in time and do something to stop creepy guy from predating on young women. I still don't even know what I could have done, but talking to my dad would have been a really good start.

At this point, I think it's moot. I heard from my dad (who still doesn't know about what this guy did) that he ran into creepy guy somewhere and got his ear bent hearing all about how the creepy guy's mother had died, and how creepy guy went to Europe for vacation after. So his primary bait is gone, and also I think he's probably seventy or eighty now and I'm thinking that's probably a little old to still be able to coerce teenage girls into sex. I don't think there's anything to be done now. Unless you all can think of something?

I don't even know why this is bothering me so much right now. Maybe I'd be insomniac anyway (my midwife says this is normal) and so my roving mind just found something to be disturbed about. Maybe it was reading Jim Hines' excellent Boundaries post. A couple of months ago, I saw a purple car on the freeway (it was a purple car that I wanted so much in high school that creepy guy offered to buy for me) and it totally ruined my day. I can't really come up with a plausible connection between being about to give birth and feeling anxious and upset about what some guy did to me and what I failed to do almost twenty years ago. But I wish I could, like, be done with it already.

Oh. I automatically use pseudonyms on the internet, but I just realized that there's not reason not to say creepy guy's name. It's Rudy Richards.

I almost titled that "more about professional fantasies" but that would have been total bait and switch!  Seeing as I meant "enjoyable mentation about potential tech careers" and not "hiring a professional to enact fantasies."

Anyway, I was talking to Spouse today in passing about how I could totally be a network security super geek (this came up because he had to go upstairs to pay the bills and I can't climb the stairs these days and I was like, 'just set up your fancy new router so you can run the desktop from your laptop' and he was like, "um, no"). Anyway, I was feeling confident that I could become a kick-ass network security person/hacker because there is a finite body of knowledge I'd have learn plus problem solving, so I could just start at the beginning with basic reading and then look around for some fun online community to talk about interesting stuff with and finding fun practice projects.

Then Spouse was like, "Yeah, in all your spare time." And I was like, "Well, after Junior is a year old, you know. It would only take a few years. Oh! and then when he's like Munchkin's age, I could get that motorcycle! And I'd be this super hot biker chick with bad ass hacking skills!! Like a Neil Gaiman character!" It sounded like so much fun.

And then I thought how, seeing as I'm not trying to make myself do any real fiction writing because my life is too freaking hard right now, I could maybe write some awesome, self-indulgent shit about a bad-ass, motorcycle riding, pink-haired hacker chick. What fun! I mean, I wouldn't have to, like, show anyone or associate it with my real name. And that kind of thing worked out okay for Heinlein. (Oh, look! Another novel about three hot young women jumping on the jock of the smart old guy!)

Seriously, you guys, I think this is me escaping into intellectual fantasy to try to combat how fucking freaked out I'm getting about being an infant-mommy again. OMG, friends. Please don't laugh at me when you see me all covered in my own breast milk, blissing out singing little lullabies and draping the baby room with organically-dyed silks. Okay?
 

Yesterday, I was profoundly aware all day that I wasn't getting on an airplane to Madison. Now, this has turned out to be an obviously good decision--I was horribly nauseated last night and can barely walk around without getting super tired and dizzy. Also, I wasn't worrying that perhaps I'd go into labor on an airplane or even in a hospital thousands of miles from my spouse. So, good decision and I'm glad I made it. Nevertheless--sadface.

I don't know what I'm saddest about missing--fucking awesome genderfloomp2, reveling in the general culture of hugginess and lack of misogyny, seeing my dear friends that I only see annually, meeting new awesome people. Or maybe just the freedom to be away from family responsibilities and roles, to feel like I'm just me, by myself, doing what I want. I think all the things are interrelated and build on each other. Like, I guess right now I could up and head out to a noodle shop like the one on State Street without consulting anyone. But I'd be unlikely to find some completely awesome friend or stranger to join me. And I'd still be aware of how I have to pick my kid up at 1:00 and remember to do the dishes early so the babysitter won't be grossed out later. It's just not the same as that sort of ineffable feeling of freedom I have at Wiscon to do whatever the hell I want whenever I want. Not that I want my whole life to be like that--I consciously chose my roles and responsibilities in my life and the payoff in having this wonderful, loving family is so worth it. But, still. It's like, that one long weekend a year where I get to remember what it feels like to just be me, I draw on that as a source of energy and inspiration for the whole year.

Also, I think I'm freaking out a little about the temporary loss of identity and sort of personal surrender that goes along with a new baby. Like, I want to have that experience of totally falling into baby-land, and of falling in love with this new person. I wouldn't have gotten pregnant if I didn't want it. But it's still a little scary, and I wonder how I will know how to get back out when it's time. And the thought of no more Wiscons for four or five years--or at least no more child-free ones--I get scared about how I'm going to stay in touch with the just-me, doing what I want and saying what I think person.

I've been thinking a lot lately about going back to school to start up a new career as a mechanical engineer, or a programmer, or a network security specialist, or a math professor. I'm pretty sure that I don't actually want to do those things and that this mentation about it all has to do with working out some of this freak-out about being swallowed up by parenting an infant. But it feels good to contemplate it. And I like the idea that in maybe ten years I could make enough money to replace my spouse's salary and let him do some of the connecting with the kids that I get to do. Of course, in ten years, the first one would be on the brink of college anyway, so that doesn't really work. But there is appeal in the idea nonetheless.

I've been meaning to blog about this since the caucuses, but have just now decided that it's okay to just jot down my thoughts and not worry about doing the subject justice. I've been going to these Republican party events in support of Ron Paul since '08. (Maybe surprising, since I take my feminism seriously, am committed to social justice, and totally hate what the 'pubs have been trying to do lately wrt immigration and reproductive rights. Perhaps sometime I'll write a post about what's up with that. Lemme know in the comments if you actually want to know.)

So here are my jotted thoughts:

- The caucus made me really sad. Since they're done by geographical precinct, I was in a room with a dozen or two of my neighbors. And they all seemed like really nice people. Sincere, kind, and genuinely concerned about making our society and country a better place. Everyone was sweet about my cute pregnant belly. Everyone was conscientiously involved in a dialogue about the candidates and the issues. Like, they /cared/. They weren't trying to be assholes or anything. And they all said the most disturbing things. Mostly about abortions and America being super special and wonderful and bootstrapping and how deeply moving it is that people can immigrate here legally and be "good" poor people and work hard and become wealthy. (Okay, the "good poor people" wasn't stated explicitly.)

Anyway, I left feeling super discouraged because, I think, there's no nice-ing our way out of some fundamental disagreements. Like, I don't see a way to heartfelt-dialogue my way to seeing eye to eye with the Catholic folks about abortion. And I wish I could just be like, "They're crazy idiots who want to control women. They should fuck off." Because, like, I can understand their position. If I was sure that fetus = baby, I would be fighting tooth and nail to make abortions illegal. I mean, of course I would. (I'd also be dumping hella money into research on gestating babies mechanically and on addressing the injustice of how folks with uteruses had to do all the work with only individually-negotiated compensation within families.) Like, how can I get all aggro with some nice older lady who is just trying her hardest to save babies?

Also, I was all vulnerable about the whole thing because it touched on my fears that something bad would happen to the kid /I'm/ gestating and I have all this cognitive dissonance because he really feels like my *baby* to me. And also somehow it related to my grief over my past miscarriages.

After the caucus, I had a dream that I was making chicken soup, but when I got the whole chicken out of the freezer, it was instead a frozen, dead baby. It was a horrible dream. I tried to wish it back to life and nurse it. But I was also like, berating myself for being too sensitive. Like, somehow, in the dream, it was normal for people to cook up frozen dead babies and I felt stupid for balking at this normal thing. After some reflection and a lot of chanting, I realized that what was bothering me was this feeling of losing my moral compass, of doubting things that I just *know* to be right.

Like how no one should be forced to carry through a pregnancy they don't want.


**Ah, fuck! I just wrote up some nice rantiness and snarkily making fun of my fellow county republicans but hit some weird key and it got all deleted. Then I wrote it again and deleted it again. Screw this. I'm going to bed!


But one quick aside about the abortion thing--I was listening to the radio the other day about that activist lawyer in China who got into trouble after representing people who were opposing forced abortions. Or maybe suing for having endured forced abortions. And I was like, wow! All these Republicans who are super concerned about the babies should be like putting a lot of effort into helping the activists in China. I mean, this is something we can *all* really get behind and agree on! Maybe there's a way to heartfelt-dialogue my way to some progress on that.

I was going to write this involved post about the interview on the Diane Ream show with the guy who made the film _Bully_, and about how could Diane Ream of all people not figure out that asking someone "why were you targeted for bullying?" is victim blaming? Especially when her guest objected to the question. But I didn't manage to write that thoughtful and outraged post.

What did get my off my ass to post was this. I'm sitting down to read & critique the other entries for an upcoming writers' workshop. My story is about 3,000 words. But /two/ of the three pieces I'm critiquing are almost 10,000-word novel excerpts! One of them is over four chapters long. Since I'm probably not going to say it to the workshop participant, I'm going to say it here--just because there's a word-count max of 10k words, doesn't mean you have to send as many chapters as you can squeeze into the limit. Jeez! Just submit one chapter and a nice synopsis already!

I talked about the song to my kid's teachers during my parent/teacher conference back in November. I know that's decades ago in internet time, but I was mostly too sick to post and today my sister is taking my kid on a four-hour adventure, so I have time now. Anyway, the conversation was awesome!

Once I brought it up, the main teacher, Patricia, (who is only 23 or so) started expressing her regret about including Native Americans in the Thanksgiving unit at all, and telling me about how they had talked about it (too late for this year) in her community college education class and how genocide isn't really something folks are thankful for. It was totally awesome. Neither teacher was defensive at all about the song, and we had this great conversation about the work they're doing to separate out the really valuable master-to-apprentice type things Patricia learned from her mentors during her Waldorf teacher training from the older, problematic ick that sometimes rides on the carrier wave. One thing I really love about this school in particular is how much the teachers fight against the sometimes-entrenched Waldorf dogma you see in some places.

Anyway, I was really glad I brought it up, and the teachers were eager for my advice and suggestions. I suggested that Patricia see if she could find a tribal elder who was interested in doing community education to come in to the classroom to share a little and she immediately thought of some folks she had already talked to who would probably be into it. Even though my daughter won't be there for it, I'm excited that next year's curriculum will be a lot better.