whoops. three weeks since last posting? welcome to G"DAMNIT! busy!"

Not so much some kind of uber-mama busy. We're not shuttling off to playroom and classes, but life is just nuts.

I'm done the novella 2, and the end is in sight for the novel, round 2. I get more and more messages as days go by, that people really love the novel ( and the novella, that little insanely kinky happy fun book) and that's really awesome.

I have now resorted to a mere "Oh brother" eye roll when people slag off self pub as a non-legit form of work, because I guess all you indie creators in OTHER fields, hey that's cool but you writers better be properly controlled.

And its not that I hate trad. publishing. I just don't see it as a benchmark of quality, because lardy have I read some bad big press fiction. To sell my books I'd have had to drastically alter the thing to something it's really not, to either a very very strictly hetero sort of romance to fit the paranormal romance thing, or ramped up the horror in a way I didn't want. I tried. I didn't like what it had become. So I stayed true to what I wanted and people are asking "when's the next one, I'm hooked".

And then there's the "Stephen king is the only writer" who's book they slavishly follow as the end all and be all final word on writing. "Stephen King SAYS..." Oh shut the fuck up. My only honest suggestion ever: finish the first draft. Do it. Get it done. THen you have something tangible, otherwise you find a hundred reasons why you haven't finished that draft but it'll be epic when you do! I was in an online writers forum way back in the internet dark ages and people would spend endless hours upon hours "researching" before committing one scene to type.

And people still dream that once they sign on with a big press, they can quit their day job. Truth is, I know several writers and only one full time writer for traditional press, and I know one on twitter who does the same in selfpub. So it's such a longshot.

Had a nightmare last night. R has continues this benevolent picking and I swear he just doesn't realize he does it. Pick.pick. Question. Pick. If something doesn't work, assumes I just did it wrong. Pick pick. I was in a white hot rage in my dream, having been pushed just too damn far with the constant stream of small nitpicks. I know he's pissed a bit that I gained back so much of the lost weight but dude.

He gets home and I've been watching S all day and ok he's at work, but there's no switch off for me. I STILL have to watch, because he gets on line, noodles around, plays on his phone and sets S on the floor to get into shit and S moves really fast so I have to drop what I'm doing to chase the kid while r's just...lalalala

I was thinking for a bit that something was seriously wrong with me because I'm just dead exhausted constantly and it's this. I never get a moment off. I had to go do a token grocery run because I wanted just 20 min where I didn't have S screaming in my ear. He's terribly fond of this pterodactylian screech!! and some days it just shatters my brain.

Took S to get his MMR last week. I have to find a new fucking office before I punch this one nurse-receptionist. Weighing S, she could NOT figure out how the slide balance scale worked, to the point I was ready to offer to do it. S was bawling his heart out and climbed out in tears before she was done, clinging to me. We got him to stand on the adult scale which is digital instead. One other visit she snapped at him for being fussy. This time she's "He's not EXACTLY 12m so we can't do the MMR." Uh bitch. Yes. You can. I made this appt specifically for that and if you tell me after our bus/subway schlep up here...

Thing is, Alberta, specifically where we're going, had a sizeable measles outbreak thankyou all you gobshite antivaxers and the health dept suggested ( a month ago?) that all infants 6-12 in the area or travelling TO, get the MMR. My sister's kid is unvaxed, supposedly. So. We get his before we go.

The nurses when I told them this were "weelllll it's their choice, they often wait til kid starts school" No. No No. Seriously. Waffling like fools on this? Vaccinate your fucking KID.

Playroom's fine, aside from the days where this nitwit mom shows up. She has a 7 weeker, and her 4 year old daughter, J. J is an asshole kid. J PINS OTHER KIDS down and steals their toys and then flips her shit when the victim takes the toy back. Mom sits on her duff and coos "J, no. J No. we'll leave if you don't listen." no actual action. Someone offers tantrumming J a soothing hug and J goes back to terrorizing other kids and mom just SITS there. J is an asshole child. Upside I over heard they were moving out of the area so they won't be at this drop in much longer.

Pride was ok, except once again R doesn't realize most booths were cash only ( so no grub) and we waited almost an hour for a friend to meet up with us because, as I discovered later, she'll shop one booth for 45 min to buy one T shirt. S was solidly exhausted. And the parade went for 5 or 6 hours, we only stayed for 2.

But fun.

Anyway. A shit ton of work to do, and my allergies are on the rampage and it's late so I'm crawling back to bed.

Need to cure R of that nitpick/pecking. I booked an appt at Apple's genius bar because my phone is wonk, and the only appts closest were canada day. Mall's open, so Ok. Booked. R was "are you SURE they have appointments?" well, yeah didn't just do this by "deciding " on a day and time. Went to their site. "Huh. Weird. ok. Are you sure". BOOK IT YOUR FUCKING SELF YOU JACKOFF IF YOU THINK I CAN"T READ A FUCKING WEB SITE PROPERLY.

Always with the presumption I've made a mistake. I'm incompetent, I need fixing and guidance and nudging and if I could just BE more perfect nudge peck peck peck. I'm so fucking sick of it. There will come a reckoning. And when I tell him to not do that he gets all defensive. I honestly think he has no idea he's doing it.

one week and a couple days till the travel slog starts. Wheee. SO much to get done. And he's questioning half my plans and shit. He doesn't travel well sometimes, he gets overwhelmed by detail and starts zoning out and being spacy because his brain blue-screens on me. And so I generally plan to be the kid-wrangler and ready to step in as he...dude's got some classic ADHD moments. not gonna lie.

Today I'm tired. I can't post on reddit, he reads. I'm tired of feeling like a jobless failure. Tired of him coming home pissy and surly from work and yeah it sucks to telecommute after hours but please take it out on me.

Tired of everything I do being nitpicked because clearly I'm imperfect. I was half way through arranging cards in a 3 buck frame when he has to PICKPICK. It looked fine the way I did it. Apparently I'm fucking stupid.

Tired of him snapping at me because the baby gets some of his food on his hands.S grabbed the spoon full o mushy meat and veggies and R FREAKED, sighed, took the bowl. PICKPICK.

TIRED. I'm being pecked to death. Everything I do is up for quality inspection and scrutiny and critique and I'm SO fucking tired. I started thinking I was seriously ill because no one can be this tired right? I sleep 8 hours and I'm still ass-dragging tired. I'm so tired I want to cry. I started thinking tonight, just keep pushing asshole, and I'll fucking blow my own head off or something just to make this fucking nitpick and exhaustion stop. I cannot EVER WIN.

I seriously think about walking away when he's in these moods. I'm sorry I'm a fat, tired, unemployed person. I don't GET a chance to eat half the time and then it's shove something in my face and keep going. I could go get a job, if he doesn't mind that the entire salary would go to childcare or I could work evenings and never see anyone. I seriously want to drift him in the head with a frypan and go "if you think you can do a better job, have at it."

And I'm tired of picking up after him. I pick up after him, the dog, the baby, and one of those is perfectly fucking capable of putting his fucking dishes in the sink and empty soda bottles in the bin and for the LOVE OF FUCK its me he harps on for my jewelery supplies and I'm trying to get organized.

I'm just so fucking tired of this. I love my son but I'm clearly just a shit human being and who gives a fuck right? I'd LIKE to eat healthy and go to the gym but I never ever have time.

Its at the point where I don't want to wake up. I'm just that tired and feeling like shit. I try to be grateful and nice and what does it get me? SHIT ON.

Gad the whining in this chainmailler's FB group....

The newbies whine and whine. Rings are too expensive. Too hard to cut. Steel's too hard to use. Steel's too heavy for jewelery. Silver's too expensive. Silver's easy to dent. Gold's too expensive. Copper tarnishes. Burrs. Colors wear away.

They seem to prefer aluminum by and large which in 20g size is JUNK. then they whine they don't sell. They whine about everything. MY GOD ITS FULL OF WHINING.


And more people slagging self pub as "I just won't ever read it. Snoot snoot." Because its ok to be an indie musician, an indie artist, and indie craftsperson but WOE upon you wordsmith! you MUST be vetted and edited and validated or you're not "legit".

I present to you the big publisher houses: 50 shades of grey. Twilight. The autobiography of Snookie from Jersey Shore. Sure.

I went to see Daniel Lanois speak on sunday and it was amazing. He delights in new things, new experiences, new ways of doing things. A sense of adventure. He spoke of how fond he was of the people who he works with and the idea that creativity and things are a two way street, and you should surround yourself with people who want your success as much as their own.

And that's what I've been trying to do. I am not "helping" people who have burned me, you got your chance and that's all you get.

Ok. Time to feed small thing. We went to the pool today and swam the ya-yas out. Novella 2 is in the edit spin cycle now.

So much to do before dcon. But we're doing ok.

Tonight I posted the 12 feet of chain I made to a fb chainmail group.

An hour or so later, one of the members says "how much do you charge for 18 inches of it" and i replied thinking she was asking out of "what does your work go for comparison" and she replies "SOLD".

Now wait a second, sold? did I say it was up for sale? You ask "May I purchase a length?"

So I said um, this is spoken for, and I can make more.

"Ok, and make it perfect! I'll be checking!"

With rings that small, there's bound to be some imperfect closures and I suspected that she doesn't know this and I'm starting to get annoyed.

I reply "i've been doing this for 8 years. I'm not a newbie. No sale."

Half an hour later "i'm sorry I was an asshole, I was just teasing."

No, you're just sorry that you didn't get what you wanted. She wanted it because she doesn't work that tiny and she wanted to "feel" what it was like. So...get some smaller pliers toots. Start working.

She brags constantly how awesomely awesome superduper she is in all things customer service and chainmail and uh, she came off like a complete donkey turd.

Best sale I ever turned down. She found someone else. I don't need that shit.

But WTF, man. I wouldn't go to my good friend and say "gimme. how much? and make sure it's perfect" because that's just rude.

I am just so fucking tired lately. This cold was a brutal one, and once it decided to leave my lungs, it went right up into my ears. The blocked ears, the dizziness, the fucking 28c/80% humidity no goddamn AC and I'm dizzy, sick, dehydrated, puking, coughing, not sleeping.

And oh could you do the dishes walk the dog do the laundry care for child finish the books do merch?

For the last 4 days I've had this gross taste in my mouth and it helps me feel ill too and trying to get liquids in and I just want to vomit right now. I AM SO FUCKING SICK AND BURNED OUT.

Then R is on one of his pick-pick benders and it just feels like I'd be better off walking. He at least took the dog out. I was really close to smashing every fucking bowl in the house. I'm tired of cleaning these massively heavy glass bowls he eats his fucking salads in. I'm SO VERY TIRED of cleaning all the bowls and bottles every fucking night. I am tired of empties he never moves to the recyc basket. I'm tired. I'm tired of this tiny fucking apartment and the fucking stupid elevators. Every where I turn I crash into shit.

It took three fucking hours to do laundry last night because of those fucking elevators. It should have taken half that. Next place is 2br, and INSUITE FUCKING LAUNDRY. BONUS FOR A FUCKING DISHWASHER SCREW THIS SHIT.

There's stuff I need to get done without a child being winged at me and I'm too sick to do half of it because every time I move I want to puke.

adventures in modern parenting!

Today at the playroom all the small ones were getting their yayas out in the gym, which is good because after a weekend of a cold, S had an abundance of yaya. I set him loose on the floor and he goes as usual, hellbent for leather, and he's getting red knees ( if I'd known it was a gym day I'd have put him in pants, but these are unscheduled things).

And then he gets all out of sync and kissed the floor. A tiny split lip, and I picked him up as he cried at the cruelty of gravity betraying him. He was calmed in a minute and "ok! lets go again!" and on to the floor and off and crawling, over it. He's fucking resilient.

All the other parents were "aghast! shock" and I'm, red knees and a floor kissing isn't that bad for him. He took a header off the bed and now he understands there's a drop. He flings himself forward and knows where the edge of the crib is. He's learning the limits of his environment and how it functions and how to assess that as he gets more mobile. This is not a bad thing. It sucks because the booboo count is high, but otherwise, this is why we now have to TELL people not to stand at the edge of crumbling cliffs, or that scaling an animal enclosure is a bad thing. Because they don't have the brains to figure it out, someone was always there to stop them if they were in danger.

Someone isn't always going to be there.

We let him get frustrated. We let him work out how to pull things into his crib. Doing it for him isn't helping. His job is to learn and work this stuff out. We're there when he needs it but we give him ample opportunity to work it out, we say "work it out, dude." he needs to learn frustration, coping with failure, earning success, persistence, resilience.

Today there was a 17m old kid that S fairly towers over, but the kid is vaguely aware S is a baby and therefore not fully "aware" of social norms at the toddler level. S kept going for the same toy the kid had and the other kid was getting fracked right off. S doesn't NEED that toy there's hundreds of others. I took the toy from S and handed it back to the kid. "SHARE!" hollers the other mom.

No. Your kid doesn't need to share, because mine's being grabby. Later other kid had a coveted Alligator pull along that S adores, and stalks the playroom for. He chased it as the other kid pulled it, and once in a while S caught it, and I'd peel his wee fingers off.

Forced sharing isn't a good lesson. That's "I want what you have and you want to be nice so you'll just give me what I want, right?" Not a good thing.

Voluntary sharing is "I like you and respect you and here, have some of my cake because I have some to give." we encourage that one.( well right now it seems to be germs.)

I'm so tired of cosseted, coddled, entitled kids. Let them get grubby. let them split a lip. Let them learn what its like when the universe doesn't hinge on their every whim. Honestly.

I like that my kid meets a variety of cultures and languages, and old people, homeless people, diversity. He's equally acccepting whoever greets him. This is a good lesson. ( the "watch out for iffy folk", that'll follow. I don't want to instill him with a fear of the world, that its dangerous and he must be coccooned. I want to say "this is the world, kid, here's your survival tips."

I just know too many adults who are helpless, needing parents to manage their schedule even as they work FT and go to school. If you're in college and you're 20, mommy shouldn't be bringing you to your doc's appts and sitting in. If you're in college and you're 20, you shouldn't have to give up your life to constantly entertain and thus make your assignments late because they monopolize your time. Cut the apron strings. If you're 20, you should all things being "normal within a range of normal", make a meal, find an apartment, open a bank account, do your laundry, manage your schedule and make mistakes. You should function as an adult not as a child.

radical concept, I know. I am so over the helpless adult syndrome, because their parents told them the world was scary and they're afraid to even call a cab, or take transit and could someone pleeeeese help them? Tired of people on FB who post "I wanna cupcake because I'm cute" and 30 people respond like pavlov's dog and offer cake. Get your own fucking cake, darling.

I'll be there to guide S, to teach him, to be the Mama in boots who has his back, but I'm not going to be some helicopter mama clearing all in his path. Nope. You might have to eat dirt a few times, kiddo. Its good for you.

R is chomping on my head to get the books done and this week I'm felled by asthma AGAIN and S has a cold and he's not sleeping and I'm not sleeping and what the fuck am I supposed to magically do?

I nearly lost it after i was up till 4 am with S last night and could NOT get him to sleep more than 20min at a go. I couldn't write because just as I'd start "waahhhhh".

What does R do? stomps out and takes over. Its ok if he's tired, to be grumpy but I better greet each day with a fucking song and a smile even if I've gotten 20 seconds of sleep and I have a ton of work that won't get done.

He got to go to a show. I haven't had a baby free couple hours for well on two, three weeks now. I'm SO fucking fried.

R tells me he doesn't think women exactly assume their blind date will rape them and leave them in an alley.

I said probably not, but the fear is there, not because every guy does this, but because a lot of guys do act as if sex is theirs for demand, after a meal, or a movie. Setting aside every loopy girl I know in HS who used sex to manipulate guys, the power is still in their favor.

Guys are told to get the girl, get the pussy, be a man. Girls are told not to make a scene, don't challenge the guy, don't make more than them, don't outshine them, don't give them sex because then you're a slutty slut.

When I left an abusive boyfriend, welfare asked if I was sure I just couldn't reconcile, and save them the paperwork. All the checks, even for me, came in HIS name.

I went on a date in vancouver and ordered a salad ( wasn't hungry) and later I got demanded for sex, on the basis I had ordered salad.

Another date dumped me off the the overpass ramp because "he just didn't feel a connection." Didn't even leave me near a fucking bus stop. Pull over the car and lob you out.

I've never been physically abused, but I was in some pretty fucked up relationships. I want to say it's partly because we seem to teach guys this weird "be a gentleman and you'll get sex" thing, and then there's all the "Nah, be the manly man and the ladies will fall at your feet".

And we teach girls to play into this too, or that we'll just question what they're wearing or what they said when they go to the police with their clothes in tatters.

That aside, I don't anticipate any real change in US gun culture. I'm at the point of "another shooting, whatever. Its the price you wanted to pay for freedom, to blow the heads off innocents."

We've had shootings here, but not even close to the crap the US has, even accounting for population. Why is that, exactly? ( I know the answer.)

Lovely day out for a 6 mile walk with the Boy and husb. We hit the chinese bakeries and markets for produce, then down to queen where I bought swanky leather flats for summer, and some shorts and a skirt.

And I realize I've got a bit big. All this FOOD. a year without food left me kind of...yeah well probably gotta drop 20. Not quite pre preg weight but I know I gotta do this. The three rounds of prednisone, surgery and pnuemonia and asthma attack in three months did no favors.

So ok.

And while I was out walking Sera this grade A fucking Douchenugget is riding his bike on the sidewalk. Its a crowded walk and he's barging through. "get off the fucking sidewalk, asshole" I said. He replies in a whiny "mew mew mew" mocking sound. "Jackass." I said. "Lose some weight" says he.

Of course. The go to insults when a woman asserts that you're a jerk: we're fat, sluts, bitches and whores. I know your kind, you sorry little pinheaded fuckwit. You don't scare me. You annoy me with your pissy little attitude that the universe revolves around your special self. You rode your bike through a narrow stretch of sidewalk crowded with people. You had no legal right to be on the fucking sidewalk and I wish it were legal to kick your wheels out from under you.

You just ride that little snotty attitude, sir. I fervently hope you hit the biggest pothole, and get doored so fucking hard you wake up and have to re learn your name. Because you're an asshole. You're an entitled little asshole and this last week has been full up on that shit.

And then I have a little less respect for cyclists. The women abide by laws, the guys just don't give a fuck.

At least he's not in a car, he'd be an asshole no matter how he was transporting himself and I suspect he'd be the dude on his phone that plows through yellow lights and plays chicken with pedestrians. At least on a bike he's unlikely to kill anyone. ( it has happened tho).

(Its not like he was in Tour-de-France shape himself so, uh dude, you wanna talk body size? Bring it on.)

Between the shootings, teh whining MRA rights dudes in the hood always with their posters and the pickup artists that haunt eaton center, I'm so over petulant entitled doodbro. Upside the PUA's leave me the fuck alone with the stroller. And a perfected death glare. Seriously. Fuck not with the Mama in Boots.

run, keep running.

clean the house, feed and entertain the small one, change the small one, errands, more cleaning, keep running, make jewelery, write, keep running.

R trimmed one of seras claws too short. AGAIN. Blood everywhere. Next time I'll find a fucking groomer.

Thinking of doing a major social media purge of dead-relationships. I'm tired of one sided efforts. If we haven't talked in a year, its a safe bet we're not talking any time soon.

Still waiting on novel reviews from copies sent over 8months ago. Gonna venture out on a limb here and say people probably wanted the freebie and didn't ever intend to follow through.

Still have to run some stuff down to the garbage bins, but my motivation for it? It can wait, its just cardboard and unlike everyone else, I refuse to stack it in the hall for someone else to clean up.

Bug, it sleeps. When we get back from travel in july, will prob. get gym membership to use to get me fit and him worn down.

dreamt last night that we decided to leave him in a train station. And 5 steps away I felt like I'd lost everything and ran back for him. The emptiness was so profound I could still feel it 12 hours later. Brains do strange things in dreams.