So...my big Mother's Day present was a laptop. I so was not expecting it and vacillated between squee!shiny! and guilt. Which, I guess is appropriate for Mother's Day. *wry grin* Anyway, I'm really excited about it. So far it's set up with Windows, which feels like I've missed an opportunity to do Linux. I might erase everything (my old files from the netbook are on an external drive)and set up a partition, if I can figure it out.

Sometimes I even get the crazy idea to just set it up as a Linux box. So far what's keeping me from it is remembering what a PITA it was to install programs on Ubuntu when I had it, and wondering if the programs I want even have Linux versions. That, and, well, the fact that I don't know what the hell I'm doing. But it would be an incentive to learn, right?

Work is interesting. Mostly I like it, though I still am often boggled by coworkers. Sometimes I don't understand people and I feel like an alien watching them and trying to understand their behaviors and motivations. That said, this past Friday night I went out with some mama friends and laughed and shared and just generally had an awesome time. Saturday Ellie and I went to a family gathering, and I had a really good and intense conversation with my stepmom, who's going through some stuff right now. So I feel like I want to spend more time with family and old friends and less time with the people who don't really get me.

At the same time, I want to give the people who don't get me a little slack in terms of, well, not getting me. I am a bit of an acquired taste.

I'm reading a book about writing poetry, which I think counts for something, even though I haven't been writing yet. I'm trusting that the writing will come (and I am planning on doing the exercises, just for fun. I might even post some.) Mostly my creative outlet has been making little stuffed animals out of felt or embroidering. I love working with my hands in that way; it's so satisfying.

So...that's what's going on with me. What's new with you?

Crossposting from Dreamwidth, though it's fine to comment here too.

A transgender woman and senior citizen starts a "charm school" for LGBT youth: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-trice-charm-school-0416-20120416,0,3446855.story

(WARNING: Might be triggery if adherence to gender norms and the idea of passing (or not) make you twitchy.)

I have such mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, she's a mama for younger people who don't really seem to have one, and I think that's beautiful. On the other, statements like "ladies wear a slip" make my skin crawl. (Even though that was technically said by her great-aunt, it's implied that she agrees.)

On the third hand, I really hate the trend in children's/teen's clothing that has things getting skimpier and skimpier. I want my nine-year-old to look nine, not twenty-five and on her way to a nightclub.

On the fourth hand, I really think that everyone gets to present the way they want. Period.

On the fifth hand, I may feel differently about the fourth hand when my own children are older.

I think I'm hijacking my own thread at this point.

To get back to the point, I'm curious about what other (trans-friendly, of course) folks think of this charm school.

eta: eumelia brings up a really good point, and that's that passing can be a safety issue. Everyone I know who's transitioned seems so safe and happy that I forget it's an issue, but it is.

Crossposting from Dreamwidth, though it's fine to comment here too.

Today I went to a tea and spice store in Winter Park. Right now I'm drinking some genmaicha and it's really good.

I can't believe the weekend's already gone. It absolutely flew by, and I can't believe it's already Sunday night. I don't feel ready to go back to work tomorrow. We're swamped there, and I'll probably need to work late some days this week if it's at all possible.

But overall things are good. We're getting some money back from the IRS and hoping to get some things taken care of that we really need to around the house. Some of our exterior wood is rotting out, so we really need to get it replaced and have the exterior painted. We may not be able to afford all of it; we'll see.

I feel bored and boring. I don't know if it's depression or if some extra physical thing is going on. I just feel bleh and tired and like I don't wanna. But I'd rather be energized and excited about life. I'm trying to figure out how to make that happen.

I did get a book about writing poetry, and I'm hoping to get back to poetry. I looked over the book and like the author's overall approach, and a Twitter friend recommended it to me.

What are you excited about in your life, lately?

Crossposting from Dreamwidth, though it's fine to comment here too.

My daughter is sticking pins into my little pincushion face and yelling, "Fatality to the $body part!" Before that, it was piercings but quickly got more brutal. I'm not sure if I should be concerned or not.

We ended up looking at extreme body modifications (the clothed kind). Ellie doesn't want to get any piercings. I told her it's fine either way - she can grow up to get a lot of them or get none at all.

I only have ears. I did have my ears double-pierced, but I'm sure those holes closed up a long time ago. Looking at pictures, I think about getting my nose pierced, but I don't think I really want to.

Ellie said the pincushion would be a boy, and when I figured out she was doing hair, I said that women could have really short hair, so then I showed her pictures of bald women. I didn't realize until later what I could have oh my god gotten in the image search, but luckily all the images were of those bald in the traditional sense.

This is one of those times where I don't know if I'm a good parent or a bad one or just lazy. "Hey, let's look at weird pictures on the Internet and give you ideas for accessorizing my pincushion!"

Work was okay today, except we had one of those meetings where I feel like I'm hopelessly lost because our approach keeps changing, and sometimes I just don't feel in the loop.

But tonight there is sewing, Internet, and pictures. Sometimes that's enough.

From Downloads

Crossposting from Dreamwidth, though it's fine to comment here too.

Okay, so my 12yo child has discovered online chatting with his friend and commenting and just being social online. It's precious and wonderful and, well, hilarious.

Earlier I was trying to give him a bit of advice about commenting.

"Don't be a jerk if you comment on something. If you wouldn't feel comfortable putting your name to it, you shouldn't type it....I mean, if you're saying your own secret, you can...but don't be an asshole, is what I'm saying."

"Mom, on the Internet, we actually have a word for people who do that," he tells me smugly.

"You mean troll?"

"How do you *know* that?"

"I've been on the Internet since before you were born."

"Yeah, except it wasn't really the Internet then."

"I've been on it pretty much since it started, is what I'm saying."

(Okay, so this might have been a bit of hyperbole. I've been online since the early nineties, anyway, around the time of Prodigy and Compuserve. As far as his comment, deciding when the Internet officially became the Internet...I really think it depends on whom you talk to and how old they are.)

I taught him the expression, "Don't feed the trolls." I might have been a little smug myself about the fact that he hadn't heard it yet.

So just now, he's typing back and forth to his school friend and dying laughing. It's so good to hear him giggle without reservation. For a while, he's just been so stoic (or tried to be) so much of the time.

"What?...What??...What???" Dave and I both say.

"I..." He's still laughing. "I can't tell you. It's...umm...it's Not Safe For Work."

Dave and I look at each other, amusement in our eyes.

"Not safe for work?" I say. "Are any of us at work right now?"

"No," he says. "No, we're not. But that's just what we say on the Internet."

I had a dream that I was stuck in Target, and whatever I tried to do, I couldn't get away. If I found and drove my car, I would end up looping back around to the parking lot. Often I couldn't find the car. Often I got stopped by security guards and waylaid. It was disturbing, at parts surreal like the stairs in an Escher drawing, because I always ended up back where I'd started. In Target. Or dream-Target, which was not as happy as real Target, but more alternative (there was a sex shop section) and eventually more sinister as well.

I don't know if I've written about this before, but Ellie doesn't go for prepackaged valentines. She has to make them herself and personalize each one.

...And we still did that. When we ran out of stickers, I did pretty lettering for her from this book of handwritten fonts I have.

It felt like a minor victory, to be working full-time outside the home and still able to do that. We started early, and did a little at a time, and worked on weekends, but it still happened. And there are other things like that - baked bread, for example - that I think I'll do, I just have to figure out the way to make it happen.

Things have changed, but in the midst of it, there are still valentines with handwritten messages and stickers and glitter. There is still time to write and time to clean and time to be with friends.

I don't have it all figured out, not by a long shot. But I'm starting to feel more myself again, more like I'm actively taking part in my life instead of being completely exhausted by my day job. I think exercising and taking vitamins is helping too. ( cut for pic )

Last night I dreamed I was having an affair with President Obama. Michelle was not amused.

I saw this on FB but can't remember who posted it, and I'm too lazy to check. :-P

http://elizabethpottsweinstein.com/55-things

So, I bought some things that have nothing to do with my resolutions as posted.

Dave fixed my guitar for me after I expressed an interest in playing, and I bought a songbook from Amazon called Rise Up Singing.

It's hippie and folk and wonderful. So many songs for kids and adults, in keys that are easy to play. Even with my very limited repertoire of chords, I'm able to play and sing actual songs (though I do have to pause for the chord changes). My fingertips are sore but I'm happy, and I hope with time I can play for longer.

Today I played "Itsy Bitsy Spider" and "I've Been Working on the Railroad" and "When the Saints Go Marching In".

The other thing is The Gaian Tarot. I haven't really done any readings yet, but I LOVE what she's done with traditional tarot. It's Earth-centered and multicultural and gentle.

I feel like after the shock of starting a career (of sorts) again, I'm settling in, remembering who I am, as strange as that might sound. I'm forty, and I feel like that's old enough to shed expectations of who I'm supposed to be and embrace the person I am.