Wonder Woman

No, really, Wonder Woman. I wasn't coming up with a clever title this time. Joss Whedon (maker of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer) has been picked up, apparently, to do the new Wonder Woman movie. I think this is great. He did a good job at Buffy, and provided a strong and capable, yet still vulnerable and human female lead for years with that.

A good rundown on making a female superhero movie.

Growing obsession.

Someone needs to call me RIGHT NOW and offer me a job!

I've applied for three part time positions. Now that I've made the decision to do this, no matter what it takes, I want it to be over with. How's that for neurotic?

Milestones in teeth

Michael just lost his first tooth, and Katy's last babytooth is loose. Sort of a bit of irony, there.

Also, Michael has been testy at school lately and having problems. His teacher just called to talk to me about it. If anything, things around here are just getting better lately, so I'm not sure what to say to her. Katy thought that the boys in his class were picking on him. I didn't know what's going on.

However, there was a fear I was having, in relation to this. Katy was seven when she was diagnosed with childhood depression and was put on Zoloft for a year... that seemed to clear up her problem, thank goodness, and she's been fine ever since. At the time, I spoke to the psychiatrist and she said that children who exhibited signs of depression and were then treated tended not to grow up into depressed adults. A little jumpstart to their brain chemistry, I guess. Knowing that with the history of moodiness and alcoholism in my family, depression is likely in our blood, I found this reassuring.

Naturally, of course, this all started me worrying about Michael and a possible bout with depression. It often shows up in kids with fits and bouts of anger. He, however, did not have the same personality issues that pointed to possible depression with Katy. She'd had long, hard fits when she was a toddler, for instance, and tended to be solitary and quiet. Also, it's not the same thing. Michael is happy, sunny and generally active during the day now, he's just getting angry with people at school. Katy was forlorn day and night. She'd come home from school and lay in bed, often crying. This was when she was diagnosed. So, while I feared it might be the same problem, I had reasons to believe otherwise.

Then, just about five minutes ago, the lightning bolt struck. Duh! It's the perfect time of year for his allergies to be in full swing. The other day, we went from the house to the car and his eyes were instantly bloodshot and watering. He's not feeling well, I'm sure. It started about a month ago, just about the time the weather started warming up. Thank goodness. I was really starting to sweat that. I've started him on his allergy medication again and will endeavor to remember to give it to him every day and see if his behavior improves.

I will also cut back on his video game playing. I've been letting him do too much of that lately and I never think it's a very good idea.

Walking and talking

Taking the kids for a walk this afternoon. There is a video store and a dollar store within walking distance from our house and I'm planning on picking up spoons for the kitchen (we're down to two. We're always wanting for spoons) and I'm considering whether I should walk all the way up to the city building to turn in my resume for the job I'm hoping to get. On the one hand going up there with my kids might not be great, but on the other, it could be good for them to see a part of the process.

Looking for a job after not working for six years has brought up many uncomfortable feelings for me. For one thing, I fear for my kids. I fear for them if I work and they are where I don't have control over their environment. I don't really have anyone there to support me by keeping them for me... no one I trust to ask, anyway. This means Michael, at least, will wind up in daycare during the summer. The job is such that during the school year I won't need any daycare, but during the summer I should find someplace for Michael. For this summer, at any rate. Next year, when Katy is thirteen and Michael is a year older, I might feel okay about leaving him here with her, but I just don't think they're ready for that yet. In many ways, they aren't ready for that amount of independence. This summer staying home while I work (by herself without Michael) might be just the primer she needs to learn that.

I worry for them if I don't work, too, though. They ask, sometimes, about whether I'm going to work. The money stuff bothers them, but I think also the trips that society puts on people about this sort of thing affects them. I don't want them to think less of me for that. I know that I'm staying home for a reason, but I feel like the time is right now to go back. I think that I've had the effect on them that I wanted, by being here, always, for them. I think that I've had the time to heal myself and feel stronger and ready to go out into the world and stand up.

And, yo, the money won't be bad.

I think that having someplace to be every day will help keep me from being depressed. I think that the money will improve our lives... even if it'll be slim during the summer when I'm paying for daycare for Michael. Better clothes for school in the fall for the kids. A new dishwasher maybe. Maybe a vacation somewhere, at some point. Pay off some debts. Feel more secure, financially.

Someday if I get brave, I might save up and get another, less ugly car. Maybe I'll save the ugly car for Katy in a few years. I'm sure she'll be thrilled. If her dad doesn't buy her a Mercedes or something ridiculous like that.

He asked her, while she was there this week, if I'd gotten a job. That stung a little. I told her that it wasn't any of his business whether or not I was working, but I immediately felt bad for saying that to her. If I was stronger, I'd call him and tell him it's none of his business and how dare he drag her into his judgments of me.

Society really makes it hard on mothers. You're damned if you do and damned if you don't. If you spend your time for them, then you're lazy and financially irresponsible. If you work, then you're selfish and quite possibly a bad mother. Not to mention the crushing cost of daycare, which has been much of the reason I haven't pursued a job before now. Before Katy got to this age, I would have had to give up any job I had during the summer, or else work just to pay for daycare.... if I wasn't actually sliding backward financially because of the cost of holding down a job (car stuff (I rarely ever drive anywhere, as it is, driving daily somewhere will raise my car costs, certainly) daycare, clothing, and whatever other incidental costs came up.... McDonalds for those nights I didn't feel like cooking after work, for instance.

But, now it's time. I heard someone say the other day that the more time she had, the less she seemed to get done, and that is me, all over. I need a schedule, and structure now. I think it'll help me in so many ways.

I always have things to write about on my blog here, but I rarely seem to write them. It's pure laziness, I suppose.

Last night, I talked to my best friend (since kindergarten) about our sex lives.. or rather, sex drives as I haven't a sex life to speak of these days. We talked about erotic literature and the rise in our sex drives as we get older. We talked about PORN. Oh my!

And she mentioned, in hushed tones, about someone she knew of being a submissive. No, she called it a "subordinate" which was sort of cute, and I realized something very shocking to me. I am a FREAK.

Which is to say I feel comfortable with myself as a sexual being, and have explored aspects of that over the years. It's all about being a survivor of sexual abuse, I think. I've spent many years dealing with that, and a lot of dealing with that is learning to separate sex and the whims of your libido and the reactions of your body from feelings of shame. As a result, I have those fun party moments where, when I'm talking to people about... oh.. my favorite subect, psychology, and among cures for depression, I say "regular sexual release" and everyone gets quiet and looks at me as if they've swallowed something unsavory.

Or, I almost say to my best friend over the phone "Yeah, I'm more of a switch, myself. Sometimes I like to top, sometimes I like to bottom." Or that I'm thinking of saving up the 89 dollars for the really nice vibrator at the sex toystore I linked her to.

K, sweety, we should talk.

So then I moved my blog...

The thing that my old blog was missing, besides me posting at all lately, was a list of links to blogs that I actually read. Love you, Livejournal, really, I do (no, I don't) but the only people you can link to on LJ are other LJ users, and there's really only one livejournal that I actually read, which I've linked to here, so all's well.

So, now to actually post regularly enough to stay interested in this bit.

What'll it be about? It'll be about my life, of course. It'll be about my kids (Oh lord, a parenting blog!). It will be about my opinions about the world and sundry. I'll try for that careful balance between being boring and uncomfortably too personal, though more often than not my blog in the past has tended to err toward the latter. Oops.

Mostly, I'll just try to update more often.

The Blind leading the Socially Awkward

I was thinking about high school today. I do this often, as my daughter will be in Junior High next year and I have to decide what Junior High to send her to and think about what high school that means she'll go to after that, and this leads to me thinking about her problems, socially, these days and how this stuff will affect her later in life. I know these things affect people into adulthood, and through their lives. I've heard this from people. Hell, I've seen it in people, sometimes... usually.. in very not-good ways.

I, myself, do not think much about high school. I didn't think much about it at the time it was happening, really. Or Junior High, for that matter. The years of Junior High are a blur for me of pain and discomfort with my own skin. I think about the things I was dealing with when I was my daughter's age. She's getting to the age that I can remember my life with fair clarity. I remember school through those years, and I remember there being friends, and there being people who tried to start petty drama with me and my friends and my brother, as kids that age are wont to do. But none of it defines my life at that time.

Home defines my life at that time. Riding in the car with my family, never talking, looking out the window and feeling outside myself. I hear songs from that time and what I think about is not school or friends, but times when I was alone among them, suicidal thoughts.. many, many eighties songs bring to mind memories of suicidal thoughts. "Relax, don't do it.." Sometimes I imagined that was just to me. Times at home, being punished for being off somehow from the rest of them. It's an awkwardness that has never quite washed off.

The crowds at school were a blur. Some of them were my friends, and I gleaned acceptance from them, and could relax around them. It was an act, though. I wasn't connected to anything, really, at that time. I was on full survival mode, and to be frank, nothing that happened at school could affect me. I was too well armored.

I tell my daughter to not worry about the stuff at school, that it's not important. But I know it is, for her. I'm glad that is the major source of stress in her life, in a way. I'm glad to be the soft place she comes to, to shield her against the ravages of the world. But I don't know how to fix it. I don't know what to say. I'm fumbling my way blind through this, the same way she is. Shit. I don't have the answers! I tell her that when I was her age, I didn't care about how popular I was, and it's true, but I hardly take into account why. Sometimes I want to tell her to be happy she doesn't have bigger problems, but the truth is I am thankful she doesn't have bigger problems.