The Business of Partying

"Laugh, laugh, laugh, and be happy" - Big Mama Thornton?

How Not to Listen

EMPATHY BLOCKER EXAMPLES

Downplaying: "Oh, don't cry. I'm sure it's not that bad!" ... "It's not the end of the world."

Denial: "There is nothing wrong; nothing for you to be upset about. Everything is OK."

Reasoning: "Don't cry. Can't you see that the other child didn't mean to hurt you?"

The positive spin: "Look on the bright side. Can't you see, this probably happened for a good reason?"

Cheering up: "Don't worry." ... "Here, let me tell you something funny I heard the other day." ... "Here, have an ice cream. That'll cheer you up."

Advising/giving options: "Why don't you try doing this, or that?" ... "I think you should just ignore that so-and-so."

The expectation: "You should have known better." ... "Get over it." ... "Don't let it get to you."

Put down: "Don't be silly." ... "Don't be ridiculous."

Diagnosing/labeling: "You are being over-sensitive."

Distracting/diverting: "Hey, have a look at the pretty puppet."

Stealing the thunder: "Now you know how I felt when the same thing happened to me."

http://www.naturalchild.org/robin_grille/emotions.html

omg deadline

Medical Terminology

Amniotic fluid: Amniotic fluid cushions the fetus from injury, allows movement and helps to stabilize temperature.

Amniotomy ("artificial rupture of membranes" or "breaking the waters"): Surgical rupture of the fetal membranes to induce or expedite labour.

Breech: Delivery of a fetus whose feet or buttocks appear first.

Caesarean: Julius Caesar (or one of his predecessors) is rumoured to have been born by this procedure. Hence, the name "Caesarian." The term "section" in surgery refers to the division of tissue. What is being divided here is the abdominal wall of the pregnant person as well as the wall of the uterus in order to extract the fetus.

Cervix: The lower, narrow part of the uterus. The cervix forms a canal that opens into the vagina, which leads to the outside of the body.

Amniotic Sac or fetal membranes: Any membrane that functions for the protection or nourishment or respiration or excretion of a developing fetus.

Doppler: Hand-held ultrasound device that transmits the sounds of the fetal heart rate. This can generally pick up heart tones after 12 weeks gestation.

Doula: A person who provides non-medical support to a birthing person and their family during labour, childbirth and the postpartum period. The term can also be used to describe other supportive roles for other life events such as abortion, death and more.

Electronic Fetal Monitoring: This is an ultrasound device used during labour and birth to record the fetus' heart rate and the birthing person's contractions. It can be used intermittently or continuously.

Epidural: An anaesthetic injected into the epidural space surrounding the fluid-filled sac (the dura) around the spine which partially numbs the abdomen and legs.

Episiotomy: An incision made between the vagina and the rectum.

Fetus: The unborn offspring from the end of the 8th week after conception (when the major structures have formed) until birth. Up until the eighth week, the developing offspring is called an embryo.

Forceps: An instrument resembling a pair of pincers or tongs that are inserted through the vagina used to grasp the head of the fetus and pull it through the birth canal.

Induction of labour: An intervention designed to artificially initiate uterine contractions resulting in progressive effacement and dilatation of the cervix and birth of the baby.

Meconium: Dark sticky material normally present in the intestine at birth and passed in the feces after birth. The passage of meconium before birth may be a sign of fetal distress.

Midwife: A person, usually a womyn, who is trained to assist those in childbirth.

Nuchal cord: A condition in which the umbilical cord is wrapped around the neck of the fetus in utero or as it is being born.

Obstetrics: The branch of medicine that deals with pregnancy, childbirth and the recuperative period following delivery.

"Oxygen": Actually, Nitrous oxide, which added to oxygen, and when inhaled, causes a relaxation and calming. In some areas it is used as a pain management technique for childbirth. Once the inhalation has stopped the effects quickly disappear.

Pitocin or syntocinon: Synthetic form of the naturally occurring hormone, oxytocin, used to induce or maintain labour. When you have Pitocin you will also normally have a continuous IV drip and continuous electronic fetal monitoring. There are increased risks with using Pitocin including fetal distress, a higher likelihood of requesting pain medication like an epidural, caesarean section, uterine rupture.

Perineum: The region between the vulva and the anus in females.

Placenta: A temporary organ joining the pregnant person and fetus, the placenta transfers oxygen and nutrients from the pregnant person to the fetus, and permits the release of carbon dioxide and waste products from the fetus. The placenta is rich in blood vessels. The placenta is expelled during the birth process with the fetal membranes; together, these structures form the afterbirth. Most mammals eat the afterbirth.

VBAC: Vaginal birth after Caesarean Section (VBA2C = vaginal birth after 2 caesareans)

on with the rigamarole!!

So after 8 months of semi-blissful residence at our Canora House, we get notice that the property is being listed for sale by the owner.

What kind of person sells a house right from under a 6-months pregnant woman's ass?

I feel properly fucked. Good and screwed.

Again. Because this is nothing new. Nothing new at all.

When oh when will there be a place just for me and mine? It seems like there's never a stable moment.

So many things to get worked up over right now. Too many!! I have to make a schedule to manage how and when to worry about certain things!!

other parents

I have a REALLY hard time not worrying about what other parents might think of me, especially because I'm still a new parent to our 7 year old Serafina and I just haven't had the opportunity yet to develop comfort with or confidence in what seems like my built in parenting style. I look at myself and see the fully-realized product of my own parents and I shudder and resolve to do better but holy moly I'm both amazed and disgusted with myself all the time!!

I worry about how it all looks to other parents, even my own partner. I have to work really hard to remember that I'm a smart, sensitive, good person and then I resolve to slow down a little more and set aside the feelings of inadequacy and ill-equippedness which during most acts of parenting surely canNOT be helpful. I have to really try not to listen to the voices in my head, which I tend to create for other parents until I'm alone and the time is right to examine what seems to be other people speaking but really it turns out to be my tricksy brain using other folks as imaginary mouthpieces for my fear and insecurity.

This is a time of real insecurity for me, obviously. Assigning words to other folks is something I fall into during times of stress and distress. It's hard not to allow relationships to break down when I do this to folks, since it's without their consent, confirmation or knowledge that I put sometimes horrible words in their mouths!! This is something I have to really work on; allow myself to get this exercise in self-abuse out of my system while remembering that I must ultimately attribute all of that abuse or negative energy to MYSELF. It would be very easy to backslide and simply believe that "intuition" is helping me decide what other parents think of me, but holy fuck, that's unfair to everyone. And I do know what I'M really thinking. I'm really thinking, I'm scared. That's all. I can leave it there if I want to.

In any event, I decided during one of these alone times that I would only listen to my partner in terms of parenting style and parenting decisions. She's the only other parent in my life who isn't just a voice in my head, when it's all said and done. No one else in their right mind would ever comment on my parenting style or parenting decisions if they knew me well, and if they didn't know me well and said something, look out!!

While I have my fears which I can readily admit to, you'd better be confident you know the whole story, have a handle on most of the back story, and also be confident with subtext.

And after all, my partner's voice is the only voice besides my own (and our children's I suppose) that matters at all in terms of parenting OUR children. I can ask for and take advice, welcome or reject criticism, but ultimately, it's me and my partner doing this.

can of worms

I'm kind of afraid to write these days. It's all well and good to write about stuff when you know hardly anybody is watching. There was a time when folks read my writing and those people meant a lot to me but I felt like my writing did nothing to impact them in any substantive way. Potential embarrassment, guaranteed rage and disgust, the occasional laugh, but nothing that could do irreparable damage. I mean, irreparable damage to the ego is usually good for you even if it hurts, causes a lot of inconvenience and, if relied upon too heavily, destroys relationships. I consider relationships based so heavily on ego sort of superfluous. I'm more interested in folks who can roll when someone tells the truth about themselves and the lives they lead with others.

Now though. I'm not just writing about myself and my friends and lovers, all immature material, not so worthy of much or diligent discretion. Certainly entertaining, certainly meaningless when it all boils down, especially now that I haven't been properly fucked up in the past half-year.

Now I've got this beautiful spouse who truly truly matters to me, who truly truly supports me, who can roll with a little embarrassment, can experience the required rage and disgust without viewing me as a gangrene needing amputation. Her ego has a range of motion beyond reasonable expectation. We can disagree about things that are fairly important to us, like artistic expression, movies to watch, meals to eat, lifestyles to experiment with. We agree on the fundamentals and if we don't, we can make it work.

Now though. We are running a family. It's not just the two of us living together in a kind of dynamic harmony. We are like Ulali. We function that way. I can see folks in my life tipping their heads, cocking their ears, waiting for it to happen, pulling their chins in and watching for the song to fall apart in front of them, but it doesn't. The way we are living has a quality that seems unstable and discordant, but before that discord becomes established, we start filling in the gaps. This leads us to a full and complex level of vibration that evokes an emotional response from a surprising amount of people.

That emotional response is what troubles me. I wonder how it is that two people, who in my view are doing very well at living quietly and peacefully, can stir up so much shit. I've got good vibes and bad vibes and vibes of all types coming at me from all sorts of angles. I'm not a person known to compromise herself in order to be liked and accepted, and it's certainly showing these days. Those folks who feel kindly towards us are invariably holding themselves at quite a distance, notwithstanding the amount of goodwill they harbour for us. You know, drop it like it's hot.

There's nothing wrong with my family's situation and smart folks know it, but at the same time, smart folks certainly don't want to get too close to it.

Then there are the real big negative nellies. Doom and gloom and a whole lot of reliance on what they've been taught and then what they've accordingly thought all their lives so how can it be that we're not ascribing to that pattern? How can it be that we do not respond in the usual ways to violent behaviour, unwelcome pressure to conform, threats, manipulation, withdrawal of love and affection? We just stick to our principles without apology and this seems to be so outrageous. Just minding our own business, thinking hard, communicating effectively and following our hearts has become a radical action. There can be no regret when we have done the hard work of having somewhat original thoughts about our relationship, our roles as parents, our place in the world together and as separate human beings.

The whole thing does cause grief, however. Certain choices have cost us relationships that help us to be more comfortable. It's not our choices that have driven folks away, contrary to popular belief. It's the choices certain folks have made.

The choices people have made are things like:

"I refuse to change my mind even though I have not had an independent thought about the issue."

"I will not allow even love to bend my opinions about gender."

"I do not believe folks have the right to decide how to love."

The choices I've been making since my creation have really led me into an arduous journey. Correction: the way I am, the way I was made, the way I can't help but allow myself to be, my innateness has really led me into an arduous journey.

I'm finally beginning to believe I was designed for my life. I'm not going to get out of this alive, but that's the whole point.

I'm going to die, thanking all the powers that seemingly be, that I refused to intentionally shame or maim anyone for just being the way they were made.

Realistically speaking, I am going to die with some amount of regret, but I expect it will be for shameful things I've done unintentionally or with the best of informed but misdirected intentions.

I recognize and honour the fact that most folks who act like asses are simply working with what they have. I do not believe most folks who act like asses are doing the best they can. I can't believe that. We are designed to be better than what we can do. We are designed to evolve and grow despite ourselves. Fear and ignorance are poor excuses for haters.

I'm halfway through a marvellous pregnancy. I'm turning out to be a fantastic baby-growing device.

I can't help but wonder how I'll love this new human I'm manufacturing.

I am afraid I am too much like sandpaper and less like water. Right now I see child-rearing as a lot like two landmasses wearing away at each other. I acknowledge this process, while not exactly gentle, is necessarily subtle and should take a lot of time. It's a natural effect of two entities existing next to each other. Yet I make so many efforts to just erode methodically, like factory-work. I have discovered that I really don't like to spend a lot of time moulding the human child. In other words, I wish my efforts would have more immediate results.

I am attempting to be a creative parent. I do take some time and I think a lot. I do not do things instinctually because I don't trust myself yet. I have a lot of work to do in that regard.

In that regard, mechanisms that were installed very early in my life are being dismantled every day. I find a lot of this dismantling work comes in the form of dreaming. I have started to dream often about violence and rage with a target. I wish I didn't have to sleep sometimes.

I watch myself and see there is very little flow to the way I currently parent. I am hoping the experience of childbirth will help me become a more natural parent, like water, gently smoothing out the roughness and naturally helping my children re-arrange the jammed up places. I want to push only when it's a natural part of my children's landscape.

There's nothing like hating the way you are when you're doing something important. Talk about a force of nature. The way to go about this is like sailing; attempt to capture the power of the winds of self-loathing and glide as smoothly as possible towards the end.

update

My skin has become some kind of monster in the space of half a year. Like, "Revenge of The Eczema", after 3 years in remission. I've taken prednisone three times in the past three months and am feeling hopeless about the situation. My chinese doctor has seemingly given up on me. That hurts. Reading Susun Weed these days has directed me to daily burdock root infusions, in addition to the nettle and red raspberry leaf I've been drinking for the past month or two.

The rash bit is becoming disabling. Last week I sat through a somewhat lighthearted meeting with people I love and all I could think about was doom. Makes me feel isolated, like The Doors song, "People Are Strange". This is not the me I've been for the past three years. It's the me I used to be and I want to run, run, run!!

I need to examine my past and who I was and who I am now a little more, obviously. Maybe work on reconciling the parts of me, integrate the me of anti-2004 and post-2004, get things a little more unified in my brain. I guess we have to revisit things now and again, take a proper accounting, spiritually, physically, intellectually... Not a very attractive undertaking at this juncture. And how shall I go about this? Past Life Hypnotherapy? Reiki?

All I really know right now is, I'm tired of having a raw body. I scratch blood now. The blood's right there, under a thin, fragile membrane.

The dermatologist I went to see figures I'm being poisoned by off-gassing from the brand new materials which comprise the brand new housing co-op I've been living in for the past half-year.

I thought I was doing something right by moving into a cooperative housing arrangement, running for the board of directors, taking some control of the way the place where I live is run, but the building is actually filling me with toxins, by all appearances.

It would be a pretty good place to live if I didn't have sensitivities, but this is not worth it. This month is pretty much the last gasp here; if things are not improved by the end of December, we're looking to move.

"We". Yes, "we". We're going to move. My family is now officially: Andrea, Xtina and me. We have extensions of ourselves: Andrea's sisters, her mother, my own parents, my friends, her friends, our friends...it's kind of a fucking wonderful life right now. My plans are gigantic, so extremely amazingly huge. I'm doing stuff in regards to family that I've been trying to do for the past seven years or so. I guess this is another reason I need to reconcile the anti-04 with the post-04. Reconcile the Sonja whose already-small family dissipated into thin air that year leaving three sad refugees, with the Sonja who has two wonderful people at home with her plus a whole network of healthy, supportive individuals who say "I love you" first, who return my calls, ask if I need help, accept my help with trust, don't try and avoid conversations with me, don't wish they were somewhere else, ask how I am, tell me they miss me, offer to commit more wholeheartedly... It's a fucking shocker, let me tell you, and I fucking deserve it.

Tomorrow I go for an interview in regards to my dream job. I suppose it might be called a long shot, but I do well at those. I've really bore down this past year to earn this and we'll see. If not, it's a lesson and I am already grateful for it. I know what I want to do now, for the most part, and if I'm not meant to do it right now for a living, at least I know how to go about getting there. I'm already doing things to get there. I'm busy with an online course and expect to earn a certificate in non-profit management within a year or two. From there, who knows what I'm capable of?

This isn't even half of it, but I'm too busy to continue. Until the next time, take care yo.