Serene of the Oakland Serenes

Take one week. Add driving rain and hail. Stir in the first week of college, a mom in the hospital, chest pains, lack of sleep, a death in my community at work, tragedies in Haiti, and a street closed off because of a shootout, and you get a really stressed Serene.

However.

Mix in the love and support of a big family, the Best Job Ever, and the potential for a substantial tax refund, and things don't look quite as gloomy.

( That's the short-and-sweet version; this is the detailed version, which you're forgiven if you don't feel like reading. The important parts first: Mom is fine. I am fine. The kid likes school. )

A difficult day, in which our narrator faces her parenting fail, a teenager has a lot of hard decisions to make, a friend deals with the death of his husband, another friend deals with her mother's increasing illness, and Microsoft Word just will not cooperate. Still, there's a lot to be grateful for, and the fact that I've been on the verge of tears all day doesn't diminish that:

1) Lunch with folks from work and the surrounding disability-advocacy community, all of whom give a damn about doing good in the world, and all of whom are fun to talk to.

2) The Best Job Ever, where I get to read and write and help people, all for money.

3) Nasoya Silken Creations Vanilla, the best soy pudding I've ever had, ever.

4) The lovely way my tummy feels when I eat soy pudding instead of milk pudding. ;-)

I'm sure there's more, but eesh, I really need to get to bed. 6am comes early. G'night, my lovelies.

Best line on my reading page today:

"...wash my dick for me, m'kay?"


Sunday, I managed (with someotherguy's help) to transform the house from a health hazard to just a pit. Today and tomorrow, I hope to get it a little more habitable, because my mom is going to be here tomorrow night! She will totally not care if it's a mess, but I can relax more when things are clean and tidy.

Also on Sunday, had a blast with aquenigmatic. I basically just read school scenarios and watched aquenimatic work out the answers with giantbrainpower, but it was fun. And we ate cherries and warm bread and butter, and gathered plums from inflectionpoint and worthyadvisor's tree (well, it's their neighbor's tree, but a lot of it hangs over their fence) and held them in our shirts. I love having cool people in my neighborhood.

Had a nice time at stonebender's yesterday, watching Buffy and eating watermelon. Had a little fight with the teenager -- yelled at her for the first time since she came to live here, which of course made me feel awful about myself, but really did impress her about the strength of that particular boundary that she crossed. She apologized. We had pizza. All is well. (I know several of you, including simplykimberly, will understand the thought process I went through, which progressed from "Damn, that was sucky parenting" to "Not as sucky as her actual parents would do -- hey, I wasn't even tempted to hit her" to "Okay, time to stop comparing myself to the Mommymonster and just do my best to relate to this kid as a person, with love.")

And today, I get to read lots of magazine submissions, reject most of them, and accept some really lovely work. I'm already working on filling up Winter. This is the fun part.

Mom gets here tomorrow night and leaves Sunday morning. I've missed her so much!

1) The plan for Friday was full of productivity. Instead, I spent the day doing energy-conservation stuff with the electric company, which had the joint draining effects of "three hours with houseguests" and "three more hours with bureaucracy". Net effect: not much done.

2) The plan for Saturday was full of productivity. Instead, I spent the first half of the day waiting to hear from someone I had plans with, and the second half of the day in the ER with the kid, who is medical-stuff-phobic. Her feet look scary-bad, but it's just severely ingrown toenails, and I have to make an appointment with a podiatrist for this week. I did get to spend three hours assuring her that she wouldn't have to get her feet cut off, or die of the dread Meebo virus (what we decided the rare virus that eats feet was called). Net effect: not much done, and dude, it's draining to be the calm, parental one all the time.

3) The plan for today is full of productivity, and dammit, I'm gonna do it. I'm heading out to the grocery store to buy a bunch of food, and then over to stonebender's to cook up a bunch of casseroles, both for his house and ours. We both want to eat more homemade food, save some money, and have some meals in the freezer for when people are too tired to cook. Today's plan: lasagne, enchiladas, and my mom's chicken and rice casserole. Wish us luck.

1) Plugging subscriber info into my database in preparation for making labels for Monday's mailing. Very exciting. Also, they're gonna let me sell copies at the women's open mic. I'm also going to go around and put copies into the local bookstores that'll let me, now that I'll have an actual magazine to show them. And I'm working on not-for-profit status. And getting ISSN/barcodes for next issue. And so on. I really like this project a lot, in case you couldn't tell.

2) Haagen-Dazs has a new line called "five" -- five ingredients and that's all. This one, brown sugar flavor, has milk, cream, sugar, egg yolks, and brown sugar. It's odd but very good. I'm going to try the other flavors.

3) Feeling so good, physically and mentally. I mean, so good.

4) inflectionpoint and worthyadvisor are moving in. Yay, friendly neighbors!

5) wtfpotatoes cooked bacon today. I made someotherguy a grilled bacon and cheddar sandwich and some homemade tomato soup for lunch. My house smells good.

6) Speaking of the magazine (I was, wasn't I? aren't I always?), I've got some really good content for fall's multimedia CD so far. A flash "zen garden" game; a music video; some music; a cartoon. If you have art that doesn't suit a black-and-white-printed medium, but would do well in electronic format, PLEASE submit some! (I'm looking at you, video artists, animators, musicians, game writers, crafters, color photographers, etc. Also, if you've already got written work in the magazine and would be willing to either read it or let me read it to add to the CD, please let me know (I'll probably also ask you this individually in email).

The best kid ever: "I may not be the comforting type, but, like, this is my way of telling you it's all gonna be okay."



How fucking great is that? (By the way, that's me. Looks like me, doesn't it?)

Yesterday was a really good day with the teenager. We were both in good moods, and unbeknownst to her, I decided to spend a whole day without criticizing her, which probably helped us both STAY in good moods.

Anyway, we went to the store to spend some of her birthday gift certificates. loracs's household had bought her a gift card for Artist and Craftsman in Berkeley, and they were having a sale on stretched canvas, so the kid bought four or five canvasses (canvases?), a charcoal pencil, and a paintbrush. Then we ate Thai food and went home and raided sogwife's considerable stash of acrylic paints. Here are the results:

	Yay! Inspired by the "Serene" painting intenselaura got me when she visited, wtfpotatoes created one for me in flame and/or chili-pepper motif.
	Sun moon stars I myself, being not much of a visual artist, stuck with simple shapes that I wouldn't be too disappointed in if they didn't work. I'm happy with them, though the sun didn't turn out the way I'd envisioned it.

Really good day.

Three FOUR! bits of good news, all so excellent they probably don't need much elaboration:

1) My hips don't hurt.

2) I got my first choice of public high schools for wtfpotatoes, and she's gonna look into starting internet high school.

3) I got a job offer today from The Best Temp Permanent Job Ever, and I said yes. A little more money per hour, flexible hours, lots of time off, and full benefits.

4) Mom's biopsy came back, and she's fine. Nothing's wrong.

So obviously, I have a teenager now. She's a great kid, and very helpful around the house. (The other day, she woke up and did the dishes before starting her game, without being asked, so she wouldn't have to worry about chores while she played. Stuff like that.)

Anyway, she's looking for paid work. As soon as we get her ID sorted out, she's going to put in applications at the local businesses that are appropriate, but she'd also be happy to help out any of you who need her to do stuff.

If you have any work for wtfpotatoes that you think would be appropriate (yard work, housework, basic office admin stuff, etc.), please let one of us know. Her email address is her user ID without the e, at aim.com.

So I was freaking out a little because I farted away the whole day and didn't clean in preparation for wtfpotatoes's arrival, and then I realized why I was freaking out, really -- I don't want her to land in another place of chaos.

Then I realized how silly that is.

Our home is peaceful and happy and not chaotic. No one will scream at her or subject her to scary mind games. No one will make her feel bad for spending her time the way she chooses. No one will shame her or use the withdrawal of love as a weapon.

Yeah, this is all gonna be okay, even if my house is kinda messy right now.

On a logistical note, we're gonna buy her a bus pass and a library card right away, and look into classes at Studio One, etc. There's a lot to do in this part of town that's easily walkable/busable, and I know that no one wants for the three of us to be stuck in this house together 24/7. ;-)