seperis | Entries tagged with child

The only explanation I have for this is that Child was still pre-verbal when I first watched Tarzan, so this part of Tarzan--to this day, as in, five seconds ago--still sets me off into fits of tears. Basically, anytime the gorilla mom or the human mom are on-screen, I have this total connection and also, being me, hoping a gorilla mother would take in Child should I be killed by tigers. Fuck tigers. Just, fuck parent and baby gorilla eating goddamn tigers.

Parenthood, let me remind you, is rarely sane, and I'll be honest, the first year of parenting should be considered a viable entry in the DSMIV on principle. It manifests in two very distinct ways and I think most parents will agree with me on this one; you will spend a significant amount of time being paranoid--and I do mean paranoid--about completely normal things like killing the kid by changing his diaper wrong, or you're copacetic with putting a baby seat on a motorcycle but like, the likelihood of aliens actually existing goes up like whoa and a certainty kidnapping is imminent. Sometimes both at the same time but in general, the human brain does get there are limits, and when air itself becomes a viable threat to your sprog, it does eventually reset itself to sanity or something less likely to require medical intervention via IV with concerned strangers asking what the voices are telling you.

To give you perspective on this, my nightmare scenario--born of a goddamn Dean Koontz novel turned shitty TV movie but strangely having very little actual relation to it--was a home invasion where I'm tied to a chair, Child (pre-verbal, remember?) in his high chair, and the burglar for sadistically inclined reasons is willing to trust in probability and sets a whole bunch of small legos on the high chair for Child to choke on while I watch. Child never once choked on anything in his life that I remember--and believe me, I would--but that stuck in my head and became this Thing. I mean, I get there was some deeply symbolic subconscious meaning going on, but dude, the literal was plenty nightmare fuel for me. Which is why I was like the only parent in the world who didn't worry about their kid setting the world on fire with his discovery of matches--though this could also be because Child's hand-eye coordination has never been what we'd call advanced for his age--but did spend valuable time considering how to trick the hypothetical burglar in question into tying the ropes badly or working out how to secret a knife on my person without that leading to dramatic questions on my intentions should it come out I was carrying one in less dangerous conditions, like say, going swimming.

It's also the reason that to this day, the four times--I can count this--when I was genuinely shocked into terror at home, my first act was to palm a knife from the kitchen. A steak knife at that, I wasn't picky here, I wanted sawing capabilities as well a pointy tip. Writing it out looks insane, but I can promise you that if someone were to break into the house--or like, there's a sound like that is going on--today, I won't even think about it, I'll go for the first I find in the drawer. You also have to keep in mind my one and only work-related event of the flying squirrel guy when I was a caseworker, after being knocked over by the door, I crouched there holding an unfolded stapler guarding the erstwhile door with ninja-like thoughts on how I'd use it even as at the time my brain was screaming at me what the hell are you doing to do to the guy with a stapler? Staple him? and my internal answer every time was YES. YES I WILL. A THOUSAND TIMES. because apparently, that's just how I roll. Apparently, that includes not being sure if a stapler refill has a thousand staples, which I'm looking up right now, just in case.

In case anyone is curious, Child has officially entered true teenage surliness, but this is my kid and so, it has variations. Everything is out to get him and unfair, but he expresses his pain both normally (as TV has taught him, of course), but also in reciting blank verse at the top of his lungs and gets my five year old nephew to add performance art to the entire situation. It is really, really difficult to hold onto parenting values--I am still working the entire raise him not to be a serial killer or menace to society rock bottom minimum parental accomplishment and it's working out well so far--when he's treating me to at least college-quality improv in the living room and I don't have to even pay for tickets. Being a parent, I think he's genius, but also as a realist, I think he's a genius at knowing how to work with my weaknesses by reciting the equivalent of teenage-level Gilgamesh in which he fights the good fight against parental monsters and symbolic representations of heroic tasks like taking out the trash. It's unreal. I mean, I don't know whether to send him to his room to think about what he's done or applaud, so I end up doing both, which may be the very definition of a mixed message.

I'm wondering when he'll realize his guitar is also a viable weapon of obfuscation of parental wrath. He's tone deaf--I mean, his singing can actually make my eardrums want to burst, he's discovered notes I didn't know existed and really shouldn't, not unless we're summoning Cthulhu for a personal visit--and his ability to navigate strings is very iffy, but I'm honestly not sure what I'd do if he started setting his teen-pain to a beat with terrible accompaniment. This ends in Elder Gods or sheer shock, but both ways will include insanity, and I do not yet have a plan to deal with this well. It may be the unbeatable weapon.

The following have occurred:

1.) Child's new computer was assembled to everyone's satisfaction except the computer's. So waiting for a part from Amazon to convert the power supply. The computer's name, for you playing the home game, is Stiles. Yeah, welcome to my life.

2.) My birthday Kindle Paperwhite has arrived and is not named Derek for reasons, most of them Child's. Due to reasons, I am out of active fannish names so this one is Destiel. Screw it, it was this or American Horror Story and I'm not naming my Kindle after a character on a show I have to watch from behind the couch.

3.) Child may or may or not be starting to develop a crush on Pete Wentz. This is new.

I have been a good parent and carefully kept him secluded from emo during his formative years, concentrating his attention on Breaking Benjamin and Skillet and Rise Against and Metallica--guitars broken in fits of mindless violence and sometimes teenage angst rather than from inner turmoil with messages written in tear-smeared eyeliner. Child was already a MySpace poet in the making like, from birth, and while MySpace is deadish, bad poetry never dies. He's already a surly geek who hacks his X-Box and whose clan is filled with inner teenage drama-angst. Like, why stack the freaking deck, you know?

This is really all Mikey Way's fault, let's just put that out there, or at least, my inability to stop reading tumblr about it. Child read over my shoulder, asked for a summary, then suddenly, his playlists are looking suspicious. I'm just saying, what the hell, Child. I introduce your ass to death metal--I cant' even pronounce some of those names in polite company, or around people who can issue federal warrants for persons of interest--and you repay me with pulling my album lists? This isn't happening.

If anyone needs me, I'm going to be failing as a parent somewhere else. At this rate, he's going to be a Republican investment banker or something and I'll never be able to show my face among humanity again.

Child sent me his Christmas essay, which was a twenty minute writing exercise at school. Sitting down beside me, he tenderly dragged my hand to my touchpad and kindly forced me to click on the link in gmail, at which time, he stared at me until I read it.

To say I was surprised at his subject matter would be an understatement. His cackling should have been a warning.

( meta: jingle bells war by child, age 15 )

I'm still mulling how to write up Teen Wolf 2.12, since my initial reaction was two days and two nights of growling whenever I remembered it and freaking everyone out but Child, who would answer with a bitter grunt if he was in the same room (I don't think Child is telepathic, but I won't say I haven't been pricing a diy Faraday cage for my room, and possibly a helmet of some kind).

Teen Wolf is a milestone in our fanparent/fanchild relationship, in that we are in a non-closed canon watching new eps as they air followed by arguing to the ground everything that happens. At first, I felt a kind of warm satisfaction--this must be what it's like to live with another fangirl!--but then I realized why perhaps my (secret) ambition to one day open a fangirl commune might have drawbacks in that, and maybe this has happened to someone, but in times of high stress (Derek's manpain), time loses meaning when you really want to talk about, well, Derek's manpain.

To start with: this actually happened. However, dialogue is paraphrased.

( at some point, this will be an example somewhere of how not to parent )

( this is more about me )

In the last two weeks, Child and I have bought matching hoodies (mine grey, his black) and matching t-shirts (exactly the same) independently of each other. We just realized the t-shirt situation, as we are both wearing them now. The only reason he has cargo pants and I don't is that all my pants purchases have to go through Nordstrom's due to freakishly long legs. Like, does this happen to normal people?

There is really nothing like this moment in parenting books. Like, why not?

Child

When I accused Child of giving me bronchitis, he speculated this might be a hitherto unknown yet strangely compelling superpower. I told him that the reason we don't have cats is because I didn't want it proven he was a future serial killer. He seemed surprised I used the word 'future'. The really sad part, that's not even the incipient fever type of conversation.

I have picked up a bad habit due to the internet and Child; he gets in the mood to ask me questions (like, unanswerable ones: "Are there any female Reavers? How does that work if they rape and eat everyone?" What the fuck, Child? Don't make me think about that.) in endless barrages of 'why'. This was fine before he was literate and the existence of wikipedia, but now it's just to annoy me. My most recent go-to answer is "Because they hate you", which by the way, doesn't actually work except in changing the nature of the questions, at least as it relates to Firefly as Child observed, "Joss Whedon kind of his entire audience" which I cannot say isn't true, so that went well.

Child's bff and my sister's first ex-husband's son is over for a few days before he goes back home, which is always kind of disastrously adorable, as they're both teenagers and yet have been friends since the age of four, so regression is both inevitable and hysterical. Step-Nephew is also at the hilarious age of discovering girls and the shocked realization after years of comfortable acquaintance that my youngest sister, me, and his father's female friends are, y'know, girls. Child has been fucking ruthless about noticing really verbally whenever possible despite retaliation during X-Box tournaments. This doesn't end well for Child. He really doesn't seem to care.

( child and things, at length )

Ouch

I am less amused than anything at picking up bronchitis up now. I haven't actually been feverish as it's been just a really goddamn irritating cough and surprisingly mild congestion, which is actually fairly typical at work right now with everyone. It's much, much worse when I want to do stupid things like sleep, but seems to go away completely when I have to work or talk to people, which is the most inconvenient illness in history. I honestly don't see the goddamn point of being just ill enough to not sleep well and have a sore throat but can still test a program and have to carry on conversations. It's just stupid.

Mostly work is caught up as much as it can be, and there's no air conditioning, so Child and I consoled ourselves catching up to current with Teen Wolf.

I kind of get why people like fannish roommates now. Child recently picked up a mild fanboy thing for Sam Winchester (don't ask, please), so it was Vecchio Versus Kowalski Redux, but luckily all the eps are on the server, so he can't hide SPN from me, and thank God,

winterlive was pushing like the best dealer ever, so.

I get why people think this is a lot like Buffy; I see the resemblance in the secondary characters if Stiles = Willow and Lydia/Jackson make a very uncomfortable Cordelia, but Scott is no Buffy, and neither Derek nor Allison could pull off Angel, but Child and I did entertain ourselves in recasting how that would work.

This is incredibly random and unorganized, so.

( maybe spoilers )

Moment of cognitive dissonance:

Child comes in to critique your 174,000 Dean/Castiel WIP you left on a jump drive he borrowed.

...dude, I am still lying down after that.

(I have no idea what he said or when he left the room, but I'm pretty sure I didn't blink or breathe the entire time. Just. What. No. Dude, starting circa page 175--suffice to say, fuck my life.)

norabombay can testify this is actually true.

Every so often, I run pop quizzes on Child's fannish knowledge to check he's keeping up with his studies, which also doubles as hilarious entertainment for me (note to parents of young children: wikipedia will tell them it's not true that revolutionary science is allowing men now give birth and mpreg is real; if you use this, keep them away from Wikipedia. Child checks me now every time, dammit.)

In this vein,

norabombay and I were chatting about mpreg and I turned to Child to ask him what he thought. Child stared at me for a few minutes, serious and baffled, then said that in his opinion the penis would be a more appropriate orifice and what we had against penis babies.

Owner of said penis did not flinch; I did. I think he won that one.

Still in love with my kid, in case that was in question here.

(This led to revolutionary thoughts on male pouch pregnancy with

norabombay, so.)

This may sound, on the surface, like laziness, but you have to take into account that Child is a.) within the first flush of reading a new pairing and is b.) fifteen, so when he demands Dean/Castiel recs, I am not required to hysterically evaluate for quality lest he judge me not so silently (he is not silent, ever). Or even read it, really, because, and I say this with love, he is a teenager and I've seen what he's reading; he does not know the difference between Godiva and Hershey, or even perhaps Godiva and brown colored substances that may or may not even be chocolate, if I can be blunt here.

Also, I'm pretty sure though not entirely that he may or may not be writing it himself, and because I value his privacy, I am not checking any word doc with a suspicious title but dear God I want to.

Parenting is hard. Like, drugs, alcohol, knocking people up, bullying, etc, those weren't too bad for parenting decisions, but honestly, do I or do I not read his fic is my big ethical dilemma. I suspect my ethics will deteriorate if he doesn't change his password soon. He's got to learn the magic of using ones with more than ten characters and throw some numbers and special characters in. I mean, if you think about it, it's almost like a life lesson in passwords. That's a very--parental duty, really.

So this is awkward, but there's a certain word count at which I have to admit I'm actually writing something that may one day be a story. I passed that, so I need to ask, nicely, if anyone would be interested in reading through for me. It's currently at 60K, and I estimate it'll be around 120K before I'm done, the fandom is Supernatural. Please email if you have time. I do not promise this is like, good, but I promise there are many words and they fit into sentences pretty much constantly. Email at seperis at gmail.com or I'm online, whichever, and thank you in advance.

In what I meant to post here before I suddenly realized I was writing again like, for keeps, Child and Sister's Ex-Husband #1's son got thrown out of a movie theater after trying to sneak into an R movie. This is because they didn't take my advice. So I was right, and I win forever. Sort of.

This is terrible parenting, but I'm not sure on what level.

Child and I try to limit our tandem media watching due to the fact that breaking out in a ship and/or character war in the middle of the night without access to a keyboard is kinda awkward and not a little surreal. We recently discovered that the thing people say, you would never say to someone's face what you wrote in that double flamey comment? Yeah, no, we do. But it's still half in netspeak and fanspeak, so I'm ruined for talking to normal people for hours.

I have been very wary about watching Supernatural with him; I mean, Stargate Atlantis, he was more a Sheppard/Ronan shipper, but that was my secondary ship, so I could roll with that. Torchwood we were fine, but the Due South period of our lives, for those who remember that, was not pretty at all. But this is different, okay? There are all kinds of people, and I'm totally accepting and everything, but if he turned into a Sam OTC, I might have to give him up for adoption, which is kinda tricky at his age and everything.

(Not that I do not love Sam and everything, my best friends are OTC Sam and apparently ship Sam/Lucifer, but Child is what you might call an evangelical OTCer, and this wouldn't end well for anyone, and I do mean anyone. Like, this is how supervillians are made, okay? It will be the stolen Due South box sets all over again and the Vecchio stanning and dude, he's like, five nine, I can't duct tape him in his closet. Not that I ever did that, but I'm saying, that option, permanently off the table. Now the best I can do is block his wireless and change his X-Box login. And he's going to work out how to fix this when he realizes I locked the router login page to my laptop's IP. I feel bad about that, though; he's really good about leaving comments at AO3 on fics he likes and a good feedbacker is not to be trifled with.)

Child skipped backward to refresh his season one and two, barrel through season three with a faintly shell-shocked expression, and emerged with me for season four viewing with a faint trace of horror. Finally, near the end of season four, he says, like he just can't stand not to say it:

(this is a paraphrased summary of a really deep and meaningful set of conversations about the Pain of Dean Winchester. It was beautiful. I honestly wish I'd recorded it. It was magic, okay? Magic.)

"Why does Dean always suffer so much?"

(At this point, we are around 4.19 or so. Before this, he was exploring agnosticism. I explained this is TV. He wasn't convinced.)

My heart swelled like, fifty sizes, but apparently my silence was like, an indictment or something because he said, "Jenn--" because apparently, I lose my mom title when I'm fannishly traumatizing him.

"I'm with you." But I hate not get it all out there. "I'm kinda a Castiel girl, too, though. Seriously. He's magic."

Child thought about it for most of the rest of the season (read, forty-eight hours give or take) and at the end of 4.22 while we were discussing whether or not Dean goes off to silently cry like, all the time and why people who judge him for that should be smited like whoa, he says, "So Castiel and Dean--"

I'm getting him a rec list.

(He has a subversive love of Sam/Ruby that he won't admit, but I checked his cache and I know things. I don't even think he liked her until 4.22, when suddenly he was all OMG (it sounded just like it looks) and I mean, from his point of view, it makes sense.)

ETA: Child finally set up his AO3 account and gave up pretending that his cache is a lie, so I'm feeling a strong sense of parental accomplishment right now.

Person Who Will One Day Become Warlord-Ruler Of What Was Once Nebraska Born In Omaha Hospital

Okay, I'm torn; it's not like I want to spend my undead existence in a pink vat miles below sea level dreaming of my own voiceless screams of horror while Child fruitlessly tries to clone me in his skull-shaped Pacific Island headquarters surrounded by mindless minions (some of whom will have such colorful names as The Murder of Crows, The Albatross of Despair, The One Without a Cool Name, look, he's fifteen and plays Magic the Gathering after school; what do you expect?), nor am I entirely comfortable with his plans to create a hybrid human-reptile army (or a cockroach-human hybrid army for radiation survival purposes).

But. I am his mother, and he brings me coffee when I want it. Should I tell him about this Nebraska threat or not?

Podfic!

I have never worked out if it is good form to rec podfic of your fic, but I finally had a chance to listen to some that I downloaded, and my God.

Fic: It's My Death, My Rhythm, My Arithmetic, AIRPS, Adam/Kris, AU
Podfic:It's My Death, My Rhythm, My Arithmetic by

reena_jenkins - I rarely creep myself out during writing, but this one was an exception. Reena dialed it up to eleven in the reading. Just. Whoa.

Fic: Marked, Smallville, Clark/Lex
Podfic: Marked by

reena_jenkins - I get weirdly self-conscious reading my own fic a lot, but listening seems to get it a remove from me enough to enjoy it. I so enjoyed this one. She also inspired me to add a few more fics to AO3 since this one wasn't up yet and I felt bad she couldn't link it properly.

Fic: The Tale of the Sea Serpent, Merlin, Merlin/Arthur
Podfic: The Tale of the Sea Serpent by

eosrose - this was such a fun listen. I love her voice.

Happy.

Work

For some reason, Cisco VPN stopped working entirely yesterday and even after reinstall, I could not get it to run. It kept not starting and I have no idea why. So had to go into the office for validation in the evening, and did two hours of COLA validation in an empty building. Child bravely came along and was disappointed to realize how boring it was to go through dozens of cases to validate that everyone receiving RSDI/SSI got their COLA update.

It wasn't bad, per se, just repetitive; open case, check dates, get calculator and do rough math to make sure the amounts were correct. Considering the horror that will emerge after the new year in testing, I am taking repetitive and a little boring to the alternatives.

( about my unit's management team )

ETA: I forgot this earlier. Child's school introduced rugby to PE class. My child can play rugby. I can never send him to regular public school now.

...I am not knocking rugby, I'm just saying, that is not a sport I would have thought an American high school, even charter, would toss out there. For context, his school doesn't have organized team sports like regular public high schools; they have after school sports that competes--I think?--with other charter schools in our system. Soccer (yes, football, fine) makes sense since the founders are Turkish and a lot of the students are from immigrant families, some of whom have a colonial background* from Britain and other European nations, but I didn't see rugby coming. At all.

Also, he passed the semester with all A's and B's and kicked Algebra's ass, so for the record, my kid is deeply awesome and is currently glued to the X-Box engaging in parental-approved first-person shooter violence with friends on his headset. His kill ratios are superlative. I leave it to you to imagine my personal pride in his accomplishments.

( more than slightly enraging )

ETA 2: Fixed link to podfic for The Tale of the Sea Serpent.

Per the end of Farscape Season Three (I snuck in the first four of season four and--I really don't want to talk about it yet, but I think I watched them from the wrong perspective or something? What the hell?), Child is on a Glee rampage, so we are hitting season one and two in no particular order and God do I hate Amazon Prime free streaming or I wouldn't be in this mess right now. He's scheduled in Season Four viewing sometime in the middle of the Glee medley and Sanctuary season one and SG1 season one (not streaming; sadly, I have them already).

In other words, I have a really uncomfortable feeling that I will start to expect Sanctuary to break into song if Child keeps me on this media extravaganza for any length of time.

You may now return to more interesting reading. I'm suffering from multi-genre overload.

Currently prepping for Child's dental appointment. Which may not go well, and is one of those places I fail as a parent, because at a certain age, parental authority fails entirely in teh face of outright hatred, and Child hates the dentist.

Most children hate the dentist, and most will be overcome with, you know, pain or fear of teeth hurting and go anyway. Child, not so much. As Child has a plan; he wants all these teeth to fall out--them being, IDK, substandard--and regrow them from--and I hate myself for this--that article I posted a bit back about regrowing teeth? Yeah, he not only read it; he took it to heart. Or get implants, which--you see where this is going. He goes to a science school. They encourage creative thinking.

However, luckily, his tooth really hurts--and I do mean luckily--and hasn't stopped and I called in this morning to the nearest available dentist who I will pay in cash if necessary, but one of them will have a carefully phrased discussion on the likelihood of gorwing teeth coming about in the next ten years or so and chewing. Which right now he cannot do while in pain. So--I mean, one should not be happy one's child is in pain, but seriously, he has at least one broken--BROKEN--tooth that I know of and this shit's got to stop.

Most of it is my fault in that I assumed--crazily--that he'd give in when there were actual problems instead of theoretical "oh, broken tooth would hurt". Instead, it's two years later and he would give in like a person with sense. Also, to be honest, tooth pain sucks; if anything makes you love a dentist, it is when things hurt and only they can fix it and I know from experience, that makes you a regular customer fast. I didn't realize he could blow that shit off for the most part.

I'm trying to think of a good way to phrase a moment of parental advice to pass down generations on how to handle pre-teens and teenagers with dental hatred, but honest to God, I'd like to see the parent who can physically drag their child into a dental office, plunk them down, and jack their mouths open for their own good. Bribery, threats of dental horrors, and the apocalypse do not help, for the record.

In reward for Child bootstrapping his way through math, see below cut.

( yes, he did leave the house like this )

So like the bulletproof kink, I have the vid-equivalent of bulletproof music; there are some songs that no matter how crappy the vid, I will watch them to the bitter end because the song or performers speak so well that for me, the vid has no choice but to be meaningful, which can end with me watching a lot of AMVs of obscure anime tearfully finding meaning in long shots of unnaturally beautiful, expressionless characters whose names I can't even pronounce, but I feel it okay?

Then sometimes, just sometimes, a vid defines the perfect way the song should be vidded and no other vid can ever ever ever match it and I am so fucked, because that song is now off-limits and I want to ban anyone from ever using it again. And yet, i keep trying, which is why I have watched no less than twenty vids set to How to Save a Life and hate all of them, because they'll never be as awesome as that one FMA one, dammit. Even if, you know, some of them are amazing.

It's also been taken down because youtube is evil, and thank God I officially download anything I like immediately.

My sulking is very fandom-oriented.

Child

There comes a time in every parent's life in which they feel the universe seem to expand before them, timespace opening like the petals of a flower in the sun and eternity residing deep within.

My son asked me for fanfic recs.

I had five minutes and a fucked up internet connection, and he requested in two fandoms: SGA and Torchwood. And I said, oh.

For Torchwood:

I gave him

dira's Get Loved, Make More, Try to Stay Alive: I wanted a clean intro to Jack/Ianto fanfiction and an introduction to mpreg that won't traumatize him, and something well-plotted and well-executed and long enough to hold his attention. It also has a kid, and Child loves kids like whoa. This one seemed perfect, as it's one of my favorites.

For SGA:

The Retrograde Series by ltlj: this is the fic of my dreams, the Stargate Atlantis I wanted and everything about my fandom I love. To be more, to be better, to fight because you can't afford not to lose.

Qui Habitat by miss porcupine: this is the fic of my mind, politically complex combined religious fanaticism, rebellion and the unending and inexplicable hope that Stargate Atlantis is, and the complexity and well-plotted arcs it should have been. To be all and everything that you are, to fight because winning may not be certain, but losing would mean the end of everything.

Written by the Victors by

cesperanza: this is the fic of my heart, what Stargate Atlantis could have been, secession and creating something new on the battered remains of what was. To be more than you thought you were, to fight because it's the right thing to do.

Your Cowboy Days Are Over by samdonne: this is the fic of my soul. It shook me and stole sleep and changed not only how I saw Atlantis, but how I saw the fandom that grew around it. To fight, to sacrifice until there's nothing left to lose, to bend and break and still get up again, because that's who you are and will always be.

I wanted to offer him the best of what media fandom in LJ has been and is and will be, livejournal's media culture and the house styles, the underpinnings of slash fandom, the writers who I felt encompassed so much of what makes fandom such a huge part of my life, the stories that could only be written in the fandom they were in and redefined them for me; it's a pretty good start.

Dear Work,

jhiogeijnmoi4geuw98fr.

--Seperis

In other news, late the other night I woke up to--okay, fine, I was awake and getting coffee on Monday night past midnight. Leave me alone. I was busy. And the point is here, I ~~woke up~~ got up and was ~~amused~~ appalled to see the desktop screen's soft, welcoming glow was being blocked by a large head belonging to Child.

Right, I'm a parent, but I've been looking forward to him hitting the internet red light district for years, because I see no reason not to greet the inevitable with the joy of finding new and exciting ways to make fun of him. I want to say this is like, a parenting strategy, but mostly, I just enjoy the twitching and recoding normal words for him into moments of horror because that's just fun.

It was definitely youtube, and he was definitely watching with intent, so I assumed--as one does--this would be a The Moment He Got Caught Watching Internet Porn and it was like Christmas. Because that's ammunition for years. Especially if it's like, bad.

Then I saw the screen. And the desk.

Child was watching an instructional origami video after midnight and making origami boxes. There was a clear progression littering the desk. He looked up at me with wide, startled eyes, but I couldn't take delight in it because my kid broke bedtime to learn origami and what on earth do you do with that? I helplessly took the box he offered, all razor-straight lines and folding open at the top in fragile triangular petals like a flower, while he flipped it to show me he'd colored in a biohazard sign over the bottom before he started, and I went back to bed to stare blearily at the wall and belatedly remember I was supposed to like, send him to bed.

(I think he's kind of good at this? All his boxes look like were folded with a ruler, a really scary ruler.)

This is right up there with the other night, where I caught him (yes!) in his room, in the dark (yes!), sprawled across his futon bed because beds are like, not cool or something, staring darkly into the screen with the emo of a thousand new teenagers (because God loves me and will send me a cliche). I leaned into the doorway to savor the first signs of adolescent drama, because Child is now 5'7"ish and this is getting fun. He was staring expressionlessly into his laptop screen like every emo band in the world was telling him about black crows dying on windowsills and the absence of pain like a razor deep in the belly in the bastard stepchild of blank verse and haiku for dummies when he saw me and frowned.

I grinned at him. "Whatcha watching?"

He sighs, put upon, and flips the screen. Live action sand art.

...do I need to link him or something? What the hell? Sand art? He is no longer ten, I cannot just cuddle him to death for being adorable and so fucking weird and awesome.

In other news, I handed over Magic's Pawn by Mercedes Lackey for him to read, because he's going to cultivate a proper interest in fantasy if I have to force feed it to him. So far, he hates Vanyel's father and does not like his aunt and likes 'Lendel. I'm so not looking forward to the Mage Storm Night of Trauma now. He's all invested and attached.

Child's Kindle was delivered today as a slightly belated birthday present, and oh.

Now I get why people like these.

I didn't make the connection for some weird reason--this is instant no-wait access to books. I mean, it's like, the pieces just came together all of a sudden. Ebooks. Instant. Access. Books.

And I'll be honest; I'm kind of running out of space for mine.

I don't mean like, literally. Of course there's space. I mean, for the practical purposes of keeping up with them and finding them when I want, and I still tape paperbacks together that I can't locate anywhere else (Sydney van Scyoc, for one), but the fog has lifted.

How did I not get this on a gut level I have no idea. I think I'm suffering from a great deal of envy now. He's stupidly excited, and I feel his book budget is going to get a workout. It's adorable.

Okay, am I the only one who is desperately in love with the kudos function in AO3? It's like tiny cookies left in my inbox. Not that I do not adore regular feedback (or epic length examination, whoo boy, do I love), but kudos! Tiny cookies of happy! In inbox!

This has been a message from she whose amazon boxes of manga goodness arrived today. Also, I'm on volume three of loveless. I have no clue why I'm reading this. I'm not even sure where they came from (barnes and noble), or how I got them (with a credit card). Okay, lies, but there was this other one with a guy with a really creepy red hat and vampires. And a wicked sword for cutting people (vampires?) up; maybe a war? I was more staring at the sword, tbh. I really feel I should have gotten that, too, but I'm trying to like, set a good example, which would have worked better probably if I hadn't just agreed to get him Sin City next month because apparently my parenting skills when it comes anything readable consist of "Shiny," and "Wait, don't I have this somewhere?" or more depressingly, "How can you be my kid and not know that's in the box under my bed/in the closet on the top shelf/if you can't find it, you don't deserve to have it".

My life lessons - invasions of privacy and being sneaky. Well done, me.

Child's absconded with everything Fullmetal Alchemist due to an obscure canon continuity question; the really unfortunate thing is, his mom's a fangirl and gets why he needs the entire fucking first series and all the canon-compliant in the house, because he's just too special to trust google or something. So it's not like I can argue the point. Also, he's blackmailing me because he watched Brotherhood on youtube already and threatens to spoil me for the entire thing if I try and sneak anything away.

It's not like this is new.

Warfare in the Seperis household always ends with tears and threats of cutting each other with the sharp edges of our keyboards. He's been holding Buffy the Vampire Slayer sixth season hostage because I hid all the Saiyuki until I get Due South back (could be anywhere). I'm about two steps from sleeping with my Star Trek books and Gravitation has gone into hiding. I'm so locking him out of the router tonight; he wants internet, he can damn well brute force my passwords.

This has been a message from the side of fandom that makes new fanpeople. Those of you with children; yeah, start adding GPS tags to everything now. Trust me, you'll need it.

( okay, i wasn't thinking of spoilers, mostly bitterness. sorry! )

Joy:

Child (this has been a month of delightful child antics) has somehow:
a) Activated McAfee parent controls
b) Does not know the password
c) HILARITY

He is locked out of like, everything interesting on the net. I think teletubbies is blocked, even. I should make him check Disney, for his dignity. It's beautiful.

So far, he's tried command line overriding, staring vaguely at the screen while shaking one not-so-tiny fist, and staring at me beseechingly. For the record, I laughed. And by that, I mean, still am. If he's going to be this easy, life is very good. Kind of impressed he tried to command line it, even though I read it and realized it was how to command line freaking vista. And not well, either.

Me: You're locked out of your computer like a five year old. Ha ha!
Child: *sulks dramatically, draped across a recliner, woe*

From OTF Wank on Journalfen:

Okay, so the salon article was what killed me really. Better Yet, Don't Write That Novel by Laura Miller <--This Is How to Miss the Point Dramatically, and With a Lot of Words, Perhaps More Words Than Necessary, Really. Learn Brevity, Thanks.

Pop quiz:

It was yet another depressing sign that the cultural spaces once dedicated to the selfless art of reading are being taken over by the narcissistic commerce of writing.

Does this mean:

a.) buy my books and tell me I'm smart!
b.) sales are falling.
c.) ...sorry, what cultural spaces doing what?

Trufax: I may or may not have been part of the movement that destroyed reading cultural spaces. I won't like, admit this, but, okay, there was this whole "compare and contrast the cultural relevance of American Psycho with Moby Dick" one night in the Cultural Reading Space Room because let's face it, in the end, it's all about Moby Fucking Dick, and why use a less hackneyed comparison? And who doesn't love curling up on a stormy evening with a blanket to re-read that bit of poetic mastery of graphic sexual violence performed with everyday props with prose of the exquisite blandness of non-steel cut oatmeal, unsurpassed even by de Sade, who it cannot be said did not have a hard-on for female torture and sexual mutilation (and how!). Okay, I was napping, but they got to the rat/ham-and-cheese (could be one or the other, I was napping in the Cultural Literary Osmosis Corner, maybe a sandwich was involved?) thing and oh, I was like, I'm so burning this cultural space.

Every nano story destroys another cultural space. I laugh as I watch them die. This is why there aren't any. Destroyed so well that even now, I'm not sure what they are.

(This may tie into my very early exposure to literary criticism which was when I read my first review of American Psycho that managed to be very positive and spoke of it being engaging and possibly pushing the boundaries but never mentioned anything actually contained in the novel itself. Let's say my first read of that ended very quickly and with surprisingly abruptness. I've kind of never forgiven the literary community or pretty much the entirety of anything published in New York for that. I will drag this experience out every chance I get. My God, why.)

In other news, received a phone call today to tell me my child is going to another country this summer and I'd missed my appointment to get the arrangements in order. The words "my child is what and where, wait, what?" were said, because I'm sure this is pretty obvious, but I had no idea. I'm going tomorrow to--get the arrangements in order. Child is bemused that I'd want to be aware he was exporting himself; I'm just trying to figure out what exactly will make July of next year a bad time for him to be in the country. There aren't any new holes, but there's a rope draped over the back fence that's tied to a really sketchy tree. Beyond the fence is a fairly steep drop to a dry creek. It looks obvious, and yet....

How's Turkey on extradition? Just curious.

If he had a passport right now, I'm fairly sure I wouldn't know about this until he got back. Extradited? Something.

Child is always an inspiration and a joy forever, but I also have a fairly elaborate system in place to hide from him when he's feeling especially curious and his prepubescent ass can't bother itself with Wikipedia (ie, all the time). This is not because his questions aren't awesome; it's because at the end of the day, physics is fucking up my life.

Most of the time, he's going on about space, which thanks to a lifetime of Star Trek and TOS I can get through with the quick addition of surreptitious googling or reference to Dr. Who and technobabble, which let me say, thank God for.

Today was not space; today he posited a hole that goes from one side of the earth to the other, and you're laughing because come on, that one's easy. Yeah, I did too until he started with how he'd do it and avoid the molten core of the earth (don't ask) while achieving escape velocity once the other side was reached (God I was stupid; I mentioned escape velocity and he didn't even frown in frustration that he missed something). We were okay until I realized this wasn't so much a question as a plan, perhaps more meticulous than I'm comfortable with, and I'm really not entirely copacetic with him wanting to know how big a hole we're talking about that wouldn't lead to the earth growing unstable or flooding the earth with the core through the mantle.

What I'm saying is, he's thirteen and has neither enough theory or like, supplies, to pull this off (or for that matter, a working way to bend if not break some physics in a really geological way), but I have an uneasy feeling I'm seeing the beginnings of a bucket list. I'm usually pretty comfortable with the fact technology hasn't caught up with his ideas of what to do with his life, and when that fails, there's always the immutable existence of say, reality to work with.

But put it this way; this not a black hole and there aren't any warp engines; I just spent way too much time trying to work out how technology or reality can actually stop him and I'm coming up just a little short. I think he sensed this; he went away with a grin and seriously, I'm tired of holes in the backyard.

If anyone tells him the thinnest part of the crust is actually in the ocean and he should start working on his scuba diving and pick up an interest in drills and pressure, I will so cut you. We're only five years away from a time I can no longer punish him with 4chan trauma macros, people. The future is coming, and apparently, it wants to find out if digging your way to China really is a metaphor.

So I did not get the job that I interviewed for on Tuesday--see, this is why I didn't post about it!--as the call was supposed to come today and there was none. Which okay, I didn't expect to, to be honest. I was kind of shocked they interviewed me. But it's still--well, let's say mpreg and

keewick's vid were kind of like, my happy place?

However, on a brighter note, Child got a website from my ex-bil and used it to set up a remote login to our home computer to get around the IP blocks that the school has installed in their computer lab and play Evony and check Facebook during class.

God, I have never love him more. And yes, tomorrow he has to tell his teacher and show them how he did it. Fine. But still. And I have to block that on the home computer and everything, sure. But for the record; if the class was teaching him something, he wouldn't be hacking, now would he? Or like, noticed him playing Evony and reading Facebook? Yeah.

Yeah, this.

Inappropriate pride for Child is very appropriate, actually.

ETA: The Kradam mpreg, Papa Don't Preach (do I love this title? Yes) is updated to part 5c. You know you want to know what happens next.

Sgastoryfinder social experiment?

On one hand, who doesn't go to sgastoryfinders to read the hilarity of some of the requests? OTOH, astroturfing requests for lulz in a community based on good-faith requests feels weird somehow. I kind of thought the funny was in the sincerity of the search and the way people remember things, in almost random bits of plot or dialogue or scene and why some things that seem insignificant to the author or even other readers make such a lasting impression that they define how the story is remembered. It was funny to see your fic remembered as the one where John wore pink or Rodney got a hangnail after he ate a donut, but also fascinating that something so small could define it, and try to work out why and how. And in any case, it was kind of flattering that anyone remembered it well enough to look for it at all because they wanted to read it again. The results either way are the same, but I feel kind of weird for the people who searched for the fic and those who wrote the ones that were found and didn't know they weren't doing something nice for someone else, but participating in a joke on themselves.

OTOH, it's two days post-con and my sense of humor is on par with a slug in the sun and I seriously am scheduling myself like, a weekend with Comedy Central or something. My recent personal tragedy involved a broken nail and a search for a file that took on epic proportions ending in a bitter exchange when it was found Child had absconded with it for reasons I decided I just didn't want to know, but for the record, I'm getting uncomfortable with him having an empty aquarium that is slowly being filled with layers of sand and decorated with rocks in a way not unlike a place you plan to store, oh, some sort of lizard. And frankly, how a nail file fits into this is information I just do not think I am ready to know.

How is everyone else's week going?

ETA: *winces* Okay, made it to second page of comments and there are actually some people who were upset by this. I apologize if anything I wrote here made them feel more uncomfortable. I can see their point on feeling unhappy they thought they were doing something nice for someone else and find out now they were kind of a punchline instead.

ETA 2: Mea culpa. Objectivity does indeed fly out the window when it's a close friend and cowriter whose fic ends up being involved. Thank God for people bringing me sympathetic post-vacation slump Snickers.

I apologize for my initial response if it came off flippant, because--yeah, no, that's pretty shitty behavior. I don't really participate in fic searches in public all that often, but I'm pretty sure if I did, I'd like to know I was starring in metacomedic performance art for the amusement of someone and their friends.

ETA 3:

ineptshieldmaid in comments states the post has been taken down. More in the comment.

ETA 4: Thanks to

raine for linking me: here toft apologizes with a longer explanation of her motives.

Child: You have a half-sister. You get married to your half-sister's father. You have a baby with your half-sister's father. What will the baby be to you and your sister?

Me: What the hell are you watching?

Child: Christian and Ollie on youtube.

Me: Did you actually wake me up for this? Wait. I'm posting this convo. Tell me that again.

[this is where i started typing above]

Child: So you don't know?

Me: German soap operas? Seriously?

Child: You really don't know?

Me: You want to see penises split to look like squid? Wait, I bookmarked this just for you.

Child: I'm going to go watch my soaps now.

Me: German soaps! With subtitles!

This is when I realized it was almost five. I'm so selling him. When people talked about the wonder of parenthood, for the record, being woken up at five in the morning to squint at subtitled German soap operas to work out complex dysfunctional family relationships was not mentioned and come the hell on. I'm protesting.

To other fen on my flist with kids who are smug and whose fanchildren are still adorable and small--this is your future. Just think about that one.

Next time, I'm sending him to two girls one cup*, I swear.

* if you do not know, do not ask, do not google, and for the love of God and sanity if you must google, do not click on any video links.

So I told Child about the entire gall bladder/surgery/removal, and two things came up; one I expected, and one that....

Child: Can I go with you and watch?

Me: Sure, you get the doctors behind that, go for it.

Child: Can I have your gall bladder afterward?

Me: ...I honestly should have seen that coming.

Child: Is that a yes?

...I kind of didn't. And yet, in retrospect, I am surprised that wasn't the first question. The normal response should be what on earth would you do with a gallbladder? but the thing is? He probably has a list somewhere and I don't want to know.

He keeps randomly coming in to poke me in my presumed gall bladder area and then asking me curiously how big the stones are.

How much usable DNA could someone get from a gall bladder anyway? It's not that I think he could build a gene sequencer and cloning chamber out back with some twine and a hairclip, it's more why take that kind of risk?

Poor Horace. You have no idea what you were risking with this stones shit, I have to say.

This comes from insomnia; go about your normal business.

Child: What slash pairings have you written?
Me: Merlin and Arthur, Brian and Justin, Adam and Kris...
Child: Adam? Lambert?
Me: Who else? Clark Kent and Lex Luthor...
Child: Superman????
Me: Duh.
Child: Can I write NC-17?
Me: ...and that's unexpected.

Later:

Child: I feel sorry for Captain America and Wolverine. They were best friends and Captain American died!
Me: He'll be back.
Child: *sighs*
Me: *pats his back* How...good of friends?
Child: *eyes me suspiciously*
Me: No reason.

The thing is, his sex education was kind of brutally frank and lacked euphemisms. If he goes this direction (doubtful, he's not quite there yet), this is going to be like, a cross between a Disney romantic comedy, Nightmare on Elm Street, and like, IDK, Gossip Girl. We're talking like, post-apocalyptic Beauty and the Beast with the word breast used to be edgy. Maybe.

And people wonder why I think the future is going to be awesome. There's an entire generation of fangirl spawn coming up to flood ff.net with badfic and reinvent the wheel all over again.

He has a twitter, a facebook, and a DW account that he got for his birthday, he's almost able to password lock me from the three gmail accounts he knows I know about and the five he thinks I don't, along with three yahoo and several messageboards and all his online games. I know how to reset all of them and disable his computer and he's going to figure out how I do that soon. It's like the most awesome arms race ever, and I have five years of this to look forward to.

Ladies and gentlemen, my son, age thirteen. I did say once I hated to be bored.

ETA: Child henceforth wants to be known as Serpent when I write about him. He left in a huff when I couldn't stop laughing.

Just posting to say, Child, after irritating me about my warnings on going to certain sites, was finally given a deeply vicious, verbal, explicit description of goatse while I hovered the mouse over the image file and waited for him to break.

He's still in the closet. Quite literally, even.

Me: 1, Child: 0

Game on.

I have come to the conclusion that the world's problems could be solved if everyone just lowered their expectations. This 'shoot for the stars' nonsense has to go.

Observe: I no longer 'hope' (such an outdated word) for a good day at work. Instead, I set my sights at not having actively homicidal tendencies when someone says "Good morning". Granted, I am not quite able to achieve that yet, but you know, I feel this is a goal that might, one day, be met.

It's like with Child. I understand most parents look at their offspring at birth and think "S/He will be president/discover a new planet/win the lottery/marry well/never own cats." My goal: "He will not be tried as a serial killer and end up a major cult figure among disturbed teenagers with too much eyeliner who write myspace poetry about him." So far, the plan proceeds apace, but well, who can tell the future? My second goal is "not get anyone pregnant before the age of consent" by running condom pop quizzes at him every so often. Okay, I lied, that part is actually how I entertain myself when I'm bored.

Like this.

"What do we do when confronted with a vagina?"

"Condom!" Knee-jerk. Doesn't even have to think about it. That happens when your mother's been doing this to you since pretty much the age of understanding verbal language and both your aunts took up the cause just because they ran out of things to do.

"Remember: fun is fun, but always wear your raincoat."

"God. Stop."

"Is it raining?"

"MOM SHUT--oh. It's--actually raining outside."

Me: *cackles*

Achievable goals. Don't reach for the stars. Reach for the bottom of the hill! It's not as steep and you won't get tired as quickly. But you know, have fun with it. And if you can make someone have traumatic sex-talk flashbacks every time it rains outside, well, that's just icing.

Not Related

So Child's computer is dying (really horribly) and I had to quickly budget to get him a new one because of course I'm sending him to a school that has more powerpoint and research projects a year than I did throughout all of college. So I spent many merry hours not raining blood and toads down upon my place of employment configuring systems, and then accidentally ran across a link to a paired system of a laptop and a netbook. I stared at the price for a while and then wondered if I was hallucinating, that the desktop I'd been configuring very carefully was more expensive and less neat than the laptop and then, well, netbook combined. So obviously, I bought them before that page vanished. Obviously.

To be fair, this is not a case of expectations exceeded, though oh my God, Dell, did you forget about that offer still being around? Somehow--no idea how--I cracked the front bezel of my laptop over the left hinge. It's a cosmetic repair, but it's a goddamn complicated one and I have to both order a new bezel and basically take my entire display assembly apart, which requires me to take the entire front part of my laptop apart and remove the keyboard, then remove the entire cover and LCD, because the way they assemble laptops is fucking schizophrenic, and I'll be hitting a lot of delicate wires that do things I'm still not sure of. I won't even start on the adventure of trying to track down what this thing was called so I could replace it as Dell hates joy--I just kept entering search terms until a picture appeared that matched.

I like taking my computer apart. I do not like taking it apart when a liquid display is involved in the proceedings and has to be disattached in various ways that will probably end in tears (me) and tragedy (what I will do if I lose Adam). And I really don't like it when I don't have a diagram or easy access to the internet when I'm playing, so this is waiting until I get the netbook and can have that and Child's new laptop both open to see what I'm doing. No, I don't mean Dell's breakdown either. There are a minimum of four things in here the last time I had to do a repair that did not show up in the specs, and one of those things I"m pretty sure came through a Stargate.

I really wish I could say this is not exciting, because that really says so much about my life I'm not sure I really want to admit. However, I have hunted up the screwdrivers and have bought new cleaning clothes and compressed air. Even abject disasters should involve dusting the fans clean and peering excitedly at my chip array.

Me: Look, you shouldn't try that hard with girls.
Him: I was thinking when she break ups, I'll swoop in.
Me: Rebound man?
Him: I saw it on TV. That's how you fall in love.

You know, the alarming thing isn't that he has a strategy or anything. It's mostly that she's "seeing", for value of that in the pre-puberty stage, a chemistry geek, for value of that in seventh grade. I don't know if the hard sciences cross over; he's more physics with a heartstopping love of genetics in ways that make me worry about my hairbrush and bone fragements.

Can you go from chemistry to physics? Do you want to? That's the question I'm pondering. Should I push him toward one of the bio girls?

...his school actually has kids who self-identify by hard science. You try navigating that one day without feeling alarmingly uncomfortable with your self-identification as geek, untyped. Apparently that is not on without a specialization. Fandom geek? I don't even know.

Child's essay for class for Thanksgiving.

...no, really. Just. Um. {} are my additions

What I Am Thankful For {by Child}

On thanksgiving I had said I was thankful for my loving mother. I was thankful for my three cousins {Niece, Niece Two, and Nephew}. But last I am thankful for my whole family and this glorious country of America.

free right

It was a cold Dec 7, 2012. In a post-apocalyptic world, dead bodies had lined the streets in black body bags. Cars were abandoned. I was in the middle of 100s of infected people with a bomb. But let me back up to when it all started. At midnight on January 1, 2012, a mass zombie outbreak had happened because a mutated meteor had hit the earth. The people in {unknown word} had died but kept walking to be {unknown word}

****

Child: What do you think?
Me: So it's genetic, huh?
Child: *bemused*

He's gone to type and finish it.

So. Apparently, destroying the world in fiction is like, a gene or something. Or maybe it was too much Torchwood?

*bewildered*

ETA: Second draft is lingering lovingly on the details of the rotting corpses. I may never sleep again.

ETA 2: Holy God, he thinks he's writing a children's book.

Things I Am Not Doing

I do not, per se, resent the UK, so much as Harrods, for having Maxwell, the 2009 Christmas Bear right there, and then charging shipping higher than the price of four bears.

Yes, fine, I am an obsessive Christmas bear person, and I am only ashamed of this when it's not the season of craziness. In scarier news, somehow, it is still more expensive to buy it from ebay. Yes, I did check (in several countries of ebays). I am that kind of a person.

svmadelyn promised to find me an appropriate bear in Chicago, but I am just saying, Harrods, why do you hate me? Why?

(He has a friend, Rufus! And a Christmas Westie! A Christmas Westie. Oh my God, that is just cruel.)

See ETA

Things I Am Doing

( Christmas update )

Things I Have Done

Trekfic went to beta last night (and all ~~three~~ four betas do not hate me despite the fact I do not think they signed up for what they ended up with). With the exception of the epilogue, which doesn't do more than wrap up, it's complete. I seriously, seriously cannot believe it's done. I also sent my character notes, because it will make them laugh.

....seriously. Five months. But honestly, I didn't know if I'd ever finish. So you know, that's kind of awesome.

Pony

Still do not have one, but oddly, today, I do not mind.

ETA: Okay, the thing is, it did not occur to me to just ask someone on my flist. I mean, I even asked two people on AIM if they knew anyone going to London. For reasons beyond my understanding, I didn't think to, you know, check with the native residents. I--blame Trek. I am going with that. *blank* Thank you,

syllic and

clo.

*facepalm* God. This is Spock's fault, I can feel it.

ETA 2:

And someone sent me a pony. *falls over* My lesson for the day? People here are rather awesome.

ETA 3:

Two links from comments that I really feel need to be shared.

feanna shared this. Just--okay, seriously. Check out the dancing bear. And click on teh cellphone. FURTHER INFORMATION FROM FEANNA: The bear is dancing the Macarena here.

ladyholder shared Clash of the Titans trailer. This looks epic. *glee*

So I started Christmas shopping via Amazon as Planet Earth went on sale (the boxed set of Planet Earth, Ganges, Wild China, and Galapados of course immediately dropped price right after I purchased Planet Earth and Galapados, which is just my luck) and I am seriously excited about watching this Christmas Day with Child. There's also a documentary on Yellowstone, but I'm trying to find the one that says we'll all die in a fire when Yellowstone volcano goes off, because that's just awesome.

( geek parenthood; game consoles are a right not a privilege )

Oh Christmas. My favorite time of year. Also, I really want to take Child to Disneyworld. He's tall enough now that we can go on all the roller coasters together and be sick together afterward. I seriously, seriously have to figure out how to make this happen.

Okay, so I lose time the last few days since at work, they actually kept work waiting for me (I keep waving my bottle of cough syrup and they are like BUT YOU CAN TYPE WHILE YOU COUGH RIGHT? Yes, apparently, I can, and also, wow, so you want me to write two brand new scripts in a hour? This is because I said I liked doing scripts, isn't it? I'm an idiot.), and there is a.) a fanfiction survey that went skeevy and b. okay, I don't know, was there anything else that I missed?

Should I be afraid?

Child

Child started seventh grade. This is inexpressibly painful adn horrible, as Child is now like, almost a Teen, and I feel this will be detrimental to our normal adversarial relationship. I've been researching and telling Child what's in store for us. Sample convo (paraphrased):

Me: You are going to hate me and tell me that I am ruining your life. It says so here.
Child: ...I say that already.
Me: But you'll be fueled by testosterone this time!
Child: Is this another sex talk?
Me: Did we talk about condoms and girls recently?
Child: You are ruining my life.
Me: Exactly!

Child thinks I shouldn't be allowed near any parenting material for the next few years. Which really, I can't blame him; he's started looking wary every time I mention

booju_newju.

In more interesting news, he's back in teh advanced math class, where they started familiarizing themselves with the concept of double variable equations. Child was having a massive hard time with this and driving me insane--this is concept, as in, it will be something like this.

a = 3, b = 6.2

2a + 5b = whatever number, I so am not going to be accurate.

I kept kind of wanting to hit him--it's all right there! Then I realized that he's trying to do all of this--all of this--without showing his work. In fact, according to what I can work out from the directions, they are supposed to do all of this mentally. Which sure, that's easy enough--if you know the goddamn process, which is why I was forced to show my work for years, even when I didn't need to, so later, I could do pretty much all basic arithmetic without a pencil and kicked ass at UIL Number Sense (for those not in Texas, competitive mental math test).

It's frustrating to try to get across to him it does not make him a lesser person to write it out as a proof first so he knows how it is supposed to look, and that after he does a couple like that, he can do the rest mentally because then he knows what it looks like. Or maybe that's just how I learn? IDK--I was required to show full work and proof for years, which in the end I was doing after the fact just so I'd get teh credit. But the first time I ever learned anything, I'd proof it so I could see the logic chain, just automatically. It's pretty much how I learned Calculus in Finnish. I couldnt' understand the instructor, but I dind't need to; I had the proofs to teach me.

I'm weirded out. I can teach him how to proof and show work, but for the life of me, I can't figure out what his instructor is about. Right now it's not a big deal, but this is where you set the habits of knowing how to do all this. He can probably get through trig and first semester Calculus like this, but geometry and second semester Calculus will kill him if he's trying to do triple variables in his head. I probably should consult V's husband, since he's working on his masters in math, and have him try to explain to Child why it's so necessary to know how to do the process.

[In retrospect, I'm not sure he can do trig without proof. It's freaking waves. I mean, I can't figure out what the point of trig would be without having to show your work. It's kind of hte point of trig. *frowns* I bet I have my notebooks still.]

Also of interest--Child's first book report for English has to be on a graphic novel. His first book report is supposed to be a graphic novel. I do not know how I could love this school more. He's thinking of Watchmen, but I think they want something new (and also, I'm not sure of the appropriateness of Watchmen. It has a lot in there that frankly, at his age, he just is not going to pick up; hell, there's stuff in there I know I'm not picking up, and I know he skimmed some of the parts that were--uncomfortable, because those parts I skimmed too). Anyone have any recommendations?

Me

Er, nothing? I am almost done with bronchitis treatment, the breathing is fine, the cough is light and probably as much due to the allergy issues that are hitting Austin right now as much as anything and nearly gone.

In closing, I want a pony that was raised by nuns. Seriously, the Catholic Church is going about recruitment all wrong. Go to any third grade class and ask them if they want to raise ponies when they grow up and convent recruitment would skyrocket. I won't lie; if I'd known about this when I was a kid? I'd totally be Sister Jenn raising ponies on Brenham. This career choice was not offered to me as a child. I resent it.

VVC!

Home from VVC!

It was the usual amazing, but even moreso, because we made

taraljc cover her ears and jump up and down to avoid hearing us reading badfic (as one does), and

svmadelyn organized a Chicago outing on Thursday for fangirls, which was amazing.

VVC is literally the most amazing con I can imagine; this year, I also picked up something which is icky and potentially causing a great deal of congestion and unhappiness, but totally, totally worth it.

svmadelyn assures me it is not swine flu. My ears haven't unclogged from the flight, so I reserve judgment, as she can't even see my pathetical state.

I'll do some vid reviews later; unfortunately (well, for reviewing), the bar was extremely good at mixing drinks this year and there was much dancing but not a lot of concentration during Club Vivid, and I missed part of premieres, which I am watching tonight.

The Saturday night Reboot party went swimmingly (security was called! Fine, maybe not everyone thinks that's a sign of success, but I totally do), and the Merlin Sunday night had cheese dip and we drank for the words "destiny", "fate", "two sides of the same coin", and two drinks for every time Arthur did the wrist twist with his sword.

...we could walk afterward. Really.

Child

Child's hair is still--orange-copper-blond. It's really traumatizing. I'm trying to work out if it's really that wrong to forcibly dye his hair green already and destress, because holy God, pictures do not do it justice. It's just--insane.

For those who spoke to Child last night (Including

taraljc)--the first thing Child asked who were all the girls that talked to him last night, and I didn't roll my eyes, but it's hard, since Child kind of considers himself betrothed to

taraljc and I don't know exactly how to explain at family reunions how my son met my daughter in law who is my age. See, he's twelve and wants to go to Northwestern, and I get this horrible feeling in about seven years I'm going to get a call from Tara from Vegas who is frantically trying to explain how it came to be that Child got her to a chapel there and has no clear idea how this happened.

(Note to Tara: he's reconsidering the bronze. God, thank you . Thank you.)

Panels

The panels on crack vids and meta vids were kind of awesome, and I do not say that just because

svmadelyn,

talitha78 and

nightchik moderated those, respectively; it was incredibly fascinating to see the range of what's considered a crack vid and the different types of meta that exist in fannish culture. I want to--hopefully--go into more about the crack vid panel, since the range that Mad and Talitha used for crack were fascinating, since not all of them were funny or all that obviously cracky on first watch. There's a lot of interesting things that can be said about fandom's view on crack, what it is, and why we developed the terminology and the (loose defintion of a) genre.

I kind of also want to hit on meta vidding, because in retrospect, I'm not sure I got across how I felt about the SGA vid about John Sheppard not being like, a roiling hatred of vidder and vid, but more my emotional connection to what the vid was about and how I interpreted it.

Vid Watching 101 was excellent and I liked the way everyone described their viewing method and experience--which reminds me of my general feeling that being able to enjoy a vid purely on aesthetics is great and I'm all for it, but being able to reach the level where you can interpret what the vidder was trying to do--and being able to work out what you yourself got out of it--is possibly the only thing that reconciles me to Lit critique. And everyone who reads here knows that I consider lit interpretation a tool of the devil, so it weirds me out to find myself using the same terminology about vids that people who do lit analysis use for lit and liking it. I'm not sure why; I have a feeling that the people in fandom that do this stuff make it much more palatable as an expression of enjoyment and criticism without the overtones of absolutism that made me hate The Yellow Wallpaper.

cesperanza ran the Vidding Town Hall, which turned into a fascinating discussion on what's going on in the world with vidders, youtube, imeem, and various sites for vidders to put their vids.

This Is An Incomplete List

Had a blast with

svmadelyn, which is like, pretty much the reason I love Chicago and who showed Twilight to me,

nightchik,

talitha78, and

frostfire_17 in her apartment Wednesday night. I hate myself for my unironic love. And it is unironic. I swear I avenged my sixteen year old self watching one scene and totally feeling Bella's smugness.

Met

shinetheway finally and she was a lifesaver getting the Reboot and Merlin parties going, and also a really good dancer and lacer of corsets when one has decided halfway through VVC to change clothes (did I mention the drinks were amazing and after being requested to change into something more festive, I thought bracing myself against a wall and holding my breath for Shine and

amireal was like, a fantastic idea?).

(It was a fantastic idea--I need to get more wear out of it, and really, where else would I wear it?)

norabombay was hysterically funny; I met

hellpenguin who was deeply awesome and has an incredibly dry sense of humor; and three other people, one of whom we traumatized last night with badfic and glow sticks that became like, the Merlin party DIY project while drinking for the word "fate" (comes up a lot!), and okay, who are you with the fantastic hair that helped do Reboot cleanup? I meant to thank you and didn't get the chance. And all the fantastic fangirls who went on the Chicago tour, including

par_avion, who I hadn't gotten a chance to talk to much before.

In other words, this is my platonic ideal of incredible fun, a lot of thinking, and so much vid watching. And the VVC concom were marvelous--

elynross, you and

absolutedestiny and the rest of the com outdid yourselves on making a fantastic com.

I am going to lie down now and visualize how it feels to breathe without congestion and for the love of God, how it feels to hear without ears still not popping from flight. Oww.

...it's hailing.

Dear Texas Weather,

Child and I had plans today. Let me explain. My sister, her husband, her kids, her husband's mother, her husband's mother's partner, and various entities associated with them are coming over today and this being family, there was only one thing that could free me from six long hours of close quarters with that many people and it was Star Trek. Because apparently cultivating a reputation for being antisocial doesn't work nearly as well as staring into people's eyes and saying "Spock. Spock. Spock. Nerve pinch."

[Trufax. Sci-fi actually is my bullet-proof excuse to run away from anything at all. Let us all take a moment and thank God for the tiny, tiny used bookstore in the town closest to where I grew up.]

...it is hailing and raining and apparently there could be a tornado watch? Which you know, I am from Texas, unless the car achieves liftoff, I'm really not going to care, but Star Trek. I am supposed to be at a movie. I am not there because it is hailing. WTF WEATHER?

God I hate you.

Seperis

[Yes, it's only noon, but if I am visible when people show up, I cannot leave. It's kind of a Schroedinger's cat situation. I can be or not be here, but once I am proved here I cannot be not-here and at Trek. Yes, it took me several minutes to work out how to inject that into this entry.]

Now that that's out of the way, I am glad I didn't bravely hide the novel from myself when I got home but went ahead and read it through. Question--are novelizations considered soft canon still? Because let me say, I was really surprised that at least a couple of things in the novel haven't come up in any reviews I've read yet. Though only one was probably anything I'd notice, mostly because of

samdonne the other day.

[This is not a great novel, but I treat movie novelizations as history books rather than entertainment. There are some really weird things done with pov.]

Child absconded with the novel last night when I was done, so doubtless we'll be canon-picking each other for the next ten years. *sighs* At least I will not--again--hear worried questions about Ianto's feelings. He was in a Primeval kick most recently--I have this horrible feeling that there's going to come a point in his pop culture development where all his anecdata will occur in a British accent--so it's nice to share a fandom with my son again.

...hail. I mean. I don't even know what to do with that.

[...my sister is here. This is not my life. This is someone else's life.]

Child came in to ask me if he can stay up an hour late since he was such a good boy today, yadda yadda yadda. In between his pleading and my rote "No, go to bed, no, go to bed" child casually stepped into a pair of black leather flats I had in the floor, straps dangling around his instep as he continued his argument, pacing to and fro before my bed in pretty black shoes while wearing nothing but his bedtime boxers and a t-shirt and his hair still wet from the shower.

They fit him really well.

He got thirty minutes. He wandered out of my room, pleased and wearing my shoes. That's actually worth an hour after bedtime, tbh.

This week in adventures in gambling!

First:

This is purely a question of opinion, for those on my flist that are financial professionals. What is the tipping point where I should consider getting a professional financial manager for my stock account? Is there a particular amount I have invested at which time I need to stop treating this like a particularly expensive hobby and at least start seeking professional advice?

( nonspecific details )

( to what I've learned this week! )

Child

The locally owned and operated reptile and rabbit store has showed interest in Child volunteering there, which is--I mean, great, but also, um. They have five of the hugest snakes I have ever seen. And a ton of tiny rabbits. I did not buy a rabbit. I think everyone who has been here two years or more just breathed a sigh of relief. Mostly because it still hurts and I own my issues on that score, so you know. There were also ferrets, and this thing that was furry and expensive and hid in its bed, so we coulnd't figure out what it was (not a chinchilla). Adorable.

So today I saw a ball python (flashbacks to that woman who was strangled recently by one), blood python, something else that scared me, something else that scared me, something else...well, a lot. A lot of snakes. And bearded dragons, chameleons, anoles, and for display purposes only, a caiman lizard that looked a bit like a crocodile's runt baby that never grew up.

So I am calling the manager tomorrow of all the stores to find out what I need to do to get him into reptile heaven. Frankly, dragging him out today was hard, but they had a jacuzzi set up with turtles and fish and a huge iguana and it was literally the coolest thing ever. If you live on Austin, it's on Burnet just past Black Eyed Pea, and seriously, this place is cool. It's bigger than their original location, and with better lighting and more space. I mean--there's a freaking jacuzzi of turtles. That cannot be anything but awesome. And that iguana!

Right. Back to your lives. I'm working on editing a fic, so maybe up tonight or tomorrow? I'm going to ask you to keep your expectations very low right off the bat. It'll just be easier on us all if you do not do anything crazy like expect a plot or something. The working title is "The Slutty One" that will be renamed about five seconds before I post. So you know, that should tell you what you are getting here.

So it's not like I don't think it's my duty to educate my only child. I mean, I don't, I think that's TV's job obviously. And media, of course. There, he can learn exciting life lessons about rape and the women who love their rapists and so forth. However, every so often? The media fails me and then I have to actually interact with the brat and like, teach him stuff.

Important Life Lesson: Guarding Our Borders From Those Brown Peoples

Now, you might make the mistake of thinking I'm informed or something about this, which is insane, because I cannot point out enough, I'm on Ritalin for a reason, and it's not because of the high (as apparently, I can't do that, my body uses it for the practical purposes of making sure I keep two thoughts coherent and in order, which as you can see, is working wonderfully), but I will admit, with shame, I was reading through CNN the other day (it was an accident) and saw the blurb, shivered at this intersection with reality, and moved on to look for something shiny that required less critical thinking skills.

But no, then it had to show up yesterday while I was trying to eat cake as my son said, from the computer "I am patrolling the border!" Granted, my son also says things like, "I am cloning you!" and "I didn't do that!" so usually, this is a dirty lie. So imagine my shock when I went through the effort of looking at the screen (and missed a bite of cake, because I forgot to stop the fork) and indeed, he was patrolling the border and was hoping to make a report. With this like, red report button. Right there on the screen.

In the last year of my son's life, everything changed, and I think I changed the most.

( answer this for me )

Fic writing hangover -- kind of like real hangover, but without the alcohol headache and instead with a sleep-dep headache and a vague sense of personal shame. Actually, I think it's more like a drunken one night stand? Sure, oh my God it was good, but then you start to remember what you did and how you did it and wait, what the hell was that? Except this time, you have to read it, so it's more like, oh my God, they don't have that many joints! And what lube is that? And you realize that it's not a defense to say "It was a good idea at the time". At least, not a good one.

Yeah, like that.

Has anything happened in the last two days I should know about? I was dragged to Academy today (apparently, I agreed to let Child go camping? With fish or something?) to get Child fishing gear, and it's hard to explain the entire sequence of events, but Child discovered all the male mannequins have nipples. Hey, I discovered all the male mannequins have nipples, and one of them had muscle definition rather resembling the face of ET if you squint. I took a picture and then tried not to cry. Then Child found a mannequin and came running back yelling "The bulge, it's hideous!" and we all went to look, because yes, we are that stupid and there is not enough alcohol in the world to erase these memories.

The mannequin had a bulge. I just don't know what to do with my life at this point.

(The nipples looked like tiny eyes underneath skin-tight jerseys and followed you around while you tried to escape. I am not kidding. My mom was there and there's suddenly less vanilla rum in the house. Send help. By help, I mean, rum. Obviously.)

ETA: Okay, I know you are all going were you drinking before you went and well, I wish I had been, but no. Below cut. You can see the face of ET in this thing's abs! Tell me you do not see it.

Yes, that is what is looking directly at the dressing room.

( fine, here, feel my pain )

So granted, this is going to prove my unfitness for a parent, but just go with it.

Today, Child got beat up by a girl.

( okay, maybe less dramatic than that )

Entertaining yourself on a Saturday night....

When Child complains about Niece:

"Child and Niece, sitting in a tree
KISSING
First comes love, then comes genetic testing for possible conditions
Then comes hopefully adopted sprog in a baby carriage"

[context: this works much better when both children are aware of a.) incest jokes, b.) genetics and c.) their aunt told them both they were actually adopted from aliens, and therefore are doomed to mate. This could in fact bite me in the ass when they reach their majority, but right now, I'm very bored and their expressions are really really funny. I should make them watch Roswell. I can be cruel.]

On the Sci-Fi Channel, some movie involving Merlin (different one) and Child Expresses Dissatisfaction:

"You love Merlin. You want to marry him. You want to have baaabies with him. And Arthur!"

Child takes five seconds to consider before eruption. Luckily, I am a.) spry and b.) in ownership of a locking door. Eventually, he has to get tired, right? Right.

[context: this works best after a.) the DNA discussion of the night before and b.) me telling him that I am signing him up for the male pregnancy trials.]

[note: I'm betting this will work like whoa after puberty hits. Remind me please?]

Admit it. The reason people really have children has nothing to do with biological imperatives. It's really just the joy of being able to destroy lives without leaving home. It's like writing an apocalypse, but more immediate, really.

You know, this would all work out for him better if he stopped hiding my DVD sets. I'm totally telling him I think he's growing ovaries the next time he mentions Merlin or Fraser. Or his weird, inappropriate crush on John Sheppard.

Least traumatizing but most terrifying way of explaining female menstruation to a boy ever....

Place it in context of recombinant DNA to create a lizard/mammal hybrid artifically, since I just reduced complex genetics to the concept of zippers. I so fucking made up words you have no idea. Let us all thank God and wikipedia, yeah?

You all totally want to be me right now, don't you? Right up until he asked if he can have a gene sequencer for his birthday and create an artificial womb.

...you all get one day I'm going to mysteriously vanish and later there will be a clone army of lizard/mammals, right? Just, you know, I love you all and I promise I will leave a very firm note about being kind to my flist.

The WTF on the Avatar casting choices continues to be WTF.

Links:

ciderpress - What We Talk About When We Talk About regarding the white default and frustration that a part tailor-made for non-white actors is basically going to white actors.

For reference, the current cast being used for the movie.

The comm

deadbrowalking has both a bingo card and an excellent list of links here. Some excellent reading in there, and I haven't hit it yet, but there's a petition and letter writing somewhere in here that I'll add when I find it. But go, read, and look at the cast list blankly again for a second, because--I just don't get it.

( only if you are interested in how this becomes story hour at jenn's house )

Two days of overtime would usually mean I'd get a little hyper, because work and then extra work set off an endorphin rush like you would not believe. No, really. I mean, it's not like something I seek out, but when it's inevitable, it's fun. After I get home.

However, not so right now, since I suspect a.) one of my supervisors is trying to catch me loafing off and b.) I am loafing off because I finished everything I could finish and yet c.) I still have to do the overtime.

There's an entire thing here that makes me tired and less inclined to write people having sex. Or fun. Or like, happiness.

Hmm. I am trying to think of other news that is actually interesting.

Ah.

A.) For people who like small children and Dr. Seuss, buy two get one free at amazon, which I took shameless advantage of. Unfortunately, it's literal, as in, you cannot buy four and get two free. So that was three separate orders, with me sitting there carefully calculating by price to get the best discount. However, my nephew now has three small board books for when he starts reading, four larger ones that will be read to him, and two that are regular sized, and all Dr. Seuss, who I did not realize was this awesome.

B.) Got Gran Turismo Prologue for Child and for me, because I love that damn game so much. The rest of the Wii stuff delivered, and despite my desire for Mario Kart, I think three games plus the Wii board are enough to entertain everyone for a while.

C.) Miscellaneous shopping left blah blah blah.

...unexpectedly saw 1man1jar. No, you can google if you want to see it. I'm still processing how exactly this will manifest in my daily behavior, but I am thinking that psychosis is not out of the question. Because you know, goatse? Wasn't as terrifying as I'd been led to believe. I really didn't have time to work this up into something horrifying and be pleasantly surprised by appalled. No.

*waves hand* Carry on. I have been told I haev two more days of overtime left. Pretty sure clinical insanity is not far behind.

So got Child The Simpson's Game and Rayman Raving Rabbids due to recommendation on my LJ and well, Rabbids. So only the charging station for the Wii Fit board and the remotes, and an extra remote and nunchuck are required. The rest is if God sees fit to send me another sale.

The one thing I'm struggling on is the BBC's Planet Earth because while it looks amazing, he's not currently in that nature area atm and probably won't be until the Science Fair is over. It's also pretty expensive for something he may not watch for several months. Also Galapados (turtles ftw!) and a neat DVD set called Predators of the Deep which sounds like lots of vicious underwater animals and is right up Child's alley. And Blue Planet. And thoughts on The Elegant Universe because well, because. I don't know what it means that my entire Child movie shopping list is All Documentaries, All the Time. On nature.

Joy occurs when one can wander around Best Buy and say things like "Wii! Wii games! Where are the Wiiiiii controllers? I really never get tired of saying that. Ever.

Picked up Hancock today, as I am helpless before the power of Will Smith.

Anyone have any good Black Friday shopping?

The meaning of true fannish desperation.

I took a short break from Due South reading to explore--I have no idea, but I blame

sdwolfpup and

out_there for the entire fact I am reading in a fandom where my understanding of the canon is based on a vid and a horrified write-up by amireal. But no. It's worse.

In your One True Fandom (or two, mine are SGA and dS currently), it's acceptable to read the badfic. I mean, I can rationalize that to myself; it's a slow day. Fraser crying while pregnant with Dief's puppies or Rodney--well, insert a terrifying fic idea there--that's okay. It's your fandom. You may curse their names and fic, but they are yours and even the most deformed and diseased of bunnies are still, you know, family. You look at them with tolerant hate and admit you are a junkie.

I just don't have this excuse for reading bad Prison Break. Or possibly bad American Idol fic. Or really bad....never mind, just, no excuse. No reason. But there I am at two in the morning reading Part X of Five Billion Badfic and just hating myself so much while I click Part Next. It's so sad.

In other news less traumatizing....

Wii

Since I have the Wii and the Wii Fit, I started research to find what else I will need--er, Child will need--so as to have a satisfying gaming experience. And I found there are Wii Zapper and Wii light sabres (LIGHT SABRES! OMG! SAY IT! WII LIGHTSABRES!) and Nerf sports stuff and and Wii Surgery Kit and WiiCooking Kit. Click on links. Because wow.

So this begs the question when I saw my list was officially Way More Than I Can Afford....

Be honest. Is there a Wii Sex Toy? Because basically, that is all that is missing here.

Also, for those with Wiis, what are the necessities? I started a list, but I'd like to know what I really need and what I probably won't or don't need immediately.

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Page Summary

thoughts are a menance and should be better regulated
you try and you try and you try....
meta: the jingle bells war by child
there is historical precedent for this
there is something wrong with this picture
god, i need sleep
child and i watch teen wolf
this is not a moment in history
a day in the life of
parenting means not worrying about standards when you rec fic
just for information here
supernatural brings people together
i'm at an apocalyptic crossroads
today in a life
awake in texas with a fear of musicals
child has teeth, so far
child: theoretically, Child graduated eighth grade, so....
these are the times that try a fangirls' soul
i feel...conflicted
this is very, very cool
home is where piles of new things are waiting
not my life, not my life, not my life
i had to work today, but this made it worth it
two things that don't go together, or so you'd think
i resent science a lot today
there is not much really
i miss random afternoon naps already
i don't believe this is a conversation i actually had
things that put stuff in perspective
child, age thirteen, satisfying curiosity
this is how you start a war
so the upshot is, now i can say raincoat and make him twitch
child, recovering from a semi-broken heart
..I don't even know.
tis the season to be jolly
the probing aliens left this out of the fine print
well, in the end, the ponies are the thing
life after the deluge of awesome
there is no adequate compensation for this
parenting fail but funny
randomly, updates
growing up on the internet
portrait of a fanfic writer in the urban wilderness, with rum
maybe you had to be here to see the expression on his face
child: on saturday nights
in advance, i'm so sorry.
avatar casting decisions
this is not what anyone sane calls an update
conspicuous consumerism ftw!
wii! wii! wii!!!!!!!!!!!

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