seperis | child

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Observe: I no longer 'hope' (such an outdated word) for a good day at work.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.

My son asked to read Twilight.

I don't know about anyone else, but my week just got exponentially better. However, I have learned a valuable lesson today; cackling hysterically when I see the book in his hands is apparently not at all reassuring.

The only way this day could be better is if someone dropped a dozen Maltese puppies on the front porch. Any minute now. I'm waiting.

Hamlet, of All Things

So last year, Child's fifth grade reading class did a turn at Shakespeare (I have no idea how I missed this), so imagine my surprise when Child came up yesterday to tell me that he wanted to make Hamlet 3. I blinked.

(I knew their English curriculum was interesting and varied, but I didn't know they hit Hamlet and Twelfth Night. I feel I have failed as a parent, because I could have been using Shakespeare for ammunition all this time and I haven't. I've lost at least seven months of random literary references when he misbehaves. This is not fun.)

Anyway, they apparently acted out parts of it, which is, bar none, the best way ever to get anyone to read the plays and enjoy them, and Child summarized the play pretty thoroughly up until mentioning the kingdom of Detroit.

Me: Denmark.

Child: I knew that sounded wrong.

I feel better.

Random Reading

Anyway, today I read Child and Niece an article on women's suffrage--the Tennessee vote that gave the US the thirty-sixth vote to add the Nineteenth Amendment. Child has theoretically been aware of the concept of people having no right to vote at certain periods Before Now, but he was still utterly shocked, and the idea that at least two female relatives he knows who have since passed away were born before that right was recognized. Personally, I find it weird as well.

So spent part of my afternoon buying my niece's birthday gift and reading Jailed for Freedom by Doris Stevens. It's a fairly fast and interesting overview read, at least to me, but I will say the structure drove me nuts with the tendency to stop at the critical moment--a judge ordering the women held in Virginia at the Occoquan Workhouse to be brought to DC--then wanders off to something far less interesting. So lots of stopping and jumping around and going back, as I am not patient and also dreading the next account of force-feeding or any description of any people eating worm infested soup or raw pork.

( random bits )

My son nominated himself for a Darwin award at school on Monday by eating some white powder a kid offered him and four other boys.

No, really. That's how it happened. Didn't even know the kid's name.

I really need to repeat that. Ate some powder. Given by a kid he did not know. It was sweet and kind of sourish. So that narrowed it down from "Many major drugs and poisons" to "a smaller selection of rarer drugs and poisons". Which you know, was comforting, though granted, he'd taken it hours before, so whatever was going to happen would probably have happened.

So he got home, had a tragically bad case of diarrhea, and I tried to find the single most humiliating way to tell the principle about this (and work out wtf he'd eaten). Then I had a moment.

A moment of inspiration, if you will, when he said "It was called picana! Pica something!" Which reminded me abruptly to ask him what teh powder had come in. A little packet. In a big bag like lollipops come in. And powder + flavor + small packet with name pica on it....

Jesus. This. Or the lemon version. This stuff was popular when I was a kid, too, and sold by the packet at the local convenience store. And still is. There's also a surprisingly delicious strawberry and chili pepper ice cream bar made by the same company.

So he doesn't have anthrax. He does, however, have the memory of the long night of having to write out the series of events in autobiographical form three times and an hour of me explaining the various types of powder-related death and my first draft of a speech that I told him I'd give in front of his class about dramatic adventures in diarrhea.

This is going to make him anorexic, isn't it? Or not eat things randomly from packets from kids whose name he doesn't even know. I'm going to admit--I was ready for the sex speech and tolerance speech and religion speech and the speech on feminism and equality and racism and being a boy. I did don't talk to strangers, if kidnapped, bite for blood, kick for breaking things, and scream like you mean it. I explained good touch, bad touch, how to handle bullies, and why it's important to tell me. I covered homework.

I missed the mysterious white powder speech, apparently. Please add this to all parent curriculum plans in the future. Header "Darwin's Ways to Die".

This

Okay, what weirds me out about this site is that it sounds so over the top. It does, yet if you have ever worked customer service, every so often you read one and think, oh, God. I remember that.

Take this one:

Once a long time ago, or like, a year and a half, I was on the phone when our fire alarm went off. There's no way to tell between testing and real, and frankly, I do not care. I do not like fire when applied to my skin.

The chick I was on the phone with--and the alarm in the building is not subtle, and I held up the phone just in case--would not get off the phone. I don't remember the conversation, mostly because of near-potential-death and irritation, but it was pretty much that surreal.

That

A perky scientist came on the science channel to talk about how time travel is totally possible, leading to an escalating argument with one's eleven year old on the nature of dark matter (this did not come standard in the parenting manual and I did not have time to wiki; guess who won that argument). It is not fun to be pwned. He's grounded from working at CERN, which I added to grounded from not working on the Mars landing.

My parental thrills are cheap and easy.

My other option is the next perky scientist that does this, I will write down his/her name and when Child is in need of interning somewhere, that is where he will go. I can think of no worse punishment for anyone, unless it is waking up to Child saying "Mom, it was just an experiment, okay?" I still don't know what that's about. And you know what? Until such a time as it is forced upon me? I am totally not going to go find out. Denial is my friend.

Other

I need to make a list. Of what, I don't know, but lists always soothe me. I feel extremely unsoothed.

Motivation

There should be some kind of scale for lack of motivation. Something colored, maybe, and in graphical form because I like graphs. From "ANSWERING MEANING OF LIFE WHILE CURING CANCER" down to "lies in own excrement with a vague look of dissatisfaction" which actually sounds gross but is illustrative of my current predicament one completed fic that only needs editing, one fic missing maybe four scenes, and one--God, I don't even know what it is, but I could use it to illustrate "OOC - When Bad Ideas Still Seem Bad But

transtempts Makes a Persuasie Argument on the Merits of Fraser/Kowalski/Victoria".

There is a very real part of me that takes a kind of shy pride in the fact I'm convinced the closest that thing has to even semi-in-character is the fact the characters have to sleep. I mean, I never realized it before, but canon can be very limiting.

Going back to the topic--unmotivated. Epically unmotivated. The kind of unmotivated that starts and begins with not even feeling like clicking the shortcut to Word. It's like, too much of a commitment for me to make, y'see. And then I did, but somehow ended up on

rivkat's website re-reading all her Buffy/Spike, which I try to do no more than yearly because I can already quote all four of those stories.

So. Someone out there should start a meme.

No, I don't mean start a meme you saw on your flist. I mean, make up a new one--discover strange new worlds of memes, where no ljer has gone before. Or steal one from somewhere that is old enough that no one remembers it and claim credit. Or not.

(unless it is popular, then claim credit)

Child

Things I have learned this week: reading parenting communities both strengths my conviction that I am paying for health insurance specifically to cover Child's therapy bills in a few years and weakens my understanding of how humanity survived this long.

There was this--I don't even know, entry about a parent calling a child a name and I totally bet you can guess the reaction to that. It reminds me of the various ways I deal with Child's self-esteem.

(I am so not editing tonight, can you tell?)

Most recently, he came home from school to tell me people think he is ugly. I told him this was true, but luckily his hideousness was offset by the fact that eventually, I'd pay someone to marry him. He's holding out for

taraljc, so I probably need to start bargaining soon.

And finally, I had the joy of being able to stare at him blankly when he thought Eddie Izzard was a transvestite, which means, semiquote from him "he got some parts taken off".

That took me a second, mostly because Child's not what anyone would call behindhand in using the correct terminology when discussing anatomy, as many a traumatized grocery store can attest.

I explained correct term, wrong definition. I'm just curious where he got the wrong one. Though with the first five letter similarity, it might have been a reading error.

Child's School

Also, for those who find this neat.

Child was moved into Pre-AP math and science--that's the bragging part, and let me just get that out of the way, because seriously, awesomeness.

Now.

The school now requires a class on Character in which he receives a grade. That's always been a facet of his grades in every class, with a pretty extensive list of behavior that's graded. This, however, is new and intriguing.

This week they are covering, I kid you not, Being a Majority (not the actual name, but that's the gist), and Child came in to ask for help with ten sentences explaining what kinds of majority groups he was a part of. I was pretty impressed by what he had down so far, though the directions weren't clear on if they mean universally, the United States, or in his school (which are pretty much three separate answers), so we split the difference and added what he was referring to in each case. The two I remember now are religion (Christianity), and race (Caucasion) that he had already written down for US, with a few more that are specific and labeled to his school and some less charged ones (he's a natural left hand but was shifted to right in K, and trust me, it shows).

I'm curious about some of the weeks ahead, not to mention where they will be going with this. The themes per week are pretty fascinating. I need to find the list again and read them.

A few minutes ago, Child figured out how to get internet on his Playstation and is watching youtube on my TV. This is not interesting yet.

He's watching youtube where a snake is currently eating a "goat thing" (Child: Something like Bambi?) while a soothing male British voice is narrating the way the snake drops his jaw and how the stomach acids dissolve flesh and bone. This has been five minutes of my life I am never going to get over.

(Child: He ate Bambi!)

I cannot say when I was a child and visualizing my future, this ever came up.

Child is disassembling my old laptop. I have no idea how to express my glee at the sight of an eleven year old with a screwdriver patiently unscrewing and removing screws from the bottom of the case.

My glee is a healthy glee of gleefulness. Also, the battery seems to be not working, if the yellow-green flickering is anything to go by, so I figured an opportunity to stare in ravenous awe at the motherboard (and make sure all looks copasetic) would not be amiss, since there are two batteries and one of them isn't that old.

Ah. Time to check his work before removal. So. Exciting.

Child wants to do his science fair project about flatworms and how the child worm resembles the mother worm. Huh, I said, and wikipedia'ed.

Jenn: *quoting* "Flatworm reproduction is hermaphroditic..." This means--
Child: Hermaphroditic means the species they can have their own babies alone. Without anyone else.

Then he put a ribbon in his hair and wandered out saying he wants to do a genetic survey of fruit flies and flatworms. By ribbon, it's a baby clip with a ribbon on it that my sister made. There's a fairly good chance he's going to fall asleep wearing it and I will take incriminating pictures after putting the Spiderman plush doll my niece dressed in a pink jumper and yellow skirt beside him. Puberty is very close and I need to get ready.

Okay, fine, I'm indulging in high level parental glee.

Uh. Little known fact that surely, someone, somewhere, will need for a fic--the longest flatworm ever discovered was ninety feet long. It was a tapeworm.

I'm rethinking the entire 'worm experiment' thing. I just don't entirely trust him not to think it would be hilarious to put worms in my bed.

Amazon, in a cheering turn of events, emailed me to cancel my order for Breaking Dawn so as to reorder it and get it on Saturday. This is pleasing to me in a variety of ways, not least of which is I get to have my fix of Epic Teenage Vampire Romance conveniently on Saturday evening.

I'm weirdly apathetic today. Granted, it's been an exciting week and all, which makes sense, but there's also a dim feeling of "do something".

However, in Daily Oversharing.

How to Torture Eleven Year Old Fanboy Sons Who Won't Give Back Your DVDs

1.) Flatten his hair down when he isn't paying attention, remark how much he looks like Kowalski in Asylum.

2.) Tell him he's grounded from participating in the Mars mission in 2025.

3.) Tell him you're not sure about Jacks' feelings for Ianto.

4.) Tell him Buffy doesn't like dinosaurs.

How He Will Enact Revenge

1.) Calls you to the living room saying his stomach hurts during the part in Anaconda 3 where that guy is being eaten by the snake.

2.) Announces he wants to become a Republican.

3.) Comes into your room every five minutes to show you a new balloon he's filled with a different not-air substance while you are reading porn. Specifically, stuff involving whips and some kind of electrical device.

4.) Continues to deny knowledge of where dS season two is, despite the fact the box is on his desk sans disks.

*sighs*

Most recently, he wants to get a myspace. My sister has one for her eldest daughter (age six) that is locked to family and close friends. My entire family is on myspace, including ex-BIL, ex-BILs ex-gf's, my other sister, her ex-boyfriend, and a variety of people who make me faintly nervous. Which is why I am here and never ever there.

So he wants a myspace. I ignored him due to a.) age restrictions and b.) there really isn't anyone in his age group on there and c.) the layout offends my aesthetics in so many ways. The third time he asked, I finally cut a deal--he would bring me notes from the parents of his friends that had the kids' usernames and permission, and I'd set him one up. I'm curious if he'll follow through with it when school starts. I'm not entirely sure he actually wants one--I get the feeling this is the beginning of a bargaining session of some kind.

He has also been banned from a small local amusement park for crashing bumper cars. To say I am proud is an understatement. This is mostly because apparently, my offspring shares my lack of grace and my ability to crash into things. I mean, there was a reason my frat tried very hard to give me the official nickname of crash.

Very apathetic. I'm even listening to A Perfect Circle and I got nothing.

My youngest sister is theoretically in labor, so at any time, there *should* be Nephew, to add to Niece, Baby Niece, and Former Stepnephew and Former Stepniece to the Pantheon of Children I Can Play With And Not Have to Give Birth To. This continues to be a satisfactory way to acquire babies and not have to pay for them. Though weirdly, I am still called into diaper changing duty, but that is because I'm just that freaking good at it. You think I'm joking--I'm totally not.

People underestimate the power of laziness. The thing is, the lazy are efficient. We mark the problem, look at the least labor intensive and/or fastest solution, and get down to it. We know these things. Even the most horrific diaper monstrosity can be completed in under thirty seconds if you know how to set up your workstation.

Welcome to Jenn's Realm of Useless Information.

Changing a Baby: Get In, Get Out, Do Not Pass Out

a.) attach child to surface

I use floors because of a.) laziness and b.) convenience. You cannot always find a baby changing station. But have blanket, will travel; you will always, always have a floor. Gravity? Not your friend. They can slither all they want--place babywipe container on belly for anchoring when they reach the creep and crawl stage and use one knee to block lateral movement. You are set.

On changing table, basic same procedure, but keep eye on Child at Wriggling Stage. They have cosmic teleportation powers of falling. Almost a mutation, even. Which is why God created floors. Probably for me.

b.) prepare wipies and diaper

This is the least considered but ultimately most useful. By this time, you should know instinctively whether this is one of the three stages of baby mess.

1.) ick
2.) oh my
3.) nuclear disaster

Use your own judgement. I use a two wipie, four wipie, eight wipie (not kidding) pattern in general, but usually have double that ready for use. I am *free* with the wipies. My motto? There are never too many wipies.

Shake them out and pile them--do not leave folded. That will slow down your time. Piles are friendly.

Stretch out diaper pre-removal; if it is a boy, later, you will understand The Magic of the Pee Mid-Air. The little bastards do it deliberately. Girls are more subtle. You won't know until your knee is moist. We won't discuss it. Just, no.

Stretch the diaper, lie it beside child to mirror current butt placement. Breathe. No, really, if this is a stage three, oxygen deprivation is an issue.

c. lift, pull, switch

Tricky, but doable.

Unlatch velcro. Double check baby mess stage. Take a second if you are new at this. Grasp ankles firmly, lift child until butt clears floor. Wipe quickly with diaper (God help you if this is stage three). Push Dark Diaper of Darkness away. Don't, in the name of God, look at it until you are at least a journeyman. Hell, why would you anyway? Place other diaper under child, grab wipie, clean lower suface of child, lower child onto diaper.

This should take no more than five seconds. Even nuclear.

Do not let go of ankles. You have two hands. Keep those legs up and clear.

Pull upper edge over child so Gleeful Evil Open Air Peeing does not hit you in face. No, I'm not talking about this, like, ever. Hold three seconds, then commence with cleaning.

Continue to hold ankles.

Babies are easier to dust than furniture. Yes, it looks like End Days, but it is not. Visualization exercises might help the apprentice level--this is not horror. This is vivid yellow paint. Vivid--do you really want the mess color spectrum? No, you do not. Just go with it.

Wipe thoroughly. Quickly. If child is unusually--oh, let's say plump--check crevasses. Powder, lotion, baby ointment, whatever (I never used anything except the diaper rash stuff myself since Child was blissfully free of most skin irritations unless he was ill, but other people have, so that's your window for doing so). Crease of thigh and leg--Very Important. Like, a breeding ground of ick and darkness.

d. closing

Lower child completely into diaper. Velcro closed, hold child above head, yell in triumph. Also, breathe, you may be getting dizzy. Lower child in case you are about to pass out.

See why I like the floor?

Thirty seconds. Done.

e. dispose of the evidence.

Wrap all wipies and diaper into a tiny compact ball and hide it somewhere. Fine, trash it. But also fun to place in middle of table, because if you have a baby, you know this: it might be days until they realize it's there and if your sister made you do like, seven changes that day? That's called revenge. You might even stack some into a kind of modern art sculpture and be completely surprised they don't want to use it for a conversational piece at parties. Suburban Family in Decline. Not that I've ever tried that. Or almost pulled it off.

And that concludes Useless Information.

Speaking of, I was banned from further baby clothes buying even though Macy's has their forty percent/forty percent going on and I'm sorry, but Ralph Lauren overalls are totally worth it.

Coming briefly out of hibernation of low grade misery for two things:

1.) Fortunate Son by

astolat, AIRPS, DC & DA, gen, okay, seriously, I am now insisting on official codes be announced by someone, somewhere, that everyone obeys. I LIKE USING SINGLE OR DOUBLE LETTERS PEOPLE. Whole names != zen.

Also, so adorable and involves my sixth greatest fear, air travel. Yes, I do have a list. No, I will not share. Just--there are reasons I am to a.) be extremely sleep deprived or b.) have dental work before getting on a plane. All of them involve flames. I did not even start to twitch. Read now, plz.

2.) Due South, first season, third disc, with second season arriving today. In a variety of ways, I really want Fraser's boots. I want him while in them, too, but I seriously seriously want those boots. They're amazing! They protect the leg from mud, you can run in them easily, and they clean up fast. How the hell do we not have some of those.

How the hell does he run like that for ten million miles?

Also, RayV's (did I write that correctly?) "I have a total mancrush on this hot mountie" could not be more obvious if he gave it out as a card. I bet he does. Luckily, he doesn't have to all that often. Fraser's obliviousness to women actually beats Sheppard's. I honestly believe that if they were the last two people on earth and were both given sex pollen causing uncontrollable lust and locked in a small, comfortable room with two beds, they would still somehow not have sex on the strength of sheer obliviousness. That's--that's impressive.

They might not even get off. They'd worry it wasn't polite. Well, Fraser would. Sheppard would contemplate having to bare skin in front of other human beings and find this deeply traumatic or something.

I'm really tempted to do an episode by episode reaction post, but a lot of it is my absolute amazement that these are some of the most cliched plots ever and they are still utterly transfixing and feel completely new every damn time.

3.) Random Note: Child started watching and was pissed when I told him there were only three seasons. He's three episodes behind me; he was up until God knows when last night finishing the second disc. I've decided to save me and him some time, I'm going to auction him off to anyone who has a child of the vaguely appropriate age for a betrothal. His dowry will include four gamestations (by that time, I will have a Wii and X-Box and every game console ever), a laptop, a desktop, and a metric ton of dinosaur books, books on robotics, books on genetic engineering, books on snakes, and a terrifying predilection for waking me up to ask seriously if he cloned a small herbivore, if that would be okay to keep.

Have raised alert to Orange for the backyard. I saw him digging a hole and then quickly covering it up again. So freaking do not want to know, you have no idea.

Parenting via Livejournal: last resort. Though really, this is parenting by fangirl, which is far better.

I'm looking at the anniversary edition of Bladerunner for Christmas this year for Child (it's on sale, and I like to plan ahead). He's eleven and fairly comfortable with horror and sci-fi (I've restricted it to idiotic sci-fi movie of the week or the classics I've already seen and I have a very, very weak stomach, but I'm guessing Nightmare on Elm Street is coming up fairly soon since that's standard fare for girls when I was that age; basically, I can't deal with it so I don't let it in the house quite yet if I can't watch it with him or haven't seen it myself already).

Long story short: good idea/bad idea? I haven't seen it, which means it'll be a treat for both of us, but I'm not entirely sure about the sexual versus violence content versus adult issues that will make no sense to him. He know movie violence (and critiques sci-fi channel for it, which is hilarious), and eleven-twelve, if I remember correctly, is when he *should* be hiding this stuff from me and watching on the sly. I'll probably screen it first anyway, but give me an idea of what I'll be looking at.

Also grabbing him the first Star Wars trilogy finally. We have them, but they're fairly old, and I think the new edition has some commentary (he does, in fact, watch the commentaries and extras: God, he's going to outgeek us all) and he gets a kick out of it.

For reference, what he has seen: Halloween (first one), Halloween IV (on sci-fi, seriously, that cut it makes it hysterically funny), um, most sci-fi movies of the week involving snakes, pythons, bugs, or killer mammals, The Ring (bored out of his mind, liked the girl a lot, don't know what to do with that), Final Destination I and II (we both enjoyed and freaked out), Alien I, II, III, and IV, Alien Versus Predator I and II (seriously awesome, so ashamed), Scream I and II, the one with the giant bug people and a bus or something?, etc etc etc. No later Fridays, no Nightmare on Elm Streets, no Halloweens other than mentioned, no Hostels or Saws or super slasher movies (so misleading to read that for a slasher). Those he can do on the sly with his little friends at sleepovers so I have a.) plausible deniability and b.) don't have them in the same building I am in.

Weirdly, I'm really ambivalent about George Romano's stuff, because it's a.) good stuff and b.) it freaks me out but I can still watch it and love it, which makes me nervous how he'll take it. He really should see the original zombie movie of greatness. OTOH, again, I get nightmares off of made for TV horror so I am a really bad judge.

(Hellraiser for instance. It's a classic, and I read the synopsis, and it scares the shit out of me, but I can't tell if it's because it's me and I am bad with horror movies, or if it's, you know, objectively terrifying.)

(Add Chainsaw Massacre to that list as well, just the first. These are the ones I can't judge; I know objectively they're *good* horror and awesome, but they freak me the fuck out.)

Done for today. Re-reading Daybreak by

giddygeek because Groundhog Day in Atlantis is never not awesome.

So to celebrate Child's All A's (and one B in math), and for my niece's near-end of kindergarten, I decided to take them to see Prince Caspian. Now, I had a condition on this for Child, that he had to read the book first. I told him this on Wednesday, when he was a few pages in.

He finished it last night.

....

Okay, seriously. It is *pulling teeth* to get him to read fiction. He's all about the books on robotics, weather, and dinosaurs. I'm kinda amazed.

And I cannot believe I'm voluntarily taking two children below the age of twelve to a movie theatre on a Friday night. I am packing the Nintendo DSs and wipies for the pre-movie sitting, since getting there early is the only way we'll get seats. Oh yes. This will be very exciting.

*deep breath* At least Caspian is pretty. *holds firm*

To avoid my imminent meltdown in which I'm fairly sure

amireal is going to a place with Care Bear!Rodney and John Sheppard that my sanity cannot accept, let me tell you of my day.

School Part I: The Affair of the Camp Thing

See, there's this thing called "camping".

For those of you, like me, who hear the word and think "You mean a resort with only dial-up?", wow, no. Okay, insane, but--people go out into the woods and stay there. Seriously! So you can imagine my bewilderment when Child brought home a list of supplies required for this "camping" thing. There's no internet. And sit down--no TV. I'm flummoxed.

Sleeping Bag -- not just for parties! Who knew?
Flashlight -- for more than searching under the bed for that RAM you lost.
Towels -- ...woods don't have towels?
Fishing Pole -- apparently, you buy a metal stick that is--okay, just bear with me--has some sort of thread on it. To this thread you attach various plastic toys that come with it. No, wait. Then you put the toys in a body of water! And I don't mean a swimming pool. Crazy.

(Apparently this is where food comes from? Did anyone know about this? Is it hygenic? I heard legends of peoples who take their food from the wilderness.)

Then clothes, sheets (sheet? WTF?), pillow, hygiene supplies, a chair (chair!), camera (dispoable), a daypack (for--water and suchlike), water bottle (I see the sense in this, two came with the daypack), duffle bag, and various.

Suffice to say, not much of this was actually on hand; I hadn't gone shopping for Child's summer clothes yet, which means I had to buy them now along with everything else in the universe. And socks, because--well, the sock god is not kind at our house.

So basically, Target owes me a Christmas Card and a gift certificate or something. God. *blank*

School Part 2: International

( turkey is in our future )

I keep thinking how normal it is for him to have all these extracurricular intellectual activities; he and the other boys in his class have Monday math game meetings at their math teacher's house, which are basically pre-alg tutorials (the girls have it at a female teacher's house). They have afterschool Harmony Players as well (singing!) and festivals and it's just the coolest thing ever.

One of the things that's been--not bothering, but I'm mulling--is the separation of the boys and girls. Not as in, exclusion, but a separate and equal for extra-curricular stuff, not in the classrooms or during school activities. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about it.

I think, from observation and talking with him, I'm feeling positive about it. I like it for a lot of reasons, and I'm comfortable with the fact this is a cultural restriction that Child understands that even though we don't share those restrictions, while going to school and accepting the hospitality of those who do practice it, he needs to observe it and respect it as well.

( pondering girls and boys and the pursuit of excellence )

I hate hypotheticals. They always put me in a position of measuring my ethics against my imagination. Remember when Rodney was so frustrated with the team with the train and baby thing? I would be the one with a pencil and paper explaining how it is totally possible to do both. With stick figures and stats from www.outofmyass.com. Seriously.

But this came up on one of the snark communities in a link. Links under the cut.

( huh )

So I broke.

Wii? Fine. Screw you. Child's got Playstation 3, you out of stock bastards. You know, only two months after his birthday, because seriously, this is ridiculous. If they want my money, they need to have the freaking product. So. Sony wins. And probably for a while; Playstation is a lot more expensive and blew through the money I had budgeted for the Wii and some I'll have to shave off next month's limited excess income.

There's a story for this one. It's not a long one. It starts and ends with the awesome that is MTV's Rockstar Special Edition. I just--I broke. It was that stupid demo at Best Buy! It was right there! It was--it was magic. I got off my last call to find a Wii, walked into the living room, brandished two credit cards, and remembered we have a lot of Playstation games here that we can't play since Playstation 2 bit the dust.

Oh my God, that thing is so cool I have no words. I totally kick ass on drums. There's this guitar and a microphone and we can get a second guitar if we had someone to play it.

...I have never played competitive rock band, but God, this thing could make me a junkie. Seriously.

First off, the drums are awesome, but I had to adjust around a lot. Those who have met me--you know I have freakish leg length? Okay, this has caused jean-length problems and *hurts* if I can't get a high enough chair and I have to use, say, my feet for something, and you have to use a peddle on some parts. But wow. We did the tutorial for the drums and guitar and it was just--amazing. I mean, this is incredible fun. We can also play online with other people if we find anyone else who has this. But yeah, I totally recommend this. Tonight my whole family got together to play and watch, and I'm like I DO NOT WANT TO STOP, but again, the leg problem. I'm going to need to find a way to work on that. Either a higher chair or move the peddle a fair distance from me so it won't cause so much calf strain.

I seriously recommend to the like, five people in teh world who did not know of this awesome. I really am tempted to dress up for it. Drag out my black eyeliner and glitter eyeshadow. Do this right.

Yes. Hi. I'm ten. But I am totally getting the appeal of garage bands suddenly. That drum thing is freaking crack.

So started section 1.1 of THE HUGE PRECAL BOOK OF DOOM, mostly because I have a suspicion that maybe eight years since my last advanced math? Needs a refresher. I kidnapped Child, his wipeboard, a spiral, pencils, and the first half season of Fullmetal Alchemist. Holding it in front of Child's head, I explained carefully that his ability to watch this show, Dr. Who, Torchwood, or anything sci-fi was directly proportional to how much he fought me.

So, section 1.1 - Algebra review. It feels pretty obvious--the types of properties, negation, rational/irrational, whole, natural, et al, but--shockingly--reading the text was actually educational and a lot easier than when I did it the first time. No, not that I remembered any of it specifically, but that most if it was fairly obvious. The part that was interesting, of course, is explaining to Child, because every property I made a new example for him and he took careful notes. It wasn't hard so much as--hmm.

The thing is, in elementary school, I was taught the shortcuts, which totally fucked forever my ability to prove anything, and in fact, made me unable to conceptualize proofing at all. I got away with it through Calculus, but not in a good way, mostly in a desperate way. Getting the answer was always fairly easy for him; outlining each step to illustrate the why was hard. I don't do it that way; I look and write the answer. For him, it was worse: it was his introduction to parentheses as deciding precedence *and* multiplication, and the dot for multiplication. I really need a bigger whiteboard for this.

a(b + c) = ab + ac -- distributive property really did a number on him. Not because it was hard, per se, but because he didn't see the point.

3(8 + 2) = 3(8) + 3(2) -- he just wanted to solve the plus inside, which yes, according to precedence would work, but I explained in this case, we were doing it this way. I couldn't explain later, it would actually be:

x(3 + y) = (y + 7)/(y + 2) or variations thereof because he would run away. And I need my study partner.

He went with it, but I get the feeling he's not going to understand until he sees it. Same with irrational numbers; he nods at the theory, but I'm guessing it won't sink in until the problem sets.

It's fun, though, in that way I know it will be so much less fun later. His big incentive, apparently, is to be ahead of every other kid in school. And you know, Fullmetal Alchemist, season one second half.

The other night, while grabbing a drink from the kitchen, while chatting with

svmadelyn (may her internet connection stay true, because withdrawal was so not pretty for me. Her. Me. This is really about me. IT HURT), Child waylaid me to question Jack's feelings about Ianto if he was going to look at Gwen like that.

I ended up typing the entire thing to her, but I remember a small, warm feeling in the pit of my stomach, chased by blank horror when I realized he'd tricked me into a sex ed conversation. I also do not remember what I ended up saying--for those around at the time, you may remember how that one ended up with several people wondering if he'd end up building a nest in the backyard after I inadvertently mentioned eggs--but I'm pretty sure sex ed should not be a five second recital on "some men like other men and some men like women and some like both which is perfectly normal, please don't do this to me right now" while Child cackled in the background.

( this is why i like being a mother )

And back on medication. I remember this feeling. It's called being productive.

I will not manipulate Child into wanting space camp just because there is a parent/child program and Mommy can then get her hands on rockets and simulate combat flight in in F/A 18 simulator.

I will not manipulate Child into wanting space camp just because there is a parent/child program and Mommy can build a rocket.

I will not...

Oh, who the hell am I kidding. They will give us toys and set us free!

*ponders program* Hmm.

In other news--whee engineering camp! *waves flag and stares at space camp* Right. I have months to consider carefully. And imagine combat flight!

ETA: ...did anyone know there is adult space camp?????? THERE IS ADULT SPACE CAMP I CANNOT BREATHE I NO LONGER NEED TO TRY AND BRAINWASH CHILD.

I am an enlightened woman of the twenty-first century. I support women's rights, women's issues, I wander about in a veritable sea of female-oriented hobbies and career paths. I am woman; I sympathize with my sex.

However, rage blackouts do occur when one is searching for engineering camps for summer and discovering they are all for girls.

This is where Parent of Male Child meets Woman Who Understands. I am glad that girls are being encouraged at an early age to pursue more traditionally male-oriented fields. I am thrilled that more and more of my sex are going on to achieve in the hard sciences.

*narrowed eyes* I want Child to go to engineering and robotics camp, and he refuses to temporarily go by the name of Mary.

Pardon me while I go sulk in a deeply entitled way. I am a terrible feminist today. Though I can't tell if I resent more the lack of camps or the fact Child will not temporarily take on an alternate sexual identity.

/end tantrum

This was brought to you by googling. MIT/UT has one, but it's a.) hideously expensive and b.) not really engineering oriented.

If I grumble, it's for a good cause.

Planned days off are awesome; taking off for sick child, not so much. I mean, not the caring for sick Child ("Mommy, go away."), but the fact I like to have a plan. If the plan is sleep, eat, sleep, eat, read my lj, and sleep, then by God, that's a plan. But now, there is no plan. There is, however, catching up on comments, which is nice, since most of the time I don't get a chance to respond to the latest ones or really think them over until the weekend when they are probably forgotten by the poster.

So I have achieved not so much productivity as make-work. I need a project.

Okay, this is twofold: one, class gave me evening structure. I had something due! I had to work! And that it was deeply fun to do was really a bonus; two, my work on the guide at work is coming to an end and I'm freaked out, because no one else, and I say this without arrogance, simply fact, knows enough about HTML, CSS, or Adobe to continue it, or is willing to learn. Not to mention the testing work I did on the program. I'm worried. It's not my responsibility, but--it's mine. I don't mind giving it up to someone who will love it like I do, who will enjoy it, who will take responsibility for it and work at it and think about how to make it better. Gah.

ITunes

...why is itunes now randomly going back and making me find my library again? For the third time since I moved to this computer?? Did I do something wrong in set-up? The last time it happened--oddly, on December 1st--I immediately saved the library in case, but seriosuly, this is *annoying*. It's happening every two *weeks* and I'm officially tired of having ot go back and re-do my library like this; I dont' remember every change I made and every new playlist I created or what was on it. Hence the fact I save playlists as my memory.

Bored

Um, point me toward something interesting? Seriously. Sick Child is now watching X-Files off tapes we inherited from someone. Also, taking a second to revel in my Child's awesome--he's watching X-Files! He's asking about the little grey men! He's following the conspiracy. I kind of want to cry with the sheer joy of it. Strangely, he didn't care for Space: Above and Beyond and I'm still wary on Battlestar Galactica after the first season. He's whimpering about how the lack of Dr. Who is oppressing him! He is an entitled fan!

I have done my work here.

Today:

Child:

1.) Updated Child's computer to current.
2.) Reorganized his shortcuts in start menu and desktop.
3.) Removed annoying programs.
4.) Installed Python, Ruby, and Dev C++, bookmarked tutorials.
5.) Installed Turkish dictionary for Child's Turkish class.
6.) Signed up for gmail and del.icio.us.

Mom:
1.) Installed and customized Firefox to Mom's computer.
2.) Tutored her in Firefox extensions, signed her up for del.icio.us, pondered deep sixing her into youtube.
3.) Bookmarked relevant Guild War websites she hadn't found on a convenient folder for easy use.

*deep breath*

Now trying to find a decent children's tutorial on programming. The ones I have found so far aren't terribly child-friendly. I feel this is going to be interesting.

If I don't get my new laptop soon, I can only assume next weekend will be spent force-feeding first semester C++ to both of them whether they want it or not.

(*checks dell website. still in production. starts lesson plans.*)

Yeah. This is going to go well.

Randomly.

Child: Mom, who's that big guy on Stargate?
Me: Ronon?
Child: No. On the other one. The big black guy?
Me: Teal'c?
Child: Yes! HE IS SO COOL. Can you get me all of Stargate?
Me: *looks at amazon, pales: ten seasons* Uh.

Child went on to wax lyrical on Teal'c and John Sheppard. I--never thought they were all that comparable. Until you ask Child. Child's ideal team is now Dr. Who, John Sheppard, and Teal'c. He hasnt' chosen a fourth.

...you know? That team has possibilities. I wonder how Child will like Cameron Mitchell.

*mulls*

(Sometimes, my favorite part of any discussion with Child is his complete openness to crossovers. As far as he's concerned, Boa Versus Python and Jimmy Neutron can not only happen in the same universe, they really *should*.)

Less Randomly

Child and I have doctor's appointments in the morning. There really doesn't seem to be that much worry about a relapse so much as precautionary.

( hmm )

www.websudoku.com

Easy: 3 minutes, 26 seconds.

Okay, mea culpa. I am not stopping until I get to 2 minutes, 59 seconds or below. I have a vision. At this point, it's pretty much insane.

Other News

Child has decided we have to go to South American, specifically Brazil, so he can find a new species of lizard.

*sighs*

Also, caught him with my hairbrush, harvesting DNA.

I--how do other parents deal with this? Some parents tell their kid not to start fires. I have to warn mine not to break Geneva Convention standards with his chemistry set. It's getting disturbing. Also, apparently, we are breeding worms now.

I refuse to deal with the fact I am feeding worms oatmeal. I just can't. It's wrong.

Must win sudoku now, kthx.

Oh wow. Traveling with Child is an experience.

I have to admit, it's a lot more fun to have him with me--especially when one is stuck in Memphis for three hours and staring vaguely at the departure time slowly slipping from 9:20 to 11:30 and then changing departure gates on the way home. Also, both of us were limping--we were a sad little twosome trudging through the Memphis airport this afternoon.

Right. I'll eventually document for the future, but.

1.)

taraljc is made of awesome. She made sure we did not die alone in Chicago lost and staring blankly at multicolored train lines. Also, Child has a crush on her to end all crushes. He's making vague noises about her and Dr. Who while staring rapturously at comic books. This is possibly the funniest thing I have seen in my life.

2.)

svmadelyn is awesome. Just saying. Awesome.

3.)

talitha78 and the Field Museum--awesome. We had such an incredible time there. Lizards in bottles!

4.) Finally met

researchgrrrl in person and so very very--yes, the word is awesome.

celli and

shrift were also amazing fun. Food was nice. Snow was *cool*.

Now the thing.

Legs. HURT. So much. Jesus. We walked *so much*. I am not putting my feet on the floor again until I have to. Like, next year. Dear God my calves think I am punishing them and so punish me.

And that's the short version. Child alive and telling stories to everyone, no one died, and life good.

So, did I miss anything?

Sometimes, I honestly feel my life is a strange sitcom, meant only for very boring books or someone's really bad joke.

Home-visit parent-teacher conference.

Basically, what would have made this better is alcohol--these two men are Turkish, and one is unbelievably hot, and that would be the damned math teacher. The computer science teacher was friendly and talked a lot, the math teacher not so much. I realized abruptly I was in a room with two men not of my immediate family and/or boyfriends of sisters, and also realized it's been a damn long time since I had to interact with males I do not share a blood relationship with or work with or, as above, boyfriends of sister.

I'm seriously not kidding here. The guy was just--God. I mean, Jesus Christ. I should have taken a picture.

You're probably wondering how the confernce went; I have no idea. I think it went well, God know what I said, but they told me nothing particularly new about hsi academics, they covered ground on what fifth grade would be like, more advanced math, beginning electronics, a little on teh afterschool program I enrolled him in. I told them what I was doing with Child--which is so far Chicago in March and a programming camp this summer, assuming I am careful with my money, but seriously, a camp where you learn to write your own video games! HOW COOL IS THAT? Apparently they just started sudoku, which just amused the hell out of me, he showed off his lizard and talked for a bit. It was basically the longest thirty minutes of my life.

This is my life. And it's so cliched, that I'm lusting over the math teacher. Which according to my usual MO, means I avoid avoid avoid. Turkish. Different religion. Probably married. So attractive it was physically painful to look at him.

Teaches math. Male model math teacher.

I get the horrified feeling I'm falling into a

rageprufrock AU.

Child seems to have ear infection. One of the few perks of parenthood is the sheer joy I can get out of the simple things in between fetching and carrying, and Child walking at a genuine list to port while complaining about his balance. There is a better than good chance at some point today I will be trying to poison myself with various household chemicals as cabin fever sets in, a cabin fever aggravated by an almost-ten, really loveable, extremely well-meaning, but completely nuts child who has been watching episodes of Digimon, seasons one, two, and three off the net for three days.

I'm not even sure where he's getting then from. Okay, scratch that, I know exactly where he's getting them. I can't even lie about that.

I'm seriously, seriously going to snap and possibly rename myself Bob. Bob Bob Bob. Bob.

*rubs forehead* Please send help.

So disturbing conversatino number five million and five with Child, age 9, unfortunately comes as a result of that damn chemistry set, in which Child comes in to ask me about:

a.) human cloning.
b.) cloning the Crocodile Hunter (I only wish I were kidding)
c.) cloning *me*
d.) how to transfer cloned memories.
e.) needing a bone fragment

People, I may never sleep again.

Okay, first, the interface for update is changed and I'm freaking out. Now to the point of my post.

There comes a time in human events where one admits that one has, perhaps, done something very strange to their nine year old budding reptile-lover.

Child has written his first fanfic. *sighs* For school.

For those with a morbid sense of humor, or a fairly good memory of Nightmare on Elm Street, below the cut.

( killville (no, I am not kidding about the title, spelling reproduced from original) )

What is actually making me wonder is a.) when the *heck* did he see this movie? b.) should I start explaining the concept of the self-insert and the Mary Sue now? and c.) what kind of parent/teacher conference am I in for?

Okay. This is so awesome. My nine year old is *writing*.

Among the things accomplished this week.

1.) Humiliating moment in public place where Child declared that his mother had relations with Santa Claus. Supporting evidence includes his first name, his belly, and Mommy's comment that she knows Santa Claus. Which he elucidated at length to those who passed. I am eating chcolate now.

2.) Secret santa gifts received! Thank you! Shaved milk chocolate hot chcolate mix and COOKIES. OH MY GOD COOKIES. COOKIES. I cannot express my love deeply enough. Thank you.

3.) Child's laptop received! With a neat notebook bag for it! Squee!

5.) Meme love!. Okay, very awesomeness there. Thank you to whoever did those, it totally made my night very bright.

5.) Um. Yeah, that's it.

I'm--restless. I'm done with all treatments, all side effects are passed, I'm just tired. I mean, it's a very weird feeling, the undertiredness that's there even when I'm awake. I still have to think when I'm talking for breathing, which is new, but I figure will pass.

An interesting discussion is going on over in

sgatlantislight's lj regarding secondary pairings. Some good points are made, though.

http://sgatlantislight.livejournal.com/77851.html

It's--weird. I have this meta topic that I want to introduce, but I'm not sure how to do it without either breaking chat room confidentiality or flock, or making this a dramatic interpretation of These Are The Thing I Kneejerk Against, Sorry About That, Avoid the Knee. And the part of me that's not really all that sorry. I don't think me reccing or not oppresses anyone, or stating that I think certain fics most closely match how I feel about a character so I tend to think of them as the best is destroying anyone's soul. If it is, I'm in the get over it place in my life. Seriously. Unless I'm doing a full court bash of a fic, or a writer, I'm not taking that seriously.

And no, this is all in response to way too much meta reading today.

Hmm. If I was going to meta on something, what would any of you like to see? Non-flocked at that.

Child was picked up today about twenty minutes after I got to work, as he claimed he was having problems taking deep breaths. He'd complained about it the night before. So arranged the committee stuff for the Thanksgiving luncheon, grabbed my stuff, and ran off to fetch him and take him to the doctor to find out what was wrong.

He and I described as best we could what the sensation was (tightness in chest, trouble taking deep breaths, in what I think might be called episodes), so the doctor ran some tests. His lungs are clear, his oxygen is fine, he's not feverish or anything else, so he gave me a script for an inhaler and said for him to use it when necessary. He didn't say asthma, but there's a fair history of it in our family. I'm not worried really so much as--wary. This is new.

Hmm. I'm torn on causation. I just dont' think it's asthma, not without more evidence. I'm actually leaning toward psychological--Child, and for that matter, me, tend to loop our psychological into our physical fairly regularly. When I'm stressed, I lose my appetite and increase my caffeine limits, hence my second semseter in college going down to a weight that still kind of awes me in that I didnt simply collapse. When he gets stressed, he throws up and now (possibly) has trouble catching his breath. It's still very real, just treatment is going to be different. But what it is may be the problem--there's a chance he doesn't even know that himself.

Hmm. It could be the school--a glance at his homework is kind of aweing in what's required. OTOH, his last school sucked beyond measure, so honestly, I cant' be sure. I'd be more sympathetic to him feeling stressed over school if he was trying--but before now, he's never *had to*. He skated by on charm and doing his homework five minutes before class. Like me. *g* And that's not good enough. I mean, yes, I got away with it pretty much all my educational life, but he's *bad* at it. He gets caught without his assigments too often, and if he's not intersted in the subject, he tunes out. It's frustrating. And for the first time, he's in a school with a fairly strict discipline system that does punish for things like forgetting homework and not having your materials. It *sucks* for him, and I get that, but he's basically stressing himself. I've nailed down homework time to be as soon as I get home from work, he's on three weeks grounding and early bedtimes for the next two weeks at least from what I saw in the last discipline reports, which are every one of them homework and assignment related.

Plus the motherlode of general parental notices like for Halloween, and for Picture Day, and for PTA that he freaking *hoardes* in his room or in his backpack and never tells me about.

So it's kind of trapping. I have to be harder on him than the school just to make sure my well-behaved kid doesn't get detention for not bothering to do the work. Or escalate to ISS, to regular suspension, to expulsion, and with teh regular suspension, he loses his slot in the school for next year And he *can* do the work--when he bothers, it's good. He understands what's being taught. He just doesn't want to do it. So. Hmm. There's a fairly good afterschool program that three days a week has a strict study hall until five, when I get off work, and two days of clubs and enrichment activities. I didn't want his afternoons structured like this, to be honest--I don't want a nine year old already on a tight academic schedule. Afterschool should be *playtime* and cartoons and snacks and screwing around in the backyard digging holes convinced there are dinosaur bones or fossils or what have you. I believe in unstructured time. But again. SUSPENSION.

I think at least for a few months, it may be the only way I'm going to be able to snap him into at least some kind of academic discipline. If he genuinely couldn't do the work or needed assistance, that would be one thing. This just isnt' it.

I'm taking a nap and finding zen. Zen in this case will likely be coffee and self-pity. Or maybe porn. Seriously. Where the hell is the porn?

Profile

seperis

Syndicate

Page Summary

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!!!!!!!!!!!
joy cometh in the morning
saturday afternoon at leisure
anthrax - the sequel (and so much dumber)
nothing short of ennui
a plotluck of avoidance
i hate soothing British voices
whee toys!
okay, one more thing
child in review
waiting for the news; in essence, being useful
and then, the deluge
to buy or not to buy
so good idea/bad idea
a lot to do and so much time to finish
why in the name of god am i thinking about this?
so yes. i gave up.
mathematics - it's called inducement. blackmail, even
because I can
lo, and I was set free on the webs....
when feminism meets parenthood
legion the things i'd give for a cookie
so this is the first stages of withdrawal
random boring child anecdote of sci-fi-ness and etc
yay me!
home, mostly, except for my legs, which are in a different pain dimension
well, at least I didn't offer up my ovaries or anything
and this is some kind of punishment for something i did in my childhood to my mother
i need drugs now kthx
Well. Technically, yes, fanfic
tgif
god, my life is a weird soap opera

Active Entries

Quotes

If you don't send me feedback, I will sob uncontrollably for hours on end, until finally, in a fit of depression, I slash my wrists and bleed out on the bathroom floor. My death will be on your heads. Murderers
. -- Unknown, on feedback
BTS List
That's why he goes bad, you know -- all the good people hit him on the head or try to shoot him and constantly mistrust him, while there's this vast cohort of minions saying, We wouldn't hurt you, Lex, and we'll give you power and greatness and oh so much sex...
Wow. That was scary. Lex is like Jesus in the desert.
-- pricklyelf, on why Lex goes bad
LJ
Obi-Wan has a sort of desperate, pathetic patience in this movie. You can just see it in his eyes: "My padawan is a psychopath, and no one will believe me; I'm barely keeping him under control and expect to wake up any night now to find him standing over my bed with a knife!"
-- Teague, reviewing "Star Wars: Attack of the Clones"
LJ
Beth: god, why do i have so many beads?
Jenn: Because you are an addict.
Jenn: There are twelve step programs for this.
Beth: i dunno they'd work, might have to go straight for the electroshock.
Jenn: I'm not sure that helps with bead addiction.
Beth: i was thinking more to demagnitize my credit card.
-- hwmitzy and seperis, on bead addiction
AIM, 12/24/2003
I could rape a goat and it will DIE PRETTIER than they write.
-- anonymous, on terrible writing
AIM, 2/17/2004
In medical billing there is a diagnosis code for someone who commits suicide by sea anenemoe.
-- silverkyst, on wtf
AIM, 3/25/2004
Anonymous: sorry. i just wanted to tell you how much i liked you. i'd like to take this to a higher level if you're willing
Eleveninches: By higher level I hope you mean email.
-- eleveninches and anonymous, on things that are disturbing
LJ, 4/2/2004
silverkyst: I need to not be taking molecular genetics.
silverkyst: though, as a sidenote, I did learn how to eviscerate a fruit fly larvae by pulling it's mouth out by it's mouthparts today.
silverkyst: I'm just nowhere near competent in the subject material to be taking it.
Jenn: I'd like to thank you for that image.
-- silverkyst and seperis, on more wtf
AIM, 1/25/2005
You know, if obi-wan had just disciplined the boy *properly* we wouldn't be having these problems. Can't you just see yoda? "Take him in hand, you must. The true Force, you must show him."
-- Issaro, on spanking Anakin in his formative years
LJ, 3/15/2005
Aside from the fact that one person should never go near another with a penis, a bottle of body wash, and a hopeful expression...
-- Summerfling, on shower sex
LJ, 7/22/2005
It's weird, after you get used to the affection you get from a rabbit, it's like any other BDSM relationship. Only without the sex and hot chicks in leather corsets wielding floggers. You'll grow to like it.
-- revelininsanity, on my relationship with my rabbit
LJ, 2/7/2006
Smudged upon the near horizon, lapine shadows in the mist. Like a doomsday vision from Watership Down, the bunny intervention approaches.
-- cpt_untouchable, on my addition of The Fourth Bunny
LJ, 4/13/2006
Rule 3. Chemistry is kind of like bondage. Some people like it, some people like reading about or watching other people doing it, and a large number of people's reaction to actually doing the serious stuff is to recoil in horror.
-- deadlychameleon, on class
LJ, 9/1/2007
If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then Fan Fiction is John Cusack standing outside your house with a boombox.
-- JRDSkinner, on fanfiction
Twitter
I will unashamedly and unapologetically celebrate the joy and the warmth and the creativity of a community of people sharing something positive and beautiful and connective and if you don’t like it you are most welcome to very fuck off.
-- Michael Sheen, on Good Omens fanfic
Twitter, 6/19/2019
Adding for Mastodon.
-- Jenn, traceback
Fosstodon, 11/6/2022

Credit

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