Shandra

Organ donation

2006-09-28T18:30:43Z

A lot of people on my friends+ list are currently mourning the loss of a friend/writer/co-fan, John M. Ford, and are reminding people to sign their organ donor cards in his memory as (I believe) he had a transplant that extended his life.

I just wanted to add some personal information to this which is if you want to be an organ donor, please make that really clear to your family and why.

Because they will be asked (in a lot of places I think their decision is more binding than a signed card), and if it's anything like what we went through with Emily they will be asked repeatedly, occasionally a little callously, and they may have to sign multiple documents at a time when their heads and hearts are going to feel like exploding.

And so they may need the clarity of your past conversation to get through the process and not just start waving their hands and saying "go away!"

In our case we had to sign I think 5 forms, after enduring not one but two long, long explanations about organ donation, what would happen if the wasn't a match or if the organs were not viable, and a kind of verbal test to make sure we'd understood what we'd heard. This was mostly as Emily was dying, and then again afterwards. As the parents we each had to be asked separately out of the presence of the other parent. And I had to have an additional blood test despite all the testing me, my placenta, and Emily had just gone through, for HIV/AIDS, because that was The Procedure.

I understood and still do understand that this was all Legalese, particularly in Canada where the people running the Red Cross had recently landed in /jail/ for not implementing HIV tests at the right time (despite the gov't not having yet approved funding for them). But it was a hurdle anyway. So take the time at a nice cosy meal or whatever to have the talk. It's worth it. :-)

My condolences to John M. Ford's friends & family.

And as usual my regular blog's at: http://www.multiplicity.ca/blog

Breastfeeding

2006-06-06T01:28:38Z

I'm posting this in my LJ today because LJ staff? volunteers? whoever apparently decreed that default user icons that show a baby breastfeeding are not okay if they show part of the pink/brown part of the boob.

I'm not participating in the blackout that some people are doing nor am I making a breastfeeding picture an icon in any way, shape, or form. But I do think that breastfeeding is just... feeding a baby.

I understand that in our society breasts are generally sexual and that they make people uncomfortable... although I'd argue that really low-slung jeans that almost show pubic hair and definitely show ass are even more sexual and they're not getting covered up much these days. Plus I have owned shirts that showed almost as much tit as breastfeeding does, except for the 4 seconds it takes to latch on, and cover up after.

Why do I feed Noah in public at all? Because there's not a lounge around, is the answer. (Or my car is parked far away.) I don't think that Noah and I need to not go places because he doesn't drink from a bottle, so we breastfeed more or less anywhere you'd feed a baby a bottle, except we find a quiet corner and use a blanket-sort-of or a sling.

No one likes a screaming baby much either, and believe me, that's what happens if you don't feed 'em. :)

I do think it's sad that bottle feeding is a very common image for "feeding a baby" and breastfeeding is not so common because - gasp! - it involves breasts. (And because formula companies are not paying for the pictures.) Other people feel even more strongly about this and that's why they want their breastfeeding pictures up.

I think LJ is being rather silly in its application of the rules. If a baby's on the breast, the mother is wearing a baby, not naked. :) Time to get over it, LJ. But meanwhile, LJ is fine with icons that -aren't- the default ones being breastfeeding ones. So I get that they are compromising.

(However, -however- you feed your baby, as long as it's a pretty decent way, is fine with me. This is not a salvo in the feeding wars.)

As a reminder my real blog, which is sometimes more coherent than this post and sometimes less, is at http://www.multiplicity.ca/blog

Oh! New space!

2005-11-21T12:33:44Z

We have new space here:

http://www.multiplicity.ca/blog

Shandra

shandra @ 2005-04-07T17:51:00

2005-04-07T21:53:44Z

I really don't update here much so I remind everyone of my regular journal: http://shandra.diary-x.com.

I also have a pregnancy blog (which is also a missing Emily blog); drop me a line if you want to read it. I'm not sure why I keep it segregated. And oh yes we're due Sept 1.

shandra @ 2004-04-16T15:03:00

2004-04-16T19:10:27Z

I should update here for those of you too lazy or uninterested to go see my main journal. I guess I'll put an abridged version of the post we wrote March 16, and preface it with the statement that we are doing as well as can be expected under the circumstances; still just moving through it and figuring out what the hell to do with the rest of our lives.

As a system we have often complained about the lack of time we have in our days. But as it turns out there are worse lacks of times.

Our daughter ended up having 89 hours of life.

On Friday we went into labour in the morning. It started out fine but got progressively worse, ending up with 3 hours of pushing, one of them with the baby in essentially the same spot going back and forth. Up until the last 15 minutes or so she seemed to be doing fine and then they lost the fetal heartbeat. While they were about to put a scalp probe up we got the last burst of sheer adrenaline panic and pushed her out.

So at 5:58 pm on March 12, Emily Hope was born, weighing 6 lbs 10 oz, 21.5" long, with long fingers and toes and beautiful black hair.

She was on the wrong side of death and life, strangled by our umbilical cord. The room filled with people and they restarted her heart and put her on a ventilator. After 12 hours at that hospital the neonatalogist made the decision that her condition was worsening, with seizures and things, and moved her to the Toronto Hospital for Sick Children.

Sunday was the first time we were able to hold her in our arms, for about 10 minutes, with a bunch of tubes and IVs and a respirator.

On Monday each test brought more bad news. Essentially her brain starved and none of the centres for hearing, vision, movement, or even swallowing were active, and she was displaying no reflexes at all, not even pupil dilation. The team at Sick Kids was great and advised us to just take her off the ventilator and let her try on her own.

So last night at 9 pm we took her off the ventilator and held her for the first time without a zillion needles and tubes. This morning at 4:10 am she stopped breathing visibly and near 5 am her heart stopped.

Wow

2004-01-12T16:58:03Z

I have not posted here in a long time. Maybe it's time for an update!

The pregnancy is going well. We had a few concerns, especially about the size of the baby last month, but nothing that's resulted in anything more than a few nights of worry. We believe she's a she still, so she is a very active fetus in there, and getting good at kicking mum in the guts.

Writing sentences about myself as mum is mind blowing.

The system has united around this as never before, which is really empowering. Lynn doesn't like it much, but the goodwill that we've built up between us over the last years has gone a long way. I have even caught her playing music to help the fetus's taste develop, which as Lynn goes is an - incredibly normal decent thing to be doing. This shouldn't surprise me, but sometimes it still does.

Lyria is in her element, when the rest of us stop freaking out and get out of her way, and she has to take the credit for all the very nutritious meals and really forcing us to slow down enough not to make problems. Because she's around so much she and Carl have worked out a lot of things that might've taken longer if she weren't.

Teresa and JJ and a lot of our system kids are all happy and making plans. Well that's a little simplistic, but there's a lot of good feelings too.

All of these things have kind of brought back some of the creative juice that has been missing this last year, and in a way that makes me feel really happy - more in touch with who we can be, and what we really want to do with our life.

On the down side, I'm having some of the worst adjustment problems. A lot of my friends seem to be not only not into kids, which was a predictable problem, but really reluctant to want to share my life as a pregnant person (for some friends, this means I now can't share about being multiple -or- being a parent, which leaves me work, which is ending, and politics and art and culture). And I know what that's like from the other end of it - it is hard to understand how biologically consuming it can be - but I still feel a little hurt and abandoned, which are not happy emotions for me. I guess it's a lot about being in transition.

And like any transition it has displayed a few areas where my values or desires are not in line with the current reality, but I feel like I need to wait to address that until after the babe is actually born and we have settled into our Keen New Life. Whatever that is.

It is definitely a lesson in going with the flow. :)

Shandra

shandra @ 2003-09-04T11:21:00

2003-09-04T16:00:42Z

Eh so I'll burble here too. I am having a burbly day.

Hearing the baby's heart beat made things really real for a lot of people in the system. It's all mixed up together for us that we're having a baby and dropping out of the 9-5 professional universe, so people's reactions are pretty mixed together that way too. Lyr is of course ecstatic in a Lyria way; she doesn't spend as much time as the rest of us dreaming about the future I don't think because she's quite in the present moment. Lynn told Anna she can't be too horrified because it makes Lyria happy and she is "predisposed to be indulgent towards Lyria." Snicker.

Teresa is suffering a little "I'm not worthy" crisis on both the writer and the mother front, but she'll make it. That is her reaction to most things. :)

Lynn is also glad to have more time to practice guitar and piano and all that. But the body stuff is hard on her; she has a horror of getting bigger and the pap smear was rough and procedures to come will be too. This is one reason I chose an obstetrician over a midwife; I think it might be better to get an epidural or whatever rather than putting the system through any more uterine/vaginal pain than necessary.

I do worry a lot about the recovery period when we're tired and torn and coping with breast feeding and all that; every one of those things sounds very triggering. So we are trying to do a lot of preparing and educating and making sure appropriate people will be around during that time to support us. This is probably one time that we're going to need to say: yo! help!

One thing that has become obvious to me is throughout the whole "get a handle on our recovery and multiple life" thing we have let a lot of what I think of as normal friendships, normal supports, normal light hearted relationships go. I am sad about that and lacking the energy at the same time to start them up. But that is a long term goal and over the next few months I want to really consider how to be a better friend out here in the real world, and not be so obsessed with how weird we might be. I think it's been a necessary protective thing, to focus only on those people I thought could be accepting of us. But it's getting to be an outdated response. I can think of three people I haven't pursued who probably would be cool friends if I had.

The kids are mostly happy they're going to get to play a lot, although there's some anxiety too that Carl won't love them as much and that kind of thing. The kinderlynn surface now and then to make statements like "if they touch our living dead dolls cut off their fingers!!" but I think that will be ok (also I think we will put a tall shelf in a wardrobe with their stuff in a box:)).

I'm getting all into it although I worry a bit about money and identity (I'm not sure I can handle full time parenthood without some regular adult universe work, but I figure if I can't we will work something out) and quite a lot about details like "how will I not flip out about diaper rash?" and shit like that. Then occasionally I go into a bout of minor anxiety in the middle of the night that can range from "I just know we'll have a kid who needs a motorized wheelchair" to "what if our house has toxic mold and we can't afford to move?" Those are very intense fears. But I might worry more if I never had any. Mostly in the morning they're gone.

The bottom line, I guess, is that I know things will come up, but I think we can handle them. Which is - really kind of cool. When did that happen?

shandra @ 2003-09-03T13:50:00

2003-09-03T17:50:30Z

I've only mentioned this twice in my regular journal but here it is again! My baby has a heart and it beats and Carl and I heard it. :)

Shandra

polypersonous

2003-08-20T18:30:52Z

After almost getting in an argument with someone in the polyamory community about what the difference is between "being an individual" and "being monogamous/nonmonogamous" I have come up with a new term for us rather than multiple or plural.

I think we're polypersonous.

The rant I wanted to post was that after spending the last 3.5 years of my life trying to arrange one body and 24 hrs/day into some semblance of a decent life for about 20 people (more or less) I think I know a little something about space for being an individual. Anyone who cedes their individuality to someone else is making a choice. Look at Lynn; she managed to carve out an identity for herself that goes so far beyond what I consider "me" it isn't even funny. And yet technically, if we could share all our memories at once, we'd've had the same life.

And someone wants to pin that process of human development on whether you're married or not? AUGH. Who you're dating/fucking/marrying is such a very small piece of that.

But then, this is always the issue with sexual politics. Or... polypersonous politics. :)

Shandra
(x-posted this one to my d-x)

I should update!

2003-08-19T00:32:34Z

Carl and I had a week at the cottage with quite a bit of his family and mine even stopped by briefly. It was great relaxation. I slept a lot, more than I have ever slept before when I wasn't sick. Gestating is hard work. I never appreciated this before. :)

It was a nice time to reconnect and also get centred for some of the ripple effects of my pregnancy like oh my whole life changing and some immediate possibilities being abruptly cut off and my grief around that. I am still blissfully and immensely happy in a way that is unusual for me. Scared too; terrified, often, that we won't be good parents or I'll eat some bad thing that causes a huge birth defect. And yes, grief and sadness and a little bit of feeling trapped now and then; nothing major except to recognize what a huge shift this is and that it's not just an inevitable ramp into joy.

Going back to work today was hard though. In my mind I have moved on. In reality I need to work to the due date. :) Although things as usual are unstable there and by Friday we should hear if layoffs are likely.

Shandra

So, err. Yeah!

2003-07-28T19:48:59Z

Oh I think I've forgotten to mention here that *eee* we're having a baby! Due March 17. So it's early and we're nervous about that, but for once everything is going ok with the pregnancy.

It's a sharp right turn on the road but you know what? I'm still kind of blissed out on it.

Shandra

I guess I ought to update :)

2003-07-07T18:31:29Z

I hope people who are interested have been following my regular life in my diary-x but since I've been on a commenting spree lately I thought I had better do a fast LJ update. :)

So let's see. I love being a writer/editor at my job; the sad thing is our company may yet run out of money. If it does I will write full-time at home until Carl and us run out of money, and then work something out (well; a few months before I would hope!:)). It's kind of neat to be in a career and not plotting random job changes and that frees up a lot of energy.

Which is good because as a system we have a lot happening. Lynn is taking guitar lessons and doing pretty darn well, although being a beginner is frustrating her sometimes. Carl and I went on a yuppie toy spending spree and we have a canoe and a motorcycle, both of which provide even more ways to spend our leisure time. The gym is going really well; I haven't completely renovated my body but it's getting stronger (slowly) and I dropped a dress size and it's all within non-obsessive boundaries. So that's been really good too.

Writing is not going that well but starting tomorrow we're spending an hour in the coffee shop near work in the morning to dedicate to it and that will hopefully help.

The kinderlynn, the weird little abused Lynn kids, have started to talk about their experiences which is Grand Progress but contributes a lot to feeling tired and overwhelmed at times. Still it is kind of a last frontier kind of feeling; I think we are moving towards being finished with the worst of the trauma-related revelations, although what comes next is kind of a mystery.

Another multiple system we met online came up in March and some of us, notably Magdalynn and Lyria, rocked the marital boat. I can't say fell in love because that was already in progress and because various of us falling in love is not new; we fall in love regularly. But they were cuddly and a bit more in the flesh (clothed, for those of you with your minds in the gutter:)) and it has brought our multiplicity to a head both within the sytem and with Carl. I would be lying if I said this had made life any /easier/ but it has made it extremely rich and full and complex. Today I have finally conceded and joined the polyamory community on LJ rather than lurking and commenting randomly alone.

Carl was pretty upset when he was first told about it (I told him almost right away) and we all are still adjusting to the reality of the situation which is that Carl is still pretty clear that he doesn't want to share our body with others, and some people in the system are connected enough to the real world that they are not content to be confined to feeling love without expressing it in some physical form.

And they are clear that they are not married because they didn't agree to it. Which raises some very exciting ethical issues; exciting, that is, if it's not one's own actual life. Which it is mine. Such as: is a contract formed by any member of the system binding on all? And if not does that mean we have no hope to be responsible adults? Stay tuned for the exciting conclusion. Sigh.

I am being a little tongue in cheek about it but for me it's hard. I can't control what people in my system feel or even do. And normal people, that is to say, people with the usual ratio of souls to body, just can't understand it. It looks like indecision or infidelity or sloth. There is an impulse in me to take it that way too and try to beat out the undesireable people in our system that don't behave when I really thought we were past that phase. But it makes me feel as though we are perhaps untrustable, etc. etc. All that smarmy stuff.

Except... I was around at the time, and I know that people stopped themselves because they are moral agents who recognized that much was at stake and because they are sane and rational, perhaps more so than many so-called normal people. And their having done that makes me even more responsible for not blowing their feelings off.

I'm overly lucky in my life to share it with so many cool people, in and out of the system.

So that's the grand update I think, in true UTS "so here's what's been bothering me for the last 6 months" style; a style perfected by my friends who tend to drop letters from France explaining why they changed their whole lives around 3 months ago.

Shandra

hee hee hee

2002-12-23T18:37:21Z

I just remembered I can post here since Carl doesn't read it. Whee. I've been dying to get this off my chest all day.

I haven't been in the world of ultra psycho fandom for a long, long time. But in high school I used to hang out with some friends at the Silver Snail (comic books, games, & related merch.) And during that time I never had any money of course and just had to sit and drool at the real psycho fan merchandise. As stupid and silly as it was.

So, I married a fellow fan-geek type, although I didn't realize how much of one he was (since we don't game or tape tv shows or go to cons or anything together; I guess neither of us qualifies anymore except for our general bent towards things.) Until this whole LoTR stuff started and I found to my surprise that although he gave up all his LoTR stuff when he became a monk, I was living with a big time Tolkien fan.

And, I got to go to the Silver Snail and reserve and pick up just today an absurdly expensive, useless, I am sure horribly balanced and utterly a travesty in every way Sting, the sword of Bilbo Baggins and I feel like I won the lottery and I should prance up and down Queen St. waving it.

Heee.

Shandra

shandra @ 2002-12-18T17:28:00

2002-12-18T22:37:59Z

As usual it's past time for an update. Whee.

Things settled down at work finally somewhat. I love my new job. I still have residual guilt over my old job and my replacement is settling in very well... so that makes me feel a little incompetent, when I bother to notice. Mostly I don't because I'm busy noticing how we're doing as editors.

I have rediscovered that Teresa knows a ton more about writing than I do. What a wench. :)

December is its own unique rocky road that we are navigating as best we can. I hate trauma shit. I hate to admit that I was ever at all affected by anything that may or may not have happened to us. But - months like this remind me that I don't always get what I want. :) Some of my crew (our crew, our crew) is all bugfuck about this being the time of year they used to go fuck relatives and some are all hoping Santa Claus will come down the chimney when they're AWAKE. Heh. The rest of us fall mainly in the middle with various coping mechanisms to keep the noise to a dull roar.

Mine seem to centre around sex, rock and roll, the occasional scotch, and getting nostalgic for PernMUSH of all the bizarre things (addictions past present and future perhaps; NC being firmly in the 'past' category). Other people's involve eclairs and chips. I have decided to deal with it in January - not the healthiest way to do things but hey.

Carl had knee surgery (minor) and it looks like he can avoid major surgery but has to wear a brace. That and the loss of one of the leaders of our organization at work have reminded me that time and life can be short. Watching Carl lying on a hospital bed coming out of anasthesia sort of made me think of how it may be that we spent more and more time with each other in hospital as we age and things, and that was both incredibly cosy and incredibly scary. But the together part is always amazing.

Many of my friends are in hard holiday places so much tinsel for you all to have glittering anyway.

Shandra

shandra @ 2002-11-14T15:14:00

2002-11-14T20:37:26Z

Well I guess it's about time to update over here too. :)

I'm liking being an editor, even if it's a very basic sort. The rest of it has been nuts.

It's not just time; it's the sheer number of things for which I'm responsible at once. In the last three weeks I have implemented a new ad banner server including migrating all the client info (without a snag ha) and started a new editorial job, in between doing my old job and then training my replacement.

It is interesting how editing really does ask questions other things do not, such as "am I squelching this author's voice if I remove this?" It's a totally different headspace. For me that's quite literal; I can make those decisions but I find them frustrating. Teresa, on the other hand, wields Word's editorial tools gracefully and manages to trim articles pretty niftily with (for her) surprisingly little second-guessing. So we're trading off a lot more. It makes me feel a little panicky; sort of like I'm disappearing.

All things considered I'm really, really happy with how things worked out. The experience itself even if it ended today has been such a huge boost - not just to be the editor but to make it through the transition from my old job.

The volunteering at the International Festival of Authors was a lot of fun and I want to do it all again next year. I met so many cool people - the handshake sort of meet - and had conversations with two authors that Teresa, I think, took to heart. Couldn't ask for more, really.

On the home front things are going - swell. *grin* I had to come up with a 1950s adjective because it's just so peaceful. Plus Lyria is making Christmas cookies every few days (freezing them for doling out later) and that makes it seem very domestic. We're off to Ottawa this weekend to introduce my dog to my sister's new puppy so they'll get along forever after. I'm not sure yet whether we'll see my niece & nephews. I need a break. We are talking to them every few days on the phone.

Carl's knee though is in bad shape - he tore the ACL and will probably have to have surgery. That sucks, plus it means no skating this winter. At least not together. And that's one of the nicest things about winter in Toronto; meeting downtown and skating and then getting some lattes. So that really sucks. The whole thing, of course, sucks, especially for him, but that's the piece that I'm focused on right now.

That's the news that's fit to print. Well. Something similar, vaguely.

Shandra

condolences

2002-10-24T13:28:16Z

On an email list I frequent, someone left the list a few weeks ago to concentrate on her new life and relationship, which was cool (although, being me, I didn't really see why it was such a binary - but it was for her). She had left what she described as an abusive marriage just a few months before and the new relationship happened really fast. And there were some indications that this wasn't an easy choice either - an anorexic partner with one suicide attempt under their belt in the last weeks before she left the list already.

So word trickles back to the list via someone who knows her in person that she's now having a rough time because her new partner is drinking a lot and doing things like trashing her apartment.

And people on the list offered their condolences. Well, I think that's nice and very human and understandable and hence I am posting my frustration here and not to the list and not to my more-trafficked journal. But for me I must say that condolences are what one offers to someone who is in a difficult situation not of their making, like someone died, or cancer struck, or illness, or layoffs, or something similar.

I know I should be more tolerant. I'm working on it. But boy you'll find me offering my hope that things work out (i.e. she gets a clue and leaves and *gasp* maybe lives on her own for a year) and my belief in her capacities but you won't find me offering condolences.

Shandra

Thanksgiving

2002-10-13T22:49:12Z

It's Canadian Thanksgiving this weekend, so right now I'm grateful to have a three day weekend. :)

Other random things I'm thankful for - Carl, awareness, time, the ground, the offer of my new job as an editor, words, good health and decent fitness, the kittens, the system (oddly enough), sunshine, Lake Ontario, Bearing Witness, friends both multiple and singletype, walks with the dog, our house, windex wipes, and gouda cheese.

I surprise myself these days being particularly grateful for living multiple. I wouldn't trade even the bitchiest or most fucked up of us in for anything at this point. I'm still deeply angry at some of our collective experience and I still resent having to share so much time with people, but it occurs to me that 85% of what I really love now wouldn't be in my life without them, because I would have made other choices. I might still enjoy those choices - but... who knows.

Shandra

shandra @ 2002-10-03T15:51:00

2002-10-03T20:17:23Z

Wow I should update here. :) Let's go wild with cut tags.

The bad news is that the senior editor was let go (she made a lot more than I will, plus I will be working 3 days editorial/2 days community, with a goodly amount of production thrown in for good measure). It's really rough on her; she's an amazing person and coworker too so that makes it harder. Although it's true that since we have little money for freelance her job has been boring. Boring for her, but an opportunity for me. Still, it's pretty stressful to be working across from the person I'm replacing until the end of the month.

That's what we decided, but there has been some stress as we try to stuff everyone's plans back into a regular working schedule. It was a really great idea to hire a housekeeper but I find myself feeling a little bit like I can't let someone into our crazy home to clean. I hope I'll get over it... after we use some of our money for a vacation this Christmas. I hope.

I have really waffled about whether it was a good decision or not. Financially it's a huge relief, and I sort of like still having the rhythm and routine to our days. But some days it has felt like a trap. That might be 'cause we're not actually doing any new work yet, through.

SARK was not able to come for dinner 'cause we're too far from the city centre, but we are her special guests on Saturday, whatever that means. We are at home today trying to get Lyr's book really finished, although it hasn't gone that well. We'll see if it happens. If not we'll give her some jam instead, which she might appreciate more, and send her a copy later.

We are really lousy at finishing books though and I think this needs to be addressed. Although I'll admit that on the original plan we'd have had our last day Monday and would have been a lot more motivated to be working on it.

I started aerobics on Monday and was supposed to start yoga on Tuesday but I was distracted by my aunt's visit. I'll start next week instead. It is wonderful. I want to add at least one more class/commitment into the week but I may wait for the fall term and just keep up with the lackadaisical swimming 'til then.

Over the last two years I've been more or less peripherally involved in the Dark Personalities community, and dropping in to read a few other ones, keeping up on other multiples' sites and journals and things. I do like meeting other multiples; there are a number of things that you can share with them that singletypes just plain don't get. And it's very affirming and helpful to do that.

At the same time I am slowly coming to the conclusion that probably 80% of multiples are just really fucked up. I'm not saying that I'm not; many days I would have to include myself in that. But I am in therapy and holding down a full time job and the system writes and we have a good marriage and a pleasant home. In other words, I'm multiple, but I have a life I'm enjoying. But a lot of the multiples I have met are really not functioning one way or another.

I'm a little discouraged, because a few multiples are agitating for coming out and presenting positive images of multiplicity and all that. And fundamentally I agree; multiples are around in all facets of life doing great things quietly, and it is hard to have to stand behind the "mooody/creative/spacey" label and not relate as real people. But at the same time when so many multiples I know are fucked up, I wonder if it's really a good thing to agitate for positive images. Because many of those multiples are putting it on society, when really it's an excuse to sit around on the net all day. In the frustrated words of one of my friends, "if you can email and IM all day there's a job for you out there."

So... I don't know. It's something to think about, though; do I want to pull back from hanging around with people that might be supporting each other in staying in patterns that mess up their lives, just because we have common experiences? I really can't say yet but it is on my mind.

Tonight is the Festival of Authors volunteer training, though, and boy am I looking forward to that! Not that the training will be exciting, but the people at the sign up session were interesting and they'll be there again. Yay.

Shandra

shandra @ 2002-09-17T07:49:00

2002-09-17T11:58:22Z

Quick career update 'cause I'm half dead this morning. :) I've had to lock about three entries in my diary-x about work because I'm a little concerned about someone getting bad news in it about their job. Hemmed and hawed about this journal and decided to mention just generally that we were offered a full time position with a goodly portion of writing and editing in it due to a staff shuffle about to occur somewhere, with what ended up to be a $7k salary increase over what we make now in it.

It took a lot of thought and some system negotiation but we decided to back down from the full time writing plan and take the job, mostly because it has professional editorial experience in it and because we can always leave. I think this job will be infinitely less stressful than what we've been doing, which should free up some energy.

Both heartbreaking and exciting, that decision. As a part of negotiating the change we also agreed to reprioritize - us doing fewer chores, more writing at home kind of thing - so it's not a full stop, but definitely a 'slow down.' One interesting thing I found out about myself is that it is so hard to believe in a future. One friend said "you will still have your writing in two years." And that was so true, but hard to believe.

So we stay in the marketing position until mid to late Oct (they discovered they weren't ready for us to go) and then off to new things in Nov.

shandra @ 2002-09-08T22:51:00

2002-09-09T03:02:17Z

It's been a pretty up and down weekend. Mostly up.

Friday night was down - dinner with my parents was slightly tortured, esp. as Carl had to work. But I survived okay. :)

Yesterday was very up. I got two nice shifts volunteering at the International Festival of Authors, one front of house and one a coveted hospitality spot. It's not one of the big headliner days, so I don't know what the chances are that Nick Bantock or Umberto Eco or Joyce Carol Oates (pleasepleaseplease hee:)) will stop in for drink/food/info/whatever all goes on in the hospitality suites. But I'm still excited and, yes, glad that I got off my ass and did it.

It was amusing when they emphasized that anyone who mentions anything to any author about their own manuscript, idea, publishing efforts, etc. etc. ad nauseum, will be Banned Forever from the IFOA should they be caught. Message understood, not that anyone in our system would actually be that rude.

No, the fact is I want to hear the gossip, not say anything. Snort.

Today has been pretty sleepy - hot, and Lyr needed to work on her book. She and Carl went out to a coffee shop, finally, so she could concentrate and also as an excuse to go drink chai tea (Lyr) and a latte (Carl). But we got some hopeful news that maybe SARK will take Lyr up on her dinner invitation in early Oct. That would be cool, because I would love to feed every neat-o author dinner.

Lyr also thinks SARK needs a copy of her book. Not to flog it, oh no. Because SARK needs it. I think as long as that's made clear it ought to be ok. But some jam had better accompany it. :)

As for Lyr's book, well. I don't know. It's going to be a little tight, because it sounds very fucking much like Lyr, which means that it needs some serious rearranging and editing to make sense. But, I suppose I have to presume that the people reading it will partly be reading it for its charm and not its organization. It's a book on food, really, and treating your body well even if you were not raised in a way that modelled anything like that for you.

I confess I think of it as the baby book; the little unserious fun thing we do while the Real Writing is sucking. But for Lyr it's her main thing and shit if she hasn't managed to quietly pretty much finish it while the Real Writing has languished. So. To the actual writer goes the manuscript.

After that we watching Chasing Amy for, I confess, the first time. Yes; somehow we missed it. Bad us. I'm glad we corrected it. It was as promised and we laughed quite a bit and sighed quite a bit and said 'you go girl' at all the not-being-embarassed-by-sexual-past bits, although I think Lyr kept poking Carl at all the homophobic bits. Err yeah. :)

Shandra

mnnn

2002-09-02T23:40:55Z

Okay, I know it's stupid and even a bit strange but I really, really like having a totally clean kitchen, like new aluminum foil under the burners and all the jars polished up. That happened 'cause I was sorting out some things (I found a pile of Carl's old love letters to me/us from Italy hee) and my mother called, and she wanted to talk and talk and talk so rather than being between "stuff that brings back memories" and her I followed the phone cord around into the kitchen and got going. Then I sat in the middle of it and admired the gleam.

Carl put the siding up on the back entrance/shed and it looks fabulous. Wow. Amazing. Of course as I teased him, it only breeds more house repair projects like fixing up the inside of it and adding a light and things.

September always seems like the real new year; I suppose it's the last vestiges of the academic calendar in my brain. This year is definitely a time of change as I hand in my resignation tomorrow. I also as a whole part of the "creative discipline" routine am planning to set up a real exercise program. Swimming will be key, since Carl's MRI for his knee isn't until October (welcome to Canada) and so it looks like no high impact stuff right through into winter. So much for our tennis dates, but swimming will do, especially as I then want to re-cert all my lifeguard stuff.

The cookbook is coming along nicely. I really should call it a food book though. It's so weird that's what's finishing off first.

I also spent some time scanning pictures - it was scary. They're up at my regular oft-linked-to journal at diary-x.

Eek dinner!

shandra @ 2002-08-28T14:12:00

2002-08-28T19:16:10Z

It's kind of a glorious day.Yesterday's 8th anniversary passed with minor, but deeply joyful celebration between Carl and I; this Friday we will have major celebrating. It does make me realize I have pushed and shoved my way into this marriage where other people (like Lyr) have receded a little bit. Teresa and JJ still are very much into it as are the kids. But it seems like this anniversary it was a lot about me and Carl.

And not at all about Carl and Lynn (any of them, except maybe a couple of the kinderlynn) and that sort of makes me solemn. Not sad, so much; it is theirs to work out, or not, but it certainly makes me wish for the joy I get out of our marriage to be equally shared by all.

This morning the anniversary continued with rolling about in the marital hay and so I was late, but no one really cared. It's the last days of summer and people are breathing; in preparation for the fall which is insane at work. I feel alternately annoyed and nostalgic at work these days. I think I'm carefully balanced between seeing clearly why I'm leaving and seeing clearly why I stayed. It is about time to go, but it is also nice to be just appreciating the people, frankly, and the last sort of vestiges of my enthusiasm for internet communities. I still think communities of interest and affinity are really neat and great to be a part of; I am a little burnt out on facilitating communities attached to advertising revenues and dot-com soap bubbles. And I think people should be outside enjoying the sunshine.

Which there is a lot of today; it's windy and there's that crispness to the air that in Toronto says: fin d'ete. I took the time to go down to the farmer's market at city hall on my lunch break and it was full of all sorts of people all contemplating plums and waiting for free Ben and Jerry's ice cream.

We have been making a lot of jam (last weekend we made plum, peach, and blueberry - full chronicles in my more regular, less interactive journal) so I bought some apples for apple jelly and apple butter. I admit to being a kind of productivity junkie and there's something hugely satisfying about home made jam. Jam-making started as a Lyria thing and now it's a me and Lyria thing. Lyria, of course, infuses all the jams with love and respect for the earth. I personally just like the rhythm of washing and chopping and the intrigue of whether the jars will seal or not. :)

I am realizing that as I step out of work I will be giving up a lot of space in my life that may or may not be filled by other people in the system and that is a little scary. Will I stop existing again? If I do will I come back angry and bitchy as I have been wont to be when my life is falling apart? But somehow I think the answer is no, at least to the first.

I try not to make decisions out of the fear but it is good to acknowledge it. Strong, empowered multiples are not, I think, supposed to worry about whether they exist or not; they're supposed to be sure they exist at all times (sometimes I think the multiple cry should be "we're here, we're usually here anyway, we deal with it"). But I'm not totally sure.

If things get too calm and artsy, maybe I'll disappear.

Naw.

Shandra

creating dreams

2002-08-19T20:28:00Z

Most specifically, the system's.

I like working. I don't always like a particular job, but I like the schedule, the social aspects, the sense of accomplishment, and the economic power of a paycheque. In the past when I've pictured my life it has always included a job in the 9-5 sense.

Today I told my ex-boss, the person who hired me for my original job, that I am turning in my resignation after labour day. I told her today because she started to make plans involving me, because I couldn't keep it in any longer, because a long time ago I promised to give her warning, and because something just snapped.

So this really started the process of resigning. Which means trying to make the dreams of other people in my system come true, for a non 9-to-5 job of writing what they want to and sending it out in the world. We have freelanced before, so it's not an entirely entirely new thing but...

... that was before anything made sense. That was back when I might as well do whatever 'cause I could only ever make sense of about 4 hours of my day anyway (I never had any real idea that time was in any way linear). So it was easy to ignore.

As soon as I told her panic set in: a rich deep kind of panic. There's economic panic, although that's easy enough to talk myself out of: that is what we prepared for, although not half so well as we might have of course. No, it's the sheer emotional panic of not knowing what will happen. Who will I be, without a job? I know the writers are both terrified and happy but at least they have something to do.

Eek! I'll have to find something.

Shandra

what I did on my summer holiday

2002-08-12T19:11:57Z

This having two journals is getting complicated. First I guess here is the real long one.

The summary is that the family part of the vacation was hugely stressful because my sister in law is dating and bringing into her kids lives a pretty likely to be bad man.

But what I want to talk about now are the good times so without further ado...

It may sound insane but Carl and I had never been on a real vacation together - we have always put our holiday dollars against family events (weddings, funerals, baptisms) and our time and money into home renovations. When we were married we ended up with $150 in the bank so that was not a good time for a honeymoon. :)

So it was a novelty to set off for one together. The events leading up to it were pretty stressful - Magdalynn integrated a little bit, which takes it out of you, and then our screaming cleaning girl was just absolutely frenzied that you cannot have any mess or dirt in your house before you go. Finally I had to just go sit in the car for the last 5 minutes to keep her from having the 105th freak out of the hour.

And after being on the road for an hour it was just a completely new and refreshing universe. Carl and I are still somewhat indulgent with each other; when we fall off the financial wagon it's nearly always in buying shit for the other person and so we started with Tim Hortons iced cappucinos. We sinfully went off and drove through the window and got a large each.

Yum.

After 4 hrs of driving we pulled into my sister's immaculate driveway of her immense home with indoor swimming pool and for the first time I had no pang of jealousy. I am not her and my home is different. That's all. And she was very relaxed and her husband was pretty happy with having received his first patent and so we had a really nice barbeque dinner together with great conversation and stayed up quite late just catching up. Then we went to bed and since the bedrooms are so far apart and Carl and I were on this high of goodwill we fucked each other silly, if silently (more or less) in the guest bed. Strike one for etiquette.

Saturday we drove around with my sister and her husband while they shopped 'cause I have a Costco card and she doesn't and this led to all sorts of comparison shopping. Normally I hate shopping at big-box retail but for this one morning it was just fun and we ended up at Denny's (there are none in Toronto) and indulged in really high fat meals and I had some bacon. Thus endeth Lyria's vegetarianism in some ways because as the week went on we just ate more and more meat. She didn't but the rest of us have, I think, decided that she can _largely_ be vegetarian but we are carnivourous.

All during that day I just got more and more appreciative of how necessary it is to vacate, that is to get away from the daily sort of "should I relax, or go weed the garden" questions and get down to stuff like "will I have cream or milk" as the top most important decisions of the day.

It was good 'cause on Saturday once we got to the cottage we were sharing for the night it got hugely gross and stressful. But on Sunday...

Carl and I got to our own cottage which we had had to hastily book after much family stress and it was gorgeous with a lake 5 feet off the back and big windows and a brand spanking new everything - hardword floors, kitchen, bathroom. No dirt whatsoever. Flower garden off the deck at the side.

For some reason that made the final space we needed just to be ourselves, and we were. And I like us.

We did have some family staying with us through Wednesday but after that whenever we were at our place we were ten times worse than honeymooners, feeding each other and all kinds of goggly-eyed shit and it was great. Beautiful. Romantic. Bonding. It was also very grounding and it is so easy, now, to self-define as a writer seriously and be ready to really leave the job in 7 weeks.

So, here I am and I feel about 22, starry eyed with hope and wonder, and at the same time I have all the weight of these 9 years (to bring it up to 31:)) behind me so I know it's all very rich and real. It is sort of ridiculous that I can't keep from feeling up my husband of 8 years but I don't care. Let it be ridiculous!

Anyways, so now I'm trying to be productive but mostly just transitioning, feeling around for how to keep the peace with me _and_ care about marketing.

Shandra

shandra @ 2002-07-29T16:33:00

2002-07-29T20:59:35Z

I'm still working on the whole comments/LJ cut tag thing. Maybe this is because my fuller journal is at diary-x, where I don't even have a guestbook & so I can't get used to the idea. I do like being able to comment & read comments, it's fun. I just can't seem to remember to go back to them and see what happened next. :)

This weekend was quite up and down. We're packing for the cottage we rented for next week, which is a lot of fun. Carl and I have decided to go pretty simple on the food - so bean salads, bread, cheese, and whichever produce is in season when we get there are figuring prominently. We did however decide not to leave ourselves to the mercy of the local wine store there and laid in a few bottles. It was also my dad's birthday so we took him to Remezzo's, which did us proud. Other than that it's the clean before we go drill.

Our green bell peppers and jalapenos produced lots, as well as a few cherry tomatoes, which was really nice. Gardening is such an unexpected pleasure in my life. The only downside is that our lavendar is not having a good year.

I'm grateful to have World Youth Day over with. The Catholic joy atmosphere (hymns on subways and youth going around being _both_ religious _and_ err, youthful) was starting to wear and tear on us. Religion in the system is one of the most contentious areas, right up there with sexuality, and so our resident Catholic, Teresa, was all misty eyed and spiritually connected, while Lynn, who hates God, doesn't mind Jesus, and intensely and savagely despises Mary, was having a rough time. Lyria was high on astral energy, and I was just vaguely pissed off and contemplating running away with some nice quiet Buddhists.

Carl, who is a former religious, listened to us all. He did watch all of the vespers service and the mass on TV, which makes me think in this area he probably is more on Teresa's wavelength than mine. Hey works for me. It'll be interesting to see if he ends up wanting to get back into churchy things, which he hasn't been into for a few years now.

Shandra