Busy week
I have spent most of the last two days shipping packages. This is good because it means people have been buying our merchandise. However it means that I’ve fallen behind on almost everything else. Perhaps tomorrow I can catch up.
Month: September 2011
Notes on Having Dental Work Done
It helps to have a personable dentist who is willing to explain alarming noises and devices.
That shot of Novocaine may also contain epinephrin. This can trigger an increased heart rate and tremors, which feel quite like the beginning stages of an anxiety/panic attack. That part was not useful or helpful when I was attempting to relax. The numbing was critical though.
The fact that they are miniature does not make me less nervous about the power tools in my mouth.
There is a special light which is used to make fillings set. It shone blue and sounded like a hair dryer.
They can make a piece to fit into a tooth in mere minutes. Then they fit it into the hole they carved out.
Expect to find bits left in the mouth after returning home.
Ibuprofen is my friend, but the post-dental-work ache is much better than the intermittent stabbing pain of decaying tooth.
Hopefully tomorrow my chewing will be back to normal.
Picking up the Pieces
Here at Chez Tayler life shifts rhythm pretty often. We have the over lapping cycles of school and summer; book preparation and book release; and convention preparations and clean up. These various cycles interact with each other and wreak havoc on my attempts to create helpful life patterns. When our lives shift problems are both created and solved. Sometimes good things get dropped from the schedule and I’m left wondering how we fell out of the habit of family dinner, family home evening, or regular reading. It is normal for good things to accidentally get dropped from the schedule. This is because creating an ideal schedule is impossible to achieve. All I can do is cobble together the best possible schedule for whatever mix of circumstances in which we currently reside. That, and I promise myself to pick up those important pieces and put them back as soon as I possibly can.
We’ve finally reached a point where most of our over-lapping life cycles are in a lull phase. I’m also leaning on the cycles to try to slow them down (or speed them up) and keep things that way for awhile. It is finally time for me to look around and figure out which important pieces need to fit back into the schedule. As usual I have some shiny new pieces that I also want to make fit. On Sunday we had a proper Sunday dinner for the first time in months. This included requiring kids to help cook the meal. On Monday we had family home evening which included a lesson and an activity. The kid chore charts are gathering dust, but the homework board is working well for the younger two. I haven’t been out to do any of the gardening projects I have planned, but the lawn is getting mowed weekly. I haven’t written anything other than blog entries for months, but I did open up my file of agents and begin prepping some queries. I have all these important pieces and some of them don’t fit yet. Shuffling things to make them fit will make some other piece fall out.
Howard came home yesterday. He left when we were barely two weeks into the new school year. Then he was gone for 10 days while we all tried to settle in to a rhythm. Now he is back and things are shifting again. Many business thoughts were on hiatus while he was gone. I have to find space for them again. However having him home is a weight lifted from my shoulders. There is an Us again instead of just me. It makes everything different, even the things which are still my job. Us is stronger than Me.
I just wish I wasn’t stubbing my toes on all these pieces scattered on the floor. At least I can fit in the piece that is this blog entry. I began composing it around 2, but had to hold it in my head until I had time to sit down and write around 10. I’m pretty sure I lost some pieces in the interim. Oh well.
Toddlers in Tiaras and Parenting
In between all the cleaning I did yesterday, I watched some episodes of Toddlers in Tiaras a documentary/reality show that was filmed for TLC about child beauty pageants. Documentary film interests me not only for the stated subject matter of the show, but also because of the semi-invisible hand of the film crews and the editor. Sometimes the film crews blatantly bait people to do things which show them in a bad light. That didn’t seem to be the case with Toddlers and Tiaras. The film crews attempted to record rather than provoke. This strategy seemed wise since there was plenty of provocative material to go around. Parents were shown coaching, cajoling, and coercing their children into extensive beauty preparations and stage routines. Some of the children really did seem cheerful and happy about the experience. Other times it was obviously the passion of the parent driving all the effort. The children were obviously trying to please and the parents were living out a dream through the child.
I have philosophical issues with the idea of child beauty pageants. I have issues with young children under the age of twelve in any sort of high pressure competition, but even more so with one that teaches young girls that beauty is in paint and hairpieces. My distaste would have led me to turn off the show quickly except that I was fascinated by the psychology on display. These families spent thousands of dollars setting up their kids for pageant appearances, when most of the prizes were much smaller. Some pageants had no cash prizes at all, just crowns. So I watched, trying to figure out where the rewards were that made up for all the costs in time, effort, and money. The only one I could consistently see was the same sorts of parental pride I see at your average playground when a mom watches her son dribble better than his peers.
As I watched, I began to be subtly disturbed, not by the priorities on display, but by the similarities I could see to things that I have done. I watched a mother talk her daughter into doing another pageant by counting her Eighty-seven crowns. Another mother used implications of shame to get her son to practice walking and looking at the judges. A third mother told her daughter that sometimes pain is necessary to be beautiful. I’ve never tried to deliver those particular messages, but I’ve had moments that were shaped exactly the same when I needed to talk a child into going to school, to get a vaccination, or to clean up after herself. I’ve used the same sorts of words, body language, and facial expressions. These pageant parents love their children and honestly believe that they are doing something good. From where I stand it looks like most of them are instead being driven by some internal need which is other than the good of the child. Then I must wonder and pay attention to my own choices, knowing that some of my choices will look values-skewed to someone viewing them from outside. It is my responsibility to double check myself, and make sure that the paths I am leading myself and my child along are good ones.
Predictably, this is television after all, the parents get more demanding as the series goes along. This is in part because the show moves to the higher-prize, higher-pressure pageants. I suspect it is also due to editing choices. The show sets out to expose a subculture, not to explain it. There is no second season, I suspect after the first one no one else would consent to be filmed.
I Think I Need a Cookie to go with This Milk
It began with the pencil drawer. Through attrition it had turned into a “why can I never find a pencil in this” drawer. So I dumped the thing out and sorted it. Then the drawer was lovely and neat, but the kitchen counter had piles of all the things I had taken out of it. As I took the piles to various locations in the house, I discovered that the reason all the junk had ended up in the drawer was because the places they belonged were also messy. Before I was done I helped organize both kids rooms, sorted the linen closet, vacuumed four rooms, helped my boys trade bunks, tightened all the bolts on the bunks so they wouldn’t wobble, did dishes, wiped counters, de-junked cubbies, and put away games. And just like the mouse in that book* I also took a nap in the middle, because I got really tired. At the end of the day the house looked much nicer than at the start, and I was still full of restless energy. Hopefully tomorrow I can rest.
*The book is If You Give a Mouse a Cookie and if you haven’t read it, the title of this post will not make sense.
Multiple Choice Parenting
1. Gleek lays on the couch with tears in the corners of her eyes. “I don’t want to go to New School anymore. I want to go back to Old School!”
- A. I feel guilty and worried about what I have done to her, and wonder if I have made the right choice.
B. I quiz her about what is wrong with New School so that I can offer reasonable counter arguments and examples.
C. I remind her of the reasons we felt like this shift was the right thing to do.
D. I suppress any sympathy I may feel and simply order her to get ready.
E. I listen to her feelings and validate them while trying to find rewards which will cajole her toward attending school.
2. Kiki has to sort out a relationship with a friend at school which suddenly became much more emotionally complicated and tangled.
- A. Listen to her feelings and then offer advice.
B. Listen to her feelings and then keep my advice to myself because she needs to sort this out for herself.
C. Tell her she is borrowing trouble or making a big deal out of nothing.
D. Tell her how to solve the problem and then make her do it instead of wallowing in indecision.
3. Patch comes down to Writer’s Group coughing and lolls on the floor like a limp fish after he has already been tucked into bed twice.
- A. Scowl at him and order him back to bed.
B. Get up and get him some cough medicine then walk him back to bed.
C. Recognize that the real issue is not the cough, but some emotional need. Excuse myself from Writer’s Group and spend 20 minutes wearing my psychologist hat to sort it out.
D. Ask Link to help him so that I can focus on the critique I am supposed to be giving.
4. Link decides that he wants to go to the store and spend his own money on a game. He wants to go right now and when asking me produces a “not right now” answer, proceeds to hover where he can see me change activities. This way he can ambush me with “Can we go now?” every time I walk past.
- A. Continue to answer “not right now” because he keeps interrupting my thought processes at moments when I can’t think through what would be a good time to go.
B. Sit down to explain that a trip to the store rearranges my already-tight afternoon schedule. Then have to witness his sadness and disappointment.
C. Take time to schedule exactly when we can go. Then witness his disappointment when the answer is to go some other day.
D. Tell him to stop it, because he is being annoying.
E. Sigh and say “fine” then take him to the store.
Answers:
Any of the above answers can be right for any of the above questions depending upon context, fatigue levels, ancillary circumstances, and the number of people nearby to observe the interaction.
What? You thought parenting had clear answers? Not in my experience.
Up Keep
I went to the dentist today for the first time in *mumble* years. I’m not trying to be coy about how long. I honestly don’t remember. It was probably about the time that our dental insurance ceased to exist and that was at least six years ago. I am fortunate to have pretty good teeth. Howard has super teeth. Our kids haven’t complained about their teeth, so we’ve kept going without maintenance visits. The thing is, I know that skipping maintenance increases our risk of emergency. I also know that there are incentives present for dentists to recommend more work than actually needs to be done. I still believed that dental check ups have value, even though we haven’t been doing them. Howard went to the dentist right before WorldCon. His major issues were to whiten or not to whiten. I went today and I’ll get to go again in two weeks because two of my teeth have holes that need plugged. After that, I’m going to take a deep breath and take my kids one by one. Once we’ve managed those bills, the dentist tells me that attention needs to be paid to the 30 year old fillings in my mouth. It is time to pay attention to maintenance again.
Our deck and redwood play set are almost bare wood these days. All of the stain has faded, peeled away, or been scraped off by paper wasps. This is not a new problem. We’ve watched it happen slowly over the course of years. Every summer someone will say “We really need to re-stain the deck and play set.” Unfortunately our summers are notoriously busy and no one took any steps beyond saying the words. I have decided that before September is through I will rent a pressure washer and a paint sprayer. I will perform this small maintenance task which will make us feel better about our back garden and which will defend our structures from the elements.
Our roof has begun shedding. After rain storms we can find a scattering of roof gravel on our driveway. Sometimes there are also pieces of shingle. The roof has held up well since the house was constructed, but it is showing age. I need to call and get an estimate on a new roof.
Things require up keep or they will fall apart. During the Novell years we were on the dot with all sorts of up keep. It was easy because the money was available. Then money was less available and we coasted along only managing maintenance issues when they reach crisis level. I am trying to push that back so that we’re keeping things up when they’re only urgent. Perhaps after that we can venture into the realm of just keeping things up because they need done. All of this maintenance will have to be done carefully and balanced against our budget. Our money is not plentiful, but it is time for me to stop living in crisis mode. I just wish that up keep wasn’t so expensive.
I Fear the Day When Internet Drama Lands in My Lap
Most days I come to my office and quietly browse through my regular rounds of internet stops. I check email. I post to twitter or Google+. Often I write a blog entry. I’ve built a nice little space on the internet which I inhabit and from which I can venture and sample the other things that are available. But I have a creeping fear that some morning I will come to my computer and discover that someone with a soapbox has decided to stand me on it. This will happen without my permission and in my absence. Soapbox Owner will either stand me there to pelt me with abuse or to demand explanations from me. Sometimes Soapbox Owner’s tone is reasonable and discussion oriented, other times abusive. Either way, I’ll find myself on the box, expected to speak, instead of beginning my work day settling in. Most likely I’ll be dragged to the soapbox for something I am, rather than an opinion I stated. I am blonde and wear braids (Soapbox Owner saw a picture of it on my blog) so I must explain why this is the one right way for blonde people to wear their hair or, alternately, to explain how I dare to wear braids when such things should be reserved for those with red hair. The fans of Soapbox Owner will yammer at me like a pack of dogs, also demanding answers. I must explain my blonde-ness and my braid-y-ness right away. In the tumult I know that if I give the wrong answer they will attempt to rip me to shreds. If I don’t answer that too will be taken as an answer, and the rending will continue on schedule. Either way, my entire day and possibly my week (month? year? some soapboxes are huge) has been derailed. Instead of doing the things I deem important, I have to figure out how to extract myself from internet drama.
This has not happened to me yet. It may never happen to me. I hope it doesn’t, but I have friends who have been through it. It is one of the risks of having a portion of my life take place on the internet. I am more afraid of this than the drive-by hateful comments or emails. Fortunately at my current level of internet exposure, this is extremely unlikely to happen to me. But I hope to be a commercially published author some day. I will become more visible, a more attractive target. It is one of the costs that I must weigh when choosing the path to pursue.
Edited to add: Thanks to Heidi in the comments I have some additional thoughts on this topic.
Once I was at a large party which had broken into smaller groups. I was telling an anecdote to three people, when the larger group had one of those conversational lulls. My voice ran out clear in the silence and everyone turned to look at me. Suddenly I had an audience of twenty instead of three. My stomach clenched. This anecdote was three-person-amusing not twenty-person-funny. I continued on through, because the alternative was to die of embarrassment. Sure enough the anecdote fell flat and the party moved onward. Everyone there is still my friend, and all is good. But that moment when everyone turned to look to me is seared in my memory because I was unprepared. My fear of internet drama is exactly that fear. If/when it happens to me, I will do as I did at the party. I will speak the words I have, knowing they might not be good enough, because that is all I can do.
I also realized that if the actual soapbox issue at hand were hair braids, it would not fill me with fear. I am firmly and calmly in the camp that anyone who wants braids can have them. Having people disagree with that will cause me uneasiness, because I don’t like conflict, but it will not rock my world. Much harder is when the issue hits one of my many pockets of self-doubt. Then I have to speak up even though I’m not sure I’m right. Terrifying. Also I will then spend the next several weeks stewing over the issue even when I have more urgent and important matters to address. (Me coming back to edit this entry could not possibly be an example of stewing. Nope. Not at all.) I am afraid of the soapbox when I am not sure I have the right answer, even though I know that sometimes saying “I haven’t got a good answer.” can itself be the right answer.
Lastly: Soapboxes are important. It is critical that people who own soapboxes are willing to stand on them and draw attention to issues which matter. I have some soapboxes of my own. Mostly they are dusty because of my dislike of conflict. I still have them because the time may come when I have to stand on one and shout. There are times and issues for which confrontational tactics, like standing someone on your soapbox, are necessary. I understand this. I still hope it doesn’t happen to me.
Traditional Roles for Women
I’ve been thinking about the traditional roles women take. It is a familiar train of thought. This new round of consideration was triggered by a book and a show, but quickly drew me to re-examine other books and shows which address the same topic.
I saw a Netflix ad for Mad Men, which is a tv show about advertising executives in 1960’s era New York City. I watched some episodes. They were a beautifully rendered and stylish portrait of how traditional roles, when combined with selfishness, can make everyone miserable. The show may go other places in the remainder of it’s seasons, but I doubt it. In contrast is the movie The Prize Winner of Defiance Ohio, where a woman embraces her traditional roles and turns them into a source of power and joy despite the fact that her marriage is far from ideal. I never want her life, but admire her courage and grace in putting up with some things so that she could have others which mattered more to her. The movie Mona Lisa Smile addresses the question of women’s roles directly. Asking the characters and the audience to witness the various possible choices. In the book How to Be An American Housewife, the primary character’s Japanese background sheds new light on why relationships are formed, what formats they should take, and how traditions should be expressed. All of these stories take place at least in part, during the post-war era of the 50s and 60s. I guess that is the go-to era for examining “traditional roles,” probably because most of what became considered traditional was popularized and drummed into social memory by the advent of media advertising. Advertising tells everyone who they should be and what they should want. We all succumb to it at least somewhat.
I am fascinated by these shows and book, because I can endlessly compare aspects of my life to them. Where I mirror the choices of a character, I have to decide whether that makes me pathetic or noble. Am I giving myself away, negating myself for the benefit of others, or am I laying the necessary ground work for all of us to build something beautiful? When I step forward and chase one of my own dreams, am I being a positive role model or merely being selfish? I come up with different answers on different days. Largely my actions are not dictated by these ruminations. I make my choices based on logic and inspiration. However I believe that the ruminations inform my choices. No one should be forced into a life-path through ignorance of other options. I try to make my choices eyes open. I am trapped by the social nets in which I live, just like everyone else. I have obligations which I dislike. I can cut the offending sections of net, but I run the risk of weakening the whole unless I am also willing to make new connections in other places. These new connections may be just as limiting to me, but I chose them and that makes all the difference.
Rites of Passage
I’ve heard it bemoaned that American culture is lacking in rites of passage. I find this amusing as it seems like my oldest daughter, Kiki’s, life is currently made of mile markers. She turned 16 last May, which means she is now old enough to date. We’re working on driving practice so that she can get her driver’s license. Three days ago we put a cell phone in her hands and declared it to be hers. Since that time she has spent many hours texting her friends using this shiny new device. I watch with amusement, confident in our unlimited texting plan. With the phone, we gave her some rules and made sure that she knows phone ownership is a revokable privilege. She is still in the giddy/grateful stage. When things settle down I’ll know for sure whether she needs help balancing her device habits. Being around to help her develop good phone etiquette is one of the reasons we got her the phone now. One of the reasons we waited so long was to make sure that she could be responsible with small electronic devices. The biggest reason we decided to get her the phone was because we realized that she was missing out on some of the social interactions with her circle of friends because they were reluctant to contact her on the family line. So my teenage daughter has a phone.
Kiki also has a formal dress. Homecoming is next Saturday. She has not been officially asked to the dance, but The Boy has already discussed with her (via text on her shiny new phone) whether attending with a group would be okay and said that he has something to talk to her about on Tuesday. This prompted an urgent hunt for a suitable dress, “just in case.” We started at Savers and Decades, where we found two inexpensive second hand dresses which we can alter into amazing dresses. Then Kiki confessed that she really wanted to go look at brand new dresses. Dillard’s had a dress that we both spotted in the same instant and headed for. It is perfect. We bought it. I then informed her that for at least the next year, her formal dress options are limited to the ones already in her possession or to ones she can borrow. She came home happy.
Next Saturday I’ll get to send my beautiful daughter off on her first formal date.