Month: September 2013

Twenty Year Reunion

By / September 13, 2013

I did not go to my 20th high school reunion. We didn’t go to Howard’s either. In both cases travel was expensive and the timing was not good. Then there was the fact that I didn’t feel a deep emotional need to go. I was not needing to reconnect with my younger self because I was far too busy with my current life.

This evening I went to a twenty year reunion for a comedy troupe, the Garrens, that performed on my college campus during the first years of my married life. I don’t remember how it came about, but Howard ran sound for the troupe and Howard’s brother, Randy, was part of the group. Every Friday night we would pack up the sound gear and I would watch the shows while Howard worked his mixer. I got to be a reasonably good assistant with toting the gear, but for the most part I just stayed out of the way, present but not participating. I wasn’t a member of The Garrens, I was adjacent.

Upon arriving at the reunion, my first surprise was that anyone recognized me at all, but they did. My second task was to recognize the faces of people I sort-of used to know now that they have twenty years more experience written across their features. By the end of the evening the faces just looked like the people I knew and photographs started looking really young. A comedy troupe reunion is a true pleasure because everyone who spoke was funny. I laughed a lot. Yet more important than the laughter was the real love and connection between all of these friends. They were family for each other during those formative college years. Many of them have continued to visit and spend time together through all the time that followed. I got to witness all of that.

Naturally I spent some time thinking about myself and my life twenty years ago. This is the point of reunions really, a chance to connect past with present and to recognize the passage of that time and the accumulation of experience. So much has gone fuzzy. I know that we ran sound for show after show after show, but I remember little of the shows themselves. They blur together. I remember sometimes going out to eat or laughing with the troupe members, but at that point in my life I was not good at building friendships or making lasting connections. I lost track somehow.

When the evening ended, Howard and I walked out through the Wilkinson center, which was alive with college students in the midst of Friday night antics, just like it used to be when I went to college. We looked at each other and knew that we are now the old people, the ones who show up on campus for events and then go away again. I’m actually okay with that. Ten years ago, or even five, I felt a longing to be part of that college energy, when so much was beginning. Tonight we walked on past, glad to be where and who we are. College life sounds exhausting. I like the life we’ve built.

It occurs to me that many times in my life I am the one standing next to the main event. Howard was involved with musical groups and I got to tag along. Howard ran sound for The Garrens, I assisted. When Howard took up cartooning, I’ve gone along for that ride too. I am an instinctive facilitator. It is only in the past seven years or so that I’ve started building my own things instead of coasting in the wake of other people’s things. Twenty years ago no one in The Garrens knew how much that being in a comedy troupe would affect their lives. I wonder which of the many things I’m doing now will be the one that changes everything for Sandra of twenty years from now.

Accomodations for Link in High School

By / September 12, 2013 / 3 Comments

When Link was in first grade his teacher had a system. When kids needed to complete work at home, she had them put the work into their cubby. Each day the kids were to put the contents of their cubby into their backpack. Link was not very good at that last part. In fact he discovered that if he just left all his papers in his cubby, then Mom knew nothing about the papers. It was a great system, he’d not finish work at school, stick it into his cubby and then it ceased to exist as far as he was concerned. Life was great. Then one day his older sister decided to pick him up from class rather than meeting him at the car. She saw the cubby full of papers and the day of reckoning had begun. Mom made him complete all of the papers over the next week, AND she conspired with the teacher so that she could know every day if school work was completed at school. Link was cornered in a way that meant the easiest way out was to complete the assigned work. Suddenly he started working. We’d found the right solution and the road blocks to learning vanished.

I’m thinking about this today because I just met with Link’s history teacher and discovered that Link has a pile of incomplete work for that class. Writing assignments are never his favorite and this particular teacher talks a mile a minute, which is difficult for Link to follow. His instinctive reaction is to stop and try to wait it out. Fortunately at sixteen he is far more self-aware than he was at six. I’m able to make him a partner in the solutions, some of which sound a lot like “Yup, that’s tough. Deal with it.” The other solutions involve figuring out where in the teaching/learning process things are breaking down. Also I have to help the teacher understand that “Why didn’t you write anything on the quiz paper?” is actually quite a complex question which requires my son to introspect and then form thoughts into words. He wants to answer, but needs more than thirty seconds to figure out what that answer needs to be, because before she asked the question he hadn’t put any thought into the issue. Taking the quiz felt impossible and sorting is necessary to figure out why. Then maybe the next quiz will be possible.

Link’s teacher wanted to see his IEP paperwork and to know what accommodations are on it. I’m not really sure in detail. I’m confident that they are tailored to what was necessary in junior high, but will have to be revised for high school. I know they include his auditory processing disorder and his ADHD. I’m only now beginning to see what might need to be on the paperwork for high school. The teacher quite obviously felt at a loss without it. She wanted a check list “do this, this, and this, then you will have helped this student.” Only we’ve always used the IEP as a sort of fluid guideline and mostly worked with specific teachers to find solutions for individual classes. In one class he doesn’t need any help at all, in another we have to spend lots of time making things work. Most of the difference is in the relationship that Link has with the teacher. If Link feels relaxed and comfortable in a classroom, he doesn’t need help. When he gets stressed, he shuts down, stops working. Unfortunately I can’t put “don’t make him stressed” on the IEP paperwork. I can include “speak slowly,” “face him when you talk,” and “write down all his assignment instructions” Yet I know that even when these things are on the paperwork some teachers will adapt and do them without trouble. Other teachers will intend to do them, believe they are doing them, but they aren’t.

All of which is why I’m meeting with school administration tomorrow morning to discuss rearranging Link’s schedule. A few changes could make a world of difference. We may have to remove him from the class of a generally excellent teacher because that teacher does not have the right rapport with him. This, of course, lead me to worry that I’m over-helping. Growth comes from struggle. Link needs to learn how to keep going in spite of mental road blocks. He needs to learn more flexibility when he doesn’t like the form of an assignment. He needs to learn to recognize when he is avoiding work and consciously decide to do that work anyway. He needs to learn to turn assignments in on time instead of constantly doing them late and being allowed to get away with it because his IEP allows him extra time. I can see Link beginning to learn all of these things. He is amazing and smart, but I know that if the learning is too hard, then his tendency to shut down will kick in.

This is why I’m not going to tomorrow,s meeting with a list of things I want. Instead I’m going with a list of thoughts and options. I’m going with a hope that additional perspectives will bring out even more possibilities. Somewhere there has to be a good balance between accommodation for Link’s real disabilities and requiring him to do hard things so that he can grow. And it is entirely possible that I’m wrong about what he needs to learn and how he needs to learn it. That wouldn’t be a first. I’m still learning, trying to figure out this parenting thing. I would dearly love to find the right combinations so that the road blocks vanish and Link can just go.

Learning and Growing

By / September 11, 2013

Today was far less interrupted than yesterday, for which I am grateful. Link came home happy for the first time since school started. His math teacher put some accommodations into place for him and we have a meeting with an administrator on Friday to figure out what else needs to be done. We’ve finally settled into enough of a routine that we can see which troubles were adaptation issues that go away by themselves and which were going to be ongoing challenges.

I also spoke with Patch’s teacher. She taught Gleek two years ago and this fall I told her that Patch was quite different. Today she says she sees more similarities than differences, which makes sense to me. It is like the way that people say all my children look alike, but they look very distinct to me. My eye tunes out the similarities. So the teacher and I are both seeing Patch’s low-level anxiety. We intend to watch it and I need to take some steps at home to help Patch feel in control. I don’t think we’ll see anything like the intensity we saw from Gleek, because: differences. I just have things to keep an eye on.

Gleek read a sad book today, one that affected her mood. It was a literary type book that explores real-world problems and doesn’t necessarily have a happy ending. She says she is glad that she read it. I can see how the sadness in the book reached in and pulled up some of the sadnesses that she has inside, the ones she’s been ignoring because life is pretty easy for her right now. I know we still have things to work on with her. She needs solid skills for managing anxiety and stress. This gives me the first hint of how we’re going to find and address those needs while life is happy. Time for me to find the right books. Ramona the Pest helped her in kindergarten, we’ll find another book for now.

After two weeks of college happiness Kiki hit her first snag. She miscalculated her financial resources and needed to call home for help sorting it out. Truth is that she’d already solved the problem before calling, she just needed someone to double check and make sure her solutions were good. It is the same sort of double-check that Howard and I give to each other all the time. So she’s having fun and she likes having adult freedom, but sometimes adulthood is scary and she misses home. Learning how to be an adult is a large portion of what I expect she’ll learn in college this year.

I managed to end my day with more order than I began it, which is a first for the month of September. Howard spent the day in the land of painful charlie horses, which was not our favorite. Here’s hoping tomorrow can be less charliehorsey and more get stuff done.

Interrupt Driven Day

By / September 10, 2013

I planned for today to be a catch up on all the work day. Instead it was an interrupt-driven catch up on all the community and parenting stuff day. It was the kind of day where I get to the end of it having done important things all day long, but not having crossed of a single to-do item. I know I chose the right things, but that part of my brain which uses task completion as a measure is very frustrated by this sort of day.

And I’m tired, because the parent stuff is only begun, not concluded. My girls are doing well for themselves, though Kiki had an emotionally rough day. My boys both need me to follow through, track their homework, check their grades, and enforce homework time.

I also wish for the space to properly process all of the things. Because I should write an informational post on the challenges and accommodations to help my son with Auditory Processing Disorder as he faces public high school. The adjustment has been rough, partially because we’re still figuring out what resources and options are available. We’re also still identifying problem spots. At least this time I’m paying attention. Kiki’s transition into high school hit crisis level before we found some solutions. I could also write up how much I disliked having to email the 5th grade teacher to confess that my son was behind on his work because I’ve been too busy to tell him to do it. As long as I remind him, the work is cheerfully completed.

Tomorrow I need to send all of my kids to school (had kids home sick the last two days), ignore all the phone calls (except the ones from schools about kids), and finally put away the mess of things left over from Worldcon. Then I need to do all the post-convention accounting and remember what comes next fore the Jay Wake Book project. After that I need to work on layout for Longshoreman of the Apocalypse and sort my storage room. After that there are weeds, dishes, and laundry. Maybe I’ll feel caught up by Friday. If I hurry.

How You Walk Matters as Much as What You Wear

By / September 8, 2013

I spent three days helping run a booth at SLC Comic Con. There were lots of people in costumes, everything from professionally created and modeled down to made at home by a ten year old. I quickly discovered that some of the costumes impressed me while others did not. The difference did not lay in the quality of workmanship, nor whether the body shape of the person who wore the costume matched the character portrayed, though those things did have an influence. What consistently caught my eye was how a person walked while in costume. There were many people dressed as Loki who passed by my table, some of them in full kit with the horned helmet, but the core element of the Loki character is his arrogance. He honestly believes he should rule the universe, this means he must walk like he owns the floor. The very best Loki I saw was a woman shorter than myself (I’m 5’3″). She did not have the height to be imposing, yet people got out of her way. She had Loki down. Lord Vader is another character whose clothes are actually ridiculous, but when the person in the suit stalks, then ridiculous transforms into ominous.

The importance of body motion holds true even when the costume in question is that of a doctor, or sales clerk, or writer, or parent, or any other set of clothing. When you walk confidently, people assume you have authority. If you hunch a little bit and don’t meet people’s eyes, then you’re more likely to be able to pass unnoticed through a crowd. There are dozens of things you can do with your body to either draw attention or deflect it. The really cool thing is that body control is a learned skill. Though during the process of learning you will have stages of high self-conscousness, eventually the different ways of presenting yourself become like clothes that you put on when needed. At comic con my role was to be a booth support person. I was also pretty stressed by the sheer quantities of people at the event. I focused my energies on sliding through the crowds or staying in the background at the booth. Sometimes I stepped forward into a sales role where I needed to be personable and meet people’s eyes. At other events I am a presenter and author, then I dress and walk in ways that draw attention and make people more likely to listen to the things I have to say. Then I go to church and my job is to be a connected and supporting part of the congregation. Each of these roles requires different clothing and different personal presentation. If I just put on the clothes without changing the way I walk, I halve the effect.

My Day at SLC Comic Con in Tweets and Pictures

By / September 7, 2013

8am: For as long as I’m having to wait, I hope this is the breakfast burrito of champions

10am: Half the effectiveness of a costume is in how you walk when you wear it. Lord Vader looks ridiculous unless he stalks like he owns the floor

11am: My inner introvert is very glad we have booth space into which the crowd can not intrude. Comic con is packed today.

12pm: Yup. Really really glad to have the booth to shield from the crowd. Fun people watching though.

1pm: I found Waldo!

1:30pm: Cutest Dr. Who cosplay ever.

2pm: I’ve been told the fire marshal is regulating entry to the building. No one goes in until someone leaves. Line still around block.

2pm: Some of the announcements over the loud speaker must have stories to explain why they’re necessary. So glad I’m not security at this event.

2pm: Every thirty minutes the announcer is pleading with parents not to lose their children. The rest of the time is lost person announcements.

3pm: Dealers room aisle becomes impassible at 10 min past the hour. At half past it flows slowly. Clogs up again at quarter to. #ConTrafficReport

4pm: It appears that running a booth at comic con brings out my inner tweeter. I’m noisy today.

4pm: I’ve now seen two attractive red headed men who could have rocked Captain Carrot costumes. Lost opportunity.

It appears that most of my tweets were focused around the crowds. It was crazy crowded, but there was other amazing stuff too. I’ll have to write up a more considered post when I’m not quite so tired.

A Few Thoughts from Mid-Salt Lake City Comic Con

By / September 6, 2013

We’re halfway through Salt Lake City Comic Con. It is being a good show. The crowds and energy are good. I can tell that we’re going to break even. I can tell that we’re reaching into a new market with people who have never heard of us before and might be interested. From a business standpoint it is exactly what it needs to be. I wish I wasn’t already exhausted.

Howard still hasn’t properly recovered from WorldCon and SLCC is a real marathon effort of meeting and greeting. I’m still tired from running the back end of both GenCon and WorldCon. I’m tired from planning all the logistics and from carrying all the worry to make sure things go well. He’s staying in a hotel in SLC because that is the only way for him to be rested enough to give his energy to the fans for twelve hours per day. I’m commuting from home (an hour drive each direction) because someone has to tell the kids to go to bed and to get them off to school in the morning. Next week I’ll have to figure out all the homework that has been ignored in the last few days.

Tomorrow I’ll be at SLCC from 7 am until 7pm when the dealer’s hall closes. Then I’ll stay however-long after that to help break down the booth and haul everything home. Tomorrow is my son’s 16th birthday. I probably won’t see him all day. He’s a great kid and very understanding, but I wish I could do better for him than asking him to watch his siblings while I’m gone. So today I’m at home trying to set things up so that the birthday can be happy here at home. I’m disappointed in myself that so many of the solutions involve sugar. I’ll try to fix that some other day, today I’m too tired to change bad habits.

Today I am also incredibly grateful for the kind people who have given their time as booth help. It is hard to ask people to spend grueling hours on a show floor, because I know how exhausted it makes me. Yet they come, and I’m glad.

I’m grateful for my son, who has calmly and willingly told me it is okay. We’ve planned a proper celebration for next week with his friends. He is such a good person.

I’m grateful for the all the friends and fans who stop by the booth to say hello. They are the reward, the reason that all this effort is worth something. They are glad to see us and make us glad to be there even though we are exhausted.

Onward.

This is a Day of Very Little Brain

By / September 4, 2013 / 2 Comments

Last night I joked on twitter that I wish I could stick a crow bar into the middle of this week and stretch it out by a couple of days. Howard could really use those days as recovery time. He arrived home from WorldCon at 8am this morning after several nights of very little sleep. He’s completely burned out. What he really needs is two days to just sleep and stare at the walls. Then he needs a week of quiet work to catch upon the buffer, after which he’ll be excited and ready to tackle Salt Lake City Comic Con. Instead the booth has to be set up tomorrow. I’ll be handling that part. Howard will be at home, hopefully doing the sleeping and recuperating that he needs. Thursday the show begins. Both of us are excited for the possibilities of SLCC, neither of us wants to face another show so soon.

Howard came home happy. On the drive home and most of the morning, thoughts and stories started spilling out. He’s collected things to tell me for days, but they were all jumbled up together in his head and the only way to find the important ones is for me to listen to all the things. I don’t mind. All the things are interesting, it is just that a few of them are also assignments. This is one advantage of having me stay home. I’m far more rested than Howard is, but I’m still tired and short on sleep.

…In fact the day was one of so little brain that I forgot to complete and post this entry last night. Fortunately Howard pulled together a post that was more eloquent. You probably ought to go read it instead.

2014 Event Wish List

By / September 2, 2013

Last year in September all I wanted was to be at home with my family. I knew it was the last year with all the kids living at home and I was weary. So since last September and now the only time I went away was for four days of the Writing Excuses retreat. The break from events was good, but now I’m ready to go back out again. I want to see my friends who live far away. So this is my convention wish list for this next year. I’m going to have to pick and choose because child care is a limited resource.

January 17-19 ConFusion in Michigan. I have a lot of friends in Michigan. I really want to go visit them. So I plan to shift all sorts of things to make this happen.

February 13-15 LTUE in Provo, UT. This is local. My attendance is almost guaranteed.

May 25-26 LDS Storymakers. I would love to be involved, but they haven’t yet sent out their speaker invitations, so no idea if I will be yet.

July 3-6 Westercon SLC, Utah. This is local. Howard is one of the guests of honor. We’ll be involved.

July 17-20 NASFIC in Detroit, Michigan. This would be another lovely excuse to visit friends. But of the events on my wishlist, this is the one most likely to be dropped.

August 14-18 WorldCon in London. I would love to go to Europe. I’ve never been. I’d like to be with Howard at a WorldCon again. Childcare is tricky because of the length and distance of the trip. Timing is tricky because the turn around to the start of school is really tight. I’m not sure what is possible.

End of September: The Writing Excuses Retreat. I had to miss half of it this year. I really want to be present next year. It is my first choice of where to spend my childcare resources.

So that’s a lot of events to wish for. I feel a bit greedy. I know I am unlikely to get them all, but there is no harm in seeing the wishes.

I must also remember that my wish to have my family always safe and cared for is far more important.

Howard Won a Hugo

By / September 2, 2013 / 3 Comments

Photo by Scott Marlatt

You can see that he was a bit excited by this. I only have bits and pieces of information about the event because it all took place in San Antonio and I was in Utah. I was tracking the progress of the Hugo Award ceremonies via Twitter while I distracted myself from being anxious by doing other things. There was supposed to be a live Ustream of the event, but twitter told me that there were technical difficulties, so I’m glad I didn’t attempt to watch that way. I’d just seen the news that someone other than Schlock Mercenary was picked for the Best Graphic Story category. I was still trying to settle that news in my mind and wondering how Howard was doing when a friend called to let me know that Writing Excuses won. Brandon, Mary, and Howard all got to go onstage. (Dan is in Germany and Jordan in Utah.)

Howard called me later for just a few minutes. He was happy and wanted me to know that he was happy, but couldn’t talk long because he had a job to do. For him the Hugo doesn’t represent a reward for something he completed, it is a responsibility to continue the work that he has only begun. His job for the evening was to carry the Hugo, to talk to people, to give out as much kindness and happiness as words could dispense. I’m pretty sure he stayed out past 3 am doing that.

I spoke with him again today for a little bit longer, but he still has a job to do. Most of the attendees have dispersed, but our booth crew is still there. His time and attention belong to them for this evening, because they are friends and because they took time out of their lives to come and help us. I hope we’ll have time to talk when he gets home, that I’ll get to hear all the stories and happy things that have happened for Howard in the past few days. I was here doing my job, which doesn’t have any particularly fun/exciting stories attached.

I look at that picture up above and I am so very glad. I am so glad that Howard is the good man that he is, that he has such amazing friends who collaborate with him, that his hard work has been recognized, that we get to continue doing all the things we are doing. The Hugo is being shipped to us, I look forward to seeing it in person. Even more, I look forward to picking up Howard from the airport and bringing him home where he can be mine again for a while.