Tag Archives: blather

June 30, 2013 · 10:10 pm

Of writing, household chores, study, horses, and summer heat

So I just did my word count metrics for June. I wrote approximately 16,000 words, all different short stories, some original, some revised. I did a rewrite to editorial request (still waiting on that), but most of the writing happened after school was out. About 4000 words were revisions, 12,000 words were on new works.

Not bad. It’s been a while. No wonder my brain started sulking on Friday and demanding some down time. That, plus…now I have to spend some quality time with notepads, easel pads, and probably other stuff to do some serious worldbuilding not just for the Netwalk Sequence but for the Kalosin Valley story. But before that can happen, I needed to spend time doing office sorting work. That’s a chore that is going to take most of the summer, but as of now, it’s a space that I can both write and study in. Good, because that’s what I’ll need.

As it is, Monday brings a need for serious self-discipline. Luckily, I’ve signed up for two distance classes so that will keep me centered. I’m also excited because both of these classes involve working with literacy and writing interventions, and they’re just the shot in the arm that I’ve needed to prepare for the fall. The pacing is such that if I plan to do a lot of the work while listening to music at various festivals, I should be able to do both writing and study while still having a life this summer. Not bad at all–especially considering that part of the plan is to get Netwalk: The Expanded Edition out by August at the latest, be ready to begin work on Netwalk’s Children in the fall, and meanwhile figure out just what the hell is supposed to happen with Bearing Witness (the Kalosin Valley story which I’ve been alluding to in various forms on Facebook writing summary days). I thought the Peter McLoughlin novel was going to come first in the Weird West procession, but um, no–more research and reading needs to happen. And maybe if I can find another excuse to sneak off to Paris…fat chance. Nonetheless, the Peter McLoughlin story is going to be not just alternate history Weird West, but it’s going to be taking a good hard look at race (god, I hatehatehate that word when talking about ethnic and cultural issues, it’s so stupidly 19th century, it’s not the human RACE, it’s the human SPECIES and if we could just think in those terms then skin color becomes more of a phenotype and cultural consideration that are just variants within a single species rather than OMG WE’RE SO DIFFERENT, especially in sf. If I read another contemporary SF writer who talks about the human race instead of the human species, I will scream. And throw things. And exercise the meltdown skills I’ve learned from middle school students. Ahem. I digress. That’s a rant.

TL:DR–I don’t like the word race. I prefer “species” when talking about people in contact with alien species, ‘kay? We’re all Homo sapiens here, let’s start acting like it.).

Anyway, Bearing Witness has transformed from a short story concept that popped into my head while thinking about the fate of the Kalapuya during the drive down the Willamette Valley for some event during the summer two years ago. Now it’s a freaking novel. Of course. Isn’t that the way it always works? I do think the story has merits, maybe not for a big novel but something on the smallish side. Then again, who knows what the heck the Russian and Chinese sorcerers are up to?  I still haven’t figured out if they’re working together or in opposition. Or what. I just know that I have 9000 words on the story so far and I’m just winding down the first act/arc and getting ready to launch the second act/arc. Conservative estimate–36,000 words for a novella, but that’s just a rough draft. There are enough subthreads so far that I could probably blow it up even more. However, it’s not an easy story and it’s exhibiting all the symptoms of a piece that may take a year or so to piece together. Could be fun–and I haven’t even brought Grandma Pruitt on stage yet. I think she’s going to be a real plot shaker. As it is, she’s got a rather tart voice. She probably will upstage her grandson Mad Jesse when she finally ambles in. She’s just that sort of nineteenth century Western settler.

And then there’s the classes. When I signed up, I thought it was a self-paced study like another online class I’d taken. Nope, staggered weekly responses. But I think I did recover and get on track (whew!). Both classes are looking at Regie Routman’s literacy program, one focused on reading, the other on writing. I read the first assignment for the reading class and I’m liking what I see so far.

A various combination of circumstances gave me more free time than anticipated this weekend, so I’ve been working on cleaning and sorting and organizing around the house. I pulled out all the horse blankets, washed Mocha’s current ones and figured out which ones I’m selling because they didn’t fit. We’ve had some good schooling time but not a lot because the farrier is overdue and she has a crack in the toe of her left fore.

And the heat–and heat pump. Our AC went out earlier this spring, during a previous hot spell, so we considered various replacement options. We ended up choosing a heat pump, simply because the resale value is higher than straight AC in PDX. This house is difficult to decide what to invest in because we just don’t know how long we’re staying in this particular spot…yet.

However, I’m liking it. It’s maintaining a 78 degree temperature in the house with much less effort than the AC did. We just had a day in the high 90s and the AC would have been running constantly and struggling to keep the temperature at 78. The heat pump hasn’t been struggling. I’m impressed.

Meanwhile, it’s getting late and time to crash. Early morning rising to work out, skim e-mail and take care of outdoor stuff, then hit the barn early before it gets too miserable. I gave Mocha a bath the other day and she was quite happy with it, to the point now that she tries to walk into the wash stall after every ride.

Summer. And the festival season is about to begin….

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June 25, 2013 · 5:44 pm

Another day in the land of damp and cool-horse and writing and stuff

Classic Western Oregon June summer day–rain, partially cloudy, and 60s. Sooner or later we’ll get warm here, but this is a pattern I’m well familiar with. Still would like to see it go away before Blues Festival, though.

It was a busy day, but I got stuff done. House doesn’t look like it, but I actually was rather productive. Got a car to the garage, wrote about 1300 words, rode horse, made taco salad, cooked asparagus and prepped strawberries and blueberries. After this post I’ll probably work on mucking out the office and getting ready for my Friday-Saturday class, as well as getting ready to start on my online classes. Busy summer.

Actually, this morning, after dropping the car off to the garage, I hiked through part of the old neighborhood and settled in at the local Starbucks to sip some tea and write. I had to wrestle with my phone, but I now have a lovely transit app which lets me check when buses are due. Go me! It took some fussing because the TriMet page on my phone’s browser kept wanting to do something with Facebook, but I finally beat everything into shape. And now I can haz transit tracker (very useful in the land of PDX and for the rest of the summer!).

After writing for about thirty minutes, I packed up, caught the bus, and headed home. Futzed around doing stuff for a half-hour, then headed to the barn whereupon Miss Mocha felt very put-upon to get ridden TWO DAYS IN A ROW, OH NOES. Then she realized we were doing the bareback pad, which perked her right up. This summer I’m riding her in bareback pad and snaffle instead of the sidepull. Darn sidepull is molded up and desperately needs cleaning before it gets used again. Plus then I have to pull the reins off of the Pelham to make it work. Meh.

We had a nice little walk-trot work, with bending and flexing and circles and loops and patterns and all sorts of stuff. I also worked on extending and shortening in the trot. She does it reasonably well in walk and canter, but trot is where she can get really stubborn and bullish. So we’re spending summer schooling working on that bit. No particular reason for her to do it bareback, that part is mostly for me. This time around I didn’t notice as much of a tendency to slump, and we did a lot more trot work, even working on extensions with me sitting instead of posting.

At the end, Mocha lined out in her huge walk, swinging through her shoulders and back. That’s a really fun walk to ride. She prefers to do it on a long rein with a low head, and man, can she power walk with a low head. Ain’t no peanut roller with this girl and a low head–that’s her moving out gear at the walk, and she shows it well.

She’s also much shinier than she was last year. I don’t know, her coat seemed not quite right most of the year last year, at least until I shaved her for the winter. This year she’s sleek and shiny. Of course, I’ve spent a lot of time at the barn the past two weeks and brushing her. I’m trying to get out there at least four times a week, if not five. The added attention shows, and I feel good about it.

Then after coming home and doing the food preparation stuff, I set up a chair on the front porch, pulled on a sweater, and took the laptop out front to write. I started this story, “Bearing Witness,” back in January, then broke off to write “Beer Goes to War,” another story that didn’t sell, and the Uprising edits. Then I got into writing the Netwalk: Foundations giveaways and that’s been a wee bit of a time suck (especially with a story that’s blowing into novelette size). Then there’s been more edits and stuff, so I’ve not gotten back to “Witness” until now.

As always, the added time seems to have helped. But the damn thing seems to want to become a novel, or at least a novella. Ah well, it’s steampunkish or Weird Westish or something. There’s probably a market for it somewhere. I think it’s my summer noodling-about-I-need-a-break-from-Netwalk project.

I think I’m going to spend more time writing outside on the front porch. I did some work on our friend’s porch last Sunday and that was just right. I worked outside today until I came to a stopping place and my fingers got cold.

And now it’s on to doing some housework. I’d like to get some parts of the place in order before I start taking classes!

Onward.

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June 21, 2013 · 9:47 pm

First day of summer

Typical Portland June summer morning started with overcast sky, followed by sun eventually as the clouds burned off. I’ve been pushing pretty hard on the conditioning and am now feeling somewhat sore and tired–too early to see much in the way of results weight-wise, but definitely starting to feel a difference in how I move and how the body holds itself.

Not so good news on the job front–got a call from the last interview place that the position had been put on hold, so no job there. Then got a letter from another place that I hadn’t been picked for an interview. Sigh. Figures. Still, I got some writing words in today–just some tweaking of the next Netwalk: Foundations posting, nothing big, but OTOH, I needed a break today.

So I picked up and went to the barn to ride my bad mood away. Fourth ride this week, and Miss Mocha chuckled at me when I came in the door. She’d managed to give herself an owie, probably playing with her grain bucket. Or something. Near as we can figure, she must have been the one that put her big salt block in the grain bucket–apparently she’s been playing with her bucket and knocking it off of the wall, and before G threw the salt block into her hay feeder, she’d been countering all efforts to put it to the side and had planted it in the middle of her stall. It’s a 50 lb salt block and she likes to roll it around her stall. It’s not too far of a stretch to imagine her somehow getting the block into the bucket, then rolling block and bucket around the stall. Silly horse. Smart horse.

Unlike some horses, Miss M doesn’t exactly cater to my moods. If she’s in a witchy mood herself, well, the fireworks can be entertaining. Not bucking but just a bit of “Oh? You want sensitive? I’LL SHOW YOU SENSITIVE!” and then responding to every weight shift. But if I’m in a down mood, there’s no guarantee that she’ll be cooperative. Sometimes she is, sometimes she isn’t. Today, she was, and we had a nice schooling. At one point when doing counter-canter figure 8s, she missed a cue and swapped to be on the lead, but she swapped back readily and I made sure my seatbone was better weighted the next go-round and she held it.

In any case, nice schooling, and then I came home to Do Stuff. Showered after a late lunch, and was combing my hair outside on the back deck, when the neighbor kicked up the bird who’s been making a very odd chirping call around the neighborhood for the past couple of months. I’d been thinking it might have been some variety of parrot, but what I saw fly up in the tree looked like a dove. She called over to ask me what it was, and we couldn’t see it. Then I thought I saw it fly down into the dusty area their hens had scratched up next to their house, so I went to check it out.

This is what I saw:

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Juvenile female ruffed grouse. I didn’t ID her right away because, of course, bird books don’t have juvenile female pix. But I had to wonder as she was pretty tame, as long as I spoke to her in a calm voice, though the call threw me off. I’m used to adult ruffies scolding me as I scramble around the brush trying to shoot them, not juvenile flocking calls. Still, I’ve been able to kick up a ruffie in the brush while carrying my rifle on a short stalk looking for deer, gone back to the rig, grabbed the shotgun, and found the same ruffie on the same log squawking at my invasion of his space. Boom. I had to wonder–was she a domesticated chick or a ruffie? The quail I see around the barn are much more skittish, as are blue grouse. Ruffies, though…they’re fools. Fortunately, they also reproduce pretty readily.

Anyway, when DH got home, we went back to look, and found the male on our side of the fence. Recognized his little crest for certain, positive ID as ruffed grouse, from size and plumage, both were half-grown juveniles. I was still hearing their occasional calls until about half an hour ago, along with other, adult grouse talk. Still not sure if they’re escapees (it is possible to buy ruffie chicks) or else migrated over from the Springwater Corridor. I know I’ve occasionally seen Chinese ring-necked pheasants in this neighborhood (nothing wakes you up quite like looking the window and going “Huh? WhAAAAT? Pheasant? HERE?”), but it’s really interesting now to see ruffies.

After taking grouse pix, I staked the Blue Lake beans, as they’re now trying to climb sunflowers, weeds, the lawn….brought out the old cross-country skis that you can’t get boots for any more and set them up. The nasturtiums are exploding, we have more Gravensteins than I thought we did, and one blueberry bush is loaded. One tomato has set on and the others are blooming.

Guess it’s summer. And this summer, I plan to ride, and write, and study.

Sounds like a plan to me.

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June 20, 2013 · 10:42 am

That weight thang

Note: could be triggery, so if you have weight issues, you might not want to read this. This is more a musing on my weight gain-loss process, as I think it over and plan how to deal with it. I know what I have to do, and I’m working on it. So….

 

I’m having to watch my weight again. I’m up about seven pounds from where I should be and it’s showing because it’s starting to get in my way. Keep in mind that I’m a small woman, narrow-shouldered and short-waisted, about 5’3″. My seven pounds is a taller, bigger-framed woman’s fifteen-to-twenty. So when I took off sixty pounds, that was a third of my weight. Someone who is taller with broader shoulders and longer waist would to lose more weight to have that significant of a weight change for them. Doesn’t sound like much of a problem? Well, the dilemma I’m facing is that for me, it’s becoming clear that little shifts in weight can make a HUGE difference in health, comfort and ability to be active. That plus given that I was a fat baby, those little fat cells are just primed to take off and grow given the slightest option. My optimum calorie consumption is about 1300 per day…and it’s only going to get worse as I age. Sigh.

To give you a visual perspective–here I am near my heaviest, around 2006-7:

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Contrast with this weight from last fall, which is about five pounds above my lightest weight and actually is just about optimum for me health and activity-wise:

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The thing is, I know how my weight gain sneaks up on me. If I don’t watch what I’m eating during the last weeks of school, or if I don’t immediately get strict with myself at the beginning of summer and lose the dang weight already, it stays around. I tend to have wide weight swings across the span of 6-10 years, and if I don’t watch it–before I know it, I’m back up big again. Which is so not going to work as I’m getting older, because it interferes with what I want to do, and the wide swings in weight (sixty is just the biggest, I’ve been known to swing forty-to fifty pounds in a gain-loss cycle) are not good for my long-term health.

I’m usually pretty fit at any weight–aerobically fit, that is. But the weight does get in my way. And as I age, the weight becomes the enemy of the joints and ligaments. Not only that, but it’s putting itself on differently.

Menopause has definitely affected my weight/body shape. I dumped a lot of weight at the beginning of menopause because I went off of hormones and BAM! there went a lot of the weight. I was exercising well until about after the time of the picture from this fall because my hips really started tightening down on me, and then I strained one in early season skiing, and it’s taken until now to get that fixed. I didn’t get bothered at first because besides the weight scale, I use a measuring tape to track my changes, and things looked good.

Except…my waist started creeping upward. I didn’t think much of it at first, because my usual pattern is that I gain first in my bust and lose it last there, while my waist follows the lead of my hips, which usually are the first to lose and the last to gain. Not this time. Bust and hips have remained relatively stable, but the waist? Urm, guess what grew.

Post-menopausal gain pattern, clearly. Annoying as all get-out. Luckily, I think some of that flab is simply loss of muscle tone, and resuming regular workouts as I get more active again will change that. Nonetheless, it’s an bothersome sign of aging.

What’s even more concerning is that this last little gain is making it clear that these days, a five pound range can make a significant difference for me. Couple small frame with reduced calorie need even for an active person (albeit an active writer person) and I foresee some real challenges ahead. I have arthritic tendencies and I just can’t afford to get heavy.

The post-menopausal waist gain is also a huge problem. Before, the weight pretty much evenly distributed itself, with a tendency to concentrate in the bust. Now it all wants to go to the waist. That quickly impacts my flexibility and movement. Yuck.

So…I’m easing back into the process of monitoring food, because what’s happening is that I’m nibbling more and that’s where the calories come from. I’m also in fitness boot camp, which isn’t going to be too bad because I’m including Mocha in the process. But I have to watch out that I don’t overdo (which is why today is a relatively mild day). It looks like I’m going to need to figure out just what does and doesn’t affect that waist weight gain for me.

Arrgh. Just when I got it figured out, things change. The curse of way-too-efficient metabolisms, I guess. And bye-bye, sweet carbs. T’was nice while I could nibble on you.

At least I know I can do it. But it’s annoying to deal with. Sigh.

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June 19, 2013 · 8:29 am

Busy days, busy days

There’s been a lot of blog silence of late, mostly because I’ve been treading water trying to keep from overdoing and getting sick during the last weeks over school and like, well, writing, y’know? Committing to the twice-monthly Foundations series has proven to be huge, especially since I find myself wanting to write regular stories instead of the drabbles I’d first envisioned. I have at least one that I’m going to offer as a sales short (too long IMO to give away), and another set of three where I am consciously playing point-of-view-games-while-progressing-the-story games. Those are going to be fun, and help me grow as a writer, and, hey, no consequences since I don’t plan to sell them but give them away. OTOH, it’s all good backstory preparation for the big transition in the Netwalk Sequence, from Melanie to Bess.

But! Other things are going on. The last day of school with students was on Wednesday of last week (the 12th), where I met the kids at the swimming pool, watched MUCH CUTENESS (yes, middle schoolers can STILL be cute), went to the park with them for lunch, then herded cats while we watched Epic. Visually nice but I started out collecting plot coupons and the story pretty much unfolded the way I thought it would. But hey, Very Nice Visuals. Sweet story but very predictable. Phyl, you’d like the depiction of the faery world.

Next day, had my eval, talked planning for the fall, loaded up what I’m bringing home for the summer (mostly files to sort and reorganize), and landed a job interview. After a leisurely lunch at the Rendezvous, I headed for home only to find a worried phone call on my cell once I got my messages. The Mysterious Overfeeder had struck again, feeding horses before the person who was supposed to be feeding. Only happens when the owner/trainer is gone. Always alfalfa. NOT a good thing. Luckily, this is the second time in about four years, and we think we’ve identified the culprit. No horses took harm, as it happened just before the feeder showed up so she knew it had happened and didn’t double feed them. Most worrisome, though, was the feeding and quantity of the stuff to horses and ponies who don’t get that rich a feed usually. Fortunately for MO, no horses colicked or foundered. And Mocha was fine. This is a Very Good Thing, as my Mama Bear mode gets unfurled big time by stupid stuff like this.

Friday, I participated in an administration/union leadership golf game which was entertaining and not at all what I usually do (more what I would expect to be doing as corporate wife than as teacher). Gorgeous day for it with 70 degree temps, partially cloudy skies that opened up to full sun toward the end of the afternoon, and BIRDS. Adolescent robins dodging golf balls while squawking for food (um, only a few of us had any experience, and some didn’t even bring clubs. I rocked my Eastmoreland Garage Sale $3 Tournament Queen golf set from the 50s/60s). A young osprey or red-tail screaming to be fed in one of the Doug firs. A hummingbird who hovered threateningly over one hole, but never swooped on us, just hovered there Letting Us Know that we were intruding.

We played best ball golf, which was a good thing, as otherwise I think some of us would still be whacking our way around the course. It was my first time playing something besides a par 3 course so I got very friendly with my woods and drivers. But it was all in good fun, relaxing, and a nice end to the school year.

Saturday was Jaycon, which gets its own post because hey! pictures!

Sunday was the ballet, plus various Seckrit Project-related writing things.

Monday was writing, horse, and some other fiddley-foo stuff which sucked up my time.

Yesterday was a job interview, massage, and Fireside Writer day.

Today I need to meet someone and sign union-related paperwork, then do barn, then come home and do house stuff and work. And write. Of course I’m going to be writing!

Whew. It’s been a soft landing as far as finishing off school years is concerned. But if the past week is any indication, I’m going to be making up for the exhausted paralysis of previous years big-time. I have many things to be doing. Can I do them all (oh yeah, throw in three college classes this summer. Two of them will be self-paced, but even so…)

Onward!

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June 9, 2013 · 9:47 pm

Let the rantage begin–feminist stuff

WARNING: GROUCHY SEMI-COHERENT FEMINIST RANT HERE.

So you’ve been warned.

This particular piece has been going around my Facebook and now my LJ. I’m putting up the full link so if you’ve seen it before, you don’t have to Go There.

http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2013/06/the-secret-to-being-both-a-successful-writer-and-a-mother-have-just-one-kid/276642/

Read it already?  Want to read it?  Here’s a hint: if you’re a mother and a writer, you’ve already heard this BS. I can just about guarantee it. Somehow your motherhood either condemns you to writing glowing tributes to Super!Mommy!Life! (oh god, does anyone remember the early days of Joyce Maynard’s columns? or the subsequent implosion which would have made more sense having known more About Her Past Literary Connections?) or you become Supermom With The Single Child who goes everywhere and does everything and Achieves In Spite Of Parenthood.

Yeah. The early years of my mothering life got spent in the late 80s, when Greed Was Good (oh hell yes, I was a complex securities litigation paralegal during that era and I Have Stories) and if you had a child, the mandatory rule was a.) You write many opinion pieces talking about How Wonderful Parenthood Is and How Awful Feminism Is or b.) You Were Total Careerist Yuppie And Nannies Ruled Your Life. And you wrote opinion pieces about that life as well. I started frothing pretty damn fast when reading that BS, because though I was a mother and staying at home with the kid, I was sure as hell writing and still saw myself as a feminist (and was Not Supermommy. Really. I tried. So not me).

I ended up staying at home and taking care of the kid because I’d managed to get myself compromised by working on some of the biggest local securities cases for a couple of litigation support companies which meant I had major conflicts of interests at the time with most of the local law firms–and one of the biggest litigation support companies was on the blacklist for many of the local law firms because they’d been such jerks. Plus, computerization was getting a toehold into the particular specialty I was working. In the course of five years litigation support went from needing many trained bodies to eyeball documents to code and enter into a mainframe to doing the same function on a 386. And that was before search engine optimization happened. So yeah–that profession kinda sorta went down the dumpster, but I had figured that out by observing that desperate law students trying to pay off their law school loans would take paralegal jobs. I had to review resumes for a paralegal job in one position, and realized that–um, well, the future in this profession ain’t what I was told it was going to be, given the number of desperate law students looking for work. Pay scales were dropping from what they had been just a couple of years before, so…

Realistically, at the time, any job I could pull down at the time with my experience level would not have paid for the daycare. I certainly couldn’t earn enough to justify my spouse staying at home, and I really didn’t see where it would gain us anything in that particular career option for me to stay in work and try to advance in the field. As it was, I managed to eke out time between preschool and different daycare options to scratch out enough time to write. Because I’m one of those slowly developing writers (I got bogged down pretty quickly at the almost-good-enough level, still working my way through that), and because I have the ADHD impatience trait in spades, I ended up going back to work off and on once kid went to school. Writing came and went, but that was as much a function of my own frustrations at not being able to break through with the stories I wanted to tell as it was parenthood. I tried writing nonfiction for a while, but it didn’t serve the same jones that fiction did, plus I’d get bored with it as a regular gig.

I find it to be an element of highest irony that the first paid piece I ever sold was “I Am A Feminist Housewife” to a local feminist monthly that went out of business. I think I’m one of the few who got a check from that lovely little tabloid (they paid for the first two issues). I also think I sold that piece two or three more times, with one more reprint. At the time, I was rebelling against the assumption that because I was a stay-at-home mom, I wasn’t a feminist.

And now. Good freaking heavens. You can’t be a writer and manage more than one kid? Um, I suspect that if you look at the numbers of women published during the Fifties, fercrissake, you’d find women without staffs and nannies juggling kids and writing. Good God, Fanny Trollope was far from the only nineteenth century woman who took up writing to support family–and that wasn’t a one-kid setup, either.

What this does mean is that you manage more than one kid but you don’t elevate Motherhood to High Art. After all, that’s what the subtext really is about. With one kid, or so the subtext goes, you can have A Real Life. With more than one–you’re screwed.

To which I reply–baloney. What gets screwed is the delusion that you can work and still be Perfect! 50s! Mommy! The Atlantic piece whimpers about how more than one child would have diffused the focus of the women Lauren Kessler chooses to hold up as the epitome of writing women.

Um. Yeah. Really? Look, when it comes to multiple kid families and anything other than upper class incomes, juggling happens, whether Mom works outside the house or not. I hate to break it to people like Kessler, but these dilemmas happen to anyone who needs to juggle work, family, and an intense passion that isn’t completely funded. The ability to sit and think about something intensely for hours at a time is a luxury that many people–male and female alike–simply don’t possess. So if you want to tell stories, but you don’t have that time because you lack the resources and you have a young family–you either find ways to make it work for you (because everyone’s solution is different), or you stop doing it until your time is clear. Period.

The issue that all of these debates dances around and does not face on square is that time is a commodity, and the cost of time varies depending on its perceived value to the person it’s being applied to. It’s not the issue of parenting plus job plus writing, or parenting plus writing, or parenting one child vs more and writing–it’s about the management of time as a commodity. Time of women is not universally valued at the same cost as time of men. Time of parenting is not valued at the same cost as work outside the home. Creative time is not valued at the same cost as so-called “real work” at an outside employer. Our time value priorities are screwed up, and that’s the real problem.

(And that, my friends, is a longer post than what I probably should continue on, seeing how long this post has gotten).

So yeah. I’m annoyed by this latest piece of baloney about women and feminism and writing, but I’ve seen it before. And, for the record, I am the parent of only one child–but the reason for that has nothing to do with the writing, and everything to do with the reality that I had a horrific time of pregnancy, starting with conceiving while my mother was dying, suffering through nasty morning sickness for most of the pregnancy, then going through a really tough labor while incubating a nasty case of staph and afterwards showing up with an abnormal Pap smear that had me fearing I’d leave my baby motherless.

“You’ll forget all that,” people told me.

They were wrong. I flinch at recalling those details even now. I walked away from my only pregnancy knowing that there was no way I was ever, ever going to put myself through that experience again. I love my son and I’m glad I had him–but one was enough.

And thus endeth the rantage for tonight. Hope it was at least semi-coherent.

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April 7, 2013 · 10:51 pm

Whew. Landing

Various things got resolved today.

Talked out issues of frustration.

And ended up buying new ski boots. It was a gorgeous stormy day at Timberline. Good soft powder, lovely ol’ Cascade concrete, stuff I usually gobble up and enjoy the heck out of.

But I was fighting it and frustrated halfway through my first run down Kruser.

Why?

I had no control over my tips. Or my tails. It felt like my first fighting sessions on skis. It felt wrong. I was breaking into tears halfway down the first run.

“Rent boots,” DH said on our way back up.

“Maybe I just need to warm up,” I said back. I’ve already put money into fixing these damn boots.

We pushed off from the chair, and I ended up falling halfway down a simple baby cat track. Ski popped off, I plopped down. Nothing bad or spectacular this time, just going down.

“Rent boots,” DH repeated as I stomped back uphill to retrieve my ski, sinking 18 inches down with each step.

“Damn right I’m renting boots,” I grumbled back.

Long story short, it took a while and trials of two pairs plus a binding release test before I was back on the slope. But it didn’t take but three turns to tell the issue.  The boots I owned were a half size too big–and it was enough to affect my control.  I didn’t like those rental boots–but the difference in effort and control was obvious.

DH and I talked about the possibilities of renting vs buying on the way down the hill. We stopped by the ski shop I prefer because he had a boot issue, and I tried on what they had in my preferred size–a high end version of the boot I didn’t like,  and a beginner boot that the boot fitter looked at me and said “You won’t like it. It’s a beginner boot that is way below what you’re doing now.”

I didn’t like the high end boot any better than the rental, so when we got home, I called two other shops. Long story short, I got new boots for just a little over what it would cost me to rent boots for the rest of this season. It’s a brand I’ve skied before and I like. Problem is, from calling around, I’m in a size that’s fairly popular so there’s not much left at the end of the season. So this should work out well..and it’s from my second favorite local shop.

Yay. Maybe if I can ski again…..

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April 6, 2013 · 8:37 pm

A rainy April Saturday–horse and union stuff

The brief flirtation with warm and sunny here in PDX went wandering off the past few days. Being as it’s a set of spring storms, though, the weather fronts come through as intense showers rather than anything that can last for hours (except up at work, where the cold driving rain seemed to go on all afternoon). Last night I took advantage of the time and the relatively mild early evening to finish off waxing skis and getting them loaded up for skiing on Sunday. It’s nicer to scrape skis with the garage door open, and it’s almost like being outside.

Today was about seven hours of Pre-RA meetings–preliminary introduction to the various issues we’re going to discuss at the OEA Representative Assembly (the governing body of the Oregon Education Association–teacher union stuff, IOW). It’s my second year doing this, and it’s somewhat like watching sausage being made. I’m watching some future political careers develop, and it’s…interesting in the mix. But–controversial and sobering stuff. We’re balancing our own budget and talking priorities. Arguing over various procedural situations. Looking at a loss of 500 members next year–ouch, that could very well include me.

Yeah. Makes the recent brief flirtation with the idea of Something New even more of a wistful dream.

Afterward, I jumped in the car and drove out to the barn. It’d been light showers out there with heavy rain and lots of puddles at some point. The indoor had good footing but was a little slick, and fortunately I had the place to myself. I threw the snaffle on Mocha, hopped up in the Crates, and we went for a good hard forward schooling ride.

March and April with The Girl are times where I really can’t expect much except mileage from schooling. She’s very distractable, even when she’s not in heat, and quite goofy for her (which is more like mildly goofy in most horses, except that she can get goofy at speed.  Um. Not Fun). I tried her back in the full bridle with the romal last week, and she was pushy, difficult, and not listening. But…the pony stallion is now getting worked in preparation for driving this summer, and she was in full heat, so….

This afternoon was about mileage. The latigo leather reins on my Western snaffle setup are seven feet long, and I cross them over her shoulders.  If I need to, I can flick the dangling length of rein from one side over to pop her on the other–pretty easy flick for me, a move I’ve practiced from childhood. It’s broad, flat, and stings a little, but tends to make more noise than anything else.  The crossing of the reins means that if I want to kick her up to a long two-point extended canter set, I can get her started, pop up in my stirrups, brace my hands on her neck, and off we go. She likes these canter sets, especially in spring, and I just plain like doing them in this bridle set.  The latigo leather has just the right mix of flexibility and thickness in my hands. It takes a lot less pressure to establish contact because it has a bit of signal to it and carries a little bit of its own weight. Gregg introduced me to these reins and I love them to death.

Galloping or extended canter work is also pretty nice in the Crates Reiner. I just dropped my heels hard, got up, and let her go, pushing her into the steady rhythm. Mocha was on edge and wound up after a set of countercanter, tempi changes where I really started asking her to come back to me and not speed up, two tracks, and random direction changes at the trot and canter.

We’re not doing a lot of arena loops just yet. Eventually, we’ll get to the point where we do these canter sets between fussy work, especially as she gets back into the romal and we have to work on the more precise control of the curb. Then she’ll rack up a bit of canter time, including speeding up and slowing down the canter in preparation for large fast circles and small slow circles. What I’m doing right now is just straightforward fitness sets, shooting for a fast, extended, rhythmic canter or lope with me in two-point. Once we get back into the romal, I’ll sit down and we’ll do them like that. I don’t tend to do this sort of work in winter because of footing and other issues–but once spring hits, it’s a lot more canter sets.

It was nice doing the canter sets this afternoon, hitting that smooth extended canter, hands resting on Mocha’s withers, feet braced against the broad Western stirrups, balancing on my legs and working on my leg strength as well as hers. Mocha sprung along smoothly, snorting in her rhythmic highblower pattern (strong exhales matching her hind footfalls, the mark of a horse moving efficiently at canter or gallop). Just sending her forward, seeking a steady, consistent movement. Cantering in two-point also does wonders for the hamstrings.  Just sayin’.

Then drop down to walk, switch directions, long rein big swinging walk to air up, then pick it up in the other direction.

The canter sets work not only for fitness but they discharges Mocha’s tension after a bit of fussy collection work. She has little patience for this type of collection work in the spring, but she needs the work during this season as well.  I finally discovered that letting her blow off her pent-up tension afterwards with a good hard extended canter in both directions not only led to a horse who didn’t get as sore, but she was a lot less fussy about the collected work if she knew that we were likely to have the hard canter sets as part of our final routine. So we do a lot of canter work after the bending, flexing, and collection schooling.

Finally, we took advantage of a break between showers to hack out along the road. She got a bit anxious about the big puddle–bigger than she had ever seen before–and we spent a bit of time splashing through it at walk and trot. Then we ambled down the road and back. Coming back, we took the big puddle at a trot and she calculated, trotted in two strides, then popped off a respectable jump across the deepest section of the puddle, neat as can be.

And afterwards, after a nice roll, she had a good hard grooming while she relaxed and mooched treats. It’s nice to have a horse who likes to get out and do stuff, and Mocha is one who definitely likes to go and to work.

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December 12, 2012 · 7:53 am

Kip Kinkel and Clackamas Town Center–rantage

Thurston was the first time that one of the American mass shootings really struck home for me.  Not only am I a graduate of Thurston High School in Springfield, Oregon, but I took a French class one year from Bill Kinkel, Kip Kinkel’s dad.  Because I hadn’t lived in the area for a while, and because the initial reports were hazy, it wasn’t until I actually saw a picture of Kip Kinkel and his family that I realized my connection to this shooting went far beyond the memories of the places where people were hurt and killed.

The realization slugged me hard in the gut.  Not just because of the connection but because we had our own kid with issues.  I was so tuned out and freaked out by the whole thing that I only got a partial photo record of the trip we took right after the shootings–I pulled my film canister out of my Minolta SLR and didn’t replace it, just kept on shooting.  I have no record of the exquisite beauty of Stanley Park.  Or anything else from that trip.  It wasn’t until something clicked that I’d been taking photos for a lot longer than the film roll I had loaded that I checked and realized I’d been shooting with an empty camera.  Sigh.

Over the years, I compared notes with fellow graduates.  We’d all been stunned by it.  The most horrific part, though, was that the shooter was the son of a teacher who’d been a gentle man, someone who’d made a difference in the lives of many struggling and troubled kids at Thurston.  But he couldn’t help his own kid–and that added to the tragedy of Thurston.  For years I could almost hear Bill Kinkel’s voice as I read what people wrote about how he sought help for Kip.

As we struggled through school years with the kid, progressing toward a diagnosis and management skills, one idiot (upon hearing we took him out hunting) asked “aren’t you afraid you’ll create another Kip Kinkel?”

I–um–pinned that person’s ears back hard.  For one thing, a friend of ours who was a gun collector and instructor had been asked to teach Kip proper gun etiquette, but it had never worked out.  Could it have made a difference?  Hard to say.  I do know that my kid, when faced with a gun that looked like the one he’d target shot just the weekend before, only his friends were squirreling around with it, did exactly what he’d been taught to do.  While his buddies swaggered around the neighborhood waving it around and pretending to be big twelve-year-old white-boy gangstas (one even had a Starter coat, the big gangsta thing at the time), our kid immediately left them and came home to tell me.  He wasn’t sure what it was but he wasn’t messing around.  I called the parent, who was shocked–and I was shocked in turn that said parent thought it was totally acceptable for his kid to carry a pellet gun around the neighborhood in a paper bag, and go shooting in a city wildlife refuge, near a popular skating rink and amusement park.

“But it’s only a pellet gun!”  he told me.

“It’s a gun,” was my response.  “And that’s unsafe behavior and handling.  What the hell are you teaching your kid?”

Needless to say, that friendship kinda faded out.  And this incident happened before that smarmy idiot compared what we were doing to what happened with Kip Kinkel.  They hadn’t known about my connection to Thurston before…well, they sure did afterward.   I don’t take those comparisons lightly, either then or now.

Fast forward to now.  So far, I don’t know of any of my extended Portland and Mountain community who was at Clackamas Town Center or anywhere near it at the time it happened.  I’m seeing accounts of folks who’d been there the day before, or who had left earlier.

Nonetheless, Clackamas is very close to where I live.  It’s a ten minute or less drive, within a couple of miles.  I shop in that Macy’s store.  The pictures from where the ambulances and cops were staged?  That’s right next to the escalator next to the REI that I shop at.  Yeah, I know that place.  My son was born at the Kaiser Sunnyside hospital that’s within a half mile of the mall.  If I hadn’t had a meeting that ran late at work, I probably would have tried to run errands at the Kaiser complex and the mall…and run right into the post-shooting chaos.  A couple of weeks later, I might have been there, though that’s usually a time of day when I try to avoid the mall.

The usual hue and cry over gun regulation is already exploding, with concealed carry advocates arguing that if they were allowed to carry at the mall, someone could have taken this guy out, and advocates of gun control arguing for greater regulation.  To the concealed carry advocates, I cry out phooey.  Unless you are training on a regular basis, and practice crisis situations, how the hell do you know you wouldn’t do more harm than good?  I’m currently reading an excellent book on force decisions and dude, I seriously doubt you’re thinking with your brains.  Civilians just don’t have the cultivated training and instincts.  Most of us don’t have the time and money to train that way.

I mean, I could have a concealed carry permit myself.  I took the training years ago.  I chose not to follow through with the permit.  I just couldn’t see it being useful to me (we initially went through the training so that we could buy handguns if we wanted, then it fell by the wayside), and I most definitely don’t see it now, working in a school as I do (and I am most definitely NOT an advocate of concealed carry in schools).  For me, concealed carry means a commitment to regular practice and maintenance of a weapon, and I just don’t have the time and access to do that.  Nor do I think it’s crucial in my life.  If I feel the need for a home defense weapon, my hunting shotgun works right fine (nice little pump action), and is less likely to take out a neighbor because the damn bullet went through a wall.  Some of my father’s tales about long distance shooting training for WWII stuck pretty hard with me, and when I learned my own gun discipline, learning what the possible range of a shot bullet could be was the biggest lesson taught.  So yeah, if I feel the need for home defense, I’m gonna get a short barrel shotgun with a pistol grip.  And a pump, because nothing sends chills down the spine quite like the tell-tale “click-click” of a pump action.  Go ahead and play with your big frame handguns.  I want my shotgun if I feel worried enough that I resort to weaponry.  Then I don’t have to worry about my aim.

To the gun control advocates–you think this is really going to solve the problem now?  REALLY?  Then just how the hell are you going to take all the weapons currently in circulation out of the system without causing a major ruckus and alienating a significant portion of the populace…including law-abiding folks living in rural areas who need weaponry to protect their livestock against predators and themselves against home invasions.  Think that’s a minor thing?  Not when you’re a good hour away from an overworked sheriff’s deputy who hasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell of getting to you in any sort of timely manner.

I grew up with that.  And my former neighbors in that area have concealed carry and a locked gate, because home invasions, nasty home invasions, are happening on a regular basis where they live.  Hey, they’re seniors, he’s ex-military, and they practice.  They also have a big, protective and noisy dog.  The gun is the last-ditch resort, which is as it should be.

The biggest problem is not the amount or the existence of the weaponry.  It’s the brains and mentality which idolizes gun culture.  It’s the lack of adequate mental health management and treatment for those with serious mental disorders.  It’s the lousy economy which creates desperate situations and lousy funding for mental health, education and other societal management measures which would plug up a lot of these damned problems.  It’s the crappy education system that so-called education reform is making even worse when it comes to managing the emotionally fragile, the poor, and the struggling.

Bill Kinkel knew he had a problem in Kip.  But the system, even then, didn’t give him any significant amount of help.  I’ve not heard what the shooter’s story is yet.

But I am predicting that he’s another system failure.  Mental health, PTSD, something like that.  Another person who ran off the rails.

And no amount of concealed carry or gun control is going to take care of that.  NO AMOUNT.

Period.

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September 10, 2012 · 9:09 am

Glimmerings from the not-so-apocalypse

One of the things about dealing with a sudden death after the deceased’s short but swift decline in health, with little preparation, is the massive pile of paperwork that needs to be managed with very few clues.  An anticipated death with time to prepare still has its own trauma and weirdness, but at least there’s closure of some sort or another (one hopes), loose ends are (somewhat) tied up, and Things People Need To Know are (hopefully) laid out with few surprises.

It’s crazy enough dealing with retirees who’ve had a chance to prepare, or with folks holding down a regular job.  But when the sudden stroke of death falls upon folks who are self-employed, and the deceased is the one who’s done all the bookkeeping…well, chaos can ensue.

Which is what we’re dealing with in regard to our friend.  Now DH and I have walked this road already with parents.  We both lost both parents when we were relatively young (in our 30s and early 40s), and in those cases there was some preparation (not in the case of my mother-in-law but certainly with my parents).  But with our friend, not only did her growing decline reduce her ability to do the filing and organizing but she didn’t have time to leave the rest of us with breadcrumbs about how to access e-mail accounts and where certain files were.  Even when you’ve known someone reasonably well for 32 years, you don’t know everything about where they put or do stuff, especially when it comes to accounting and business files.

But we’re getting somewhere and the piles of paperwork are ceasing.  Just–folks?  Even at a relatively young age, for heaven’s sake, document your important financials and how you access them and track them.  Don’t leave it to those you leave behind to play the forensic accounting game. Even if you don’t have a lot of money–actually, especially if you don’t have a lot of money–document.  Talk to your nearest and dearest about how you keep records.  If you don’t like leaving password cookies on your computer, then keep a list where your nearest and dearest can find the passwords.

That’s all on that subject.

School is going well but I hope to be able to back off on the total hours dedicated to support work for the classroom and caseload soon.  The beginning of the year is crucial for setting up documentation and data, and I’m getting there slowly.  The actual teaching isn’t the challenge, it’s all the paperwork and such that goes with it that can bog a teacher down.  I’m enjoying my social studies classes.

Writing–well, all the other stuff is bogging it down, which is annoying since I have some good ideas on Uprising and some good publicity stuff is coming up.  But I’m annoyed that it’s taken me so long to get Uprising out the door.  It should be good, but still….

Horse–horse show coming up at the end of the month.  With reining and trail classes, and the token Western Pleasure classes to practice our rail consistency.

Now back to the mounds of stuff to be done.

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