metaphortunate son

So apparently sleep training is a bad word? J. said that she went to a mom-baby yoga class and during the bit where you go around and say what's up with you, one of the moms said her baby was up all night forever and she was about to die and one of the other moms suggested sleep training and apparently all the other moms would have reacted more positively if she had suggested boiling the baby in oil for twenty minutes before bedtime*. Seems they practically shamed the poor woman out of the room. I did not know this! If I had, I - okay, I probably would still have told people at my moms' group 8-month meetup that we had started sleep training, but at least I would have had the chance to get all defensive about it pre-emptively.

Anyway, we started sleep training the little dude on Friday night. Friday night was horrible. Saturday night was better than it had been before we started. Last night was aces. Although we are doing the Sleepeasy Solution thing where you gradually take down the amount of time he nurses, so I am still nursing him 3x a night, only now I am setting an alarm to do it which is extra annoying. But in less than a week if all goes well it will be 2x a night. And in less than two weeks if all goes well it will be only once, and my current plan is to keep one feed in the middle of the night for a while. So we'll see how it goes!

I read Sacred Games I think because someone recced it to badgerbag in one of her recs request posts, though I can't find it now. If you learned about India only from this book you would believe that India was a one billion person country made entirely of sadness and gritty misery and corruption and really, really depressing sex. (Well - I would say it's only really depressing for the men in the book about, maybe, um, 65% of the time? But it is clearly depressing for the women and little boys about 98% of the time, and I believe that if sex is depressing for even only one of the parties involved, it is depressing sex. Also, by "depressing" I mostly mean "no one ever considers it rape because somebody is getting paid - although not necessarily the person getting fucked - or else the people are married, but if you happen to believe that rape can happen under those circumstances, this book is about as rapey as Game of Thrones.") But then if you learned about England only from the works of P.D. James you would come away with the impression that England was a tiny country made only of despair and crippling social anxiety and tiny amounts of desultory, depressing, although at least mostly consensual sex. Having been there, that was not the impression I got. What I find interesting is that if you learned about Chicago only from the works of Sara Paretsky you might actually want to visit Chicago some day!

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* Note: don't do this. Your baby will be dangerously undercooked unless you boil it for at least 40 minutes, and 45 is more likely for a baby of about 12 lbs.

So to follow up from our earlier conversation, one afternoon I did take myself to Sephora and get a willowy person to put makeup on me and show me how it was done. First she told me that I had great skin and barely need foundation at all. Then she put this liquid foundation from Make Up For Ever on me, to take out a bit of redness in my cheeks. Then she put blush on me, presumably to put the redness back in my cheeks. I decided that this seemed unnecessary. I also worked out why people are always telling me they thought I was younger. It's because when you put makeup on your skin you instantly add five to ten years to your age. Seriously: I went around the store trying different kinds of concealer and foundation and such. Do the same thing if you don't believe me! Put a bit on the back of your hand and blend it in. Marvel at all the tiny wrinkles and lines in the skin there that you never, ever could have noticed before. So when this person was finished making me up I definitely looked fancier and maybe even prettier but also ten years older. So I decided that foundation is not for me. The promise of concealer sounds really nice (as if I could erase all the night wakings!) but again, suddenly it gives me all these wrinkles under my eyes so it's no go.

I did buy some mascara, and I think it looks nice on me. I also bought some eyeliner but the truth is that my life is not currently really fancy enough for eyeliner, so I haven't worn it yet. Someday Mr. E and I will go out on a date again and I will try it out. Maybe I will buy some eyeshadow before then, too! There will probably be time. Though I have no immediate plans to go makeup shopping again.

I did find this fantastic makeup primer online. Finally I understand why I used to pick lip glosses in colors that appealed to me and some of them worked and some of them didn't and I never knew why! Now I know that it's orange undertones that look like clown makeup on my olive skin. I used to think that purple was exaggerated and clownish and now I come to discover that purple undertones just look neutral and natural on me. And Clinique divides up their lipcolors into reds, pinks, nudes, and violets, so that was extremely helpful.

Going around with lipstick and a skirt on, I have gotten a bit of a "your hair don't stick up no more!" vibe from a couple of old friends. Maybe butch is cooler because you have to be a little brave to be a butch woman? Maybe butch is cooler because it rejects girl stuff and is more like being a guy? Maybe because I used to look more gay? Eh, I'm still just as gay as I've ever been, which is obviously only sort of. Though it's funny, now that I think of it: the first girl I ever kissed, really properly kissed, it was at a goth club, after she had spent the earlier part of the evening doing my makeup, and I had spent it silently vibrating out of my skin. Having a gorgeous femme do your makeup is piercingly erotic. Competence, steady hands, her attention on you, her face three inches from yours, her breath brushing your cheek, as she tells you, "Look up. Perfect. Beautiful. Now open your mouth."

Either Google doesn't know a single thing about me, or it knows enough about me to know that if it told me everything it knew about me I would freak out and never touch a Google website again.

It's weird. I mean, of course Google taken as a whole knows basically every single thing about me: it has my email and my calendar, plus I'm sure my entire search history. (I've turned off Web History. Anyone who thinks that means they actually don't keep track? Yeah, don't all put up your hands at once.). What I'm looking for is confirmation that the left hand doesn't easily keep track of what the right hand is doing.

Mr. E and I have been talking recently about the difference between public and publicized, and levels of anonymity. I mean, in one sense, no account that's not free can be anonymous for me, because once you start paying for stuff it is tied to your credit card or your bank account or whatever. But I'm not a Chinese dissident, right, I don't need that level of anonymity. I just need enough anonymity that random assholes can't get my address and my parents don't find me bitching about them with a quick web search. Some companies seem to think that if they can't guarantee government dissident levels of anonymity protection there's no point in offering the lesser kind. But it's not true.

The past week or two, the Junebug has been waking up four to six times a night wanting to nurse. I have been reluctant to move him into his own room because:
- at that point I will nightwean him
- he's pretty clearly reverse cycled, so if I stop nursing him at night, he will eat much more during the day
- what I can pump is already only barely keeping up with demand
- so at that point he will go on maybe half formula?

And not that that would be the end of the world, but I figured that to keep him on the boob I was willing to be woken up twice a night, which was what he was doing for the longest time. But five times a night - no. This cannot go on, he's 7 months old and I am getting less sleep than I did when he was a newborn, he is no longer cute between the hours of midnight and 7 am and that is VERY DANGEROUS TO HIS HEALTH.

Thoughts? Preferred sleep training techniques? How did you nightwean?

Since I changed names I don't check my old email address very often. If you need to get a hold of me in a timely fashion, better send stuff to metaphortunate at gmail dot com. Thanks!

"Michael Jackson, angered over persistent media reports that he has had extensive plastic surgery, strikes a People magazine reporter with one of his antenna stalks." - Dave Barry, 1988

I don't think the Cirque de Soleil Michael Jackson show was deliberately subversive. I think it was an accident that the show was consistently as unsettling as possible. But the creators just constantly kept putting their finger on the uncomfortable spot. The central character is a mime in a white mask. Let me repeat that. It's a show about Michael Jackson. The central performer is a man in a white mask. I understand that Mr. Jackson wrote some damn good songs but you wouldn't know it from this show. You got half a minute of "Thriller" in a medley; but "Have You Seen My Childhood" got a long, surreally saccharine sequence with this whiteface mime dancing around the gates of Neverland. Yes, Michael. We have all seen your childhood because you had it on camera. Wasn't that the problem? Actually the theme running throughout nearly the whole show is fetishistically exaggerated childhood whimsy and it is creepy as fuck because the theme in the rest of the show is sexuality. The main performer for "Dangerous" is a pole dancer. There are acrobats who perform on poles: they don't do it in a string bikini and stripper heels, and they don't focus on poses like these. I have no problem with sex in my performance but I do have a problem with two things. One is sexism. I'd be all right with it if the men were also naked and flashing crotch but they're not. The cello player with the freshly waxed bikini line was a woman. The dancers wearing baggy clothes were men. The other problem I have is that again the show hit right in the uncanny valley: if you're doing a Michael Jackson show, can it really be by accident that half your show is about childhood and the other half is about fucking? When you play "Smooth Criminal" do you want to make sure your audience is thinking about the fact that it's quite possible that Mr. Jackson was in fact a criminal, and not the smooth glamorous kind, but a pathetic twisted horror?

As Mr. E said, the idea of Cirque's circus set to Michael Jackson's music is a pretty good one; unfortunately they did Michael Jackson's circus set to Cirque's music. Michael Jackson was a great singer and dancer. Their musical arrangements were not as good as the originals and their dancing was not as good as his. And most of the show was dancing. Like three times they did an actual circus act and just set it to an MJ song - the awesome contortionist, the great bouncy acrobats, a quite decent pair of aerialists - and you could tell because the audience clapped. The rest of the time we sort of sat there in a 15,000 person stunned silence. The Fabulous Stormtroopers of Love did a clunky-ass dance to "They Don't Care About Us" as the video screens showed a Montage of Speciously Political Sadness - starving kids in Africa, cops holding batons, protest signs, it turns out there are Bad Things in the World - and then their chest signs stopped glowing dollar signs at us and started glowing big red hearts as the screens showed quotes from Mr. Jackson about how it's really important to Dream and to Love and I don't know if on other nights the audience has been feeling it, but on the night we went, there was sort of an auditorium-wide feeling of "are you shitting me?"

Maybe they pulled it together at the end. I don't know, we left early to beat the rush. I used to think Cirque de Soleil was a guaranteed good time; that is clearly not true for every show.

Sometimes I wonder whether feeling bad about myself just about all the time is like the teind my brain feels the need to pay to Society for the fact that I do whatever the hell I want to just about all the time. It's like, as a mother I should be spending all my time playing educational games with the Junebug to develop his little brain and body and promote proper socialization or whatever, plus researching preschools, plus sanitizing all his toys, plus eating absolutely as healthy as possible because of nursing, plus going to bed early so I can be emotionally resilient and present for my child in the morning, plus gazing lovingly into his little eyes while nursing instead of dicking around on my phone. And as a professional I should be all caught up on submitting my experience reports for licensure and studying for my licensing exams, not to mention volunteering for overtime. And as a wife I should be making sure that Mr. E and I have alone time and real conversations when we have the chance. And as a friend I should be making more time to see my friends, and call them, not to mention I should not abandon hradzka in the middle of interesting online conversations. And as a feminist I should be reading the Marq'ssan Cycle or watching incredibly depressing movies like Osama that Raise Awareness but ideally would also be directed by women so that I could support Women in Hollywood. And as a functional adult I should have my budget all sorted out and know immediately how much money is coming in and how much money is going out and where to and I should be maxing out my retirement etc. and making the smartest possible financial choices. And also my house should be clean and things should not just live in heaps in the bedroom and living room. And as a fan I should be finishing the fanworks I have started. And as a nerd I should care more about things like robots and Maker Faire and I should like to design mechanical things and I should have far more cool and productive hobbies, ideally involving math in some way. And as a person with a stake in the future of my country and of the world I should be working on ways to lobby the government or possibly Occupying something somewhere.

But as me, I do some of these things, maybe, sometimes, in a haphazard and half-assed way, and instead I spend my time on the web, on Twitter, on this ridiculously moribund journaling site; I spend it reading completely socially unredeeming novels like Georgette Heyer; I spend it window shopping, I spend it sleeping when Mr. E will take the baby, I spend it on fic, I spend it drawing goofy jokes, I spend it looking at fashion blogs! I spend it kissing the baby, but also trying to get him to play with a toy by himself so I can have fifteen minutes to clear out my closet. I spend it watering my sad-ass plants and hoping they'll do better come spring. IDK. I enjoy the things I choose to do! But I feel awful about choosing to do them pretty much all the time. It's like, as long as I feel bad about not being a successful nurturing productive socially responsible member of society, that at least is something I can do that I'm supposed to be doing?

Oh coworker. I fully sympathize with your desire to make long personal phone calls on company time. And yet. Is the multi-stall bathroom really the best location? Have you adequately considered the issue of, um, background noise? Not to mention the psychological effect you may be having on your suittemates who are shy of bladder?

1) My understanding is that some children have silvery laughs like little bells. My baby's laugh is awful. He does not laugh very often - he smiles a lot, but doesn't laugh very often - and when he does laugh he sounds like a very old duck having a hysterical coughing fit, or possibly like an asthmatic trying to play "Chopsticks" on the vuvuzela.

I love hearing it anyway.

2) Dude, who recced Hanna to me. I know we are all so very hard up for Bechdel-compliant action movies but jeez. I mean, it was beautiful! Beautifully filmed! But what a crappy excuse for a "story". Or even for storytelling; c'mon, if you are at the top of your evil secret govt. agency, you should be able to figure out that Sexy Lethal Eric Bana is at your front door ten minutes before me, not after. Of course my big problem was that, as usual, I wanted the villainess to win. Hanna had no personality. Sexy Lethal Eric Bana was, you know, sad-eyed and hot, but he made me feel inadequate about my parenting skills and plus he was the second most cardboard cipher of a character. I did like the bratty teenage daughter, she was great. But mostly the villainess, she was Smurfetting it up in an agency full of otherwise nothing but dudes, so okay, immediately there's a backstory there. How did she get her position? How does she keep it? I don't know but I respect her for her career achievements so immediately she's the character I'm most interested in and I know the plot requires that she lose so I am cranky. Plus you have to respect the sartorial skills of someone who can predict a week in advance the shade of the forest she'll be having her final showdown in so she can pack her matching suit and appropriate low heels.

Anyway, crossover idea, free to a good home: Hanna and her Sisters.

I'm home!

I think I'm just done going back to Texas for Christmas. Traveling during the winter holidays is shit. It would be nice to go during a different time of year. Spring, when the wildflowers are in season. Summer, when we could meet up with my friend and take all the kids to the water park or the beach or something. There are options. And the thing about the holidays is, not only is the traveling shit, but everyone is busy and hopped up on holiday madness. It would be nice to visit some time when we'd be the only game in town.

As I mentioned before, it's something else how seamlessly things have slid from "you don't understand because you're not a parent" to "you don't understand because you're not a grandparent." And the thing is, I do understand. It must be extremely frustrating to be introduced to this adorable new baby whom you love madly and yet you have no control over how he's raised or how anything is done for him. And yet, tough. We had a bit of a conversation about that that ended sort of like this:

MOM: It's just that you're so very young -
ME: Uh, Mom, no. I am thirty-seven. That is not young. That is, in fact, just about as old as it is possible to even have a kid.
MOM: Well, you're very young to me.
ME: Mom. I am almost middle-aged.
MOM: Middle-aged! Then what am I?
ME: You are old.

Way to not make any peace there, me!

Still, Mom had a fantastic time with the Junebug, and he had a fantastic time with her. I know he doesn't really know people at this point, much less be able to miss them as people, but there are times here at home when Mr. E and I are busy or tired or doing things and he is sitting or lying on his own, and at those times, my mom was overjoyed to be playing with him, and he was happy. I don't think he's old enough to miss that exactly but I know he was happier because she was there. And that makes me a little sad now that we're home.

I got to learn some goofy baby games - oh, you know, things like This Little Piggy - from the old country! Ones that my parents played with me only I don't remember because I was a baby! They helped on the plane, too. Ooh, also I found this book of kids' stories and poems that I grew up with and I don't know why my mom kept but she did and I'm so happy because I loved it and now I get to read it to the Junebug!

I feel mildly sorry for my bro's gf, only mildly because she's a huge bitch, but unless I am projecting like an IMAX I recognize the position she's in. She and my brother were there the afternoon we showed up with the Junebug and she did NOT want to hold him - straight up said, "I don't like holding babies" - and I tried to say that she didn't have to but Mom and Bro made her. If I am reading the situation right she has absolutely no idea whether or not she likes babies because she is terrified that if she ever expresses any emotion other than loathing towards babies she will never hear anything else for the rest of her born days other than that she needs to have babies or, eventually, what a shame it is that she didn't have babies. I do not blame her at all for having the Baby Repulsor Force Field up at full strength. However, at the point that she gets cranky because she has to watch my brother play with his new nephew, that is when my sympathy begins to wane. Also it was really funny how when I started nursing the kid and my mom took a picture of us she freaked out and they had to leave.

We went out to dinner with bro and her family and my god that could be a whole saga in itself but I will confine myself to saying that the Junebug was awesomeness itself throughout the entire surprisingly long, exhausting evening, remaining cute and fun, barely crying; and even though we truthfully said that it was none of our doing and he was just born with this chill temperament, I know, and I took a great deal of petty pleasure in the fact that, he made us look good. Especially compared to the previous baby in their family who was a tiny freakshow.

My god, the nursing thing. Bro's gf freaking out. My mom and everyone telling me that I'm feeding him too much. My mom trying to convince me to go feed him in the bathroom while we were out at dinner. My mom and all her friends also telling me that I'm such a devoted, self-sacrificing mother to still be nursing him at six months. Various of mom's friends justifying to me why they weren't able to nurse their kids for more than a month (dude, I believe you! I am not judging! I don't even care! Also, your kids are forty, at this point NO ONE cares!)

Did get to see a bunch of my friends, which was completely lovely, including an evening with a friend of mine and her wife who is currently pregnant with twins and it was just a complete orgy of talking about babies and soooo fun and satisfying. I am very jealous of their baby room. It's so lovely. However, I have realized why we don't have a lovely decorated painted baby room. It's because we don't have a lovely decorated house or lifestyle. We put our time into other things. That's a choice and that's fine. Or rather it's been fine but it's been starting to bug me, the mess in our house. I don't need to have a Decorated house but I do need to make the condition of my living space more of a priority. It's not exactly a resolution but that's my New Goal of 2012, to find a compromise between tidiness and attractive house and time spent that both Mr. E and I can be happy with.