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Let's skip the OMG it's been ages since I've posted and get right too it, shall we?

The past two weeks have been a flurry of Halloween - cleaning, planning, preparing, decorating. Costumes, thankfully were not part of the equation, as R's 7 year old duck costume fit Mo better than it fit him in 2004 (both size wise and in terms of love of ducks and the color yellow - "duck" being her first real distinct word) and R committed to being a pirate in exchange for my purchasing an expensive off-season pirate hat back in May for his turn as Captain Hook for his musical theater class, and he completed that ensemble the first week of October in a frenzy of excitement over the coming holiday.

The past 4 days have been an extended celebration of sorts. On Friday I took a vacation day, spent in part on a field trip with the Koala Babies (Mo's class at daycare) to Cox Farms, one of the multitude of Halloween/Harvest themed amusement parks that crop up (badoomching) this time of year, with a hayride -otherwise known as an excuse to sit in mama's lap for 20 minutes- corn mazes, hill slides, "country markets", etc. Then I took advantage of a kid-free afternoon to hit Target for last minute necessities and begin baking pumpkin chocolate chip cookies for Saturday. J built a giant spider out of bamboo poles and trash bags in our yard. 24 cooking/cleaning/decorating intensive hours later, we had the first of around 30 people show up for a Halloween party for Reave's friends and their parents (with a couple folks from daycare, but not many). We had a fabulous time, people seemed to enjoy themselves, Mo didn't totally freak out at having tons of people in the house and we have tons of leftovers. Maybe we'll do it again next year and expand to guest list to our friends. ;) Sunday we went to Great Falls and then came home and carved pumpkins and watched football. And, of course, yesterday was the day itself - I wore festive jewelry to work and brought in leftover rice krispie treats. J went to R's parade and party at school. Mo went trick or treating with her class. Then, suddenly, it was 6 and we were pouring candy and coins into bowls and J and R were headed out to meet his friends and Mo was running around in the yard in her duck costume, not sure what to make of all the people coming up to our door.

And then this morning, it's done. The spider and the ghosts and the zombies climbing out of the neighbors' lawn seem strange and out of place. It's time to move on. Christmas decorations are everywhere. Toy catalogs are popping out of everything - the newspaper, the mailbox. It's time to start thinking about Thanksgiving and turkey and what sweet potato recipe to try this year (I can just never get them quite right, for some reason). And in 60 days, we start all over with a fresh calendar. It barely seems possible.

But I have a ton of beer. Come over and have one with me.

Crossposts: http://emzebel.livejournal.com/227874.html

Day 1: Ten things you want to say to ten people right now.
Day 2: Nine things about yourself.
Day 3: Eight ways to win your heart.
Day 4: Seven things that cross your mind a lot.
Day 5: Six things you wish you'd never done.
Day 6: Five people who mean a lot (in no order whatsoever).
Day 7: Four turn offs.
Day 8: Three turn ons.
Day 9: Two images that describe your life right now, and why.
Day 10: One confession

1. Be funny. And almost more important - let me be funny. This is kind of an issue for me. As a kid, I often felt like I wasn't "supposed" to be funny or make snarky comments. Inevetably, if I tried to crack a joke in class, either it would fall totally flat or be ignored until a boy made essentially the same joke a few minutes later. At least, that's what I remember. I have a visceral memory of trying to tell a joke and having the entire class stop and laugh - not at the joke, but at me, for thinking I could actually tell one. Now, I have no idea whether this is a true memory, to be honest, or some cobbled together construct of reality and nightmares and societal messages. But whatever it is, there is no easier way to lose me than to deny my right to participate in pretty much any conversation, but particularly in attempts at humor.

2. Surprise me. Not necessarily stuff, although that's always nice, but an email out of the blue, an unexpected phone call, an understanding I didn't necessarily realize we had - those are great!

3. Be affectionate. I am very touchy feely with people I care about and open almost to the point of embarassment sometimes. I understand that not everyone is comfortable with this, but I like to at least know that I'm not alone.

4. Respect how I live my life. Not everyone respects lawyers. Not everyone wants kids. Not everyone thinks that marriage is a great idea. Not everyone is comfortable with atheism. That's cool. Telling me how wrong I am? Not cool. Appreciating that our differences make us more interesting people? Awesome!

5. Appreciate life's absurdities. I feel like this one is pretty self explainatory, but let me explain...actually, that might be quite enough, right there.

6. Let me tell you what I think. I have an almost pathological need to share my opinions with the world. Clearly, I am alone in this, in light of pretty much the entire internet.

7. Appreciate my kids. It may be stereotypical mom behavior, but there's a reason for it - very little is going to make me predisposed to like you than telling me how great my offspring are, unless you seem insincere about it.

8. Chocolate, baked goods, not telling me that what I'm eating is going to make me fat. Not much else I can say there. ;-)

Crossposts: http://emzebel.livejournal.com/227118.html

Day 1: Ten things you want to say to ten people right now.
Day 2: Nine things about yourself.
Day 3: Eight ways to win your heart.
Day 4: Seven things that cross your mind a lot.
Day 5: Six things you wish you'd never done.
Day 6: Five people who mean a lot (in no order whatsoever).
Day 7: Four turn offs.
Day 8: Three turn ons.
Day 9: Two images that describe your life right now, and why.
Day 10: One confession

9 things about myself...should be relatively easy, right?

1. First, the basics - mid thirties, lawyer, married for over a decade, two kids, house in the inner DC burbs. Gee, that sounds boring. Can we get more interesting with number 2? Probably.

2. I love to sing and was classically trained by a former Italian opera star in high school. Haven't done much other than lullabys in the past few years, but I still dream of singing professionally some day.

3. My sense of humor is...snarky to say the least. But it usually reflects fondness. Or incredible contempt. But I think it's usually pretty clear which one. (At least I hope so!)

4. I tend to occilate between being really politically active and not so much. I started drifting a bit off of being really intensely involved in online activism during the last trimester of my pregnancy last year, picked up again a bit during the fall, but generally am waning a bit right now. I need to start taking a step back for my own mental health and energy - I am still very aware and willing to call things out when I see them, but I also need to be more ready and willing to step away and not fall into the xkcd 386 trap all the time. To that end, I'm also trying to avoid the computer as much as possible on weekends. We'll see how that works.

5. Among everything else, I fancy myself a writer. That implies a certain level of actually writing, which is part of what I'm trying to kickstart here. I haven't actually been published in ages and ages and ages, but that can change, right? Part of this, I think is learning to just write the damn thing and then let go for a while. I get completely bogged down in blog entries, trying to be all eloquent and stuff. I'm working on just saying what I want to say and throwing it out there.

6. I have way too much perfume. By which I mean hundreds of 5ml bottles of BPAL. I am also pretty much completely brand loyal, if not scent loyal, on this point. My feelings about brand loyalty tend to waver - I'm also pretty brand loyal to Fluevog shoes and I try to buy things like jewelry from my friends, or at least via etsy where possible. Other stuff I'm all over the map on.

7. I almost always have to be doing more than one thing at a time. There are clearly exceptions to this, but even if it's just doodling during a scintallating conversation, I am almost always doing something with my hands while doing pretty much anything else.

8. I have a gigantic sweet tooth, I love red meat, cheese, scotch, beer and all sorts of other stuff that isn't really that good for me. Right now I want a cupcake. And a scotch and soda. And maybe some mashed potatoes. Although perhaps not all together.

9. I have many, many "win the lottery and quit my dayjob" fantasies, which include starting a bookstore/coffee shop, dedicating myself to writing the novel(s) in my head, starting a band, trying to get on TV as a talking head...the list, it boggles.

Oh hai there neglected blogging platform...

I need to write more this year. I have stories bursting at the seams and I need to smooth the way for them. And I miss a lot of y'all both on LJ and DW. The latter just means I need to actually open the windows and read. But the former means I need to put pixels to keyboard, or something like that.

So, shamelessly stolen from pickleboot on LJ, have a daily meme, which I hope will kickstart me to actually posting somewhere other than facebook again:

Day 1: Ten things you want to say to ten people right now.
Day 2: Nine things about yourself.
Day 3: Eight ways to win your heart.
Day 4: Seven things that cross your mind a lot.
Day 5: Six things you wish you'd never done.
Day 6: Five people who mean a lot (in no order whatsoever).
Day 7: Four turn offs.
Day 8: Three turn ons.
Day 9: Two images that describe your life right now, and why.
Day 10: One confession

...actually, maybe not. At least not Day 1, and here's why - things like saying things I want to say to a bunch of anonymous people really brings out the worst in me. I want to do things like comment on the person with the boots that are just WRONG who I saw earlier (not anyone here, I swear) or vent about petty crap that makes me not really like myself very much. And if I try to force myself to just say 10 *nice* things, I start to feel all cheap and sappy or I actually have trouble doing it. Which is not necessarily something very nice to confess (should this be my day 10?) but it is what it is.

Generally, I try to say things as I feel the need to say them. I think that every single person - easily 10, actually - about whom I could say "I really really miss you/I wish we lived closer/I am so glad we got to know each other [again]/I wish we hadn't lost track of each other/etc." knows that I feel that way about them, well, unless they fall into the last "lost track of each other" category.

But let's try it, keeping away from the relentlessly snarking (but the boots are SO bad) and fakey cheer (I am really a pretty positive person, I swear, once you get past the relentless snarkasm). Some of these are kind of random, and many apply to multiple people:

1. I am super glad that we're getting to know each other better for the first time, really, via facebook.
2. This applies easily to 10 people, but dammit, y'all are making me want to move back to Chicago something fierce. I know it wouldn't be like I imagine, but I still wish we could make it work somehow.
3. You make me a better person every single day. (I know, I know, but it's true, dammit.)
4. I really want to try to stay in better touch this year. I can't promise results, but I'm going to try.
5. I am truly honored by your trust and your friendship.
6. I'm incredibly excited for you and I cannot wait to see what comes of your new opportunities. (Jeez, that sounds like a fortune cookie.)
7. Thank you for your inspiration and words of encouragement.
8. I know I suck about keeping in touch, but I really do think about you all the time.
9. I love you. (Yeah, yeah...)
10. You are smart and funny and kind and caring and I hope you can keep that with you always.

Er, okay. So that got a little sappy. But it didn't devolve into passive aggressive confessions, so it's a win, I think.

Crossposts: http://emzebel.livejournal.com/226608.html

...all coming up on emandink.dreamwidth.org...

Or something like that.

Anyway, I may have submitted my name for the meme going on here: http://meloukhia.dreamwidth.org/45029.html?thread=909797#cmt909797

Never done one before.

Things are good. Momo is good, Big Bro is good. I'm madly in love with my children at the moment, which is good.

Not really posting here or anywhere, but doing a lot on facebook and twitter (@emandink there, yo). Thinking of moving over here more substantially and getting rid of a lot of the crosspost dupes so that my LJ account is more directly relevant to the origins of its name.

We'll see.

You are always on my mind...

Ahem.

Lots of stuff rattling around. I should really be blogging more, but whatever. Instead, some self digestion of discussions going on elsewhere re Neil Gaiman, the word "bitch", reactions, et.al. Anyway, there's a reason I haven't commented at Shakesville, and that reason is that I'm pretty conflicted and feeling generally conflict avoidant. That conflict starts with the fact that on the face of it, I must confess that I found the original George R.R. Martin is not your Bitch comment to be utterly hilarious. I read it, I loved it, pretty sure I tweeted about it, and generally did not think about the problematic aspects at all. It is exhausting to have to think about language all the time and I suspect that I probably twitched a little, but was so enamored with the pithiness and the sentiment that I didn't examine it further.

It also doesn't help that NG is one of those famous people who feels very...accessible to me. Part of that I suspect is the number of people I know who do actually know him and who interact with him regularly on a personal and professional level. One of my dearest friends is in a business partnership with him of a sort. I've written to him and been cited in his blog on legal issues. I've never actually met the man, having decided to spend time with my kid rather than stand in an hours long signing line on the Capital Mall, but I have that - almost certainly ridiculous - sense that if I were to have the opportunity to meet him in a situation where we could sit and chat on any sort of real level that he would be a dandy person to knock back a drink or two with. The fact that he's used language, or written the occasional piece, that may be problematic doesn't change that for the most part.

None of which means that I give him a free pass, either. Anymore than I give myself a free pass for occasionally slipping up and using ablest language or for not seeing the problematic aspects of using a prison rape metaphor to describe a work environment. Thing is, I don't expect perfection. But what I hope for is that people are willing to consider the implications of their speech and to think about the actual meanings of what they are saying. I have never been raped, but I still don't like rape metaphors. I don't cringe away from the word, but I do sometimes twinge at what I'm certain are deliberate plays on the double meaning in songs like Current 93's "Panzer Rune" or Death in June's "Behind the Rose"*. But I still listen to them and enjoy them and have a framed autographed poster from C93's first US shows ever in 1996 hanging on the wall of my home. And maybe that says something about me, but I'm not entirely sure what that is.

I think part of the reason why I feel compelled to get something down in pixels about this is that I get the impression from what some of the commenters who have "discovered" Shakesville via this issue have said and from Neil's own words, that there's a sense that there's a distinction between people who love and understand and "get" Neil and who read his blog and who appreciate his insight and who have spent long dark nights holding on to their last scraps of personal integrity through the power of his words to captivate them and feel less alone in the world, who turn to one or more of his works when they need something familiar, like a blanket or a fought for treasure, that can make you feel like those words were written just for them and those people who may like his work but who find the use of the word "bitch" problematic in the context in which he used it. Or that somehow, criticizing that turn of phrase means we didn't read and didn't understand the point of the GRRM post. And that's just not true. Some of us are absolutely one and the same.

I guess, really, what it comes down to is that enjoying someone's work is not necessarily the same as endorsing everything that person does. I can adore virtually every word I've read that Gaiman has written and still think he's fallible. Hell, I can think that an artist is absolutely scum of the earth in zir personal life and still appreciate that zie has great talent. The two are not mutually exclusive. The flip side is that there are definitely people who have done things that offend me so deeply that I cannot get beyond that to appreciate anything else they might do. There are businesses I will never buy from, individuals who people I know greatly respect who I will not give the time of day to because of things they've done or said and I am never going to judge anyone else for determining that something is unforgivable to them.

So what to do? Right now, I shall respect his request that people take the discussion elsewhere for the moment. But ultimately, I do want to write him, I think, and explain some of what I've ultimately been blathering about here - namely that this doesn't have to be about picking sides, and that no one expects perfection. What we hope for is to be understood and taken seriously when raising issues that are so entrenched and supported by our culture that even some of us who think ourselves highly conscious of such matters find it easy to gloss over or ignore.

*Should you desire evidence that I am prepared to indulge in a fondness for works by seriously problematic artists, well, there you have it in spades.

So, lately I've been reading a lot more semi-historical fantasy. Things like Juliet Marillier's Wolfskin/Foxmask (i.e., romantic fantasy with Vikings) and Sevenwaters (i.e. romantic fantasy with threads of Celtic myth) books, Jacqueline Carey's Terre d'Ange novels, Robin McKinley's work, and the like, all of which take place in some generally unspecified pre-industrial revolution time period where people still ride horses and have carriages and/or carts and cities are made of stone and surrounded by walls and most people are agrarian and magic is real. Marion Zimmer Bradley's "Avalon" books certainly fit into this as well, as do any number of other fairytale and myth retellings that I may or may not be familiar with.

These books tend to follow similar storylines - female heroine with some sort of magic leaves the comfort of her totally-ordinary-except-not-and-probably-somewhat-"enlightened"-family to go on some sort of quest that is at least semi- at-odds with what her family thinks they want for themselves and for her and along the way, said female heroine falls in love with an unlikely male figure who helps her save the day in some way while she helps him become a better man. It is genre fiction, as is much of what I read in other areas (urban fantasy, anyone). There is - arguably - a subtle feminist subtext, even while the tropes are troubling. These are often books where I can find messages that I value highly inermingled with things that in less engrossing stories would make me want to throw them across the room (again, seeing parallels with urban fantasy here...).

Sex may or may not be explicit in these stories. Certainly, it is in Carey's work and it is sometimes almost shockingly explicit in Marrillier's, at least in light of the fact that the Sevenwaters series is in the YA section of my local library. Don't get me wrong - I am *not* complaining on my own behalf and I would like to think that I'd be comfortable with my future 12-year old reading sex as it is described there - as something good and powerful and not to be feared. Pre-marital sex happens, as does passionate love, in ways that were definitely not part of the YA cannon when I was a lass.

I've been thinking about this lately in part because I've been wondering what the attraction of these stories is to me. I suppose part of it is the same thing that attracts me to smutty paranormal books - they are entertaining and the worlds are enchanting, literally and figuratively. Some works are better than others, to be sure - I just finished McKinley's Rose Daughter which was nice, but not particularly gripping to me, whereas I practically inhaled her other Beauty and the Beast retelling, Beauty earlier this year. Deerskin left me cold, whereas I inhaled Outlaws of Sherwood and am madly in love with Chalice. I could go on... Lest anyone newish here wonder what the point is here, I was a writing major with a minor in film studies and pop-culture analysis is so ingrained it is harder for me not to think about these things than to blather on about them incessently.

So, now I'm wondering if I can take this genre and make it my own somehow. I have the inkling of a more modern version with the same sort of natural magic appearing for the main charater in unexpected ways, drawing most likely from my own ocassional feelings about where I work and how aspects can feel almost magical. I also think I could probably have such a caracter be a lot less of a MarySue than my vampire proto feels sometimes.

Things to ponder.

I'm not sure I like my icon selection here. And some of them did not translate well. But I digress.

It is my birthday tomorrow. I will be 35, which is not particularly a milestone birthday; except that for me it feels like one. My mother - my mama as I called her then - is eternally in my mind as her 35 year old self. Thus, in my head, tomorrow I am as old as my mother, or at the very least my real solid memories of her as her own person.

Parallels are weird. I turned six the year my mother was 35, as will my son next month. I can't help but wonder, when he thinks back on the mother of his childhood - his mommy (as opposed to mom or mother which I'm sure I will become sooner than I want) - will me today, tomorrow, this week, this year - will this be what he remembers? Am I the person I want him to remember?

I think that for the most part, I am, and for that I am massively thankful.

I think I'm going to at least begin to use this account for developing possible more "official" blog posts. I've been sort of doing this with my primary LJ (and so, apologies to those who see things more than once), but this seems like a more appropriate place, being, as it is, more tied to my public persona. Or something like that.

It absolutely disgusts me that George Tiller was murdered, shot down on his way into church in cold blood, because he provided late term abortions. He was one of two abortion providers in Kansas. TWO.

And the thing about late term abortion is that they are almost exclusively NOT elective. The women who need late term abortion are not by and large women who do not want to have a child. They are women who chose TO have the child they are carrying, or who at the very least, came to terms with the idea or chose adoption or chose specifically NOT to have an abortion in the first trimester when it is legal by and large.

The women who need late term abortions need them because ultrasound and other testing show with an extremely high success rate (to the extent that "success" is really an appropriate term) that the child they are carrying - that odds are they WANT - is not viable. That it does not have a brain, or lungs or otherwise will be stillborn or live an excruciatingly painful few days before dying.

The women who need late term abortion have been dreaming of motherhood. They have talked to their growing bellies. They have picked out names and nursery schemes. They have registered for tiny little outfits and have been journaling about their progress. Maybe they have a website of belly pictures. Maybe they have older children who are anxious to be big siblings. They have hopes and dreams for this baby, this child they want to raise.

As a mother who had a c-section, I can think of almost nothing more horrible than being pregnant and wanting that child desparately and then being told that your baby will not survive. And add to that the possibility of not being able to terminate the pregnancy in the least invasive and physically tramautic way possible, but then having to either have another c-section or try to have an induced vaginal birth with a child who will most likely be still born - it is almost impossible for me to fathom.

I was completely terrified when I was wisked away for an emergency c-section. I had a panic attack on the table and could not stop shaking, even after they finally let J in to hold me. I was sobbing uncontrollably and the ONLY thing that kept me sane was hearing R's cry and the reassurance that he was big and healthy and pink and whole. I did not feel whole again until they finally tucked him under my chin and I could finally hold him and watch him make little raspberry faces and I cried when they took him away to be cleaned up.

And the fact that the anti-choice movement has managed to create a discussion about late term abortion that makes it sound like a walk in the park enrages me. It makes me want to scream and cry and howl terms like god-damn-inhuman-fuck-necks at the top of my lungs. Their arguments are based on lies. And lest anyone doubt, no woman, EVER, should be stopped at a clinic door. No woman is more or less deserving of abortion on demand without apology.

A new journal/blog.
A new beginning.

I have some vague ideas of how I want to use this, and I do indeed want to use it. But first, I think I need to determine how I am using everything else. Let's see. There's I'm Just Not Impressed, my woefully underused politics/issues blog; Waisting Away, my similarly underused was-originally-weight-loss-but-I-found-HAES-along-the-way blog, and two LJs - one semi-public gothy/politics/life/random stuff journal which is connected to a lot of my public face for the past 15 or so years and one super sekrit place to hide.

And now this baby.

In my wildest fantasies, should I ever actually become a published author who anyone gives two whits about, this - tied as it is to my actual public persona on twitter and various blog comments - will become my public face.

But for now, who knows...