Thomas Wolfe said you can never go home again. I think it's not because home has changed, but because you yourself have changed. I grew up in the world of science fiction conventions, and never really thought anything of it. Maybe because I accepted fandom and everything that came with it as normal, becasue I hadn't seen much more of the world and had no basis for comparison.

But now, I don't understand what it is about fandom that makes people thank they can wear whatever they want? Speaking as a fat woman, I can say that fat women should not wear corsets, tiny short plaid skirts and fishnet stockings. I saw a couple of furries, seventeen year olds wearing "boobs on a plate corsets, a ton of wanna-be goth kids, and far, far too many people showing skin they should not be showing. I mean, maybe I should think it's great that people feel comfortable enough with themselves to wear that stuff, but you know what? I don't want to see that. And I've heard the things said behind the backs of the people dressed that way.

I went to a convention yesterday, solely to see my jeweler. I only wanted to be there for a couple of houors. And being there yesterday, I know I have changed too much. And that can never be my world again.

About that last post... Last week was a doozy. My boss was stressed and had a serious case of male PMS. Which meant the rest of us were stressed out and on edge. It just wasn't a good week, hence the kicking things and swearing. So I figured I'd give you all another story...

When we were 21, my best friend Val was pregnant. She was married, held a job til the baby came, and was in general a responsible adult. Thing about Val though, is she is this tiny elf-woman. She is just under 4 foot 9, and has long (naturally) blonde hair, and back then was about 100 pounds dripping wet. When she's not dressed up, and when she is not wearing makeup, she looks about 14. I, on the other hand, am tall and large and have looked 30 since I was 18. I looked even older when dressed up for work. Well, one day, that combination had an interesting effect.

I was working that day, she was off (we both had mall jobs back then). She was maybe 6 or 7 months along, and she was wearing maternity overalls (girl started waddling at 2 months, started really showing at about 3.5 months). Her hair was down, and she was wearing very little makeup. She looked pregnant and tired. I was dressed up and earing makeup, since I was working. She came to meet me after work, and we went to the mall McDonald's to grab some dinner. While we were waiting in line, I noticed there was this older woman who kept staring at us and giving me disapproving glances. I finally asked her what her problem was, and the exchange went something like this:

me: Can I help you with something?
her: *sour look* No. (pause) You must be so ashamed of your daughter.
me: (incredulous) Excuse me?
her: Pregnant so young. Shame!
me: Not that it is any of your business, but she's *not* my daughter, she's *older than I am* and she's MARRIED!

At which point Val held up her left hand to display her wedding ring to the lady, and to the rest of the people who were now staring at us, and the lady sort of harumphed and walked away.

I've tried for the last seven years to make that be a funny memory, and it some ways it's hysterical, but at the same time? Shut up, judgemental people. Keep your effing opinions to yourself, because usually you have no idea what you are talking about.

(okay, that last paragraph makes me sound like I'm still in a bad mood, but I'm really not)

Just ignore that girl in the corner beating her head against the wall, kicking things, and screaming "Fuck" and "Dammit" a lot. It's being that kind of day.

I had a pretty good weekend. Did some fun things, and some decidedly not fun things. I think the good outweighs the bad by a decent margin, and though I am in pain today, it'll pass quickly I think.

Sawzall? Fun!!

Exfoliating face wash on sunburned skin? Not Fun!

Spent a lazy day at my friend's house with her kitties on Saturday- she was away on a trip and I was caring for the kitties. Got to spend some quality time in her bathtub (oh, how I miss having a bathtub) and watched DVDs on my laptop while Antigone and Hippolyta alternated coming to me for some affection. Antigone is in heat, and spent the entire time I was in the bath yowling like she was being tortured. I didn't know what was wrong with her til Charlotte got home last night and told me, but when she jumped up on on the end of the bathtub, hale and healthy, and continued to yowl at me, I figured she was fine and just ignored it. As is normal for her, Ariadne hid the whole time I was there.

Got up early yesterday and headed out to Half Moon Bay to help clear bushes on a hilltop so we can have a camping event there this summer. The hilltop is large and flat, and mostly cleared open space, but over the years the coyote scrub (I have no idea if thats the real name for it, when I was growing up we called them tick bushes) has encroached on the open space so we were cutting it back. We had a generator, so we were able to run electric tools, and I got to use a sawzall. My arms are quite sore from that- I love powertools but haven't used them in ages, and the rest of me is sore from trekking all over the hillside, and from the nasty sunburn I managed to pick up.

The last of the new housemates (Troll) was at the house with a moving truck when I got back from Half Moon Bay, I waved and said I'd be back down in a bit to say a proper hello. I met one of his friends on the stairs, and did the "sorry, I can't shake your hand, I don't want to give you poison oak" thing, got into my room and hopped straight into a cool shower. Apparently hot showers can spread poison oak or something... By the time I got back downstairs he was nowhere to be found, so, whatever.

I seem to have inherited my dad's immunity to poison oak though, as I was practically rolling in it (well... kneeling in it) because it was growing along the road at the base of all the coyote scrub, which I was hacking out with the sawzall, and have no yucky itchies today. My housemate (DumbAss) is really allrgic to it though, so when he saw me and asked about the sunbrn, I recounted the tale of the days work, and he gave me a funny look and asked if I'd showered. I said yes. He asked if I had changed my clothes, and I gave him a funny look, and said yes. I was kinda like Hello? I'm sitting on the couch, in my pjs, with wet hair... But I said yes, I came home, webnt straight up to my room, didn't touch anything on my way through the house, showered in cold water, put my clothes straight into the washer, and they were already in the dryer.

So I'm sore and sunbured and a little more tired than the average Monday, but it was the first weekend in a long time that I didn't feel like I wasted a lot of it. And that's a good feeling.

(Disclaimer before I start this. I *did not* actually smuggle any babies)

Since it seems to be baby week here on the blog, I figured I'd give you the story about falling in love with a baby in a Philippine orphanage...

When I was 20, I went to the Philippines with my church to do dentistry. We also did some outreach to local schools and stuff. When we landed on Cebu, I was excited. Halfway to the Missionary Guest House though, I had changed my mind. There was dirt and poverty and my sensibilities as a spoiled American were offended. I am embarrassed to have to say that I spent the first week of the trip wanting nothing more than to go home. But sticking out meant that I got to experience God in some very real ways, and I learned a lot about life and about myself on that trip, but that's not what this entry is about.

On Monday of our second week (our 8th day on Cebu) we went to an orphanage. In light of everything else we had seen, we wondered what that would be like. We pulled up to these rusty iron gates, and all of us were like, "oh. my. gosh. what are we going to see on the other side of those gates?", but then they opened, and it was like a Savannah plantation- big white house surrounded by lush lawns, several swingsets and slides... it was gorgeous. We went inside and there was this group of kids waiting up for us, randing in age from about 5 to about 14. We sang songs for them and played with them, but my heart wasn't in it. I still desperately wanted to go home, back to my safe, blithely oblivious life.

All the babies had been put to bed already, but there was one who was still awake. She was fussy and whiny and would not let the woman holding her put her down. Her name was Anabel, and she was 10 months old. I asked if I could hold her, and they said sure, but that she was sick and not to take it personally if she cried and wanted nothing to do with me. But she came right to me, and settled down a bit. She was tugging on her ear, and they told me she had an ear infection and that was why she was so cranky. I was in the process of getting over an ear infection myself, so I could sympathize. I held her close and stood to the edge of the crowd and watched the kids put on skits and sing silly songs for us, gently rocking my body back and forth. Anabel got heavier and heavier, and I looked down to see her slipping away to sleep. And in that moment, she stole my heart. I edged over to my youth pastor and I said "Dale... There's room in my suitcase. This one is coming home with me." It was in that moment that I got over myself enough to enjoy my last two weeks there.

Of course taking her home with me was not possible. So I did the only other thing I could do. I asked for the name and address of the orphanage, and sent money every month for Anabel's expenses. Apparently she was a sickly child, and made frequent trips to the doctor. Which, though the orphanage got reduced rate medical care by virtue of being an orphanage, got expensive. I was a college kid working a retail job, but I did what I could and always sent something. A couple of years later, I got to the point where I was not working and try as I might I could no longer afford to send anything. That was a heartbreaking letter to have to send.

A few days after I sent it (long before my letter would have arrived in Cebu), I received a letter from the director of the orphanage, saying that Anabel had been adopted by an American couple in California. He could not give me their contact information, but wanted me to know that she had been adopted and that they had told the family about me and wanted my permission to give them my info. The family lived in Sacramento, a couple of hours from here, and I got to see Anabel again just before her fourth birthday. It was a misty moment for me, but she had no idea who I was because she had been too young to remember having only seen me once before in her life. Sadly, the picture of us from that day did not come out, and the family moved to the east coast about a year later, and we lost touch, so I've not seen her again. The family was really nice though, so I'm sure that wherever she is, she is happy and well cared for, and I have a picture from the night at the orphanange to remind me that life lessons come in all kinds of packages.

...and has her picture posted on the internet when she's four hours old. She was born at 6:56 pm, 5 lbs 10 oz, 18 inches. She's smaller than the bear I brought for her.

Welcome to the world Gianna Robin.

I started babysitting when I was 11. From the ages of 19 to nearly 23, I was a full time nanny. From 23-26 I did some live in work but it wasn't full time- anywhere from 4-8 days a month I'd stay at a house with two kids while their mom was away on business, but I had a full time office job too by that point.

One of the jobs I had during my full-time nanny years was for a family that had a little boy named Jess. He was 14 months old, and cute as a button. His mom, Mom, was home with us, but pregnant with Jess' sister and was on strict bedrest. Half my job was keeping her in bed or on the couch. Jess had been born 12 weeks early (for those who don't know- that's *really* early) and Mom had been having contractions for several weeks, and she was only about 20 weeks along (halfway) so she was on total bedrest. When she had Jess, he was born in about 20 minutes- water breaking to baby out- because he was so teeny. The ambulance had barely arrived when he popped out.

On my first day, I was shown "The Box", by a homecare nurse at the apartment, and then I had to attend some classes. "The Box" contained everything I would need to deliver the baby, should Mom go into labor and have the baby before the ambulance could get there. And in "The Box" was a little thing that looked like a garage door opener. What it really was was one of those "I've fallen and I can't get up" boxes that calls a serevice for you. This one did not ring a service however. This one did not have someone call you back if you pushed it. This one dispatched an ambulance immediately upon recieving a signal. But just in case it didn't get there in time, I got to learn how to deliver a baby.

I was terrified of the prospect, and tried to avoid looking into "The Box". It contained some innocuous things like baby hats and blankets and towels, but also contained things like cord clamps and rubber gloves and scissors and an aspirator. They also had an oxygen tank, but I wouldn't have to deal with that. I learned that a baby born that prematurely was likely to be breech. There really wasn't that much I would be able to do, but I had to know how to get the baby out safely, suck all the stuff out of her nose and mouth with the aspirator, wrap her warmly in towels and blankets, then deliver the placenta. (*Eeeeeuuuwwwww*)

Thankfully, Hannie stayed put until a week before her due date and was born in a hospital while I was at the house with her big brother Jess. So no, while I learned *how* to do it, I've never delivered a baby. I'm kinda glad I learned how to do it though, you know, in case I'm ever stuck in an elevator or become a cabbie in New York, but I'm just as glad I did not actually have to deliver a premature baby- both for my own sake and the sake of the family I worked for. I mean, given the choice, would you rather have your baby full term in a hospital, with real doctors and nurses, or a premature baby in your apartment, delivered by your 20 year old nanny? Yeah. Me too.

So I'm finally writing from the new laptop - how perfect is it that this happens to be the 150th post...

It got here last week but I couldn't play with it right away- working Thursday night and was out on Friday at a fun bachelorette party that involved LOTS of rum and the worst stripper ever. I spent all of Saturday bringing it up to speed with all my old files. That was a tedious and time consuming process. Thanks to Kat and Kelly for helping me restore some music files I lost in the crash. And with yesterday being Mother's Day, tonight is the first chance I've had to really enjoy it, and even tonight I had a ton of things I had to do, but I promised a post so I'm keeping my word.

A lot of my backed up files from the old machine were corrupted, and that includes the half composed posts... but I'll get those rewritten as soon as I can, plus new fun stories about the weekend. I can't write about my housemates anymore, because the new ones are web savvy- the scarycrazies weren't. But there is one story from the weekend that must be told, web savvy housemate or no. Keep an eye out for the story of the rabbit boy.

Bleargh. Not having a home computer is making me a little bit crazy. I'm going through withdrawal. The good thing about not having one is that I've actually been going to sleep at decent hours. In fact, I am fighting a bit of something, I've got a little bit of a cough and was generally feeling feverish over the weekend, and conked out just before 10 on Monday night. Last night I watched The Amazing Race, and went upstairs to read, and promptly fell asleep, to be awakened by the phone at 10:30, then was asleep again by 11. Much better than my usual habit of going to sleep at 12 or 1.

My new laptop will be here tomorrow though! I chose Dell because while I have heard a few negative things about them, I've heard a whole heck of a lot of good stuff about them. Enough to far outweigh the bad that I've heard. Also, buying under small business (thanks Charlotte!) helped me save quite a few pennies that I could put into some customization. Unfortunately, I'm not so thrilled with their customer service at the moment. I think online order tracking was designed as a 21st century torture device.

My machine got built with a good bit of speed last week, so I was very excited. I called and asked if the quick production time meant I might get it sooner. The woman I talked to said that there was a good possibility that I'd have it by the end of the week, since it had gotten built so quickly. Well, here I was yesterday, seeing that my laptop was sitting in shipping for the 5th straight day, so I called to check. Was told it would ship yesterday. It didn't. It was listed on order tracking as shipped today, estimated delivery being May 9-11. WTF? I paid for express shipping (that's how much I was jonesing when I ordered it). So I put in *another* call to Dell customer service, and the guy told me to track the package again with the order number, and according to FedEx it is on its way and will be here tomorrow! I trust FedEx. I don't trust Dell customer service.

And speaking of paying for stuff and it not being right, two weeks ago I splurged and went to my fufu fancy expensive salon to get a haircut (the keword here being *cut*). I was rushing around and stressed about being ready to leave for my trip, so I didn't pay super close attention to the finished cut, because I trust my stylist to do a good job. When I was showering the next morning, my hair didn't feel much shorter, but I dismissed the thought because I was in a rush to get to the airport. But when I was getting ready for the wedding, I realized my hair was still way longer than I wanted it (I had gotten a very expensive *trim*). Being that I was in a different country, there wasn't much to be done about it at the time.

When I got home, I asked several of my friends over dinner if they had paid $75 for a haircut they weren't happy with, would they call and complain? and they all said yes. So I called. I *hate* complaining about stuff like that, but it was a lot of money that I couldn't really afford, so it needed to be right. My stylist seemed to take it in stride, he thought he had done what I asked but was willing to fix it, so he cut it again, showed me, and I said, no, still shorter. So he cut it again. Now, it is maybe a tiny bit shorter than what I was asking for, but my hair is curly and semi-unpredictable about how short it will get when it dries, but I'm now happy with it, and it's hair. It'll grow back. And at least now I feel like I got what I asked for for my money, which was short hair.

So tomorrow, when I am playing with my new laptop, with my new short hair falling in my face, I will be a happy person.