Eid Mubarak!

Wow! Summer came and went without a single blog post. Actually, I spent very little time on the computer this summer (my new unlocked and jailbroken iPhone, well, that's a different story.) I'm back now, though. I think, for now.

I like my job much better than my old job. The work is difficult and stressful, but it's rewarding and interesting. I adore the kids I work with. They amaze and frustrate me every single day. I love working days, and working close to home. The parts I dislike are just parts I dislike.

I didn't go to GenCon, and didn't publish the final edition of Fisherman's Wife, and I'm okay with that. The final will come out at Dreamation in February (wouldn't it be cool if I got it done by Valentine's Day?). The fancy handmade decoupaged copies that I sold but didn't get to bind with ashcan contents will be bound with final contents. I hope they're worth the wait, but if you bought one at the last GenCon and need something to tide (tie? tithe?) you over shoot me an email and I'll send you a pdf of the ashcan.

My friend Ingrid Steblea is doing the cover art and a few other decorative elements, which makes me really excited! She designed our wedding invitations. We've been married for almost 11 years!

Today is Eid. I fasted during Ramadan this year, save a few days where a migraine knocked me flat followed by a nasty cold. I'll make them up next month. I got up this morning, dressed in my finest clothes (a beautiful embroidered and beaded kaftan from Saudi Arabia and a shimmery shayla from H & M) and went to the masjid. When I walked in, three sisters jumped up and embraced me with love and affection. I hadn't been in a while, and I did all my iftars at home. I didn't intend it to be, but this Ramadan was a bit isolating by my own design. I'm not sure why, but it won't happen next year. I want that warmth and sorority as much as possible!

I don't talk about my faith on this blog much anymore. I had a very quiet and unremarkable shift from Unitarian Universalism to Islam a while back. If anything, it felt like I just switched cell phone service. Same conversations on a different carrier (and now I'm learning that whole texting thing.). But it's days like today, or when I attended Jumah even after working Thursday night, when I walk into the mosque and see my sisters from all over the world, that the conversion (reversion? extroversion?) feels right and real. Maybe the change was unremarkable because I first attended a mosque when I was 16 and for 20 years I tried to go back. I knew I'd get there, it was only a matter of time before I put one foot in front of another and did it.

But if choosing religion is as mundane as choosing a telephone service, why do it? I could say that I was looking for better coverage, and be all punny, but, no. Here's one, for me, for my area, where I am in life, the reception is better. with Islam. Ha ha.

Joking aside, today is a wonderful day for Eid. After Eid prayers (and a wonderful khutbah on the ease of being Muslim), I went to the wedding of my dear friend Jeremy where I saw friends old and new, feasted on excellent food, and witnessed the union of two loving souls. Happiness and gratitude abound. Alhamdulilah!

Alhamdulillah!! Alhamdulillah! Alhamdulillah!

I have a new job. I start Monday. It's a nice change of pace, a step in a new direction, and I am really looking forward to where I will go. I'll be working within walking distance from home, during the day, and most day's I'll be off at 3:15.

I'm going to be working as an instructor in a local public school (Bea's old school actually, and what will be Ingrid's new school when she starts kindergarten next year), in their ABA program. Most of the kids I'll be working with are autistic and non-verbal. There will be 5 or more children, ages 3 to 9.

It's not the job I thought was my dream job, but it has some exciting opportunities. More training in ABA (which may lead me back to pursuing a Master's in Psychology), tiny commute, mom's hours, the joy of sleeping in my own bed 7 nights a week, and rewarding, challenging work.

I was unemployed a little more than two weeks. I haven't even received my unemployment benefit checks yet, and I see this job being a nice big fat step in the up direction.

That's a few alhamdulillahs right there.

Just as I was starting to settle into a routine of being a stay at home mom, I decided to devote some of that spare time to do volunteer stuff. I'm trying to organize a Food Not Bombs chapter in Greenfield. More to come with that.

Get your terms right!

I've had a post/essay brewing for months, and I may never actually get it finished, but I'll let you in on a little secret: I have a collection of face veils that I've worn only in the house and while LARPing. I'm all for covering my hair, but I'm not really moved to cover my face for modesty's sake, or for religious purposes. Ironically, in the essay that I can't seem to write, I wanted to talk about how my Vampire LARP character is actually moved to, but quite conflicted about face-veiling. Maybe it's a self-identity vampire thing. I digress.

Anyway, to each her own, and masha'Allah when a Muslimah chooses to wear the niqaab. Go back and read that sentence carefully, even if you don't know what "masha'Allah" means. Okay, did you get it, that word in italic? There is no compulsion in Islam. Says so in the Qu'ran, Chapter 2 (al-Baqarah), verse 256.

Did you hear that, Mr. Sarkozy, Taiban, et al. who want to decide for others what we do to express our faith?

Speaking of France, and their hijab-banning practices, if Sarkozy wants to ban the "burka", then sure, why not? It's not really an Islamic item of clothing. But if you look at the photo in the preceding link, the veiled sister is wearing a niqaab. So what the heck does Sarkozy want to ban? Methinks he means the face veil--the niqaab. Well, we have a problem then. Pixie at "I Love Hishma" just wrote a very compelling essay on said problem here. If you ban the niqaab, why not ban wearing crucifixes, bandanas, thigh high boots, long skirts, gas masks, surgical masks and scrubs in general, bathrobes, earmuffs...I apologize for taking that down a road of absurdity.

On the other hand, I, too, am left to wonder if Sarkozy intends to ban public nudity, too. I doubt it, (and I'm being mean and catty and snarky here), but I bet his wife would protest that. Some of us like to be naked in the privacy of our own homes, and reserve showing our bodies to people who really matter, and that's our choice. There's that word again. Is it a symptom of power-drunkeness that one must make decisions for others? That's a dumb question, isn't it?

A 30 year old song mystery solved (mostly)!

I was between 8 and 11 years old. My dance teacher Cindy lent me an album so I could choreograph a dance. I don't remember a single song on that album, save one. It was a group children's choir singing a haunting but joyful melody, and the children's voices sounded like little haunted but joyful mice. I didn't understand the lyrics (because come to find out today, they were in Greek). I was between 8 and 11 years old. I didn't have the foresight to write down the name of my favorite song, and the Internet didn't yet exist, and hence there was no need to search millions of resources with a few keystrokes, so really, why bother?

I've kicked myself for nearly 30 years because I had no way to find the album or the song, and I loved that song. The melody waxed and waned in my head for that whole time.

Today, I ate a croissant and drank Earl Grey in Mocha Maya's cafe in Shelburne Falls, occasionally paying attention to the interesting mix of songs playing. The out of the blue, that song, that melody of 30 years ago piped in on a piano's keys! At first I thought it was melodic coincidence, the melody is very traditional and has inspired many songs throughout the ages. So at first I thought it was just a fluke, kind of like how you can sing the words to any Emily Dickinson song to "The Yellow Rose of Texas". (Try this one, it's terribly fun and funny.)

It was the song!! The long lost song. I ran up to the woman at the counter and asked, "what was that song?" She led me to the computer. She had no idea. It was a random Pandora selection, but the information was still on the screen, and she wrote it down for me: "George Winston, Night Part Three: Minstrels."

I looked it up on my iPod Touch and found the liner notes to the album. "Night Part Three" was an adaptation of "St. Basil's Hymn", aka "The Kalanta of the New Year". I've since found several versions, none of which are the original mouse child chorus I heard all those years ago, and I have the chords, so I can pluck away at it on my autoharp.

So I guess the Internet just proved its worth.

[expletive], [expletive], [expletive]!!!!!

I'm one of the glorious casualties of the "downturn of the economy". Apparently people are not having elective medical tests done, and are just sucking up their sleep disorders and not getting sleep studies. So I've been laid off.

There's more to the story, because people love to tell their "How I got laid off" stories, and few companies do it "right" or "well", but right now, since I'm on a job search, I'll have to save it for later.

I did, however, have an inkling my job was on the line soon enough to apply to a few jobs before I got sacked. I'm looking forward to what's in store. Mostly.

Say it like you mean it!

I love and hate when this happens. I had a really disturbing dream the other night. In short, I dreamed that a bunch of people seemingly forced their way into my house, although my door was always unlocked. A couple time I tried to lock the door, but people kept coming in. The weren't really doing anything other than walking around the living room. They weren't terribly friendly. I was frightened and defensive at first, and then I asked them all to remove their shoes and coats, and put them at the front door. The I asked them to sit down, and I asked them to tell me their names.

In the past week, pieces of the dream have turned up in my waking life. Not that people just came into my house uninvited, but the whole range of feeling that I had in the dream. First, a total stranger extended a stunningly sincere hand of fraternity. Then one of my patients answered a question before I asked it, and extended a sincere hand of fraternity. And three times, my heart found a clear voice and spoke out. Loudly. In the first instance I realized that I needed something intangible, and needed someone to help me get it. In the second, I asked for it, and received it within hours. In the third, I let go of some anger and pride, and I found a long neglected wound where they once sat. This has otherwise been a craptastic week, and at first I didn't notice the emotional parallels with the dream. Yeah, that's all vague, it's probably impossible to see the parallels, but they're there.

Best of all, it's okay, or at the very least, it will be soon, and I believe that now.

Malice: Not just scary dolls

I have been working on Malice, the game formerly about scary dolls. Now it's a game that celebrates the low special effects and high character development horrow movies from the late 60's to the early 80's. Before the obvious thing to be feared could be seamlessly and realistically featured onscreen. I'm thinking of movies like The Omen, The Brood, and The Shining.

I just happened to misplace my handwritten notes from the last time I worked on the game. This has turned out to be a very good thing. I have the bare bones, the pieces I really like, and I've been able to look at the game from a fresh perspective. A few nights ago, we playtested character creation, which is done in character, and in conjunction with establishing a plot. That was really fun. We ended up with the beginning of a story set in the summer of 1972, Michigan, with a cast of four teenagers who witness "Mark" die at a party, from excessive drinking. They call the police and an ambulance (after a lengthly discussion), but when they arrive, Mark's body and any evidence he was ever there are gone. That's about as far as we got. In subsequent scenes, the GM would play Mark--the Malice--of the story. I'm still working on the dice mechanics, and how exactly how to propel the story.

Another fun thing is the character sheet, which looks like a smudgy mimeograph of an Intake Form for therapy, institutionalization, etc. You fill this out in character as well, and talk about who your character is while you create her. The GM acts as a Case Manager to help the dialog along, and players establish which character (a PC) is their character's nemesis. It was all terribly fun, and I look forward to seeing how this story unfolds.

And I should be finishing Tales of the Fisherman's Wife by June, so if you ordered a handbound ashcan, it will arrive as a finished game. Hope it's been worth the wait!

Nothing to See Here, Move Along

Almost two years ago, I wrote here about an experience I had at the Y. I mentioned being an unclothed woman sitting amongst other women in a room where such activities are appropriate (at the Y, in the women's locker room). It was one of those typical day-in-the-life observations. According to Sitemeter, I get more hits to that post than any other, and given the keywords that send people to the post, I have a feeling people are looking for some kind titillation. I'll bet they're disappointed, but they keep coming, from all over the world.

For the time being, I'm taking the post down. It probably won't help my site's traffic, but oh well.

I have nothing against people looking for titillating photos of unclothed women. This is just not the blog for that. If you want to read about my rather uneventful life, adventures in role playing game design and other creative endeavors, kombucha, cooking, pets, octopuses, tattoos, midwifery, religion, spouses, and offspring, then welcome! Read on. If you're looking for images of the female body sans clothes, perhaps sitting with other unclothed beauties, there are zillions of other websites out there that offer that kind of fun.

If you're the traveling type, you might consider a vacation to Finland, where the activity I described is very popular.

Anyway, thanks for visiting!

I lost my superpower!

And I'm okay with that! I've been nursing an infant, toddler, or preschooler since May 29, 1999, with a 1 year hiatus during pregnancy. Ingrid is my last child and my last nursling. Now we are on to another era. My body is once again my own.

So there's some bittersweetness here. A few months ago we came to the conclusion that our family was complete with two kids. No third or fourth baby. I'm a little sad about that, but now I'm Auntie (or Tia) Julia! How cool is that? I'm an only child, so I never really thought about the prospect of being someone's aunt until my sister in law got pregnant.

I'm a bit of a breastfeeding evangelist. I'll hold back for now, except to say that I loved breastfeeding and at times I hated breastfeeding. Plugged ducts, thrush that wouldn't go away, nursing strikes, night nursing, nursing while sick, nursing a sick baby, nursing in public, nursing in front of people who made their disgust apparent, nursing while walking down the street, I've been there, done that. I have heartwarming breastfeeding stories, and stories that would make me (and you) blush. I wouldn't trade any of it. I won't judge any woman who cannot breastfeed and I am a firm believer that breast is best. Period. The more encouragement women get from their families, care-givers, and the rest of the world, the more healthy a nursing relationship she and her baby will have. (stepping off the soapbox now.)

The best thing about weaning is that now that Ingrid is older, I can see that goal of being a midwife with much more clarity.

The thing I'll miss most is that I never got a tee-shirt that said, "I make milk! What's your superpower?"

While we're on the subject...

This is a tangent from a conversation happening elsewhere online.

The African American Woman's Headwrap: Unwinding the Symbols

Terry Howcott: Ravaged Cultures Spark a Cultural Revival.

Dreamation Drama!

See this from Stone Baby Games (which is me, in case you didn't know). I mean drama in a good way!

I'm really looking forward to Dreamation this year! I'm also going to bring Werewolves of Miller's Hollow to play, inspired by the awesome story that was created in the Knife Fight Werewolf forum game. I'd like to play this bluffing and strategy game with lots of character development and story.

The picture above is of the character in Brotherhood of the Wolf who was the inspiration for my NPC Parthenia, who was the twin sister of my PC William Christian Ellsworth the Printer. Wrong time period, but I imagined her wearing red. How could an unmarried woman named "Parthenia" not wear red in a story about werewolves? Poor Will, by the way, was the next to last character to be hanged.

Parthenia's Dad

My parents visited us from December 18 to the 28th. It was a fun visit, except I spent the better part of their stay concerned about my dad's health. The last time I saw him was in March in Atlanta (see above) and he was almost 6 months post recovery from congestive heart failure. This time he did not look well. Apparently he wasn't feeling well.

Without getting into the particulars, he was admitted to the hospital on Saturday, and has been in ICU since then. He was a blockage of the large intestine. They performed a sigmoidoscopy Monday and biopsied a section. We'll know more tomorrow.

My dad will be 66 in about two weeks. I am very concerned about him.