And so it goes, and so it goes
Nov. 19th, 2018 10:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
miladygreyThis is a moment of venting, please feel free to skip.
Yes, I have strong feelings about foster care and adoption, and so the ads for that "Instant Family" movie tend to make me froth at the mouth. For all I know, the movie may be a sensitive portrayal of the difficulties of adopting from the foster care system, but the previews make it look like pure schmaltz and Love Heals All Wounds (plus, I am diametrically opposed to anything with Mark Wahlburg in it). However, Yeats absolutely did not need to pat me on the shoulder and say "Yes, yes, I know, you don't need to say anything, calm down" when that ad came on last night. I am allowed to be angry about something. I am allowed to have strong emotions. I already tamp down 75% of my strong feelings because he doesn't like it when I cry and he doesn't like it when I yell. If I can't scream about politics and tent cities and children in detention centers and my own UNRELENTING anxiety, then let me snarl a little about inaccurate portrayals of family services in bad movies.
Weekend was unexpectedly social, as Tall came down because he was having a bad brain day and did not want to sit alone in his new bachelor home. So we and some other friends took him out for drinks and dinner on Saturday, played some games, he stayed overnight with us, and went home cheered up somewhat on Sunday. He's still struggling with being single again after twenty years, and keeps saying stuff like "I feel like I should warn my dates that I turned my wife gay" and "Well, I'm a relationship risk, since I ruined my last one". He is not quite in the space yet where I can look him in the eye (on an apple crate, there's a reason I call him Tall) and say "Her realizing that she's gay has absolutely nothing to do with you, you are a great dad and were an excellent husband, you are getting a divorce because she does not want to be married to a man at all and it is as not personal as a divorce can be." He is a very good man and we all want him to be able to move on with his life, and we will haul him out of the Slough of Despond by his thumbs if we have to. Steff wants this for him too, but she's also adjusting to her new state, and she's realizing that her initial hope of "everything and all our friendships and relationships will stay exactly the same except for us being married" is really not going to happen. I need to call her and hang out or something, she's alone in her own way. She and Tall were friends as well as spouses, and that friendship is not gone, but it's severely altered. And apparently her family are very disappointed that he will not be having Thanksgiving with them this year (he was invited, and politely said he didn't think that would be a good idea), and so she's getting some blowback of the "but faaaaaaamily" vein. Well, he's not anymore, and if Steff can deal with that, so can they, and they shouldn't make "ruining the holiday" comments at her.
It snowed on Thursday. It was allegedly going to be an inch or so of wintry mix that would melt within an hour. It turned into three or four inches that stuck like cold, slippery glue. Aveline (who grew up in the Midwest and thus has a very cavalier attitude towards driving in the snow) went from "Huh, snow" to "Hey, it's sticking" to "...you probably want to go home, don't you". Yeats was sweet enough to be waiting for me at home with the electric blanket and a mug of hot spiked tea (he got his first snow day of the year, since it was even worse over the state line where he teaches, and the county called off school that morning), and we spent the day sharing PS4 time, as he is rampaging across irradiated West Virginia in Fallout 76, and I am rampaging across ancient Greece as Kassandra in Assassin's Creed: Odyssey. I sent pictures of the snow to my folks in TN and GA with the caption "the winter of my discontent".
This morning began with grumpy Yeats, as there is no one more disgruntled than a teacher who has to slog through a day and a half of work before a holiday, and me spilling coffee all over my good work khakis. Hoping for improvement, or at least maybe the sun coming out.
Reading Log: What If It's Us by Becky Albertalli and Adam Silvera; Dumplin' by Julie Murphy; A Study in Honor by Claire O'Dell; Archangel's Prophecy by Nalini Singh; Muse of Nightmares by Laini Taylor; We're Going to Need More Wine by Gabrielle Union
Yes, I have strong feelings about foster care and adoption, and so the ads for that "Instant Family" movie tend to make me froth at the mouth. For all I know, the movie may be a sensitive portrayal of the difficulties of adopting from the foster care system, but the previews make it look like pure schmaltz and Love Heals All Wounds (plus, I am diametrically opposed to anything with Mark Wahlburg in it). However, Yeats absolutely did not need to pat me on the shoulder and say "Yes, yes, I know, you don't need to say anything, calm down" when that ad came on last night. I am allowed to be angry about something. I am allowed to have strong emotions. I already tamp down 75% of my strong feelings because he doesn't like it when I cry and he doesn't like it when I yell. If I can't scream about politics and tent cities and children in detention centers and my own UNRELENTING anxiety, then let me snarl a little about inaccurate portrayals of family services in bad movies.
Weekend was unexpectedly social, as Tall came down because he was having a bad brain day and did not want to sit alone in his new bachelor home. So we and some other friends took him out for drinks and dinner on Saturday, played some games, he stayed overnight with us, and went home cheered up somewhat on Sunday. He's still struggling with being single again after twenty years, and keeps saying stuff like "I feel like I should warn my dates that I turned my wife gay" and "Well, I'm a relationship risk, since I ruined my last one". He is not quite in the space yet where I can look him in the eye (on an apple crate, there's a reason I call him Tall) and say "Her realizing that she's gay has absolutely nothing to do with you, you are a great dad and were an excellent husband, you are getting a divorce because she does not want to be married to a man at all and it is as not personal as a divorce can be." He is a very good man and we all want him to be able to move on with his life, and we will haul him out of the Slough of Despond by his thumbs if we have to. Steff wants this for him too, but she's also adjusting to her new state, and she's realizing that her initial hope of "everything and all our friendships and relationships will stay exactly the same except for us being married" is really not going to happen. I need to call her and hang out or something, she's alone in her own way. She and Tall were friends as well as spouses, and that friendship is not gone, but it's severely altered. And apparently her family are very disappointed that he will not be having Thanksgiving with them this year (he was invited, and politely said he didn't think that would be a good idea), and so she's getting some blowback of the "but faaaaaaamily" vein. Well, he's not anymore, and if Steff can deal with that, so can they, and they shouldn't make "ruining the holiday" comments at her.
It snowed on Thursday. It was allegedly going to be an inch or so of wintry mix that would melt within an hour. It turned into three or four inches that stuck like cold, slippery glue. Aveline (who grew up in the Midwest and thus has a very cavalier attitude towards driving in the snow) went from "Huh, snow" to "Hey, it's sticking" to "...you probably want to go home, don't you". Yeats was sweet enough to be waiting for me at home with the electric blanket and a mug of hot spiked tea (he got his first snow day of the year, since it was even worse over the state line where he teaches, and the county called off school that morning), and we spent the day sharing PS4 time, as he is rampaging across irradiated West Virginia in Fallout 76, and I am rampaging across ancient Greece as Kassandra in Assassin's Creed: Odyssey. I sent pictures of the snow to my folks in TN and GA with the caption "the winter of my discontent".
This morning began with grumpy Yeats, as there is no one more disgruntled than a teacher who has to slog through a day and a half of work before a holiday, and me spilling coffee all over my good work khakis. Hoping for improvement, or at least maybe the sun coming out.
Reading Log: What If It's Us by Becky Albertalli and Adam Silvera; Dumplin' by Julie Murphy; A Study in Honor by Claire O'Dell; Archangel's Prophecy by Nalini Singh; Muse of Nightmares by Laini Taylor; We're Going to Need More Wine by Gabrielle Union
