mickeym

So far, I'm less than impressed with 2010. I'm having to fight the overwhelming urge to just crawl into bed, pull the covers up over my head, and stay there. I blame the cold and the fact that it's been cloudy and/or snowing for the past three days. (I think we hit 20F today. Maybe. Our low tonight is supposed to be 7. I haven't been able to breathe well in about four days, because of the extreme cold and the dry air in the house, from the heater running constantly.)

Doug wasn't able to send the full amount of child-support. He was laid off for the last couple weeks of December, so I was half-expecting it, but he waited until he was sending the payment to tell me for sure. Doing better at communication, still have a little ways to go. Fortunately I can pay what needs to be paid right now, and just use the difference (which he assures me will come next Friday) when it gets here for groceries next week. But gah.

I have friends who are having some really rough spots in their lives right now, and I wish so much that I could just wave a wand and fix things for them. :( I hate that it's not even a possibility.

The graphic art that

counteragent has done really kind of hit home for me. Not so much in the sense of I hide who I am NOW (because we all know I don't, really), or what I do...but. (And for those of you who've known me a while, you've probably heard this story before. So I apologize you're hearing it again.) For those of you who haven't known me long, here's my tale of Family-Finds-Out.

To this day, and we're talking 12 years now, I still don't know exactly how my mom discovered I was reading/writing slash. My best guess is that when she would come to stay with us, she slept in our third bedroom which was combination computer room/guest room. I always made sure to clean things up in there, but I suspect I left a print-out of a story somewhere that she likely found and then read.

Christmas Day, 1997, I put the baby down for a nap (3yr old Matthew! hee), and Doug was probably napping as well, I don't know. I was out in the living room paging through a book

verabell gave me, a writer's "how to" on police procedures. Mom comes out, sees it and me, and without giving me any warning as to what was coming, launches into a diatribe on my computer usage, my hobbies, "THAT STUFF" that I read/write, how it's going to make me a bad mother, and what am I going to do if Matthew finds it?

An hour she ranted, and cajoled, and guilted me, telling me it was unhealthy, the amount of time I spent online and all for TV shows, and that sick stuff I was reading and what was I thinking?

She called me negligent, with regards to parenting, and said she couldn't ever see anything good coming out of all of this.

That did some major damage to our relationship; probably more than she ever realized. That was when I first really glommed on to the fact that my mother will judge me based on what she thinks is good/useful/right, and I'm going to come out wanting, every time.

We did eventually get to the point where my "hobbies" were less the elephant in the room and closer to something that could be (sort of) joked about. Or at least inquired after. A few years after that incident, mom made some offhand (or so it seemed, she acted like she was trying to be casual) comment about if I was still writing "that porn stuff". I responded that yes, I was still writing erotica, and she nodded and said okay, and that was that. I don't apologize for it, I never will, and I think far from making me negligent (I wonder sometimes if she even remembers saying that to me) my involvement in fandom has actually helped me be a better parent, in some ways. Would I have been able to be as open and understanding of all the 1093841204891 sex-related questions Matthew's had for me, without it? I honestly don't know. I know because of fandom and fannish interaction I became more comfortable with sex, sexuality, gender, and related topics.

Being fannish has allowed me to share things with Matthew I wouldn't likely have, otherwise. My mom's never been a big fan of anything but baseball, so we never had a 'fan' connection. But Matthew and I, we watch all kinds of television/movies together, and we have fun quoting random movies and dialogue bits to each other. We enjoy "spotting the actor", or comparing one character to another. He's able to fully enjoy/engage in things he finds fun (wrestling, video games, characters in a show) without worrying that I'm going to judge him for it -- because he knows I do it, too. Unlike my mom rolling her eyes at me when I hung posters on my wall as a teenager, or drooled over Adam Ant's latest record/photoshoot, or fussed because I wanted to wait in line for concert tickets... I won't do that. I encourage posters, and magazines (or checking on things online), and if we had the money, I would take Matthew to wrestling, or whatever. (I'm actually trying to imagine telling my mom that I've explained slash to Matthew, and how he jokes with me about the Wincest, and all I can picture is her head exploding. It's kind of entertaining, actually.)

I know this wouldn't work for everyone who has to be covert about their fannish activities. There are many reasons why people don't tell others, and I'm never going to say "oh, you HAVE to stop hiding, you need to tell people". My life isn't their lives, and what works for me isn't necessarily going to for someone else, and so on. And sometimes...things need to be kept close, kept secret, for reasons of employment or family relationships, or friendships, whatever. Not everyone understands or is going to understand, and having fannish activities exposed could potentially be detrimental to the individuals involved.

I did like the graphic art (I don't feel like I can call it a comic, because I always think of comics as funny things, and that didn't really strike me as funny), even as it hit kind of close to home for me (and probably even closer, for a lot of people).

Now I suppose I should go fold laundry, or something. 7:13 is too early to go back to bed, isn't it? *sigh*

ETA: I need to clarify that what I said above? Is for ME. I don't think it's cowardly, or bad, or anything, if you keep your fannish life to yourself; if you feel you can't/shouldn't share it, that's definitely your individual call. I really hope no one would ever think I would call them a coward for keeping something potentially damaging (unfortunately) to themselves. *hugs flist*