CrunchyBread

Weather around here has been very very wet lately, so I haven’t been going out to the clubhouse. Everything I own would get soaked! But today I’ll probably make it. It’s only cloudy, not raining. Gray clouds are PNW winter sunshine!

This week I’ve made improvements on the red felt dress, including a hip band with a flower, and some gathers at the bustline to give a bit of spice and interest instead of it being flat felt. I made a tiny necklace and three purses to go with the outfit. I also made a top for the leggings outfit. Finally, I broke out my hot glue gun and made an ottoman, and a mop.

I don’t know why, but the mop became an instant favorite with my son. He waved it around all day like a magic wand, and even used it to dust the computer and everything else in sight! I had to make a second one so he could have his own, and my Barbies could have their own. I should give him a tiny bucket of soapy water and tell him to go mop the kitchen floor with it today!

Part of me is looking forward to playing with my little friends again. Part of me dreads it. I’m afraid to let them handle my dolls. I’m afraid they’ll just ruin them because they play too roughly. They’re used to toys that are child-proofed, not delicate things meant to be played with gently. These girls are old enough to show more consideration. I’ll talk to them about it and see whether they tone down, or whether they keep on being out of control. I know things get broken sometimes when you play with them, but it should be a rarity, not just “what you expect”. I was never rough with my toys as a child, nor were my kids rough with theirs, so I know it’s a personality thing, not just a “childhood” thing.

What I need is for the girls to start bringing their OWN toys out to play, if they want to be rough. Let them share some of the risk of things getting ripped, dirty, or lost. This shouldn’t be all about me running a charity playschool event. I want it to be about us all creating stories together, not just running wild.

These are the garments I created from the slopers I drafted today. I sewed the leggings from a T-shirt fabric because leggings must stretch, and sewed the dress from craft felt, to see if it would work even in a non-stretchy fabric. I’m thrilled to say it DID work!

The great thing about felt is that it doesn’t fray, so you don’t have to hem the edges. And you can sew really close to the edge of the fabric, because you just don’t need much seam allowance. I usually use between 1/8 and 1/16” seam allowance on felt, and sew it with overcast “whip” stitches.

Aren’t they pretty? I couldn’t be prouder of how they turned out! The red dress is actually sewn on the doll, though, because I forgot to allow extra fabric for a closure like velcro. So she’ll need to be cut out of the dress, if I ever want to change it. But I’m happy for now that she should just keep wearing it! It looks so nice.

“Leggings” Barbie is only showing her back side because she doesn’t have a proper shirt yet, and she is modest.

For those who may not know, a sloper is a basic fitted pattern from which other patterns are created by adding variations. Today I took measurements of my 12” and 10” Barbies and began drafting slopers for leggings and a dress.

This is the beginning of me being a real dress maker, even if it is just for little dolls.

I’ve been buying a lot of stuff to support my new doll habit. Besides the dolls themselves (some of which were new and some seondhand) I’ve also spent about $100 on things like thrift store clothes to harvest for fabric, felt, ribbons, elastic and snaps, and stuff to make doll rooms/sets with. Not to mention a new hot glue gun.

My daughter thinks I’m spending too much on this new craft. But I say it’s a lot cheaper than therapy—and more productive!

_{srsly, I don’t feel normal if I’m not making something and being creative!}

BTW, in this photo I made pretty much everything you see. The table, chair, lamp, purse, outfits, jewelry, etc. Neat, huh?

After school today I set up the first meeting of the Barbie club for neighborhood girls! I made a cute sign to stick in the window of the cabana to help girls notice.

The truth is, nobody noticed the sign at all. But two girls did wander into the cabana for another reason, so I invited them to stay and play with me, and told them about the club, and they were very excited to join! We sat and played with dolls and made new dresses and things for them for about an hour and a half. Then we all cleaned up and walked home.

They said they want to come again tomorrow, and I said they should just check to see if the sign is in the window, and they’ll know whether or not I’m there.

I’m so happy to have made a connection! These are both girls I’ve met before around the neighborhood. It’s good to have an excuse to sit and play with them and our Barbies, and pass along some of the skills I have to a younger generation.

I need to be careful not to let too many girls join us. I don’t want to turn into the neighborhood’s free babysitter, and I don’t want to deal with girls who have a bad or rowdy attitude. I just want a nice, quiet play time with young friends.

One girl said she’d make a little chore chart so next time we’ll all have a set idea of what needs to get done for clean up, and who’s going to do it. There isn’t really so much to do that it needs a chart, but I’m happy to encourage her to be creative and organized in her thinking.

Today I taught them to make circle dresses. Tomorrow I’ll see whether they have the dexterity and patience to learn to hand-sew something, like a pair of underwear or a dress from a very simple pattern. If they are able to learn, that would be GREAT! If they can’t quite get it, I’ll just do all the sewing and let them focus on playing. Also I’m going to show them how to make a “room in a box”. Then we’ll have everything we need to start taking some pictures and making storylines!

Laptop still broken. I’ll try substituting s and k for the letter after B, and see if that works. Please let me know what you think of it, instead of using (.

Today I spoke with my apartment manager, and said that I’d like to start sort of a “Barbie Klub”, to meet in the kabana right around the time skhool lets out. (Gosh, I’m trying so hard to avoid even using words with the broken letter in them, but sometimes it just seems inevitable.)

This won’t be an advertised thing like my other parties have been. It’ll just be word of mouth. Anyone who wants to play Barbies with me, and maybe learn how to make some awesome new outfits and furniture and stuff will be able to join me in the meeting room. I’ll make the kids do their homework first, if any.

I know a lot of girls would show initial interest in doing this, but might not have the manual dexterity or patiense to be able to learn hand-sewing. I don’t want to have to frustrate myself or the kids by trying to make someone learn who hasn’t got the talent. I’ve seen that sort of thing end in tears before, and not always just theirs. But I’m sure that any little girl who was genuinely interested and willing to do the work absolutely WOULD be able to learn to make this stuff! Boys probably wouldn’t be interested, though. I wouldn’t be the one keeping them away if they wanted to join, but I’ve never known a boy to play with Barbies.

My first new little friend will probably be the apartment manager’s daughter. I’ve met her before, but her name is hard for me to remember right now. But she’s a very smart kid. We played a few good games of chess together before.

HA! I figured out my letter “c” workaround! I have to copy and paste it from something else printed on my screen. It’s a pain, but it’s doable! Good thing, too. I was utterly unable to think of a way to substitute k or s into the word chess, or any substitute for that word.

So tomorrow, weather permitting, I’ll be up there with my dolls and fabrics and sewing stuff, and see if anyone wants to play with me.

The letter after B doesn’t work on my laptop today, due to spilled lemonade. So I’ll use a ( instead.

I’ve been growing my doll (olle(tion. I found a lot of interesting dolls in very good shape at Value Village. Naturally, most of them had tangled hair, but with lots of Pantene (onditioner and plenty of gentle (ombing, usually all the rats and snarls fall right out, and their hair is silkier than ever. Some dolls had gotten bad hair(uts from their previous owners, and I had to fix that. I think I did a pretty good job.

I’ve made (ir(le dresses for most of the girls now. I do have two gentleman dolls to dress also. I bought some great so(ks at the dollar store with interesting patterns that I will trim down and make into sweaters for them.

I want to start building some sets. The dolls need pla(es to go and tell their stories. I’m having some trouble thinking of what to build, though. I don’t want to do all bedrooms. It’s hard for me as a not-very-so(ial person to have to think of ways normal people intera(t.

I guess it all has to do with what kind of intera(tions I want/expe(t them to have. Maybe I should build a s(hool set. But I’m not that age anymore, and I’d like to do more grown-up stuff. Maybe I should do a night(lub. But I really don’t want it to be all about hooking up and frivolous stuff like dan(ing or drinking.

Maybe I should make a (ommunity (enter! I (ould have a pool, a weight room, a day(are, a media room, library, have (lasses, have offi(es… it is perfe(t!

Now I just need a name for my little town, and I will start designing the sets for the …... Town (ommunity (enter!

I (an’t get over my lisp today. It’s too funny!

I phoned my Mom today. She and I don’t really talk much. I’ve had a pretty unhappy life, miserable childhood, rough adulthood, long hard road through many difficulties trying to learn to stand on my own two feet when it always has been just me, never really any friends or family or therapist or teacher or anyone ever helping me. I didn’t call my Mom to make her feel bad. But today the conversation just kinda drifted in that direction, where I tried as unaccusingly as possible to share with her what my perspective of my life has been.

She was shocked. She said she always assumed I had a happy life. She remembers things being a bit hard sometimes, but she remembers life being pretty good. She never knew, or never noticed that I was unhappy. Even when I used to tell her sometimes as a child that I was miserable, she kinda just always thought I was “going through a phase” or just kidding and making stuff up to get attention. She said she remembered me being pretty happy most of the time. She said she and Dad used to talk about my occasional outbursts, where I informed them of my misery, as being symptoms of some kind of mental illness. Even now, she said she thought my sadness is some symptom of my “illness” by which she meant my having Asperger’s Syndrome. Even now she doesn’t quite understand that I am not ill. I just have a particular way of seeing the world which is a bit different from hers.

She recalled with amazement that it is true that she can’t remember ever saying to me that she was proud of me. I could read when I was barely four years old, but she thought I was just pretending. Though she learned later that I really was that brilliant, and felt proud of me, and talked with Dad about how brilliant I was, she never quite got around to saying anything about it to me. She kinda thought I just automatically knew how wonderful I was, just because I WAS.

We talked a lot. I’m glad she finally seems to have heard me, at least a little. I never wanted to be estranged from my parents. Maybe this is the beginning of mending those fences. Maybe finally there is a chance they could hear me, and LISTEN, and believe me, and maybe even change how things could be in the future.

I’ve recently fallen in love with a YouTube channel called “My Froggy Stuff – Crafts, and the Darbie Show”. This channel is all about making things for dolls like Barbie, American Girl, Monster High, or Lalaloopsie, and using these dolls and sets to tell stories, which generally have some sweet little moral at the end. It reminds me of the kind of little between-show shows that used to play on Saturday mornings when I was a kid and watched cartoons all that day.

It is so inspiring! I never played with dolls at all as a child. I never saw the point. Now I understand that using dolls and sets you can tell stories that you couldn’t really tell any other way. I intend to someday build a channel around making my own doll clothes, sets, and accessories, and telling my own stories with dolls.

Today I bought four Barbie Fashionista dolls, and one doll made to look like that girl from The Hunger Games. I bought all these dolls because they are good quality for photography, having fully poseable joints, wrists, elbows, knees, etc. Also I got as wide a variety as I could of hair and skin color. I paid twice as much for the Katniss doll because she had such a good, neutral expression on her face. Barbie dolls sometimes annoy me with their overly glamorous smiling faces. It’ll be easier to act a wide variety of emotions with a doll that has a more neutral expression. So I think she’ll end up being my main star.

I was disappointed in the selection of male dolls. Their expressions were pretty neutral, but also pretty stupid looking. They just looked like frat boys on the make. So for now I’ll just make my stories all about girls. Someday I think I’ll have to pick up an action figure of The Incredible Hulk. That’ll be a good choice to play my father when I do my life story. (ooooh, scary!)

I’ll keep my eyes open for good male dolls. I hope I can find them with good articulated joints. If I can’t, though, I’ll have to settle for getting the best faces I can, that don’t annoy me. Something nice, and intelligent looking would be best. Definitely NOT going for any action-figure muscle-bound violent-looking types. (except for the Hulk)

I feel very excited about all the creative potential in building sets, furniture, decorations, etc. I’ve always thought doll houses were fascinating, though I could never justify to myself what I would want one for. Now that I have a purpose, I feel thrilled to see how I can make it work!

Sometimes it seems the minute I come up with a really good plan, that’s the moment my life stops entirely and I make no development at all in that area.

My plan of six daily “periods” to focus on is BRILLIANT! I love it. But I haven’t done a damned thing with it since I thought of it.

Almost every day since then, I’ve slept in until 9 or 10am, rather than waking up at 4 or 5 like I should have. I’ve let my son get himself up and ready and off to school all by himself, instead of playing “the good mother” and getting my own day started at the same time, and cooking him a hot breakfast, etc. I know he’s fine taking care of himself, but I don’t admire the me that leaves him to it as much as I would admire the me that got out of bed and acted more involved.

I can’t seem to control my sleep. I feel the need either to sleep tremendously too much (10-12 hours of comatose unresponsiveness) or not sleep at all (3-4 hrs of fitful half-rest).

I’m having a LOT of resistance to leaving the house, unless there is an actual friend at my door coming to take me somewhere, such as choir practice, or a day of shopping. I can’t seem to make myself do anything BY myself. Inside I feel like whining all the time, wishing someone would hold my hand literally, and be with me and make everything better instead of having all this responsibility alone and being such a worthless failure.

This isn’t productive. I can’t spend all my time beating myself up. Some things are getting done every day, even if it isn’t what I think of as “enough” to justify myself as “worthy”. My kids are fed and clothed. My house is functionally clean, even if not pretty. My obligations to friends are being met. Just because I could/should be doing ten times as much doesn’t mean that what I AM doing is nothing.

I read once of a cure for bedwetting that involved TELLING the child to wet the bed. If they were going to do it anyway, make it a choice. Do it on purpose. Choose to do what you’re doing anyway. And then it becomes nearly impossible to do. Maybe I should find out what the hell I’m really doing, and then CHOOSE to do that.
9am: wake and surf the internet for three hours
noon: shower, if you feel like it because your feet are cold. Otherwise, stay grungy.
3pm: meet kids coming home. Feel very guilty that they’ve worked all day doing THEIR thing, and you’ve only done internetty stuff rather than any housecleaning. Try to get them to do a chore, and call it “management”.

Damn. When I look at it that way it makes me so ashamed. I’m not sure it makes a difference that I am ashamed. But it certainly isn’t a pretty picture.

I’m trying to get up the gumption to leave the house now. The weather is pretty for the first time in a week. I don’t have a migraine. I’ve taken a shower. All I need to do is put on shoes and “outside” clothes, and gather bags etc. and GO.

God, I have such an urge to just surf the internet some more. Maybe I’ll find more videos on how to make doll houses. Maybe I’ll take a nap. Maybe I’ll write more posts or comments here, and pretend that that means I’m being “connected” to people. ARGH!! I know nothing matters now except moving and getting out of here!!!! I feel like my legs are stuck in tar, and I cannot move.

I’ll see if I can break the inertia. It’s pull is strong. I hope I can escape it. Insert some reference here to the gravitational pull of a galactic object and warp thrusters trying to save the Enterprise from falling into its field forever. ARgh. I’m such a loser. I have to get off the computer now.

I experimented with drying some carrots, celery, and onions, which are my favorite trio of vegetables to go in any soup.

First thing I noticed was that I like to chop things to a small size that tends to fall through the cracks of my dehydrator trays. To solve this, I got some plastic canvas and cut it to fit the trays as inserts, so the tiny holes allow for air circulation but stop chopped onions, etc. from filtering through. Solved!

Next thing I noticed was that the scent of drying vegetables wafting throughout the house was wonderful! Really made the place feel homey. This is my kind of potpourri!

Finally, I just couldn’t get over seeing how much dehydrated vegetables shrank! I chopped a full bag of carrots, a full bunch of celery, and a large onion. When I started, they filled five trays. As they dried and shrank, eventually they only filled one tray. I now have barely 1.5 cups of dried vegetables sitting in a large jar from what used to be seven or eight cups of chopped vegetables.

I’m very excited about the storage capabilities of dried foods. I like that it takes no refrigeration. I like that maybe I can stock up on something fresh, like carrots, if I see a really good price, and it won’t go to waste!

Next I need to figure out just how much of this dried vegetable mixture I need to portion out to go well with my lentil soup mixture. I still want it all to fit in a pint jar. I’m not sure how adding these vegetables may change the necessary proportion of water needed to cook the soup. I’m also not 100% sure yet whether the reconstituted vegetables will really seem just like fresh, no matter what I’ve read all over the place. It seems uncanny that these shriveled bits could make luxurious soup.

But finally I’m ready to make a test batch of soup and try out all these variables. I’ll update tomorrow to report how it all turns out, and try to have photos. :D

My favorite soup is a simple mix of 1/3 each lentils, split peas, and barley, cooked in Wyler’s bullion broth. It cooks to an edible stage in about 45 minutes, but gets better if you let it simmer an hour or two.

The basic soup is fine by itself, but is even better when you mix in chopped vegetables and meat. This soup is very comforting, delicious, hearty, healthy, and easy.

I shared a sample of this soup mix with a friend, and she loved it so much she begged me to make up a bunch of jars to sell at our church bazaar. She even gave me money to buy the ingredients.

I have lots of great ideas for this project. I will layer the soup ingredients in the jars diagonally, so they’ll look exciting and fun and pretty, like one of those Doo-Dah birds folks buy at the fair.

What? Your fair never sold these novelty things? Go figure…

Anyway, my challenge right now is to figure out the cost per unit, not forgetting to add the price of the jars themselves and any decorations I add. I’m also considering adding some dehydrated vegetables, for a deluxe package. Good thing I enjoy both cooking, and doing math!

My friend thinks we can charge $5 per jar. One jar will make maybe two quarts of soup. I don’t know if people would really be willing to pay so much for a simple food, but maybe if I make it look fancy they’ll think it’s cute or gourmet enough to entice them. Folks at my church tend to be upper-middle class, with plenty of money but little time. If they think of this as a convenience food, they may buy. It does take time to cook, but not really any effort or time in the kitchen preparing it, especially if I add the vegetables too.

I hope to keep my cost per unit at about $2.50 each. That would show a decent profit for the venture. I hate when folks make things for a bazaar and it turns out they barely sell for enough to cover the price of ingredients, much less effort to make them. It would be more efficient just to donate the cash directly rather than put in the work to make a thing that sells for the same amount.

I hope this succeeds! It isn’t really a hard thing to do. I’ll tot up the math tomorrow from the supplies I bought yesterday. Then assembly-line the production and decoration. Simple!

I just wish I could think of something more efficient than canning jars to package this stuff in. Something cheap, but sturdy and capable of being made attractive.

And here is a picture of my dinner last night, wearing ITS false eyelashes! My kids cracked up!

_{It’s mashed potatoes, hamburger patties, broccoli, and carrots.}

FWIW I felt like putting on some false eyelashes today and seeing how they felt. So here’s a picture for y’all to enjoy! I think I look rather cute. Hardly clownish at all. :D

This goal bugs me. I should have been able to do this. Somehow I feel like I have been doing plenty of work all along, but the real goal behind this goal was to get my house tidy and presentable and keep it that way. That hasn’t happened. We’re still rolling along the edge of “functional”, but not anything we’d want to show to company.

Maybe I made a mistake to try to organize my time so specifically before. My life is full of variables, and when I have an hourly schedule and I miss a deadline, I feel like the whole day is shot. I’m thinking now that what I need to do is organize my time into looser “blocks” of time, like about three hours each, and have a goal for each block, rather than each hour or half-hour or minute. It’ll be something like being back in school, and having six different periods in the day. I’ll try to achieve what I’m supposed to be doing each period, but I’ll know I have a three-hour window to figure it out/get it done.

4-7am: Opening the Day
- wake up
- shower/dress as needed
- breakfast, perhaps a morning chore of some sort
- get son off to school properly
- brief computer time as a treat if ready early

7-10am: Pay it Forward
- tidy the house (de-clutter)
- laundry
- exercise
- computer time as a treat if done early

10am-1pm: Get Out in the Open
- shopping
- library
- visiting
- gardening
- sightseeing

1-4pm: Back Home
- return from being out
- put away shopping
- unwind, rest, nap
- read, crafts, game, etc.
- welcome son home, have snack, do homework

4-7pm: Afternoon Chores
- family all helps with some chore or other (deep cleaning)
- play music to help things along
- kids get computer time when done with their chore
- cook dinner
- watch movies, family shows

7-10pm: Evening Wind-Down/Wrap-up
- Set up for morning
- crafts, games, books, family shows
- hot soaking bath if needed
- bedtime as early as you want.

Okay, that’s the plan. I’ve got it written down, and I think I can even remember it in my head. I’m going to start right now, picking up with morning chores, and see where this gets me. Wish me luck!

I felt pretty down for the past week or so. A couple of days I knew I needed to go shopping, but had this feeling inside like I might burst into tears for no reason at any moment, so I just didn’t go anywhere.

I’m still being pretty happyish when I’m with other people. But when I’m alone I’m falling into this abyss that just feels deep and suckingly powerful. I don’t feel like I can fight it. I almost don’t want to fight it. I don’t know why there seems to be something almost attractive about seeing how deep the hole goes. It’s like the urge to bite down hard on a sore tooth, just to see how sore it really is.

This morning I actually woke with lyrics in my head of a new depressing song I have to write. The title is “Unwanted”, and that pretty much says it all. It’s seriously depressing. Anyone who didn’t already want to kill themselves before hearing this song would be suicidal before the end of it.

Strangely, I don’t actually feel suicidal. I’d like to think that is my wonderful new zest for life asserting itself, not allowing the old familiar darkness to have full sway. That, plus I’ve learned a whole lot in the past few decades about seeing the love around me, noticing joy, noticing my own worth and contributions, and recognizing that I’m important and valuable and loved and successful, etc. etc. even if I don’t feel that way every moment.

So I’m guessing this is a hormonal thing. When your emotions go wonky on you for no reason, it’s always your hormones acting up, right? Besides I am of menopausal age, so it isn’t unusual to have weird emotional outbursts for no apparent reason. It’s probably all just hormones.

I only mention this here because I want there to be a record of me having said this, and noticed this, early on. I don’t want to fall deep into the bowels of swirling darkness, when all memory of light is gone from my mind, and have no reminder that it isn’t really me. It isn’t really truth. It is just something I’m going through, and as it came gradually it will leave gradually. And it has almost nothing to do with my behavior or real life. It is just a bunch of feelings. Hormones come, and hormones go, and life goes on and the children still need feeding every day.

Why is there such an urge to wallow in this? Why, having gotten some of this cack on me, do I feel like I should lie down and roll in it? (Such as by, I dunno, writing a song about it???)

Yesterday I stepped out of the house for a bit to pay my rent at the office. That little walk felt very good. I haven’t walked outside the house in days. Weeks, even, unless you count the times a friend picked me up to go to church or choir practice. Maybe months. I can’t remember anymore. I will try very hard to make it outside the house today. If I can do a whole shopping trip, that will be very useful. The weather today is fine. It would be good to get some food in the house. If a major depression is about to strike, it will be good to have plenty of supplies stocked up so we aren’t eating ketchup sandwiches while I wait for the storm to pass.

That’s it. I just need to think of this like a bad storm. It will come, leave icy roads, be nasty and uncomfortable, but it will pass. I just need to prepare for it so we get safely through it.

That was fast! I’m so happy when things go well!

It seems all my phone calls have swiftly brought a good result. I got a call back from the bus supervisor explaining that new measures will be taken on that bus. The director himself will ride that bus this afternoon to observe the situation, and suspensions WILL be handed out to kids who refuse to behave. Two kids who misbehaved this morning are already slated for bus suspension, though I’m unclear whether they know it already or not.

I’m glad I brought the right kind of attention to this situation. The driver, bless her kindly heart, just didn’t have it in her to take a firm hand. She was trying very hard to find a peaceful resolution that wouldn’t hurt anyone’s feelings. She didn’t want to label any kids as “bad”. But in taking such a weak stance, she was easy prey for kids who truly have it in them to test and push social limits. Two of the worst offenders are kids who live in my own apartment complex. Now it is THEY who get to take the city bus, rather than my son. Yay!

My son will be back on the bus tomorrow. I hope this is the beginning of better behavior on that bus.

My son told me yesterday that there’s a situation on the school bus. Some kids (anywhere from 5-20) are misbehaving, standing in the aisles, fighting, and generally acting rowdy. The bus driver has often pulled the bus off the road to yammer at them, and has even threatened that some of them might be kicked off the bus and left to walk home. But of course that never happens. She just waits until they calm down a little bit, then drives on. Then they get rowdy again, and the cycle repeats.

Yesterday she took one of the rowdy kids and sat him next to my son, because she knows my son is a great kid, very quiet, and she thought he’d be a good calming influence on the rowdy kid. She told BOTH of them that they were to sit together from now on.

This infuriates me. She’s trying to use my son (and probably others) to enforce the discipline she is too weak to handle. She is endangering my son’s chances of making good friends by casting him as some sort of narc or babysitter. And she still doesn’t maintain discipline.

What needs to happen is that when kids misbehave they maybe get one warning, then rather than repeated threats or guilt or cajoling or child labor prison guards, she needs to give the offenders a ticket and KICK THEM OFF THE BUS. They should be left to find their own way home the next day. Their parents should have to come get them, or else they should have to take the city bus. There is a city bus stop right outside the school.

As it is, I took MY son off the school bus and had him take the city bus today. I don’t want him being used as her tool.

I spoke with the bus supervisor, and she had the bus driver call me. The bus driver’s name is Pam. She’s a friendly woman, but unwilling to take responsibility for this situation. She would not budge on the idea that good kids are there for her to use to handle the bad kids. She said maybe she could make it more fair by assigning seats to ALL the kids, rather than to just the best and the worst kids. What a twit!

So today I phoned the school’s vice principal. I explained the situation, her solution, and my solution. I think he was able to see my point of view. He said he’d speak to the transportation director, and try to get back to me soon.

I hope they can exert the necessary influence to make appropriate discipline happen on the school bus. I’m glad that I have the option of sending my son on the city bus, but I pity the parents who don’t feel comfortable doing that. It is my son’s right to ride the free school bus. It isn’t fair that some kids’ bad behavior combined with one woman’s poor discipline are taking away my good kid’s right to enjoy a public service in peace.

I’m growing disillusioned with drag. At first I thought it was just exuberance, excitement, fun, and love. But I’m watching more and more videos posted by real drag queens, and I’m seeing that the reality isn’t as pretty as I thought. It makes me so sad.

By their own admission, most of these performers are really wrecks inside. They often get high or drunk in order to perform. They don’t feel good about themselves. That just breaks my heart.

Also, they’re starving artists. If drag is their career, they’re always terrified that the next new girl will take away their job. They have to invest so much money into the costumes and makeup and hair, and work so hard and be so uncomfortable for so long to do it, and they have to give maybe years of work for free before anyone thinks they’re good enough to deserve a paid booking. I can see that it would be nerve-wracking to live that way.

I only want to do drag for the fun of it. It isn’t like I can’t exist as a normal woman. I just wanted the chance to be a little sparkly now and then. I want to perform a karaoke song or lip synch, maybe as part of a night of entertainment put on at my church as a fundraiser or something. My livelihood does not depend on being able to book gigs.

Then again, I’m learning that (okay, you’re all free to slap your foreheads and yell DUH! at me) drag queens in general do an awful lot of sexual stuff. Lots and lots of innuendo, almost like there is nothing else to their performances or their life other than the pursuit of sex, or at least talking about it. It kinda makes me revolted. Not because I have a problem with gay sex, but just because I’m not interested in sex in general. I wanted to perform just for the sake of sheer beauty and art, not to titillate anyone’s prurient interests. Even just being around a whole bunch of people who couldn’t switch the subject off of sex for five minutes at a time would make me feel very uncomfortable. I don’t mind it floating past, but I don’t want to swim in it.

I don’t think I should give up on this goal. But I should think about it very carefully, and be sure it says what I want it to say. I need to learn more about this community to see whether or not I am able to fit in with it. If I could find a venue where it really wasn’t sleazy or trampy, but where it really was about an artistic performance, then maybe I could be happy.

Then again, maybe this is just one more fascination of mine that burned brightly for a moment, then flickered out. It wouldn’t be the first time I thought I was really on to something, and turned out not to care about it before long.

I just found out about this order. The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence are a group that formed in 1979 as a Gay Rights activist group. Today they have chapters in many cities, and mostly do social justice stuff, as well as clowning around. They raise funds for worthy causes such as AIDS research, and generally act as a presence of compassion and love in the gay community. They tell everyone that it’s okay to be who they are, to be gay if that’s what they are, to love anyone you want to love, and to live however you want to live.

Their trademark is a clown white face, with whatever embellishments each individual chooses to add. Usually there is a nun’s habit of some type, and a nun’s coronet. Each chapter may have unique interpretations of the coronet and habit.

I feel a strong affinity for this group. I know they do accept women as members. They accept everyone. You don’t have to be homosexual, or a man, even though the vast majority are. I like that they are a presence for good, and are working regularly to make a difference.

I would like to create a nun persona, and spend some time working with these people. I don’t think it is the end of my journey, but it feels like an important step.

I wish I could take the name Sister Helena Handbasket. It would be so perfect for me! But I believe that name is already taken, and possibly overdone. Cute names often are. I’m terrible at coming up with good names for myself, though, so I don’t know where I’ll find the inspiration for a nun name. Anyone with any ideas is very welcome to share!

_{This is Sister Unity Divine, my inspiration.}