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Mason's Face and My Scheduling Snafus
Mar. 18th, 2015 06:41 pmFirst of all, for all of you following along, Mason's face is much better. He looks like maybe he spent St. Patrick's day in a bar brawl, which is only awkward because he's 11, but, you know... it makes for a good story. In fact, Shawn and I told him as we dropped him off this morning that the traditional answer to, "Dude, what did you do to your face?" is "You should see the other guy!"
Apparently, however, our truth-teller just told people, "I fell."
...which of course makes me half-expect child protection to be at our door tomorrow.
Meanwhile, I fail all the schedules. I managed to double book myself for a ton of things. First, work, which is totally the fault of the randomness of Mason's School and the fact that my dear wifi needs to be out of town on the same day, so I am essentially a single parent for the night anyway. Second, I forgot to put a con on my schedule and managed to double-book the Quatrefoil Library reading on that same day, and NOW I just got my schedule from the Minneapolis Comic Book Con and the one hour they scheduled me literally abuts my Loft First Pages gig at White Bear Lake. I had the whole day free otherwise, except from 2 to 3 PM, and they scheduled me from 1:00 to 2:15... which I could ALMOST swing, but not quite. They might just end up canceling me, which would suck many rocks, especially since I've never EVER been invited to a Comic Book Con in my life and it would be totally amazing to finally get to be at one.
And I hate these kinds of mistakes. Normally, I'm much better (or rather, I have so little going on that the likelihood of double-booking is SO NOT an issue.)
In other news my friend and Bitter Empire colleague Haddayr Copley-Woods wrote this wonderful advice column piece "Dear Bitter Butch: How Do I Talk to My Children About Heteronormativity?" which reminded me of a funny story that happened over the last weekend. Our neighborhood, as I've previously described, is often in flux. We have a lot of houses that are actually duplexes, etc., and so we get new people in and out all the time. There are several very stable renters, but there's a new family across the street with a boy who is quite a bit younger than Mason. At any rate, the neighborhood kids all play together in a very 1970s sort of way (often out of our sight, running around until we yell, "Mason, time for dinner!") At any rate, Shawn and I were doing yard work because it was amazing outside and our hill is a disaster and needs early attention. The new little boy comes tripping across the street on his roller blades to stand over me where I'm shoving last fall's leaves into a compostable bag. He says hi in that nine-year old way, and announces that he'd like to know which one of us is Mason's "REAL" mom. We tell him that neither of us is more 'real' than the other in the eyes of the law, but that we suspect what he wants to know is which one of us gave birth to Mason. In which case, the answer is Shawn. But, that doesn't mean that I'm any less 'real.' The young man listened carefully and then nodded and said, "So, Shawn is the real mom, then."
*sigh*
The best part of this story, though, is yet to come, because Mason comes over after they're done playing and says to us, "Don't be mad at {name}. He's only nine. At that age, they get their homophobia from the parents."
Yes, Mason, my son, you are wise beyond your years, I thought, but instead I said, "Good point. Also, he probably has never met anyone gay before, at least not that he knew to talk to." Then, we discussed how the poor kid was going to be in for quite the shock because our neighbors to the left are also lesbian moms (and a biracial family to boot) and two doors down the other way is a friend of mine who identifies as genderqueer.
Welcome to working class St. Paul.
Apparently, however, our truth-teller just told people, "I fell."
...which of course makes me half-expect child protection to be at our door tomorrow.
Meanwhile, I fail all the schedules. I managed to double book myself for a ton of things. First, work, which is totally the fault of the randomness of Mason's School and the fact that my dear wifi needs to be out of town on the same day, so I am essentially a single parent for the night anyway. Second, I forgot to put a con on my schedule and managed to double-book the Quatrefoil Library reading on that same day, and NOW I just got my schedule from the Minneapolis Comic Book Con and the one hour they scheduled me literally abuts my Loft First Pages gig at White Bear Lake. I had the whole day free otherwise, except from 2 to 3 PM, and they scheduled me from 1:00 to 2:15... which I could ALMOST swing, but not quite. They might just end up canceling me, which would suck many rocks, especially since I've never EVER been invited to a Comic Book Con in my life and it would be totally amazing to finally get to be at one.
And I hate these kinds of mistakes. Normally, I'm much better (or rather, I have so little going on that the likelihood of double-booking is SO NOT an issue.)
In other news my friend and Bitter Empire colleague Haddayr Copley-Woods wrote this wonderful advice column piece "Dear Bitter Butch: How Do I Talk to My Children About Heteronormativity?" which reminded me of a funny story that happened over the last weekend. Our neighborhood, as I've previously described, is often in flux. We have a lot of houses that are actually duplexes, etc., and so we get new people in and out all the time. There are several very stable renters, but there's a new family across the street with a boy who is quite a bit younger than Mason. At any rate, the neighborhood kids all play together in a very 1970s sort of way (often out of our sight, running around until we yell, "Mason, time for dinner!") At any rate, Shawn and I were doing yard work because it was amazing outside and our hill is a disaster and needs early attention. The new little boy comes tripping across the street on his roller blades to stand over me where I'm shoving last fall's leaves into a compostable bag. He says hi in that nine-year old way, and announces that he'd like to know which one of us is Mason's "REAL" mom. We tell him that neither of us is more 'real' than the other in the eyes of the law, but that we suspect what he wants to know is which one of us gave birth to Mason. In which case, the answer is Shawn. But, that doesn't mean that I'm any less 'real.' The young man listened carefully and then nodded and said, "So, Shawn is the real mom, then."
*sigh*
The best part of this story, though, is yet to come, because Mason comes over after they're done playing and says to us, "Don't be mad at {name}. He's only nine. At that age, they get their homophobia from the parents."
Yes, Mason, my son, you are wise beyond your years, I thought, but instead I said, "Good point. Also, he probably has never met anyone gay before, at least not that he knew to talk to." Then, we discussed how the poor kid was going to be in for quite the shock because our neighbors to the left are also lesbian moms (and a biracial family to boot) and two doors down the other way is a friend of mine who identifies as genderqueer.
Welcome to working class St. Paul.
