Guest Post: Hold On

I am super stoked to announce our first guest post from Callie over at calliegarp.wordpress.com, where she writes about feminist art. I have a feeling we’re going to get to know her very well.  

It’s summer, now, I guess. But it doesn’t feel like summer to me. Summer is going out in short dresses, collecting suntans like arcade tokens, puttering about in my mother’s garden, sitting outside for long hours, reading in the shade of the pear tree. But this summer, I’m living in a new state, a new town. My This neighborhood is filled with misshapen houses, plastic flowers competing with the identical bunches of red geraniums, anti-abortion signs and sad stray cats. I live across from a large brick church. It towers over our bedroom.

I don’t like to hold her hand here. She is the sweetest person in my world – the only person outside of myself I know how to love right now, and I don’t like to hold her hand here. It’s a little strange. It’s more than a little strange. I walk outside and I feel like I can feel them watching. I am always waiting for that first altercation. I live in fear of the words fag and dyke and what are you doing?

Continue reading →

The Autism Chronicles: Self-Injury Hurts Everyone

At the beginning of the school year, Charlie had some big issues. We got regular reports that he was biting and hitting his teacher and aides. This isn’t an uncommon behavior with non-verbal children, but we only saw it at home when he was extremely frustrated, angry or in pain. It wasn’t a regular occurrence, so the fact that he was doing it at school was troubling. New town, new home, new school – new acting out. I, of course, felt super guilty for bringing them down here and his obvious dislike of the situation. We worried they were going to kick him out of school, that he was going to seriously injure someone, that maybe something bad was happening at school to trigger this behavior. Check out news stories of abuse in schools against autistic students – it’s absolutely horrifying how frequent and severe it is.

Luckily, this behavior settled down after a couple of weeks. A combination of Charlie getting used to the teachers, teachers getting used to Charlie, and vast quantities of pepperoni to get him to do as asked. He began getting more and more positive reports, he came home with crafts projects and started using utensils when he ate. There was an outburst every once in a while, but quickly diffused without injury to anyone. We were feeling pretty good, this experiment was working, we were a functional, happy family.

Continue reading →

An Incomplete List of Things I Can’t Listen to in the Car Anymore Because My Child Asks Too Many Questions

Image

– Wu Tang Clan, Enter the Wu Tang (too much N-word and 6-year-olds don’t grasp the concept of why it’s not okay if WE say it)

– L7, Smell the Magic (Fast & Frightening is one of my favorite songs, but the line “Got so much clit, she don’t need no balls” is a line I don’t have the patience to explain)

– Jay-Z, The Black Album (Again, with the n-word, but also kids are bad at understanding the drug trade) Continue reading →

Two is hard, don’t let anyone tell you differently

I know the grammar in the title is incorrect, but that’s what you get when you’re running on four hours of sleep and a beer (don’t judge me…both kids are down for a nap).

I have two kids. And life, right now, is kind of hard. It’s mostly happy, but it’s hard.

Someone once told me that going from 1-2 kids is way easier that going from 0-1. I call bullshit.

Being a new mother to a brand new baby is always hard. Especially when it’s your first. (And I bet, especially, especially, if you’re a single parent).
However, at least that’s the only other being you have to focus on.

When you have two kids, everything becomes a little fuzzier. You try to focus on the baby, while running, yes, literally, running, after the other one.

Continue reading →

Hopeful we’re not Naive.

Before we started this process we read several books and all of the internet.  There isn’t a lot of [accurate] media and I don’t personally know any lesbians, who have gone through this process, to draw experiences from, so the internet and books were our reference to get things started.  It led to some missteps, as different doctors have different letters after their names that we didn’t know we needed to look for, sometimes we didn’t ask the right questions right away and ended up wasting our time, and laws and practices vary so much employer to employer, state to state. Continue reading →

Your Morning Mixtape: High School Edition

Oh hey, guys… Long time, no see. I’ve just been over here doing……… Ok, I’ve been doing nothing, really. I’ve been in a slump-type thing for the past couple of weeks.

BUT! Things are looking up! Tomorrow morning I am going on an adventure. I am leaving the state! Without my husband! Or my child! Or my dignity, because I have tickets to go see FALL OUT BOY. I am as giddy as a middle school girl. My friend and I are going to be roadtripping down to the Dirty(er) South and spending a few days in good old Hotlanta. It’s my first vacation  without my kid. I’m just the tiniest bit excited.

In honor of the fact that tomorrow I will be driving down the road eating all of the snacks and singing at the top of my lungs, I compiled the biggest playlist of the stuff I listened to in High School. Nothing says freedom like blasting 311 and eating Red Vines. America, amirite? This one has everything from Nirvana and Pearl Jam to Luscious Jackson and the good old Butthole Surfers. It literally bleeds 1996, or as I like to call it, “Freshman Year’. Put this bad boy on shuffle and prepare to get nostalgic for the time when people wore flannel unironically, and the internet was something nerds did on Friday nights. You’re welcome.

As usual, you can follow me on Spotify, if you have a weird burning need to know how often I listen to Saves the Day (Spoiler alert, it’s a lot)

I’ll see you guys next week, after I’m done being AWESOME.

We’re Tired

20130524-115631.jpg

Hello all you fantastic Damn Pants friends! How are your lives going? I’m hoping better than ours. We’re all bogged down with work and kid freak outs and allergies and life in general. When I started this, my goal was to have lots of contributors so if someone was swamped there wouldn’t be a ton of pressure to post. It honestly never occurred to me that we’d all go crazy at once. Blah blah bad joke about cycles syncing blah. So, a new actual post will go up when someone gets some energy and inspiration. Until then, we love you, we miss you, we think you’re grand.

The Alternate Universe Game

Have you ever wondered if somewhere, there is another you, existing in a different universe, making different decisions? Sort of an “I wonder what would have happened if” universe? When I was younger, I played this game a lot. I would wonder if somewhere in time, there was an Erin whose mom didn’t die young, who was still around and would offer me advice and hugs and all the normal things that moms do. As I got older, I had really bad insomnia, and I would play this game well into the night, assuming I hadn’t had enough bourbon to knock me out. Continue reading →

Happiness Is A Warm Cookie

Cookie Heaven

Cookie Heaven

This week has been…tough. A couple of weeks ago, I went to my boss and did the craziest thing I may have ever done – I offered to do way more work than I’m paid to do. I think I had some sort of breakdown, or an alternate personality surfaced, or controlled by government aliens. I basically said, “You know how I’m completely overwhelmed by my current job responsibilities? I think everything might be easier if I took on some extra work!” See? CRAZYTOWN. So, that all started on Monday and I ended up logging a bunch of overtime (a bunch = any at all).

On top of that, my guy was out of town this weekend. He left on Friday. I’ve been home alone with the boys since they got off the bus. All the stuff in the previous paragraph about work being insanely stressful? I’m REALLY looking forward to getting back to it. I am exhausted in a way I don’t think I’ve ever been before. I don’t want to go to sleep yet because it’s actually quiet and I’m basking in silence.

Continue reading →

Your Morning Mixtape: Procrastination Station

So, I’ve been incredibly unmotivated lately. Pretty much sloth-like, if we’re being honest with each other. Sometimes, when I’m under immense pressure, I rise to the occaision and do my best super-hero impersonation. Other times, I crawl under the covers and hide, in hopes that everything will pass over without too much fuss. Sadly, this is one of the latter times. I have to be a grown-up and replace my stupid car, which insists on requiring at least $400 worth of work every time I get the oil changed. At the rate that we’ve been funneling money into that thing, it should be running like a brand new car and every single employee of our mechanic should be sending their kids to Ivy League schools. I was really motivated for the first day but now that motivation has devolved into Harry Potter marathons, eating chocolate chips out of the bag, and looking at incredibly expensive cars with the Carmax app on my phone. (It’s so convenient!)

But I digress. I needed motivation. My house is a wreck. I am a wreck. My kid is getting all of the molars at once. So instead of mopping the floors and folding the mountain of laundry sitting on my bed, I made you guys this mixtape of awesome ladies who motivate me to do awesome stuff. There is a little bit of everything on there, mostly. I like to dance around and sing into a hairbrush/mop/breadstick and make up choreography, but that’s just me. OR IS IT? DANCE PARTY???

As usual, you can follow my playlists and make fun of how often I listen to Dashboard Confessional on Spotify.