I found this Man Repeller post via  the Holisticism newsletter. (One of my favorite reads every week.) It captures one of the important ideas I’ve been working with for several weeks now.

As I was trying to settle on a word for 2019, I went looking to a couple of oracle decks for inspiration: Lucy Cavendish’s Oracle of the Mermaids and Oracle of the Dragonfae. I didn’t find my word there, but I did pull one card from each deck that caught my eye and seemed like it captured some energy I wanted to live in 2019.

From the Oracle of the Mermaids, Sanctuary:

and from the Oracle of the Dragonfae, Melusine:

I didn’t know until I read the card descriptions in the deck guidebooks that Melusine is actually the mermaid depicted in Sanctuary. So I chose Melusine twice.

Who is Melusine?

If you’re big into mermaid mythology, you know her already. And even if you aren’t, you probably do, because this is her, too:

You can read her legend at Wikipedia if you want. But here are the two things I’m taking away from Melusine:

1. That I do need to enforce more boundaries. I'm lucky to have a lot of family support, so I do get a fair amount of me-time as compared with most moms of young children, but I don't use it wisely and I want to start doing that.
2. That I need to really lean into being myself. In any version of the story, Melusine and her loved ones face the consequences of keeping a part of yourself hidden as well as of not respecting boundaries. Enforcing boundaries and being yourself can be balanced, and I want to work on that balance.

Submitted a solo-authored manuscript today, so in true millennial fashion, I feel like I deserve many high fives.

I’m lucky: they gave me a canonical #spidersona, trying to figure out how to make a better world for her kid while dealing with the daily tasks of early parenthood.

Have now escaped 100% of @bullcityescape's rooms. And we'll be back when they make new ones!

I’m here for improv in libraries AND I recommend checking out FairPlayMN’s documents on levels of intimacy & boundary check-ins as part of your programming prep. Understanding that the first thing you have to YES AND is the fundamental dignity of your scene partner is crucial.

Writing music and reading music are different music. My writing music is video game or film scores. My reading music is chill beats, piano, quiet instrumental stuff. What about you? What’s your writing music? What’s your reading music?

I need to be reading & writing about information literacy as a sociocultural/sociotechnical practice, but I think swiss cheese Mom-brain is incompatible with Practice Theory. I just can’t handle words like “ontological” and “epistemological” when I’m running on 2 weeks of poor sleep because of my kid teething and never napping.

I’m trying to find a word to help me navigate these times in 2019. Something having to do with cycles… Being like the moon or like water… Working hard at high tide? Still figuring it out.

Today I listened to Lindsay Mack’s amazing first episode of the new version of her podcast, in which she discusses birth, death, and thresholds with doula/mom/actor/comedian Erica Livingston of Birdsong Brooklyn. It was so phenomenally healing. I might try to listen again and take notes so I can share the moments that really stood out. I haven’t fully processed my birth trauma, even though my kid is 26 months old. I so appreciate being given permission to see myself as postpartum forever, because that’s the reality of parenthood, isn’t it? Thank you so much Lindsay and especially Erica for this wondrous bit of medicine.

Friends with Secrets

Three friends with different backgrounds participated in online text therapy sessions from January to April 2018. Friends With Secrets captures a slice of their lives ? the good, the bad, the heartbreaking ? and how they try to process the world around them. The sessions have been refined. The identities of the therapists have been protected.

friendswithsecrets.com

Just read all of Friends with Secrets and cried and I think there’s a lot of journaling in my future?

Me, to W— this morning: I don’t know if you can cast every musical with the characters from Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood.

Him: Challenge accepted!