Greetings to all wanderers who pass through here. Here are a few things you should know about me.

Half Sick of Shadows: Half Sick of Shadows is an experiment in cyberfunded creativity. How did it work? In November of 2008, I wrote a short story or poem every day through November. At the end of each post, I put up a donate button. All stories remained available for a brief window -- after which only the stories that had been paid for by my patrons remained. All public stories and poems as well as details of each installment of the project can be found using the Half Sick of Shadows tag.

Upcoming HSoS: There is no currently scheduled HSoS. I may do another in August.

Publications: Red Dust by Amanda Lord at Crossed Genres.

Crackle! by Amanda Lord, a tweat story at Tweat the Meet.

Harpsong for Heurodis at Cabinet des Fees

Superman Bound by Amanda Lord at Apex Magazine

SCA: I am a member of the SCA. Those of you who know me from there, know me as Aoife. My primary focus there is as a bard. I have been King's Bard (East Kingdom) & Baronial Bard (Concordia of the Snows). What does this mean for me? It means I'm still doing a lot of writing and performing. I'm a storyteller who also sings. I'm a poet who plays the harp a little. I filk from time to time, and, I've written a couple original songs. I'll probably chatter about this quite a bit.

I'm part of Vestfell Farmstead. We're a bunch of oddballs, but, we get a lot done. :)

Personal: My personal life is actually pretty sedate. I'm a librarian who married a computer geek. We live in a dilapidated Victorian with one housemate.

LJ: My journal is currently pretty open at this point. My time tends to vary. My f-list & communities tend to shrink & grow. Sometimes I'll simply drop into someone's journal from time to time. If you want to read me, you're always welcome.

So i'm sitting here feedin Saoirse and Vashta jumps up. So I say no & direct her off my lap. She lands in the cradle next to me.

A few moments later she's got her paws on the arm of the chair. I give her a side-eye because really there's no lap here; but instead of trying to get up, she licks the baby's head a couple times. The she settled down and napped.

I'm grateful that my cat seems to love our human kitten. :)
(Picture from when S. was in the cradle & V. was watching her & purring loudly.)

We really aren't meant to do this alone. I don't just mean a partner, though that's a start. But I really find that my best days are when people visit & help out even a little. Babies need stimulation, and after a while the exhausted parents are too zombified to generate much more than inane gibberish. Also talking with other grownups is super.

Parental leave is fucking absurd in this country. Both parents should get at least three months.

I miss her newborn smell.

Going out is in some ways hard & in some ways not too bad. It depends on the time of day & how tired I am more than anything.

Evenings are HARD. This baby doesn't believe in going to sleep anytime before 11:30. One night she didn't get to sleep for real until 1:45.

Napping when the baby naps is a lovely idea if you have a cook and a maid to handle everything around the house.

Showers are my favorite part of my week. I can't say day, because I don't get one every day. I'm lucky if I manage every other day. I love my daughter. I love holding her. I love her sleepy milk-drunk face. I love seeing her smily. But... when I'm taking a shower, I can't hear if she's crying. I can't do anything about it. It is the only 15 minutes when I am 100% off-duty as mom... and it is wonderful.

Baby powder is useless. Cornstarch powder just clumps & becomes sticky lumps rather than keeping the baby dry. Talc just works better, but isn't really safe to use. So... fuck baby powder.

I think we're raising a southpaw. Mom will be amused.

The other day was one of those long days where Saoirse didn't seem to want to settle down for anything. Finally, when I was frustrated to tears, Joel said, "Let me take her skin-to-skin for a while."

Joel had been frustrated in the past. When I'd handed her off to him, he hasn't had great luck with her settling down. For the first time, Saoirse dropped off to sleep snuggled with her daddy. It was such a nice moment, I hesitated to put her to bed.

Saturday was Joel's birthday. We pulled out the daddy-daughter tee-shirts I'd gotten him as a Father's Day present this year.

This entry was originally posted at http://dulcinbradbury.dreamwidth.org/1132196.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

I used to be Catholic. More than just a little Catholic too. As a kid, I very much believed. I also grew up with Christmas. Not just, "Christmas is the time when I get presents." I was in Church and Catholic school Christmas pageants. I loved Christmas because of the reminder to be a bit better, a bit kinder. And because Christmas was the time of miracles.

I am sometimes nostalgic over that. I am no longer a Christian of any kind. My faith path is much different at this point. But I remember a point in my life where I couldn't understand why anyone could object to Christmas. What harm could Christmas do?

As a Celtic Pagan, I struggle with the presumption that I am a Christian. I find myself frustrated with feeling insecure in being "out" as a pagan. I wind up scheduling my life around a holiday that is not mine for the sake of family. I work around this. I have a similar winter holiday. I don't generally get impatient with people who wish me "Merry Christmas." I enjoy all the pretty lights and greenery (which fits better with my own holiday anyway).

But I've found myself thinking about this a fair bit in the last week or so, in the wake of the Confederate Flag debate. I believe that there are people who honestly feel that the flag is a symbol of general Southern pride. That, for them, it is something they grew up with as an expected neutral part of their life. I suspect these people believe in the image of the misunderstood and independent South. It is part of their identity, their childhood.

A thousand quotes about the history of the flag and the confederacy will not change how they feel. It does not inherently make them bad people. It means they have feelings for a problematic thing. I suspect that the best that we can do is to help people understand how the flag is problematic, rather than to accuse them of being terrible racists for having a nostalgic fondness for it.

Me: I hope you're okay with jarred sauce & ravioli. It's been that kind of day.
Joel: I am grateful any time you make me dinner. As long as it isn't peanut butter* & jelly.
Me: As if I would do that to you. ... it would be fluff.
Joel: Hey!
Me: What, you wouldn't like fluff & jelly?
Joel: Ah... my islets of langerhans!

*Joel is allergic to peanuts.

I find that I really, really miss LJ and Dreamwidth. G+ is closer to this than Facebook, but not the same. Maybe it's just nostalgia. Maybe I'm back for real. I guess we'll see.

This entry was originally posted at http://dulcinbradbury.dreamwidth.org/1131386.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

It's been... a really long time since I posted over here. But I saw this art memorial for WWI, and thought of haikujaguar. It just struck me as the kind of thing she would appreciate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LI5thl7t09Q

I'm not sure anyone is still reading much over here. That said, I posted a new Loki fic over on AO3. It takes place between Avengers & Thor 2. It's a whole lot of psychological mess on Loki's part.

Loving Medusa
Fandom: Thor (Movies), Avengers
Characters: Mostly Loki. A bit of Hel, Sif, Frigga, & Thor (sort of).
Length: 3,763 words
Warnings Self-harm, suicidal thoughts, violence
Disclaimer Characters & world are owned by Marvel, not me. I'm just playing in their sandbox in my free time.

This entry was originally posted at http://dulcinbradbury.dreamwidth.org/1131033.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

I came to SF fandom fairly late. I mean, I'd been a fan for a long time. I was raised on classic SF & Star Trek Next Gen. It wasn't until I met +Joel Lord though that I went to my first convention. That's where I met Marty.

Marty was always one of the best parts of any Con where we both managed to make it. I described him as my favorite dirty old gentleman, which he loved. He managed to be an incorrigible flirt and a gentleman all at the same time. He had no shame when it came for going for a bad pun or joke. His usual avatar for M.C.ing Masquerades was "Uncle Vlad." He passed away today.

There are other people who can tell you his role in the Costuming community. His role in Techno fandom.

What I can tell you is that he was funny and kind. He was incredibly welcoming to everyone. He loved all things related to vampires. He ran a hell of a Costume Con. He was one of the most well liked people in fandom.

And, like Joel, I wish he really were Uncle Vlad. Then we'd get him back.

This entry was originally posted at http://dulcinbradbury.dreamwidth.org/1130938.html. Please comment there using OpenID.