(no subject)

It's probably coming from somewhere in the combination of my heathenism (images matter) and my Judaism (don't destroy the name of G-d), but getting way more pictures than I want to pay for of my son from preschool and having to send a bunch of them back for destruction really bothers me.

I quizzed him on the kids in the class picture, and whatever this may tell me about his social development so far, he could only tell me the names of about a third of them, and I know he got at least one wrong that he was sure was right. So I'm not buying the class pic either. If he doesn't remember them now, he won't when he goes back to look at it either.

Birthday birthday

bard_bloom and lediva arranged a very nice birthday party for me on Saturday. I'd requested "getting a bunch of people that like me together for something, and I don't have to make arrangements or fuss about who is or isn't coming or even know very much about it ahead of time". I was hoping to minimize my social anxiety (which for some reason was coming out in full force around this), and my frustration with feeling like I never get to do or have anything fun unless I do all the work planning it. I pretty much got what I wanted -- not a surprise per se, but something that other people put together for me.

A random collection of people I know from a variety of social contexts, about 40 or so in total, showed up at what I personally consider the best Indian restaurant in the county. The room was set up with a number of round tables, which nicely separated itself into sort of special-interest groups naturally -- the local poly contingent, which has a non-zero overlap with local UUs, so the new minister (who is an awesome cool guy) felt comfy with them; the gamers-and-their-new-girlfriends contingent, which also ended up with some locals who live near each other and have kids the same age; the family contingent, at which my mom and stepmom managed to be pretty friendly to each other; the alternative parenting contingent, which came with kids and with whom allessindra and family ended up, though they could easily have been with the gamers or polyfolk too, and the freaks from Boston contingent, which is also where bard_bloom and projectmothra and lediva ended up as home base.

It was kind of fun to have everyone in one place -- sometimes I tend to compartmentalize those different pieces of my life but it's good to know that if I stop doing that in selected situations the world probably won't fall apart, that the differences in the "me" that all those various people know is probably more in the fine details than I usually remember.

lediva's big gift to me was running karaoke for the second half of the party. She'd bought a whole bunch of additional music for her system that she thought I'd like, organized spreadsheets by title and artist so people could find stuff easily, and at the last minute had to go running around looking for a universal remote because the TV we'd brought wouldn't let you change the inputs without it. Due to some combination of shyness, not knowing any pop music, and not thinking they could sing over the booming bass from the other party next door, adult participation in the karaoke was a little limited, but lediva sang beautifully as usual, braved the larger than she thought it would be kid/preteen contingent who wanted to sing (between friends' kids and cousins, there were about 8-10 kids, I think) and may not have fully learned karaoke etiquette, and facilitated my sister and I pretending we were back in our parents' basement, singing "Paradise by the Dashboard Light".

projectmothra did not hide his crush on shatterstripes. Lots of the grownups asked about it, and projectmothra's buddy Quan finally got frustrated with the lack of attention he was receiving because of it and came and whapped projectmothra over the head with his stuffed Tigger to express himself. If only I were still that good at clearly expressing my frustration with my friends when it comes up!

After the party, a few of us went over to a lounge/bowling alley to chat, drink, and actually not bowl. There were big cozy U-shaped couch pits big enough for eight of us to chat and cuddle, and no one really wanted to get up once a lane became available. :)

I'm feeling very deacquisitional in terms of my stuff right now, but the fact is that I still like presents, so I was happy to have some. Among other things, I'm now graced with a gorgeous feathered Carnivale mask, some handmade jewelry, enough fancy soap to last me until 2009 or so, a Lampe Berger aromatherapy lamp, a subscription to the squid-of-the-month club, a box of floppy disks that I wanted for an art project, some new card games, and a big package on its way from Amazon that made a huge dent in my wishlist there.

I feel loved. Thank you.