Love Notes

New Story posted on Can I Sit With You? Love Notes by Tanya Foubert.

One girl's foray into shop class, and the inevitable gender bias that greets her.

Another Embarrasing Story to Help Children...

this one is all mine http://www.canisitwithyou.org

"Lena" and I were best friends in fourth and fifth grade. We even had boyfriends who were best friends. She came all the way from the other side of town to come to the GATE classes at our school. We went to different middle schools and pretty much lost contact some time during those junior high years.

She was a US champion surfer, which I suppose, is something that happens when you grow up in Southern California, you know movie stars and champion surfers. I also know she went to UCI (probably even took a class from my dad!)and I think she got a degree in Chemistry. I am fairly certain she is a pediatrician now.

now I sound like a stalker....

Every Action

has an equal and opposite reaction:

Jake off of his Adderall XR:

• more verbalization
• more silliness
• less able to sit in class
• more clearly visible by his reactions that he is "there" because he is making sounds and laughing appropriately at funny things
• I feel like I need to research every drug on the market to find him a new drug that will help him focus without losing what little verbal ability he has.

Travel to Tahoe, Southern California, East Bay and everywhere else we went this summer:

• Lots of great memories for kiddos and grownups
• Nice things to reference in the car when we there is a crybaby Lucy who misses her cousins
• Out of control laundry and suitcases that have not officially been unpacked completely in over a month.
• Nagging feeling that I am behind

I have finally done all of the laundry:

• can't find any time to fold it unless I am awake at 2am
• can't find anything because it is in a gajillion baskets all over my bedroom
• brief sense of accomplishment until I open the dryer and find more clothing that, while clean and dry... is still magically not going to be folded and put away.
• constant feeling that I am behind

Date night with Descartes on Thursdays:

• happy husband and wife who actually talked...to each other.. throughout an entire dinner about more than just who needs to go potty.
• less cash
• less time to do crappy laundry (see above)

Can I Sit With You? book number two being published this fall:

• whooo hoooo excitement and thrill of accomplishing something meaningful
• constant feeling that I am behind

Lucy is most precious bright star:

• no sleep for precocious toddlers in our family apparently because she has not been asleep before 11pm more than once in the last two weeks.
• I am worn out by 10 am each day
• have seriously contemplated nearly full time preschool/daycare so at least someone can stimulate her for 8 hours a day.
• breath-stealing guilt that I am sometimes annoyed by her smart, capable, little personage, after my oft-mentioned heartache of having a child with disabilities. 

Finally took care of myself and went to the doctor for shoulder pain:

• not only do I have a rotator cuff injury, but something is f'd up in my elbow as well.
• need to go to physical therapy 2-3 times a week for at least a month
• personal mini-crisis wondering how the hell I am supposed to be strong enough to care for my disabled child when I am only going to get older and weaker
• guilt for not going to the gym regularly so I could have avoided this injury, be in better shape and live a healthier life for me and my family.

I am now going to clean the guest room, one room, (I can do it) while Lucy is FINALLY taking a nap. 

Coolness

We had our reading at Book Passage yesterday for Can I Sit With You? (www.canisitwithyou.org).

It was really pretty neat to present our book in the same little nook of Book Passage that hosts celebrities like Anne Lamott, Salman Rushdie, Lewis Black, Carl Hiaasen, Henry Winkler, Barbara Walters, Mario Batali, Brian Copeland, Maria Shriver, Alexander McCall Smith, Leah Garchik, Isabel Allende, John Gray, Amy Tan.. not all of these people are my favorite authors, but they are names most people recognize.. and I stood at the same little podium and talked with Shannon about our book, the impact I hope we are making, and how we managed to do it all for very little money, all the while adding to the coffers of our Special Ed. PTA SEPTAR (www.septar.org)

You know we are doing a second book. We are still accepting submissions until the end of the month. If you have a story that you would like to tell but aren't sure you can write it yourself I would be happy to ghost write it for you. Just send me an email and I will help. We can even use a pseudonym if you don't want your name associated with the story but you think it should be told. C'mon write a story send it to ciswysubmissions@gmail.com it will make you feel better to get it off your chest.

Thanks for all of your support.

Super Geek!

I just reformatted my computer. It's really not hard. Ijust popped in a disk after sorting through hundred and hundred of files.

In fact it was sort of like organizing a bunch of paper, setting half of them on fire then pulling out a new notebook.

My computer is no longer singing that high-pitched sad whine...perhaps I can rejoin the wired world.

We are back from Seattle and the show was fantastic! Sage was HIL-LARRY-US. I love to hear my husband laugh like that. More when am not so cranky because it was much too wonderful a weekend to spoil with computer drama.

We have a reading next week at Angelica's Bistro downtown, so make your reservations.

Wednesday May 7th 7:30pm
Angelica's Bistro
863 Main Street, Redwood City, CA 94063
Tel. 650.365.3226

Wow! Watch Out Seattle

So you know we have a show in Seattle for Can I Sit With You? a book reading.. and now NPR is officially going to cover it. This is so exciting.. for nerds like me (a nerd with out a PhD in something), being mentioned even by proxy on NPR is tantamount to having a paper published in a scholarly journal, and since I know that's probably never going to happen, NPR is the next best thing for me. I mean I just thought about that this very moment, but I am pretty sure that's what I think.

So if you know anyone in Seattle, know anyone who likes Seattle, know anyone with a lot of frequent flyer miles and is bored..send them our way.

tickets on sale now http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/30612

Friday, April 25, 2008 8:00pm
Annex Theatre
1122 E. Pike St.
Seattle, WA 98122
(206) 728-0933

Scheduled performers:

SJ Alexander lives in Seattle, avidly follows the doings of Britney Jean Spears, and is a Kennedy Administration buff. SJ writes almost daily at "I, Asshole" online.

Els Kushner is a librarian and writer who lives in the Pacific Northwest with her spouse, their daughter, and far too many books. Her website, Book Book Book, is at www.bookbk.blogspot.com.

Liz Henry lives in many intersecting communities, as a feminist, poet, translator, blogger, science fiction fan, queer & genderqueer writer, and computer geek. She's had work published in Parthenon West, Xantippe, Lodestar Quarterly, Poetry Flash, Two Lines, Cipactli, caesura, other, Literary Mama, Strange Horizons, and has been publishing zines and little books since 1986.

Sarah M. Glover is a recovering C.P.A. who lives and writes in San Francisco. She is currently using her young children as guinea pigs while manically scribbling away about ghosts and fairies. Hopefully, the scribbling will make it into a book before they leave for college.

Michael Procopio lives in San Francisco, but has yet to figure out the precise name of his neighborhood. He is a food blogger who dislikes the word "blogger" almost as much as he does the words "moist," "classy," and "slacks." His likes include the drawings of Edward Gorey, Cotswold cheese, and the musical stylings of Jacques Brel. His websites are www.word-eater.blogspot.com, and www.kqed.org/weblog/food.

Jason Kovacs is a native of the I-5 corridor whose writing has appeared in Cranky Literary Journal, ZYZZYVA, and Jeopardy Magazine (you could go find all that stuff and read it, except it is all published under Jasons old name and Kovacs is his shiny new name). Jason does not like cilantro, and does not understand people who do.

Judy McCrary Koeppen lives with her family in the San Francisco Bay Area. She works as a speech language pathologist specializing in early intervention. When not being paid to hang out with really great kids, she chases her own two children and cares for her family's ever-increasing number of pets.

Cindy Emch is a highway poet. She can be found writing reams of valentines and love letters to her adventures on a daily basis. She calls them poems. Her words are salty and crunchy like sweat and gravel, and they tell queer mossy secrets. Cindys work has been been published in Lodestar Quarterly, There Journal, Its So You: 35 Women on Fashion, Beauty, and Personal Style (edited by Michelle Tea), and numerous chapbooks. She co-hosted The Aunty Cindy and Unka Lynnee Show with Lynn Breedlove on Pirate Cat Radio from 2004 to 2007, and has been a curator for the National Queer Arts Festival since 1995. Emch is the founder and co-host of San Franciscos twice-a-month Queer Open Mic, which features queer folks of all colors, cultures, and creeds performing their awesome lit to encourage the building of bridges between art, community, and revolution.

Sarah Dopp is a San Francisco-based writer and tech geek. She co-founded TheWrit.org, an online writing workshop and publication which has survived in a state of anarchy for almost five years. She's also the editor of Genderfork.com, a blog that explores androgyny and gender variance through artistic photography. Sarah was a member of the 2003 New Hampshire Poetry Slam Team, and likes to think of herself as a "recovering slam poet." You can learn more about Sarah and read her blog at SarahDopp.com.

Special thanks to Annex Theatre (http://www.annextheatre.org/) for donating their space to this event. "Annex Theatre is dedicated to creating bold new work in an environment of improbability, resourcefulness and risk ..."

Of Course!

Jake's after-school aide just called, and she's fine, no one was hurt, but her brakes went out on her car. Luckily she was going 5 miles an hour on flat ground. Had she gotten all the way to our house... on her way out she would have ended up in the garage of the house across the street (and down the steep steep drive from us.) I am so grateful that the car trouble was discovered earlier in the day.

I'm also feeling just a bit sorry for myself, because...of course... the car is broken and she won't be able to come to help me. Of course. Because I specifically put Lucy into daycare today, and had Jake covered so I can finish the taxes and work on SEPTAR and Can I Sit With You? stuff.
Of course, because it just sort of seems like I haven't had a single week lately that follows my orderly instructions. Someone has been sick or not shown up or it rained or we tore up the yard or something.. oh wait.. that's just what my life looks like...CRAP

at least no one was hurt.

Queer Open Mic Night BE THERE!

It's been listed everywhere. I'll be there with my sister. I'll be the one drinking a lot of beer.

Queer Open Mic
1/25/08
8pm
$1 - $5
at Vince and Pete's Three Dollar Bill Cafe
1800 Market St, SF

Queer Open Mic hosts Cindy Emch and Mollena Williams are hopping mad excited to be rocking out January with readers from the Can I Sit With You Project including Sarah Glover, Liz Henry, Michael Procopio and touring contributor SJ Alexander. This important book co-edited by special needs parents Shannon Des Roches Rosa and Jennifer Byde Myers is a collection of stories about schoolyard social experiences, both good and bad. All proceeds from the the event and from the sale of Can I Sit With You? go directly to SEPTAR, the fledgling Special Education PTA of Redwood City (www.septar.org).


Queer Open Mic is a twice monthly gathering of poets, performers, writers and artists of all types to come together and share art. Proto-feminist and genderqueer in scope, QOM aims to combine raunchy enthusiasm, warmth and community, unapologetic queer, radical politics and sweet rhythms to create a space for spoken word, poetry and performance that is multi cultural, multi gendered, completely inclusive and dynamic. QOM is hosted by Cindy Emch and Mollena Williams. Please show up around 7:30pm to sign up on the open mic list. You're encouraged to read one piece of work that is five minutes or less. And by encouraged we mean threatened with spankings, shoe throwings and general hilarious tantrums if you don't follow the rules.

About the Performers:
Liz Henry lives in many intersecting communities, as a feminist, poet, translator, blogger, science fiction fan, queer & genderqueer writer, and computer geek. She's had work published in Parthenon West, Xantippe, Lodestar Quarterly, Poetry Flash, Two Lines, Cipactli, caesura, other, Literary Mama, Strange Horizons, and has been publishing zines and little books since 1986.

SJ Alexander lives in Seattle, avidly follows the doings of Britney Jean Spears, and is a Kennedy Administration buff. SJ writes almost daily at "I, Asshole" online.

Sarah M. Glover is a recovering C.P.A. who lives and writes in San Francisco. She is currently using her young children as guinea pigs while manically scribbling away about ghosts and fairies. Hopefully, the scribbling will make it into a book before they leave for college.


Michael Procopio lives in San Francisco, but has yet to figure out the precise name of his neighborhood. He is a food blogger who dislikes the word "blogger" almost as much as he does the words "moist," "classy," and "slacks." His likes include the drawings of Edward Gorey, Cotswold cheese, and the musical stylings of Jacques Brel. His websites are www.word-eater.blogspot.com, and www.kqed.org/weblog/food .

Blooking Central | Cheryl Hagedorn

Cheryl Hagedorn contacted us a few weeks back and asked us about our process of making the Can I Sit With You? blog into a book. Here is a link to the 'interview'.

Have you submitted your story? ciswysubmissions@gmail.com

Wow. Can I Sit With You?

Beth Kanter has just listed Can I Sit With You? on a list of "nonprofit organizations or causes that BlogHer readers may consider making a donation to as part of their year-end giving." Uhm wow.

I am actually going to the BlogHer social meet up thingy on Thursday evening.

Now What?

I am so glad we already had that neurology appointment set up for today.

Jake fell asleep at school. at the lunch table. during lunch.

He has not taken a nap that was not induced by anesthesia for nearly three years..maybe longer. Not only did he fall asleep, but Anna, his aide, was able to carry him all the way back to the classroom (wow! she's strong!) without him waking up.

There is a possibility that Jake had a seizure. Great! We've never had those before. I am so, so exhausted.

****************

In other news...please, buy a copy of Can I Sit With You?


****************

and also.. Jake's afternoon aide? Yesh, she will be going back to school next semester. So we are now looking for new afternoon help starting in January. Fantastic!

am feeling rather blue about Jake right now. His teacher, aide and Cookie (Descartes' mom ) all noticed his right foot "being favored" I finally saw it today.. when I really looked. He is not favoring his leg.

His foot is actually dropping and dragging. His right foot. is dragging and turned in.

is it nerve damage? from a fall in the back yard or some other time? He had a lump below his kneecap the size of a golf ball a while ago...

is it something worse, like a de-myelinating disorder?

do we need to get another MRI?

is he in pain?

my poor boy.

just now, I almost thought "poor me", or "why me?" I just want to celebrate our book right now.. I want to have that feeling like things are on track. I really hardly ever, nearest to never do that poor me crap.. because if it has to be someone.. I would NEVER wish this on someone else, so "why not me?" is where my mind rests.

Final Copy for the First Edition! Gulp!

Looks like Shan and I are going to let it go and start promoting this book.

Can I Sit With You?

I have a hard copy next to me and it is making me a bit giddy and a bit shy and a lot tired, knowing that the work of selling it will probably be more than the work of making it.

I'm Pretty Sure We Just published a Book

and Squid and I are currently celebrating the moment by....

me:taking a shower, then going to bed

Squid:folding laundry, packing, then hopefully going to bed


more self-promotion when tomorrow is really here and not just 1:20am

Bad Words Bad Words

Lucy is a parrot:

My sister Demanda said, "Shitty pants."

Lucy said, "Sitty, Sit Sit Sit Sit."

When I thought I had lost all of our Can I Sit With You? files and was going to need to start from a much earlier point...
good thing she was asleep already...

Can it Get Any Cooler?

Talk about someone I'd like to sit with!

deviantArt has featured Lea Hernandez!


The cover artwork for Can I Sit With You? has been named one of today's Daily Deviations at deviantART.com!

Congratulations Lea..and thank you for your amazing contribution to our book!

Holy Wow!

Have you even been over to Can I Sit With You?

Lea Hernandez has just completed the cover for our book. This is very exciting. If I get on this and help Squid we will actually complete this project and get this book published!

I have been a huge flake.. okay actually my computers are all infected and crashing and making me extremely frustrated, but it makes me feel flaky when I am not doing more than everyone else.

Yeah, you read that right. I must do more than everyone else or I am a flake. Kind of hard to do when you have very capable friends.

5.6 Earthquake!

We just had an earthquake a bit ago and what do you know, our first response, after determining that we didn't need to go save any children, was to go to the usgs.gov and check out its stats! Nerd Alert!

If you felt it please log in your details... helps the USGS make better shake maps.

oh and go visit Can I Sit With You? while you are at it!

The Sex Change of Zyax II

You have got to go read Liz Henry's story on Can I Sit With You? She is always an interesting read due to the ginormousness of her thoughts, and her ability to speak about them. If you haven't been going over at CISWY. get there right now and read what you have missed this past week or so. The stories are really rather amazing. It surprises me what we have all been through... what we do and say to each other throughout this life.

Hey Lookie!

Our little Can I Sit With You? is so cool they linked to us at Tolerance.org!

Don't forget to submit your story! ciswysubmissions@gmail.com