No Strings Attached

Posted By Kathleen David on May 26, 2014

Dear Peter,

It is both easy and hard to believe that we have been married for thirteen years now.

I have clear memories of that day. I remember getting my hair done by Jeff. I remember Harlan’s best man speech and the fall out from it. I remember the new bride smell joke that became a running gag. I remember being surrounded by our family and friends and feeling the love.

I remember our first anniversary when we were in Italy at a Star Trek convention. We had recently found out that I was pregnant with Caroline. We told the fans in Italy that I was expecting. There was a lot of cheering and congratulations from them. Good thing twitter wasn’t around then.

For our tenth anniversary we went to Jacksonville and visited with Shana. I remember the dinner that you and I had on our anniversary. The waiter asked what anniversary gift was for the 10th. I looked it up on my iPhone and discovered it was the steel anniversary so I bought you a sword to celebrate. It hangs in our bedroom.

So today we are at home rather than our usual being at a convention this weekend. Caroline is off from school so it is a family day. We left our plans kind of loose depending on how the day shapes up.

But going somewhere or not going somewhere doesn’t really matter to me. I like being where you are and being with you. I want to spend the day with you.

I love you Peter David. I love you a little more each day, which the previous day I would have thought impossible.

I love that you support me and help me be a better person.

I love that we can just ramble about all sorts of topics. There is certainly not a lack of good conversation around here.

I love that we are compatible but different people. We have our own sets of experiences that we share with each other. There are things that you like that I don’t and vice versa. We allow each other to enjoy those things and don’t begrudge each other that time to ourselves.

I love that we let us be us. Not a version of us or that one of us has to sublimate for the other. We pretty much know how each other ticks.

I love that we are there for each other. We know we have each others backs. We are comfortable with each other.

Thirteen years is both a long time and a drop in the bucket. I look forward to this years adventures with you.

Again I love you Peter and I support you.

I am grateful for all the time I have spent with my husband.

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Posted By Kathleen David on May 21, 2014

I grew up in Southern Fandom. I attended a lot of conventions all over the Southeast. There were a couple of conventions that I made a point of going to if I wasn’t hip deep in work and couldn’t get away. One of the downsides of professional theater is that you rarely get any weekend free.

One of the conventions which was on that list was LibertyCon in Chattanooga Tennessee run by Tim “Uncle Timmy” Bolgeo.

Uncle Timmy was (still is to me) one of my science fiction uncles who looked after us young pups at various conventions and made sure that we didn’t get into too much trouble. I remember one time that someone was being rather creepy towards me and I was getting very uncomfortable and Uncle Timmy saw the situation, stepped in, and sent the guy packing. He did that for a lot of people. Before project Back-up and the rest there were my “uncles” who made sure that I had a safe place to run around in and spend time with my fellow fans.

He has been a part of fandom for over 40 years. He has done a lot of charity work over the years. He is a good person with a warm and loving heart.

Now Politically Correct is not a word I would use with Uncle Timmy. He was a collector of bad and rude jokes. It was like a sport to him to see how loud he could make us groan with his new favorite bad joke.

Jason Cordova gives a pretty good summery at his blog here as to what is going on and why.

Basically Uncle Timmy has been uninvited by Archon to be their fan guest of honor for the machinations of one anonymous git who used words serious out of context to paint a very bad picture of Timmy.

It’s Jonathan Ross all over again. I met Mr. Ross and he was nothing but gracious to me and to Peter.

We rail against censorship and talk about the first amendment all the time in fandom. But we have a new form of censorship that is a lot more insidious and it is called political correctness, which can be twisted to such a point that we can’t talk about anything without being informed that we are offending someone. And within fandom this is being use as a weapon to bludgeon some into silence and others out of fandom entirely.

I leave you with a quote from 1776 which pretty much sums up my feelings on the matter Well, in all my years I ain’t never heard, seen nor smelled an issue that was so dangerous it couldn’t be talked about. Hëll yeah! I’m for debating anything.

I am grateful for those who are calling this sort of behavior to task.

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Posted By Kathleen David on May 20, 2014

I think some of the biggest lessons I have learned over the years have come from mistakes. Sometimes the mistake was the better solution to the problem, other times it got me off one track of thinking and back to the drawing board to figure out another way to do what I need to do.

Failure is an option and it is what we do with that failure that allows us to move forward or stay in neutral or go in reverse. Sometimes I think I define myself more by my failures than my successes.

It is in failure that I have learned patience. It is in failure that I have learned time management skills and exactly how long it really takes to do something. It is in failure that I get some of my best solutions to the problems I have created.

Doesn’t work all the time but enough for me that I find myself working forward rather than abandoning what I am doing. With a few exceptions which were spectacular failures in their own right and I knew those projects had to be shelved until I learned other skills that would allow me to do what I want.

It is frustrating especially when I make the same mistake more than once (like sewing a seam backwards three times in a row) but I haven’t had that happen since.

When I show my work to others, I have learned to accept praise and compliments rather than pointing out all the flaws within the project. I can see them and know how I would do better and I do next time.

One can’t be afraid to fail. I think we are conditioned to be so but I also think that it is possible to change one’s thinking about it.

I am grateful for all I have learned through failure.

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Posted By Kathleen David on May 18, 2014

I think, with the exception of being out of the country, I haven’t gone a week without blogging ever. So this is a first for me but I hope a last as well.

Yes, there are ‘things’ going on that I can’t talk about but then it is a day ending in ‘y’.

However I have been thinking about a lot of different things and here is some of it in a handy info dump.

Yesterday we traveled to Connecticut to watch Ariel receive her Masters Degree in Education from Sacred Heart University. We were joined by her boyfriend and her former roommate and close friend. Afterwards we went to lunch at one of Ariel’s favorite restaurants.

We are all very proud of her. She worked very hard to get this degree. Now she is onto the job seeking part of the rodeo. She has some prospects and is working towards a big move to Knoxville next month. She is making that major step from school to adulthood.

We saw Godzilla the other day. It was a Godzilla film. Could have used a little more Monster Fight and, at points, it felt like two films but overall it was an enjoyable mindless pop-corn flick. 3-D doesn’t seem necessary and might be overload on some of the action.

Caroline is pretty much off book for her role as Mrs. Peterson in Bye Bye Birdy. I can’t take any of the credit for it since she did it on her own. Nice skill set to have I think. She is doing better than some of the professionals I have worked with.

We are working our way back through the X-men movies in release order since X-men Days of Future Past comes out next Friday. Caroline likes Raven best but then her opinion of the character came from X-Men First Class so she has a hard time seeing her as a villain.

There was some discussion on a sports show this morning about visualization and the power of the mind. This is sort of a bookmark for me to come back to this topic since I have some half formed ideas at this time.

Caroline’s cat Fig has been sticking rather close to her since Caroline got back from Florida. Figgy was wiggling with happiness when we got back last night. I think that the cat thought we were dropping Caroline off somewhere again and she wasn’t going to see her human for a while.

Peter has a couple of new projects in the hopper. There are going to be some happy fans when we can announce them, which I hope will be soon.

So that’s about it from here. I hope to have something up for Crafty Tuesday this week but no promises. I think a bit of a break might be what I need. Of course last time I said that I ended up blogging three months straight.

I am grateful for people still checking in to see if I posted anything.

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Posted By Kathleen David on May 9, 2014

Today or rather this evening Caroline is going with her sister Gwen to visit her sister Shana down in Jacksonville Florida. Caroline has made this trip on her own several times. She’ll be back Monday. Yes, I know Sunday is Mother’s Day but I am a Mom the entire year and I want my daughter to have some fun in her life and this was a good opportunity for her to do so. We are going to video chat on Sunday.

Peter and I are sorting out the next couple of days as to what we are going to do with ourselves. It might be time to pull out those films that we can’t see when Caroline is around due to content.

It isn’t like we don’t get time together without Caroline. While she is in school we are alone. But having a chunk of no Caroline time is different. Meal planning is different. We don’t have certain activities on our docket.

I’ll miss her but I want her to have a good time and make pleasant memories for her to reflect on when she is older.

I have been feeling out of balance of late. Can’t put my finger entirely on why just one of those back of the neck things. Might be the change in seasons.

I will be happier when whatever pollen is gone that is causing my sinuses to swell making it hard to see or hear. I have tinnitus that, under normal circumstances, I can ignore. However when my sinuses are acting up, I find it harder to hear so I end up lip reading a lot. Turning up the volume just hurts since my hearing is working there is just more background noise. So I have my super hearing as per normal but it is more sensitive due to the buzzing in my ears.

Also my eyes are basically slits right now. I can see but they are swollen and I can feel the pressure behind the eyeballs. Not fun.

Fortunately there is rain today so may be that will ease the symptoms and once we are past this point in the pollen dance, I’ll be fine.

A lot of shows are ending for the season. Some we will see back and others are gone the way of the dodo. We are losing a couple that I enjoyed but my favorites are back for another season so overall I am happy.

Anyone else going to watch Penny Dreadful? It could be wonderful or it could be a train wreck or it could be a wonderful train wreck.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the various forms of moms out there. You know who you are. I am unsure if I will be blogging this weekend or not so I am putting this here.

I am looking forward to Once Upon a Time and thoroughly expect to be saying “You are stopping it there!?!?” at the end.

Elementary took an interesting turn last week and played it well this week. Looking forward to the next episode of the Blacklist and Castle.

Need to get my little girl packed for her trip.

I am grateful that Caroline is such a good traveler.

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