Nitty Gritty

Real Housewife of Atlanta is, as you can probably tell from reading it, my introduction entry. However, as you poke around you'll notice that there are a lot of entries that are dated before it. I wanted to give this blog some content right off the bat, so I imported entries from other sources that I felt fit my themes. These entries are either from my Livejournal, my wedding blog, or were something I wrote as a submission somewhere. While these entries weren't written for this blog, they were what inspired me to start it. I wanted a place to showcase some of my better written work that wasn't targeted specifically to people who already knew me.

Live Journal is great for keeping in touch and sharing ideas, but for me it's a journal and a messaging board, not a place for columns and articles. Posting an entry on LJ about how and why I designed a kids room in my house seems kind of silly. Because most of the people reading either a) were here when I put it together, or b) don't see that as a part of my life that's relevant to them. I'm hoping that, by having a separate blog that's dedicated to writing as much as it is to informing, I will be more motivated to craft entries rather than simply post brief (or boring) updates.

Plus there's the issue of recognition. My mother reads my livejournal and who knows what other family members. Now, she can only see a very few entries, because of LJ's great filtering features, but that means that most of my "best work" can't be shared beyond Friend's Only. I'm pretty open about my life and my lifestyle, but I still believe it would be best for everyone involved if my Orthodox cousins never quite figured out some of the details. As a result, you'll notice some odd choices about anonymity. I only use my nickname here and use pseudonyms for my significant others, but I do post pictures of myself. The thing is, I don't mind if you recognize me on the street and say "Hey Anie! I love your blog! Can I come play in your vampire game?" In fact, that would be awesome, because we need new players. But I don't want the aforementioned cousins to do a google search trying to find our old wedding website and stumble across this instead.

So my husband is Lorien. My boyfriend is Karma. My husband's girlfriend/boyfriend's wife will probably appear as the GFIL (girlfriend in law). Of course, depending on the entry, the [gender]friends may just appear as Mommy and Daddy, because if we're talking about their kids, that's who they are. Due to income restraints, it will probably be a while before that one will become confusing.

Anyway, check out the old entries. If you like what you see, I look forward to having you around!

-anie

Real Housewife of Atlanta

Hi, I'm Anie. I've decided to start a blog about my life. I'm not sure if anyone will want to read it, though. I mean, my life is pretty normal and straight forward. I got married at 23 to my highschool sweetheart. We bought a house in the city three months later. He has a salaried job and I work super part time (about 15 hours a week) just to give us a little extra grocery money. He pays the bills, I wash the underwear.

On Friday night we light Shabbat candles and have a nice dinner. About every other weekend we're joined by our boyfriend and girlfriend and their boys. We spend dinner trying to keep the kids from blowing out the candles and then we head out to our local vampire LARP (Live Action Role Playing game). Usually mom and the boys will hang out for half an hour to an hour. Then they go home and go to bed while the rest of us play until two in the morning. After game, a handful of friends (somewhere between two and five) come back to our place to spend the weekend.

Saturdays are spent with the kids going to the park, friends hanging out on the porch, and lots of computer games. Until nightfall, when it's time for another LARP. Sundays are for walking around the neighborhood and sad goodbyes. Then it's back to the grind of another work week in which my darling husband will leave me with a To Do list that I will never quite finish.

Weekends with out games are usually more low key. Most of the time there's some party or club event scheduled, which will give my boyfriend a reason to come to town. I'll put on my party clothes and he'll put on his nice collar and we'll go out to have some fun. Often the husband comes along as well. Living in the city, we can usually come up with a few different options for entertainment, though Sunday nights still usually find us at home watching television shows on Netflix.

Passover is spent with my mother's extended family here in Atlanta. Easter is the big holiday for my husbands family, but it's pretty open invite so this year we brought our boyfriend and girlfriend along, too. Thanksgiving we usually travel to South Carolina to stay with my parents and go see my Dad's family. We don't tend to stay long, however, because a friend here in Atlanta hosts a big Friends and Family feast the Saturday following that we like to be back for (if only to recreate the holiday with the [gender]friends and their kids). Christmas is complicated, but seems to have settled into a compromise with my family coming to Atlanta and us doing Christmas Eve for my dad. Then we all head out for the in-law's big todo on Christmas Day. Unfortunately, it happens at the same time as the girlfriend's family's todo, but we all managed to get together afterward for some quality family time. Maybe this year we'll see if people can shuffle their schedules around a little, but probably not.

Of course there are other key events in the year. Our LARP is part of an international organization, and we host an event every March. Then there's always Dragon*Con in September (which served as our honeymoon one year). Somewhere around January or February we tend to travel to Milwaukee for their event game. And this year we're talking about both New Orleans and Israel. It seems like there's always something coming up that we need to save our pennies for. Luckily, we all seem to get along well on long car trips and in cramped hotel rooms.

Really, I guess that's my life. I admit, the house isn't nearly as clean as it should be for someone with nothing else to do with her time. And the laundry always tends to get done minutes before we run out of clothes. And juggling all the various families and faiths can get complicated, not to mention budgeting in the trips and cons. But my home is full of love and happiness and parties and people and even a few whips and chains just to keep everything in line. All in all, it's just a normal, boring life. But maybe you'll enjoy reading about it anyway. I hope you do!

Opening the Door

I'm thinking that it's time I came out to my mother. She lives in Charleston. I live in Atlanta. My father also lives in Atlanta for work, but commutes out to Charleston every weekend. And mother often drops rather pointed reminders that catching a ride with him would let me visit and not cost our strained budget a time. It's been well established that my husband won't travel with out a car of his own, but then she's not really asking to see my husband, though of course that would be nice. She's asking to see me.

The thing is, I have my own long distance love who drives many hours to see me every weekend, often with his wife and kids. You see, we're monogamous polyamorists. Only one man will ever be my husband (G-d forbid something happen to him), but this doesn't mean he's the only love of my love. I love Karma, I like his wife, and I adore his kids. My husband loves his wife, likes him, and seems to be growing fonder of the kids by the day. However, they live in the middle of nowhere Georgia, so until Karma graduates from nursing school, we only get to see them on the weekends.

Which brings us to the conflict with my mother. My mother knows that there are things about my life I don't tell her about. The conversation went something along the lines of "There are things in my life I don't tell you about. I assume you don't want to know. But if you ask, I will tell you." She hasn't asked, so I haven't told her. This whole visiting thing has made things complicated though. She'll invite me and I'll talk about how we have friends in town that weekend, or some established social engagment. And it's clear that she's hurt to be constantly blown off for friends. After all, she's my mother. Shouldn't that mean that I can find at least one weekend where seeing her is a higher priority than seeing my friends?

And I feel bad for making her feel bad, but they aren't just friends, ya know? I wish I could just explain to her that me taking a weekend to go to Charleston would be like my dad NOT taking a week to go to Charleston. Sure, I see these people every weekend, but when you're in love you don't phrase it that way. To me, I only see them on the weekend, and I'm not willing to give one up.

So I'm thinking it's time to come out of the closet. I imagine the conversation going something like this:
"You know Karma, right?"
"Yeah"
"You know how I brought him to Passover even though he's Catholic?"
"Yeah"
"You know how Lorien and I went to Ren Fest with him, and his wife and his boys?"
"Yeah"
"You know how we turned our guest room into a children's room for his boys?"
"Yeah"
"You know we're not just friends ... right?"

After that, I have no idea, but I'm hoping for the best. Because when I'm overflowing with happiness about one boy's t-ball game, or the other saying my name for the first time, or my boyfriend doing something super sweet, or him and my husband doing something ridiculous, I want to be able to call up my mother and gush like any other proud parent and happy partner. Ya know?