Updated Spreadsheet [Me]

I've updated the spreadsheet I made for all of us alters and our differences. Only a few small changes. 

I listed Baby Paul as separate from Paul. But I kept all Paul's older ages together. Paul's a system within the system, with ages 3, 8, 11, and 14. But the difference between 3 and the others is a big one.

Also, Rubi upped her age from 17 to 19, which I think is fair, since she's definitely grown a lot in the last couple of years.I think it might have something to do with 19 being the minimum age for the dungeon we go to, also.I could be wrong.

All Moved In [Me]

So we've been in the new house for seven weeks now, and it's really feeling like home for me. Kiara and Paul, too, seem to be settling in. We don't have a bedroom, as such, but instead have two non-bed-rooms. Downstairs, we big girls have an office-library-music room with my piano and books and clothes. Upstairs, the kids have a playroom for legos and stuffed animals and other toys. The kids have definitely been busy setting up stuff upstairs, so I feel like they're reasonably comfortable. I've seen Gracelyn out doing housework-type stuff a few times, too, so I think she's good.

The ones I worry about are Stephanie and Silent One. They both have such an odd way of looking at the world that I'm not sure how they'll take things. We haven't seen Stephanie at all since we moved. At some point, Boss is going to have to pull her out on purpose, show her the new place and give her an idea what's expected of her. I'd rather him do it on purpose than her come out by accident, but honestly, I'm okay with her not coming out at all. It's pretty unpleasant having her out, really. She's terrified all the time, and suffers a lot of pain. This world is very hard for her to understand; electricity and running water are both magic to her. She's convinced that Boss is some sort of wizard, and that's why his house has these things. So she's happy to be his slave because she gets to use the magic bathroom. Which makes her want to please him so that he'll keep her.

Silent One is no less worrisome. It has come out once since we moved in. It woke up in our bed and immediately realized it was not in the den it was used to. Being in a strange den and not knowing where it was or who was around, it played asleep for a long time. It heard someone move in the other room, and then someone upstairs, and it was really jumpy. Even having Boss nearby didn't seem to help. It was very passive and limp, not even exploring the spot it found itself in. I think it was just terrified. So that's another one we've got to get out and introduce to the place, hopefully under Boss's control. Again, it being reticent to come out actually makes my life easier, but will have to be dealt with sooner or later.

Status Report (Me)

Okay, moving has Happened. We got everything moved out of the old apartment and storage and moved into the new house. We've been in the new house for over a month, and I've been really really busy unpacking and cleaning and washing and sorting and organizing and unpacking some more. But all four of us are now living in the house (me, Boss, MK, and Metamour), and it's pretty wonderful almost all the time.

The week of moving was a major headache, not that that's any surprise. We had to put down my dog that week, and also it worked out that the day we moved was also Kiara (and Paul)'s birthday. So no big celebration for the kids. But we got through Moving Week, and moved on from there.

Then MK moved in a couple weeks later. I see a huge difference in his outlook since he's moved in. He's been a lot happier and more relaxed than before the move. As hermit-like as he likes to be, being around other people really is good for him. He's also put out some real effort to communicate with the family group and just to hang out and chat as well, even those unpleasant conversations about rules and money and scheduling. The effort he's made does make a lot of difference. I think it's helped ease Boss's fears a bit, too, about the two of them living in the same house.

So the apartment and storage are No More. Next is the old house, Motel M. The plan is to get all MK's stuff out of there into his storage, then clean that bedroom really thoroughly. Then move most of my daughter's stuff in there and clean the rest of the house thoroughly. Then try to sell the house. It's going to be more hard work, but it's no longer feeling like an overwhelming task.

No moving-related stuff this weekend; we're headed to a kink convention. Given how tight money is, I feel guilty going. But the tickets are already paid for, as well as one night of the hotel. We're packing food, so really it's just gas and two more nights at the hotel. We can do this. This'll be my fifth year at this con. And if it gets any more disorganized, maybe my last.

Um, multi stuff, since this is a blog about being multiple. Well, nothing much to say right now. No one's blowing up. We aren't sharing really well; I'm mostly out most the time because there's so much to do. But Paul and Kiara are coming out from time to time, and I'm feeling others nearby and available. I think we're too busy externally to have issues internally - or too tired.

Big Things Happening 2 [Me]

Things are still crazy busy, but I'm a lot less depressed about them. Because now we're Doing Stuff about the moving. We've signed the lease and cleaned the new place and started working on the to-do list, getting the movers arranged and planning on cutting utilities on and off, even packing a few boxes. I feel so much better about loads of stuff to do when progress is being made.

In addition to the moving stuff, I'm dealing with a very sick dog. He's old, and really started showing it in the last several weeks. He's gone downhill steadily, and started having some seizures last week. There are (expensive) things we could do to try and fix the current issue, but he would still be a 14+ year old dog. I think he's just given up. So I'm facing having him put down, either in the next few days or the next few weeks, depending on how the next couple of days goes. It's not looking good.

We also had house guests twice this weekend, including my daughter returning from her conference back to school. It was fantastic to see her, but stressful to arrange things, and we stayed up very late last night working with her on ropework. She's doing a presentation on shibari for school, so obviously she asked me for help. Which I was happy to give her.

Because of all the stress, we're having a lot of trouble shifting around. Which means I'm out almost all the time. It makes me extra-tired, because I'm used to getting frequent breaks. The kids did manage to come out for a few minutes to see my daughter and get birthday presents from her, though.

So yeah, I expect to be stressed for the next few weeks as we deal with moving and stuff. It's going to be great in the end, but I'm asking for extra patience from folks until then. And some extra hugs too.

Baby Paul a little older [Paul]

The other night, I was out (Paul). We need to pack so we can move, and I got some new Lego sets recently (including a DRAGON!), so M decided to break those down and put them away so they're ready to move. Usually, breaking down and sorting Legos is something that Kiara and me both like a lot, so it wasn't surprising when we slid from M being out to her and me both, and then to just me. That's totally normal for doing Lego stuff.

But then it got weird. I was probably 11 when I started working on them, but slid back to 8 before I knew it was happening. Most of the time, age shifts are pretty hard/break kinda things. But this time, it was a real slip-n-slide backward. When I got to 8, I thought I'd stop, but I kept slipping back more. Usually, my younger-than-8 selves are really separate from the older mes. That's why we call them Baby Paul, like a whole different alter.

Well, eventually we couldn't work on the Legos anymore; Baby Paul isn't allowed to play with them, and doesn't know how to sort them or anything. About that time, Boss came in, and he offered to read Baby Paul some books. Now, BP didn't even know about books until Boss showed him some, so it was pretty exciting to see him grab the books M had bought for him. Even cooler, he obviously knew Goodnight Moon, and talked a little bit along with it!

BP usually doesn't talk much, just looks and maybe reaches. But this time he said "mow" for the kittens and "rar" for the bears, and said "shh" with the little old lady. Usually BP is two years old, but I really got the feeling he was a little older, maybe three years old. He even gestured to ask Boss to watch cartoons on his phone, like they had done once before. He's way behind other little kids his age talking, but that doesn't surprise me, given my history growing up.

Everything was going so well, Boss tried to get BP to leave the room. What Boss doesn't know is that Baby Paul had left, earlier, when we were still alone in our room. There was a scratching noise in the hall, and he had snuck down and opened a door, letting the cat out of a room it was trapped in. But nobody saw that 'cept me.

So anyway, Boss called the dog over for BP to pet. I'm pretty much the only one of our system that will pet the dogs, because we're really allergic to them. But I'm really careful only to let one hand touch them and nothing else, and then to go wash my hands quick when I'm done. But Boss didn't know that, so he let BP pet the dog, and the dog rolled onto our legs and licked our arm and rubbed all over us. So yeah, the allergic reaction wasn't far behind. Baby Paul started scratching all over, and whining a lot. Boss had to pull him into the bathroom and strip off his clothes and wash him good. We had hives for a whole day or more after.

But aside from the allergic reaction, Baby Paul being out was really cool. He got some acting-like-a-toddler time out where he wasn't scared and somebody was taking care of him and being nice. That's pretty rare to come across in my world. So I'm really glad it happened. Looking back, I think I told the story out of order some, but it's not really important. I still have to get those Legos sorted before we move, though.

Big Things Happening [Me]

I'm being poked at to blog. Because I haven't. Because I have too much to say. Today may be a bad day for it, because I'm fighting off a 'depressed'. I'm really in need of some non-sexual skin-contact cuddling and petting. Just comfort, really. I think it's because I am just overwhelmed with so many things that I need to do and get done.

Let's see, the little stuff first.

My birthday was last week, and Kiara/Paul's is next week. The body was born February 26, and all the adults in the system are fine claiming that as their birthday. Kiara claims March 11 as her birthday, and invited Paul to share it, so the kids have their own birthday, two weeks after mine.

The 2nd anniversary of my collaring to Boss was last week, also. We didn't celebrate quite the way we intended. We were going to do a scene with needles (yuck) the Saturday before, but we were waiting for late in the evening. So early in the evening, Kiara asked Boss for a little spanking. It started out well, but he thought she had switched out and escalated. She hadn't switched out, so she ended up mad at him, and put us both off-balance. We didn't recover from it that evening, so we just went home early. We did make up the scene the next weekend.

My work's being a little crazy. They fired 17 people all at once about a month ago. I was part of a two-person helpdesk, and the other person was one of the Seventeen. So I'm now on-call 24/7 as the only person on the Helpdesk, and I'm scrambling a little trying to figure out some of the things that the other girl did and I don't really know how to do. We're still fiddling with how things work now, so there's some unsureness going on there.

My daughter passed through town going to a conference, and will be coming back through on Sunday headed back. This is good, but extra hassle trying to figure scheduling and sleeping arrangements and such.

I've been having a lot of doctor-health-stuff lately, as you probably read in earlier blogs. Which also means extra money issues. I got billed an extra $400 for the liver biopsy over and above what they told me. I went back to the gastroenterologist to get HepA & B vaccinations, and soon will be going to an hematologist to have blood drawn regularly to get my ferritin levels down.

And the big stuff. We're moving. We found a house that we all four like. Yeah, that's great stuff, not depressing stuff. But what comes along with it are money stresses (as we pay for three places to live for the next month), lists of things to do, packing & unpacking, getting utilities transferred and movers booked, and all other kinds of stuff to make it happen. So I'm excited, but flooded with Stuff To Do. And of course, because I am who I am, I feel like every little piece of it is my responsibility. Even though there are three other adults involved.

And because I'm feeling overwhelmed and  a bit depressed, my mind is attributing motivations to other people's actions that are probably completely made up. Like MK has cancelled on a couple of nights to come over and hang out. I feel like he's avoiding me, right when I really need some cuddling. Of course, the logical part of my brain mentions the fact that he's probably really really busy at work, as evidenced by his getting home from work at like 8pm each night. I know, because that's when he's texting me that he just got home and doesn't feel like coming over. But yeah, feels like he's just not interested - because I'm stressed - not his fault.

So yeah, lots of good things happening, but just stressed out about it all. Birthdays (one down and one more to go). Anniversaries (we beat the two-year expiration point!). Work (I'm the one who stayed, not the one who got fired). Getting to see the Girl - twice! Health stuff - no hemochromatosis. Found a house to live together (lots of stuff to do).