A quick life update

I've got a date for Hunter character gen! Very excited: 2 weeks. I'll give more detail after. Am also really nervous, because it's new to me to be the one in charge...

Broke my finger. It hurts. Got caught in the fabric when I was doing a drop, and I didn't realise until it was too late. First confirmed broken bone of my life (hairline fracture on my ribs, and possible broken toe first week of uni, but this was far worse and impossible to ignore). During x-ray, I said "it hurts!" and the radiologist went "I can see why!" and with that acknowledgement that there was something real, the pain faded to a much more tolerable level. Physio tomorrow: as an aerialist and being hypermobile, it was really stressed to me that I must attend even if I feel ok.

I usually manage my fibro pain through exercise, so I'm not feeling great at the moment. I'm doing what I feel I can, but it's so much less than normal. I can just about straddle to the hoop on one arm, though, which took me by surprise.

Getting support to do the ADHD forms tomorrow. The more I've looked into it, the more I've realised it's the missing bit, part of the reason I could hide being autistic so well. It's helping me find ways to manage myself better, to be accepting and forgiving, which leads to less time spent feeling like a failure and more time spent trying. 

I'm still tied in knots of grief, and that's ok.

I'm still writing.

I'm still here.

I promise I am working on more material!

Life has just runaway with me a bit. Between work, fibromyalgia and Ziggy, I'm pretty exhausted all the time. But today's my day off work and Husbit and Ziggy are curled up on the sofa watching TV to give me a chance to do my own thing for once. 

 

Well, I say "for once", but I do get to go to circus once a week and play Mage once a month. It's not much, but it's something, and I'll be teaching private circus lessons soon, which I'm really excited about.

 

Blogger's changed a lot since I was last here. Wasn't expecting that.

 

I've got a Mage post in draft, and it's October so I want to write a spooky short story - espeically as I missed RPGaDAY for the first time this year. In the meantime, here's a photo of a cat that thinks it lives here even though it doesn't. 

 

We're staying safe here, but I've reached a point where I'm absolutely convinced that the horrid cold I had over Christmas/New Year was covid: I completely lost my sense of smell for about 8 weeks, and have realised that it's still absolutely terrible now. I'd assumed it was the masks at work meant I wasn't smelling bodily fluids and other excretia as strongly as expected, and that I'd just got used to Ziggy's nappies, but a few comments about smells in rooms from colleagues who haven't had covid or suspected covid made me realise I just don't smell any more, unless I deliberately sniff a thing. It's a bit sad, because I used to have a pretty good sense of smell. They say it wasn't in the country then, certainly not in this part of the country, but I'm sure that's what I had. Reinfection has been confirmed, though, so I'm still not taking chances.

 

I hope you're all well. Thank you for bearing with me. I promise I will get more RPG/fiction related stuff out again at some point!

The Sunsetting of G+

If you read my blog, you probably get here from Google+ so you're probably already aware that Google/Alphabet has announced they will be "sunsetting" the social network, and you'll probably be aware of why that sucks. If you're not familiar with G+, you may be wondering why I care.

The obvious first point is that most of my blog traffic comes from there. This is because I only share links from G+, so I can easily enough share to other networks and that's fine. I love seeing the statistics that show people (like you!) are reading my blog, but I'm not looking to have a huge number of readers; that's not why I do this. It's just a nice side effect.

It's my favourite social network. I'm on others, but it's my favourite, and now I have to find a replacement, which has had me thinking hard about why it's my favourite, about what makes it special to me. I'm looking at replacements, and none of them meet my needs. I think the easiest way to try and explain what is special about G+ is by looking through these others.

This is going to be long.

MeWe

MeWe is currently proving a popular alternative among roleplayers. There's some concern about the politics of the owner - strong libertarian with a belief in the kind of freedom of speech that isn't actually legal in my country, because it includes incitement to violence etc. And that doesn't sit entirely comfortably with a lot of people, but, contrarily, the site offers very robust tools to block and report hate speech and harrassers and anyone else. The site is intended for everyone, even those diametrically opposed to the owner's personal politics, and that is something I can respect. It is freedom of speech for all, not just those with the loudest voices.

As well as the quick and easy blocking and reporting and the good privacy protection that makes it less likely for issues to arise in the first place, it also has good support for groups, and one of the best things about G+ are the communities. They're diverse and welcoming and really easy to set up and moderate. There's loads of roleplay communities, which is where I mostly hangout, but you can find pretty much anything. MeWe have already made one change to groups, so that you can have a look at the group before joining it - that was frustrating to me, because people would invite me and I'd click the invitation only to discover I'd mystically joined a group that I had no interest in. That was never an issue on G+, but shows the MeWe developers are responding.

I like the way you can respond to a post or comment with a huge range of emoticons, even if the style of emoticon is more cartoony than the style I'm used to from using my phone to access G+. I like that G+ Refugees use the '+' symbol, but it's fun to see people interact imaginatively with other options too. That's something MeWe does better.

I don't like the interface, the main stream page. It's too bright, too cluttered, too like Facebook. There's talk that a dark version will be released, but there's going to be a charge for it and for me, with my fibromyalgia-induced hypersensitivity issues, it's about accessibility not preference: I can't tolerate the bright clutter for long. I object to being forced to pay even a token amount for something that, actually, might not fix the issue. I was cross when G+ switched the top bar from dark grey to red, kept feeding back to them that I wanted to have colour options, and that's what pushed me to use the app more than the desktop site. That red was difficult for me to process on the scale of a full screen, but is much preferable to what MeWe offer. The rest of the interface is clean: you can have multiple column display for your stream, or (like I do) one central column thatI find less distracting. There's a bar at the top that looks like you see at the top of most Google-based sites (and is no longer red but now white). To the left is a small menu; bottom right a button to do updates. And that's it. Loads of lovely, crisp, white space. No adverts. No annoying games. The only moving imagery is if someone has put GIF's in their posts. It's so, so good!

Other people dislike that MeWe doesn't have public posting. They're intending to bring it in, but it would be public within MeWe because for anything to be publicly visible on the net would breach MeWe's tightly enforced privacy controls. That could prove annoying for me occasionally, but doesn't bother me so much. It would be a problem for anyone who uses G+ as a public internet persona, though.

The MeWe developers are looking at bringing in things to satisfy those of us looking at moving over - the aforementioned change to groups, for instance, but also bringing in "pages" to replicate collections, and something akin to circles.

Collections are something I didn't think I'd like when they were introduced, but I make a lot of use of them now. They're a way of categorising your posts, making it easy for people to follow topics they're interested in and avoid things they don't want to see. My most popular collection is the one where I share circus videos - it has more followers than I do, because people can choose to just follow that collection. It's shared publicly, which means anyone who wants to can follow it. I have other collections that are shared to just my circles, or just specific circles. Only people I allow can see those collections, but they still have the choice to unfollow them and not have any posts from that collection show up in their feed. 

Which brings me on to circles, my very favourite thing about G+. You can create a circle and add people to it. They used to be better: I could create a circle of inspiring artists, say, and not have them show up in my stream normally, but look just at that circle when I wanted. The ability to weight how much a specific circle is displayed died away, and I had to get rid of some circles because they overwhelmed my feed. All the same, I love having such precise control over who sees what, and I like the lopsided nature of circles: I can put someone in a circle, and they don't have to do the same to me for me to see stuff they're comfortable sharing publicly. Unlike other social networks, I've never felt any pressure on G+ to follow someone back just because they followed me. I'm already feeling that pressure on MeWe - partly the terminology, partly the fact that, at the moment, you can only see stuff by accepting contact requests. MeWe are looking to bring in circles, sort of. I suspect, though, that like their "pages" there will be a plan to charge a monthly subscription to use them, and the options will be "public" (within MeWe), "contacts" (which I assume will be equivalent to current set up) and "close friends". I have way more than that! I have family on G+, who don't get to see things that my friends do, and friends and family get more access to me than others. I have loads of circles to allow me to fine tune who sees what, and that's how come ended up making so many friends through the network. I had the control at every step. (Facebook have come to offer something similar, but G+ did it first and better.)

G+ let me share photos and videos for free and with no storage cap. MeWe expects photos/videos to be uploaded to their cloud and has a storage cap that I'm pretty sure I'd reach quickly if I start using it to share my circus stuff.

I get that MeWe need to charge for things. They make a big thing about how user data remains the property of the user, and there's no ads, and they're not part of a megacorp, so they need to get funding from somewhere, but I don't want to be charged for things I feel I need. I like paying for the fun extras. I'm the same when it comes to mobile games: if you need to pay to win or pay to play, I won't pay, but if you can play for free and get a good game experience, there's a good chance I'll ping a few quid into the game from time to time. MeWe is looking to charge for the things that would make it a sufficient replacement by itself, and that means I don't want to spend money.

I like the way groups (communities) are implemented, though, and a lot of communities are migrating that way so I will probably hang around for that. The mobile app is pretty good too.

Diaspora (Pluspora)

I'd heard of federated networks in a vague way before, but have done a lot of reading since. I've tried (unsuccessfully, due to bugs and overloaded servers) to sign up to Mastodon, and have signed up to Nerdica (part of Friendica), but haven't yet found anyone else there (I know a few people said they'd signed up, but I can't remember whom). The one where I've spent the most time so far is Pluspora, part of Diaspora.

I love the interface. The default is so similar to G+ in the early days, but there are options if that doesn't suit you.

It has circles ("aspects"). I haven't played enough to see how much they mimic G+, but the sharing seems pretty similar so far.

It uses hashtags instead of collections, which doesn't work as well: I don't think you can unfollow a hashtag. But then, you can apply multiple hashtags and you could only ever post to one collection at a time.

It doesn't have communities, which makes me a little sad.

Photos/videos are shared using a link and Markup language, but using links from Google photos (where most of my photos are held) doesn't seem to work very well. G+ sometimes uploads really low res versions and sometimes gets stuck uploading, but it works well overall. Pluspora shrinks the image and only displays a portion of it, which I dislike.

You can only "like" the original post, not any of the comments from it. Also, it uses "like". G+ uses the plus symbol instead, which I like better because you can use that to show solidarity without making it sound like you're glad your friend is in pain. 

You can't edit posts or comments. I didn't think that would bother me to begin with, but it really does now!

There's no app providing push notifications, so I don't remember to look at it. Despite how slow it gets, I like the G+ app.

Like MeWe, the founders of Diaspora have said they'd like to implement changes to make us feel at home. The problem is, they rely on volunteer developers so changes can be a long time coming. They use Ruby on Rails (which I've looked at but never used) and JavaScript (which is the one programming thing I've worked with but never managed too get my head around). I'm tempted to see if I can do any small tasks while I'm on maternity - would look good in my CV, if nothing else - but it does depend on the baby.

It's free. There's no ads. It seems popular with the writers, photographers (despite aforementioned issues) and non-gaming geeks I follow. I'll probably hang around there for the social side, but I do need to look into Nerdica more deeply, as that may resolve some of my issues and apparently Friendica and Diaspora talk to each other. 

Instagram

You'd be forgiven for thinking Instagram may solve my issue of how to share photos/videos. I do share a lot there, but its too public, and videos are capped at a minute in length and sometimes you're forced to turn the sound off because a song is playing in the background. I use it to admire my aerial friends' videos and to get inspiration for my own aerial journey and to admire the talent of various geeks who share RPG character art. 

And Facebook, why not?

There's been a few voices asking why individuals and communities aren't moving to Facebook. That's no good to me: I predominantly use it for family. Some people have suggested I create a second account to maintain that separation I value, but there are otherissues. I've had a second account before, and they twigged and shut it down and told me they'd close both my accounts if I did it again (and I need my main account for the messenger app, which is the primary way the aerial circus school communicates). The interface is even more cluttered than MeWe's. But the biggest issue is that I end up feeling like I have to read every single update since my last log in, and that's very dangerous for my mental health. It's because I wasn't in a great headspace when I was using the site a lot, and when I started using G+ I swore to myself I wouldn't do the same.

And I just don't like Facebook. G+ is closing because they found an issue that could have been exploited to cause a data breach (but doesn't appear to have been), whereas FB has had repeated breaches. People on G+ were aware of exploitation by Cambridge Analytica before it hit the headlines, but weren't similarly affected. Sure, Google owns a lot of my data, but I've given it to them willingly and comprehendingly.

Bleurgh.

I'll keep investigating. Twitter's not sufficient for my needs (and has the same historic issue of me thinking I need to read everything), but I'll play there to be sure. I want to look into Dreamwidth and maybe look at resurrecting my LJ. There's 10 months for me to decide, and I'm planning on clinging to G+'s heels as it's ridden into the sunset, until they kick me free.

Normal service to resume as soon as pregnancy symptoms allow. Just didn't want the announcement to pass by completely uncommented here.

I said goodbye to the circus...

Ziggy & I have reached the third trimester!

We're both well. I'm tired and have neck, soulder, back and pelvic pain (pregnancy and fibro) but otherwise feeling pretty good.

I have had to finally give up circus until my abdomen has recovered after the birth. A really hard decision: part of me is terrified that I won't (want to) go back, it'll take months to return to where I was, and I miss it (and everyone) already! But I am too tired now, and my pelvic girdle pain, changing shape and weight, and stuff, there's too much I can't do. So that's it, now, until my rectus abdominus have recovered. I've done my best to avoid exercising them during pregnancy, to reduce diastasis recti, but I won't be allowed back until they've knitted back sufficiently - Vikki will make me do a sit up while she pokes the gap between by abs and once she can only fit 3 fingers in I'm allowed back.

I'm still going to pop along the weeks I'm not too tired, for the social side of it - and to stretch and maybe sneak up the silks occasionally just to keep myself sane!

We did a photoshoot a couple of weeks ago. I'm glad I was still on form for that. Photos won't be ready until around Ziggy's due date, but here's a "behind the scenes" snap for you to enjoy until then.

The photographer was Simon from the Image Cella. He specialises in pole, aerial and dance photography; you can see more on Instagram. I'll post my photos as soon after they're ready as I can, but I will have other things on my mind!

Part of me's hoping that having extra evenings free means I'll get back to blogging properly - I've got half an Exalted post waiting to be finished - but I'm not sure I'll have the energy even with more free evenings. I'll try, because next year I think I'll be even busier! ;-)

Pregnancy Thoughts

RPGaDay is over for another year, which means back to normal for this blog. I've got a few thoughts on things I read that I want to write about, particularly the idea that players should be fans of each other's characters (a piece of advice I'm very in favour of and shall endeavour to bring into practice moving forward). Inspired by this and Mark Knight's story about another player's character in one of his games, I also want to get back to writing about the other characters in games I'm in, or maybe will try to encourage my friends to write something for me - or both!

During August, I read an OSR piece because I don't know the difference between OSR and not-OSR and was hoping to learn, and what I learnt was that the biggest difference is that in OSR there's a subset of people who don't care that about sexism/racism/homophobia etc in gaming because it doesn't affect them, and who don't think that it matters that they don't care because gamers are nearly all middle-aged white men like they are - and who will be rude and shout down anyone who disagrees with them or even just tries raising a banner to say "I exist". Sigh. Not something I wanted to write about at the time because I wanted to focus on the positive side of gaming, but it is an issue that does need to be addressed.

Of course, the biggest thing on my mind is my pregnancy (it's one of the reasons why I feel the above issue is important.) It's going well - we're at 25 weeks, which means the foetus is considered viable and were I to go into labour they'd attempt to save the baby, which is reassuring. Foetal anomoly scan at 20 weeks revealed nothing of concern, so I'm still on course for a homebirth. Yay!

Something I've been meaning to do for a while is write about pregnancy in a bit more detail, either as a reference for GM's/players who want a pregnant character in their game, or for another pregnant person to stumble across to go "I'm not alone!" I'll have a go at the former another time, maybe, though I'm sure there's stuff here that might be interesting.

So, disclaimers first: 

• Every pregnancy is different. This is my experience of this pregnancy and may not reflect your experience at all, and that's ok!
• I am not a medical professional, practioner or trainee. If you have any concerns, speak to a midwife, nurse or GP. One thing I have experienced is that, in my local area at least, they really do want to hear from you if you have any issues, or even are just having a bad day

You hear stories about people who don't know they're pregnant until they give birth. If I didn't know people who'd had fairly symptomless pregnancies, or who didn't find out they were pregnant until late (7 months, in one case), I'd have joined the chorus of surprise and disbelief, but it looks as though this is actually more common than one might think. I had the opposite experience, with sufficient symptoms to suspect before implantation!

Things I Wish I'd Known

There's a lot of symptoms and side effects of pregnancy that suck, and I wish I'd been warned of a few beforehand:

• constipation and diarrhea
• insomnia despite being very, very tired (like being a teenager again!)
• pain in abdomen is normal, even early on - but get it checked out if you're at all worried
• people will judge you if you tell people early in the pregnancy (I did because I know miscarriage is very common and figured it would be easier to explain why I was in whatever state that would put me into should it happen to me if the people I was explaining to already knew I was pregnant - but people were very judgemental, especially older women and men of all ages. Not everyone, of course, but enough I stopped sharing and felt miserable about it)
• babies move less when it's hot (but if you're concerned, phone a midwife)
• baby movements are creepy and gross. I was thrilled when I started feeling them, but they quickly became creepy, gross and uncomfortable. After a slow down thanks to the heatwave, I find them reassuring and enjoy them again, but I really wasn't for a while 
• you're still tired in the second trimester. The pregnancy apps in particular will tell you all about how there's a sudden boost in energy when the second trimester starts, making it sound like more energy than you had pre-pregnancy. That may be the case for some people, but for me and everyone I've spoken to about it, it's been more like being slightly less exhausted than the adjacent trimesters
• body temperature rises. Until my body learnt how to regulate the new temperature, I felt I was trapped next to a furnace!
• headaches. Just constant headaches
• the first trimester is kinda like a 3 month long hangover

Things I'm Glad I Was Warned About

• first symptom: an outward pressure in the abdomen, which I'd have dismissed as IBS if I hadn't had a friend mention it
• super realistic dreams and nightmares associated with the pregnancy, birth and parenthood are normal. This would have really freaked me out if I hadn't known. The nastiest dream so far involved giving birth to a baby missing its skull and the bones in its right leg; the most amusing that I actually had triplets and one of them had travelled out of the womb and settled in my thigh - and no one was worried; the most recent was a normal labour and a healthy baby boy. I'm not having them frequently (yet) and not everyone has them, but it is common and doesn't mean anything is wrong with you or the baby
• round ligament pain. When this started, I was pretty sure I knew what was wrong but if I hadn't heard of it I'd have been terrified - and as it was, Husbit was concerned. Basically, terrible pain whenever I got out of bed. Checked with the midwife and she confirmed what it was, and the pain hasn't felt as bad since: a little reassurance can go a long way
• pelvic girdle pain. One of my circus friends had a baby last year, and like me is hypermobile. She had PGP and warned me: 1 in 5 women will experience this, and it's more common in hypermobile people. The Flying Through Pregnancy book from Spin City that talks about how to do aerial safely while pregnant also warns of this. I'd had hip problems since early in the pregnancy, as I'd started sleeping on my side early to get used to it and found my upper hip trying to dislocate and the muscle around my lower hip becoming very sore (careful squats have helped with both issues, and a pregnancy pillow has made a huge difference to the subluxating feeling), but in the past week I've started to get pain in my perineal area and the front of my pelvis when I transition between sitting and standing, or when I roll over in bed, or if I turn awkwardly when walking. It varies from a mild thrum to very painful. Midwife has given me a form to refer myself for physio, so hoping that will help
• patches of darker skin. The linea negra is a line that can appear from belly button to pubic area and dark patches can appear on your face (a "mask of pregnancy"). I've not had these, but have developed freckles and dark patches on my breasts, which are unpleasant to look at and made me worry about breast cancer until I remembered my work colleague's face. A quick internet search later, and I felt fine (favourite comment from someone else with the same: "It's like my nipple is trying to grow as much areola as possible"). Will almost certainly go away after pregnancy
• baby movements become visible. I really enjoy this - when I heard about it happening to other people, I thought it sounded cool, but around when the movements were creeping me out I got worried that this would be even creepier. My mood was really low the day I first saw movement, which may be why I haven't found it creepy at any point: it cheered me up and I've enjoyed it ever since, but I suspect if I hadn't known it was a thing I'd have freaked out
• bump size and shape is really variable (that said, a neat bump is a sign of strong abdominal muscles, which will lead to an easier labour)
• pelvic floor exercises are important! I've not had any associated issues as yet, but if I do I'll be ok because I know it's normal
• perineum massage reduces tearing. I'm very glad to have known this before I received the information sheet explaining how to do perineum massage, because even forewarned it's freaked me out a little!

Things That Weren't The Way I Expected

• I knew morning sickness wasn't just the morning, but (like 50% of pregnant people) I found it was predominantly nausea with only very occasional vomiting - and the nausea was more disruptive than the vomiting. Also, my nausea started and ended earlier than average, and I didn't know that it was normal to still occasionally vomit in the second trimester
• hypersensitivity to smell was much more powerful than I expected: Husbit finally appreciated how sensitive I'd become when I walked into the kitchen saying "ooh, tarragon, yummy", smelling the herb as strongly as if he was holding it under my nose, when less than a teaspoon had gone into the dinner and he couldn't smell it at all, even knowing it was there
• I didn't go off spicy food in the first trimester - in fact, I wanted more of it! Now, I have a preference for sharp foods, like lemon sorbet and sour sweets. This is apparently more normal than the spicy food thing
• I've been much, much calmer than I expected
• sex drive skyrocketed in the first few weeks, then plummetted. I knew both of these things were possible, but the height was so much higher than I expected, and when it dropped I found I still enjoyed sex, I just didn't want to start it
• breast changes - they grew much faster than I expected, and that was very painful. They were also crazy sensitive and tingled all over
• hair growth is not limited to head hair. Not sure why I didn't think this through, but it's kinda obvious... Armpit hair, leg hair, random hairs on random body parts... 
• no food cravings. I've changed the times of day I'm hungry and the types of food I want to eat, but not had any strong or strange cravings. I have had whole days where I haven't wanted to eat; my little sister had the same first time round 
• the first scan was as magical as I'd been told, making it more magical than I expected. The second wasn't: maybe my expectations were higher, or maybe my head was just in a different place. It was cool, but didn't impact me the same way
• Braxton Hicks contractions start way earlier than I thought! Week 6, though I didn't feel any until a couple of weeks ago, and have only had them maybe twice
• thirsty all the time
• not allowed more than 200mg of caffeine per day - was expecting it to be hard, but went off the taste and even the smell of coffee during the first trimester. That lifted with the start of the second trimester and now I am finding it harder, some days, but still not as bad as I thought
• I need to ask for help with things I used to find easy because I tire out quickly
• I can still do aerial, fairly comfortably. I'm obviously taking it very gently and not doing anything that feels risky, and reading up as much as I can on what's safe, but I'm still feeling good to teach and practice. One midwife was very excited about this as a hobby, too, which I didn't expect
• used to be, when I was out and about and saw pregnant people or people with young children, I'd feel painful envy. Now, I get given a little secret smile as though I've been initiated into a private, hidden club

Things People Have Said That Are Annoying

• "Think you're tired now? That's the next 18 years!" - I have a history of insomnia and fatigue, so this is already something I worry about if I let myself. Being reminded of it is not helpful - and kinda patronising, because I already know and it ignores my experience
• "Don't google anything; it'll just scare you" - my experience with internet searches and pregnancy symptoms has been very reassuring. I often tag "NHS" to the end of a search to get factsheets, but even places like Mum's Net are reassuring rather than fearmongering. Even when you have symptoms that need checking out, the advice to do so is given calmly and in a supportive manner
• "Is it pink or blue?" - it's a person, not a colour
• (I know other people have found comments on their bump size annoying, but they don't bother me so much. Ditto pregnancy/labour horror stories: I have always found these weirdly reassuring)

 

Things People Have Said That Are Helpful

• "It's ok to hate pregnancy" - I couldn't imagine it at the time I was told this, but a week later I was very grateful
• "There's so many weird pregnancy symptoms, it would be even weirder if you didn't have anything weird" - from my sister (a trained nurse and then pregnant with her second child) in response to my worry about rib pain very early on
• "Relaxed parents have relaxed babies" - might not help another, but for me it helps me stay in control whenever I start to worry
• "Listen to your body"/"Trust your instincts" - for pregnancy and child-raising
• "If you're worried, talk to a midwife" - having phoned once for reduced movement, I understand that they really would rather you bother them over nothing than sit and stew. Talking about emotional issues at my last check up, my midwife informed me I should phone in if I'm feeling down again, because they'd much rather talk to me than not know
• "It's ok to want one gender more than the other" - I want a daughter, really, but have been afraid to admit it for fear of judgement (and because I've heard that transgender people are quizzed on whether their parents had a gender preference so I've worried if I have a son who turns out to be a daughter and it's known I wanted a daughter, they could end up being denied the ability to transition because it's assumed I've pressured them into it). Being told it was ok to have a preference enabled me to face up to it and accept it, and now I don't mind (most of the time) 
• "Your partner might not feel any connection to/interest in the baby until after the first/second scan/it's arrived" - his almost indifference to the child (although he's taking care of me) would be upsetting if other friends of mine hadn't recently had children and gone through the same, with the other parent now being as involved with the baby as the mother

Things That Are Great

• IBS, fibromyalgia, asthma and eczema symptoms went away completely for the first trimester and are still muted now (which means less pain, less fatigue, and ability to eat loads of things I couldn't before)
• wriggly baby! Responds to cold drinks, sugary/caffeinated drinks, Hanson and Green Day, and sometimes will poke back if I poke an area
• can ask for a glass of water in shops or other places when I'm out and about. The fact I have a prominent bump makes it hard for people to deny me!
• mum voice is starting to develop. Finding it a lot easier to stand my ground and tell people off...

There's loads more, I've no doubt, but this is already long and it'll do for now. Sorry if there's any repeats or anything obvious missed - I've written and re-written and haven't proofread because it's taken longer than I intended and I'm about to go out.

Circus Update

I haven't done a proper circus post since November 2015! How's crazy's that?

I still adore aerial. I still get stiff and sore when I miss sessions, which I now know to be a side effect of fibromyalgia. I'm on Instagram now, where I mostly share circus photos and videos, but if you're really missing my circus stuff, the best place to get a regular fix is my G+ Circus collection.

So, what have I been up to? Well, hopefully improving! I've learnt loads of new moves on both silks and hoop, and have been working to tidy my presentation and improve my musicality. Sometimes I do better than others, but I'm working on it.

I've started helping out as an assistant instructor with the beginners. I really enjoy this, and it's teaching me a lot about what I'm doing, too.

I've found especially on silks that I can pick things up much faster than the other students in the advanced class. I think this is because I've been going the longest, so I have better proprioception (one of my favourite words), and maybe a better feel for the mechanics of the moves. For instance, this was my first attempt at a move we're calling 'hokey cokey' (because you go in, out, in, out and shake it all about). It's a 'spaghetti move', that is, one where your arms and legs go in strange places and fly about like a jumble of spaghetti ;-D

We're also, as a school, starting to work with our weaker sides more. I've been unofficially doing this for longer, because my right side is dominant but my right shoulder is also the more prone to subluxation, which means certain moves don't feel safe on it so I learn those on my left anyway, and it injures more easily so I need to be able to do everything on my left so I don't miss as much if/when it does injure. This led to an amusing moment when we were doing a mini sequence on our weaker sides, I got down feeling like I'd nailed it, then one of the other students told me I'd done it on my stronger side - and it took watching back the video I'd taken to realise I had been correct. It's made me realise I'm stronger than I think. Also, when I tried the move in the video above on my weaker side, I discovered I actually find it easier that way, and it puts me in a better position to transition to 'ginger snap' after (unfortunately, I can't find a video of that move).

I learnt a pretty new drop. I spent ages watching everyone else do it, so was really excited to try. Haven't had a chance since, but want to try again with a bigger distance to fall:

On hoop, I can now do a barrel roll roughly a third of the times I try:

Vikki is the shortest person in the school and is technically too small for the hoops she instructs in (I think I'm slightly too big, as I sometimes struggle to tuck through), so she bought herself her own hoop. 

The hoops we normally use have a fixed point mounting and are attached to a strop via a pair of karabiners and a twist point, that means if we start spinning one way, we won't end up spinning the other way as the strop/rope tries to undo itself. Very useful, but it means we can't do much strop work because it's uncomfortable, the karabiners sometimes make it physically impossible, and there's always the risk (however remote) that the karabiners could come undone and the hoop tumble... Vikki's hoop doesn't have a mount: the strop is tied directly to it. So last night, we had fun playing with a few stroppy moves. 


My favourite was this spinny drop - definitely one for advanced students only, and requiring an unexpected level of flexibility to get into the start position. Really fun, but a little scary.

    
I was planning to share more photos, but for some reason blogger's playing up and not letting me add them.