Compartmentalization?

I don't necessarily think that all the parts of my life have to be integrated.

Example: No-one at either barn, the Work Barn or Riding Barn, needs to know that I'm a kinky, poly Wiccan. It has nothing to do with how well I ride or teach. Likewise, at kinky get-togethers, people are more apt to want to know what I did to Second Husband with those rose canes that one time, and witchy folk are more likely to want to know what powders I might be sprinkling on Work Barn's surfaces to help things along. Not that I have. Yet. Ahem.

As a young queer pagan person, I thought that not bombarding a potential new friend with ALL THE DETAILS was being dishonest. Now I think that it's just that I've gotten better at compartmentalization. You friends are for riding, and you're over here. You friends are for kink and poly, and you're there. You witchy lot...well, you folk are all over the place (grins).

Does my Co-instructor want to know about my Husbands? Probably not. If I tell my Work Barn bosses, will Second Husband pick up a second job there? Probably not. If I tell my kink/poly buds about Work Barn's summer camp, will they send their kids? Possibly. Some of them are pretty sadistic.

Some of this was spurred (no pun intended) by Work Barn's intent to have a "social night" with low pay for us instructing types and two-and-a-half hours out of our Friday evenings, complete with a potluck.

This got me to thinking about how work cultures differ in the amount of your free time they expect you to give up, and how some people don't seem to understand that you might want to go home, do whatever, and leave work where it is. I put it far more tactfully than this, but at the pay they're offering for this, I'd be paying to come, run after kids, and bring "potluck food". I will not do this, nor do I think the other instructor will. I also don't think it will suddenly draw new students or more lessons from existing ones.

I give 110% in lessons. I love the work, if not the job, as it were. But at the end of the day, when kids and horses are safely off to their respective pastures for the evening, I want to go home and see my non-horse-insane family so that I have the energy to do it all again the next day (or two).

So, what do you think? Do you keep certain aspects of your life separate from other aspects? Why or why not? What factors influence your decision to do so or not?

"...this is what you get", or, "you get what you need".

So after bitching about the riding instructor gig, despite winds so ridiculous on Saturday that I thought the kids might blow right off the horses, I had this great moment with one of the kids.

Little T is one of my two-front-teethless seven-years olds. She doesn't say much to me except "yes, Ma'am", "no, Ma'am", or just a plain yes or no. She tries her best every single week, and she's doing pretty damn well if I do say so myself. Her parents are nice - her dad reminds me of mine - and understand that this isn't a "show up, get on, ride, get off, go home" kinda barn.

We'd gone a little long in her lesson, and though her mom always wants Little T to help groom whoever she's been on, I thought Mom might have somewhere else to go when we were done. Walking the Reliable Horse back to the pasture he lives in adds about five minutes. No problem, says Mom, she can put him up.

So Little T and I walked up to the pasture, gave Reliable Horse a pat and sent him off to well-deserved grass. We walked back along the dusty trail without exchanging a word, and I thought, I would totally go on a two-hour trail ride with this kid. She doesn't engage in a lot of chatter, and I suspect that it's because she just doesn't talk if she has nothing to say. I felt like an older arktoi teaching a younger girl and having the satisfaction of having passed on knowledge and taught competence.

Scheduling nonsense and only two really trustworthy horses be damned. I'm hooked, because until the girls leave the barnyard, I'm happy.

This is what you want....Part 2.

As many of you know, I got a gig teaching riding lessons back in March. The first few weeks went pretty well. Now, not so much.

Some of the horses really just aren't suitable for my students, who are usually kids seven or under. They're just learning to walk, steer, and trot. You need incredibly docile, preferably older horses for this, and only one-and-a-half of the six horses available fit this description (there's a new one who seems less prone to have a hissy and buck, but he's still being a pain). This was less of a problem before they got another instructor and booked lessons side-by-side; now, who gets the good horse is a constant source of discussion.

Lessons are supposed to be booked in bunches of four, usually one a week, and there's supposed to be 24 hours' notice for cancellations/changes. This has not been happening. Cancellations happen up to an hour before they're supposed to be at the barn, and no-show/no-calls aren't really being penalized.

We're not supposed to take students under six years old. I now have two.

I wasn't told that I need to speak Spanish for this gig. Lucky for them that I do, somewhat, because three of them really don't speak much English. Sadly, "there's a fire in the kitchen", "do you like to play volleyball", and "I enjoy eating paella" are of no use in this particular case.

Scheduling lessons seems to involve at least three emails/text messages a day, on average, and the barn owners seem to have this odd idea that I am "on-call" to answer same constantly, including ones sent at seven o'clock at night. When I'm already at the barn, this doesn't bug me, but when I've been home for two hours? I'm not a doctor, vet, or computer tech, people.

I'm doing what I love, but this other stuff is driving me nuts. Once again - be careful what you ask for.

I've been trying to relax, roll with it, chalk things up to being there less than two months. I've been contemplating taking over my own scheduling, now that I have a decent number of regulars, and being stern about last-minute changes and cancellations - I just don't know if the owners will let me get away with it. On the other hand, if I do start enforcing the rules and people do bitch about it and I do get canned, how long can I really put up with how things have been going? I can always add this to my resume and cast the net again.

And a smart witch would toss a little magic at this situation, which I plan on doing this weekend. In the meantime, I've missed y'all, but have no fear, I'll be back soon.

Reverence the Gods and Ride the Horse.

I'm playing the "Slinger's Theme" from the "Bastion" game and dreaming of riding.

I'm remembering being much younger and fearless and thinking that all feminists should not only ride, but teach other and especially younger women to ride. One of my little girl students trotted without me for the first time tonight, and she didn't turn a girl's face to me when she was done. She looked down at me with the face of a woman who's tasted power for the first time. Slainte and hail Epona, girl.

A woman who loves horses gets up and leaves the house like a wraith. A woman who loves horses doesn't care who might be looking for her when they get up - she left a note on the fridge or the coffeemaker (before there was texting, or texts, now). A woman who loves horses shivers in the cold dawn in the winter and sweats in the first rays of the sun in summer. Riding English or Western, a woman who loves horses is competent. She deals with a crisis, getting help when there is some and dealing as best she can when there isn't (walking through the pasture today, rope around one horse and my t-shirt through the halter of the other, hoping my little-girl student will learn something about women and horses by watching my trek back, wearing only a sports bra and breeches, mud up to the ankles, closing the fence back up).

I say my prayers to Epona every time my students mount. I say my prayers when I put my equine charges back in the pasture and give them their well-deserved dinners. I thank her for this time, for however long it lasts, in which I am teaching other women, no matter their age, to ride and love the horse.

Tomorrow. Up with the sun and out like a breath. I do not know how many more rides I get, but I intend to make them all count. Hail Epona, slainte Epona, go raibh maith agat Epona. Lady of the Horses, bless me and them, and let us all run safe in the pasture.

An Explanation of the Absence of the Ocelot.

A few months back, I decided that given the lack of office gig action, I'd go ahead and look for training/riding instructor gigs. I got a callback, but then heard nothing else...until about two weeks ago. And now, ladies, gents and others, I am a riding instructor.

A somewhat tired, stiff, and sore riding instructor, but a riding instructor nonetheless. And one who is damn grateful to have brought home a modest but much-needed paycheck doing something I love.

I'll get back to the witchery in a little bit when my schedule settles into something a bit more predictable.

This is what you want....

(the title's from PiL, for those of you not from the Paleolithic Era. Public Image Limited, for those still wondering what I'm on about now.)

Second Husband and I headed off to the woods for a few days. I needed some serious peace and quiet. We left on Monday, got to our destination around 2pm, hung out, ate, slept, got up, ate, he fished, ate some more, then sat around the fire until he got the Impending Doom sensation that drove us to suddenly break camp and stuff the damn huge tent that suddenly thought it was a frigging Macy's Thanksgiving parade float into the van and flee with decorous but hasty steps into the night.

I got a little over 24 hours of the peace and quiet I was after. It wasn't enough, and it's my own fault.

See, I got talked/talked myself into car camping. I fell prey to the lure of a fire ring, a nearby toilet with lights and whatnot, the van being only ten feet away and chock full o'conveniences, even if the price to pay was Other People. I told myself it was better than the Place By the Lake With Coytoes, which has no lights, no toilet, no parking near the tent, no fire ring and no Other People. It'd be better to camp less wildly this time, I told myself. Maybe next time.

Then Second Husband got the Doom and we came home early anyway. We came home to cats causing chaos (including barfing, shitting inappropriately, tossing litterboxes over, and various and other annoying behaviors, causing me to stare at the lot of them and intone, like Prachett's Death, ADULTS DON'T LIVE LIKE THIS Y'KNOW AND THERE ARE TOO MANY OF YOU SO I THINK YOUSE HAD BETTER FLY RIGHT LEST I MAKE GLOVES FOR FREYA OUT OF THE WORST OFFENDERS).

Oh, and I quit smoking. I hate it and I don't care, which is weird.

I've been tired and blah since we got back and I think it's because I didn't get what I really wanted - the coyotes singing me to sleep, the fear of the deer running through the tent in the pitch black, the half-mile hike to the site. The lack of potable water. The lack of any lights. The lack of any sanitary facilities. The lack of any human being I didn't bring with me.


Like Bruce Willis in Pulp Fiction, I didn't emphasize the importance of the kangaroo; hence, here I am getting twitchy again because three of us in one 10 x 12 room is just a little. TOO. CLOSE. This leads to thoughts like the following:

FIRST HUSBAND: It's the full moon tonight. We should do something.
ME: Uh-huh.
F.H.: Not, maybe, the full, high-church thing. But something.
ME: (Why, yes, what a lovely idea. I think I'll find some belladonna and an unbaptized baby or nibble the neighbor's datura and then I'll be butt-naked up the front tree except for my combat boots and a metal colander on my head, screaming at the moon and calling to the owls) Uh-huh.

I'm not sure why they put up with me, or why I haven't made a burrow in the pool cabana, really.

Unitarian Jihad Name Generator.

My Unitarian Jihad Name is:

Sister Claymore of Mild Reason.

Sounds about right, whether you consider "claymore" to refer to a sword or an explosive device.

Get yours!