zippy zappy she goes

bullets-- because I can no longer think in larger chunks of focused prose

2006-12-11T05:25:00.000-08:00

Today is my last day teaching this semester. Usually about this time of year I'm feeling relieved. This time I dn't feel much of anything. Now that D. is here, so much less of my energy goes into thinking about work (or doing work).
Saturday we're taking D. to my parents' for a few days, and then it's off to Central American Country where we'll spend Christmas and the new year with P.'s family. I'm excited about getting down there, but ashamed at how bad my Spanish is.
I spent much of the weekend making cookies and putting together a Christmas care package for my brother, who has been deployed in African country since October. I was about to make a third batch when P. asked me if maybe I was overdoing it a bit. It was a lot of cookies-- but I figure he'll be able to share them this way. And really, I just don't know what else to do. I hate that he's over there and not at home with his wife and beautiful little girl.
After several days of agonizing over whether or not I'd be offending or hurting the feelings of P., who is an atheist, and whose toleration of all things Christmas seems to have lessened some now that D. is in the picture, I finally put up our tree. The tipping point? P. brought home an ornament for me from the ubiquitous Dunkin Donuts. D. was fascinated for quite a while, touching the branches, playing with (and gumming) the ornaments, blinking at the lights.
I guess that fourth point really merits an entire post of its own-- htat is, something on the subject of how to negotiate the holidays when the two people involved come from different traditions. I guess the truth of the matter is I'm still trying to think that through.
My birth grandmother had open heart surgery on Friday. I tried calling my birthmom's place to find out how she's doing, but I haven't been able to get any information yet. Still worried.
Very ashamed at how poorly I write. Consider destroying the blog.

Zombie

2006-11-12T20:17:00.000-08:00

Mannnnnnnnnnnnn, I'm tired.

and my baby's pajamas are suddenly too small.

I haven't finished preparing for the class I need to teach tomorrow, and so will have to finish pulling it together tomorrow morning when the baby's mostly awake. I just can't think straight anymore. I'm not sure it's going to get better, either.

Okosama

2006-11-02T04:42:00.000-08:00

Last night, after a particularly hard day, P. and I were sitting in the living room when I had to get up to go to the bathroom. I planned to try to put the sleeping D. in his crib on my way (he'll usually sleep there for a few hours, but always ends up in our bed eventually), but P. stopped me and wanted to take D. with him instead.

When I came back, a noticeably calmer and blissed-out P. said to me, "isn't it amazing how just holding D. like this can make you forget about all the stress?"

It is amazing. As exhausting as this full time motherhood can sometimes be, the most peaceful moments of my day are spent with D. There's nothing like holding a sleeping baby. By being with us (and not lying elsewhere on his own), D. also seems to be more at peace. Usually when I put him down, he squirms quite a lot, twisting his body from side-to-side, flailing his limbs. When we pick him up to sit with him, or bring him into bed with us, he almost immediately calms down, and snuggles in closer. When he wakes, up, he is a sunflower reaching for the light: he turns his little face from side to side, gradually tilting his head further and further back, his eyes still shut tight. When he opens them, he'll look at us seriously for a moment, and then he smiles a smile that lights up the entire room.

In her novel, The Character of Rain, Amelie Northomb describes the Japanese belief that until he or she reaches the age of three, a child is a little god, an "okosama." It's not hard to see where this idea comes from. Moments like these (watching D. asleep on my lap) can feel intensely spiritual. There's surely a piece of the divine right here.

Happy Halloween

2006-10-31T16:00:00.000-08:00

He's too small to go trick-or-treating, but we couldn't resist getting him a costume. This past weekend we took D. to a Halloween party at the hospital where he was born. It was a reunion of sorts-- for other preemies and the nurses that cared for them.

Those first ten days that D. was at the hospital were some of the most stressful of my life; but they were also some of the most special. We spent so much time in the special care nursery that P. and I got to know the nurses on every shift. It felt good to see them again under less stressful circumstances.

He's so alive! now, and well! So it's a very happy Halloween around here, indeed.

Sick

2006-10-27T09:28:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we took D. in to the pediatrician for his 4 month shots. Ouch. I nearly cried when the nurse jabbed the needle into his little thigh, and then did it again! and again!! That sadly hasn't been the last or worst of it. Last night D. woke up and started screaming. Usually I'm able to calm him down pretty quickly, but this went on for at least 20 minutes. It sounded like no cry I'd ever heard before, and I can only assume the kid was in some kind of pain. He finally fell asleep nursing and did okay through the night... but this morning he had a fever, and when I tried to give him some tylenol in the eyedropper, he emptied the contents of his stomach all over his changing table. Minutes later, he threw up again on our bed. And then he had another screaming fit. And then he threw up yet again (all over me) a few hours later. Poor baby.

I cancelled my class so I could stay home and console him (and not subject him to the ride to campus where he usually hangs out with dad in his office for an hour while I teach). He has been in my arms or on my lap all morning. And every once in a while, D. will open his eyes, look up at me, and smile.

I think we'll survive this.

staying put

2006-10-02T12:47:00.000-07:00

So it looked like we were really going to leave this place... I was ready to do it. But then P. started getting anxious about it. We talked some more about it. If we were to leave this place for Rural College, we'd risk not being able to get back here. So we're staying put. We've essentially chosen location over career, and that feels okay too.

When I was applying to graduate school years ago, one of my professors advised that I apply to places I'd really like to live. At the time I thought her advice was very romantic but perhaps a little impractical. Now, those words seem very wise to me. I love living here. Since the baby HATES riding the car (he cries his poor heart out every time he has to ride around in it), we don't get out much, but when we do, it's heavenly. I've always been drawn to water, and right now I'm actually living just minutes away from the ocean. So what if the jobs we're able to find aren't the ideal ones? There's so much more to our lives than that.

and just because, here's another picture of D., whose good moods (thank God) are getting more and more frequent.

decisions

2006-09-29T11:43:00.000-07:00

I think I've just about talked P. into accepting the job at Elite but Rural College, which means we may be on the move again. It's taken quite a bit of effort on my part to convince him to take the job, but after a week of thinking things through, I think it's the right thing to do. It means putting my academic career on hold, but I feel great about not needing to send D. off to daycare before he can even tell us what's happening there. Elite Rural College has offered me part-time work, so I can still keep one foot in the academy door. And if I'm somehow able to publish more in the next few years, maybe P. and I will be competetive enough in two years time to go on the market again and find two tenure track jobs that are closer together.

When I was able to shrug off all the internal and external pressures I felt about my needing to have a successful career, the whole problem became so much clearer. Because the truth of the matter is that D. has become my world and my life's meaning, and I'm not ready to give THAT up for a career right now.

where we are

2006-09-20T13:45:00.000-07:00

There's so much on my mind right now, and it's so hard to think it through. I'm torn, and to mix metaphors, feel like I'm being pulled in at least three different directions.

I am teaching one class this semester at the school where P. has a tenure track job, and it's a bit harder on me emotionally than I thought it would be. I gave up a tenure track job of my own, and an offer of an even better one, so that P. could take one of his offers, and so that I'd have time to spend at home taking care of the baby. I am still thankful for the time with D., but I was very naive in thinking I'd be able to get much of anything done while taking care of an infant besides taking care of the infant. I spend most of my time feeding, changing, bouncing, bathing, soothing, or playing with the baby. Very rarely will he nap anywhere except on top of me (he's on me now), and that makes it difficult to accomplish anything. The cleaning duties I do happen mostly after P. gets home and hold the baby for a while.

Prepping for class is a bit more difficult with the baby around, but so far it's been manageable (I've taught the class before at my old job). But working on that article that I really should be sending out to to a journal? That's been pretty much impossible. I need some space to spread out, and some time in which I'm not likely to get interrupted by D. wailing.

When we first arrived in New City, P. and I went to a picnic his new department was holding for its faculty-- both full timers and part-time adjunct people like me. I was encouraged; how cool to be at a place where adjuncts are really considered to be part of the faculty? But the English department doesn't operate in the same way, it seems. I have yet to meet one other person (even an adjunct) in the department. I don't know what my department chair looks like, and I don't even know where the copy machine is, and my chair failed to answer an email I sent weeks ago asking about office/desk space. I come in three days a week, baby in tow, to teach my class (P. takes D. for the hour), and that's the only time I'm even on campus. This is somewhat my own fault. If I want to meet people, I'll need to make more of an effort to get myself to campus sometime when P. can watch Bino. It means stepping out of my comfort zone, for sure.

This lack of connection is pretty unnerving. I don't quite feel real, and I certainly don't get the sense that my work is valued by anyone. P. comes home talking about the goings-on in his department, about committee work and campus meetings, and I listen hungrily. I miss those things.

And so, the question at hand is what to do about all of this? There are three jobs in my area opening up within an hour of New City. I could apply for them, though the market in English is so tight I don't feel confident about my chances of getting any of them. I could also start looking for non-academic work in nearby Big City, a possibility that sometimes feels exciting, other times feels disappointing, and all times, feels terrifying.

But there's another new wrinkle.

Out of the blue, P. got a call from Very Elite but Rurally Located College. He was a finalist for a job there last year, but didn't get an offer. Seems they have a new opening for next year. No offer has been made yet, but it seems a very real possibility. It's a super opportunity for P., and I think he'd be really happy working there. The salary there will go a lot further than it does here, where the cost of living is extremely high. There are some good educational perks for D., too. It makes some sense to go there. The problem is that there aren't any jobs in my area anywhere remotely close to this place, and if I look for a non-academic job, I'm not sure what there is I can do in this new place. Surely I could find something, right? But it will be harder, and I'm worried it'll be harder to find something I might actually enjoy doing. I have tremendous respect (now more than ever) for stay-at-home mothers, but I feel I'm going to need something else in my life, too.

This puts us right back to where we were last year, trying to solve the impossible 2-body problem once again. I am spent. I don't want P. to lose a great opportunity because of me, and I want fo rus to be able to provide D. with the best life possible. What am I going to do, though? I'm lost. I want to be able to spend as much time with D. as I can, and to prolong taking him to daycare as long as possible; but I want to be able to do other things, too. I want for P. to have a happy and fulfilling professional life, but I'd kinda like one for myself, too. I'd like for us to be better off financially, but I wish we could stay in this part of the country, too. The bottom line is that I can't have it all, and that these tough decisions are just part of what it means to be a grown up.

Since starting this post, I've changed 2 diapers, given one feeding, and done several bouncing/soothing sessions with D. He's crying for more. Thanks for listening.

a fungus among us!

2006-08-30T09:12:00.000-07:00

D. is at a point in his development where he appears to have multiple chins, but no neck. In fact, there is a neck there, but you'll very rarely see it, as D. has to be relaxed and leaning his head back just so for you to catch a glimpse. If you try to bend his head back to see it at other times, you're likely to provoke fussiness or at least a lot of wiggling.

A few weeks ago, I noticed some whitish buildup in the folds of D.'s neck that smelled a bit like sour milk. I figured it was, in fact, milk that had built up there from an earlier feeding with the bottle (when D. was actually still taking the bottle, those feeding almost always had spillage). Last week D. took his milk only from me, directly, and yet there was still whitish gunk building up even after I'd wash his neck/wipe it off as best as I could. It seems (says the pediatrician) that D. has a fungus as a result of moisture being trapped in the folds of his neck. We have some cream to use that will hopefully clear it up, but I'm also wondering how I can prevent this from happening again? There are so many neckfolds! It's hard to monitor them all when D. is so uncooperative. Am I just a bad mother?

In other news, in the past couple days, D. has really started looking at me, fixing his eyes on mine for minutes at a time. When I talk to him while he's doing this, he'll start smiling. It may be the sweetest thing I've ever seen.

restless

2006-08-23T18:20:00.000-07:00

D. has been fussy much of the day, poor guy. He's finally sleeping, sweetly. I'm absolutely exhausted, and yet I can't seem to fall asleep myself. What's wrong with me?

Yesterday I took D. out to our first moms/kids group outing at this beautiful park on the ocean. We were late on account of my having to try to get D. calm enough to get into his carseat before leaving the house, then needing to change his diaper in the backseat of the car before leaving (and do requisite soothing). He amazingly slept all the way there, but started crying about 5 minutes after I got him up to the playground meeting place in his buggy. I fed him three times while there, and changed three diapers. It took me an hour to get from the playground back to the car since I had to stop 3 times on the way back-- once to feed him again, twice to change diapers. Then I fed him again in the backseat of the car before we left. And again, thankfully, he slept in the car on the way home... which made all that work worth it.

The moms seem nice. There are about three in particular I'd really love to get to know better. No real connections made yet, though. I need to open up more, and be patient. And I need to get some sleep.

raspberry

2006-08-20T12:11:00.000-07:00

D. has been laying in my lap and somehow rolled into me enough so that his mouth was touching my belly. He blew a raspberry on it. I can't stop giggling.

on our own

2006-08-19T16:14:00.000-07:00

P. left today to go off and defend his dissertation back in Old City. That means D. and I are on our own until next Saturday. Yowza. The past few nights D. has been an absolute terror, crying or screaming for two or three hours with little reprieve. P. is very good at getting him to stop, at least temporarily, by doing these deep knee bend/bouncy kind of things. I'm very inept at them. Sometimes I can get D. to go down and fall asleep by nursing him in bed, but sometimes D. just gets so worked up there's nothing I can do. So I'm pretty nervous about how these next several nights are going to go.

It seems to me that D. spends a lot of time sleeping during the day for a newborn (but how am I supposed to know what's normal?), and maybe that accounts for him being so wakeful at night? I've tried to spend some more time engaging him today while he's awake. I gave him a bath, tried to get him to play on his playgym (he especially likes the mirror), took him out for a ride in the car and a walk by the shore... but when he's fast asleep (like he is again now) I have a hard time finding the heart to wake him...

Maybe the kid will take pity on me tonight? I'm doing the best I can.

fussy bino

2006-08-15T07:21:00.000-07:00

Cute as D. is, and as much love as I have for him, I'm starting to feel pretty anxious about being left alone with him-- for an entire week(!) starting this Saturday. He's been fussy-- a lot-- and it can be pretty overwhelming, particularly when I'm running on not too much sleep as it is. He seems to calm down a bit with bouncing. P. is very good at it, but it's quite hard on the arms, and I can't keep it up for very long. There have been moments that my trying to calm him has brought me to tears, and I'm so grateful that P. has been here to provide some relief. Not sure how things are going to go once he's gone... it's not like I've met anyone else in this area I can rely on.

I did find a "mom's meetup group" online the other day, and I'm hoping to go to my first event next week when P. is away. But even taking D. in the car by myself is a bit stressful. Thus far, there have always been three of us when D. is riding along, and one of us always sits in the back seat with D. in order to give a pacifier or bottle in case D. starts screaming. I'm very shy around people I don't know (heck, I'm shy around people I do know, too), but I think that hanging out with some other moms could do wonders for my spirits.

How can anyone do this parenting thing alone?

all I want for Christmas:

2006-08-12T11:24:00.000-07:00

detachable boobs. Actually, just one would do. Lately Bino has taken to nursing himself to sleep quite a bit. He hangs on and keeps sucking in his sleep (or so it seems). After 4o minutes or so of this, I will try to (carefully!) detach him... but sometimes, like this morning, he starts to wake up shortly after. The other factor here is that D. often has a definite preference for breast to bottle, so I can't always give a bottle of expressed milk to P. and go take my shower (or whatever). If I could detach just one breast, though...

Man, I'm tired.

world of pajama

2006-08-09T14:27:00.000-07:00

Some few nights ago I was lying in bed feeding D. and contemplating his pajamas. They have a picture of a cat and, behind it, an outline of another cat. In my sleepy stupor, P. and I had a conversation that went something like

z: Is this supposed to be two different cats? or is it two pictures of the same cat?

p: It's two pictures of the same cat.

z: But in the world of the pajama, is there one "real" cat and one drawing of that same cat? or is this one cat having an out of body experience?

I can't remember exactly how the rest of the conversation went, but the phrase "in the world of the pajama" had us snickering for the rest of it. Who talks like this? And does it sound just as silly when I use similar phrases in class?

dream

2006-08-09T14:14:00.000-07:00

There's a recurring motif in my dream world. It's happened twice now. In the dream I discover I have a second Bino-- it's always a twin sibling of D. In the first dream (a week or more ago now?) I felt very guilty and anxious for having suddenly made this discovery. I hadn't been paying much attention to D's sibling, and I had a hard time even remembering his name-- if I had named him at all. The brother was smaller that D., and thin. I hadn't remembered to nurse him or do much else with him either. I was torn between how to spend my time between nurturing D. and nurturing this new brother, too. In the second dream, the twin bino is even smaller-- about the size of one of my fingers! Same theme. I wake up still anxious.

I can't quite figure out what's going on here. The tininess of the new sibling seems related to all the worries we had about D. at the beginning, though, when he wasn't eating well and had to get his food down a tube. Some of those worries definitely followed us home. In my dream, I'm doing fine with D. (most of the time-- when he's crying and crying I feel like a terrible mother). So why do I seem so afraid of neglecting him?

sweet, sweet bino

2006-08-07T05:58:00.000-07:00

D. is 6 weeks old yesterday. He seems to be struggling some, having these fits of inconsolable crying, especially at night. We've discovered that music (he likes Bach and Vivaldi, especially) helps some... 2 nights ago P. danced around the dining room holding D. up near the stereo speakers, and D. quieted. His eyes opened wide, his head tilted towards the music, he was happy. We're making time for music and dancing more often during the day now. But music and dancing and bouncing won't always work. Last night Bino kept crying and crying and crying and crying until we were at wit's end. It's exhausting. During the night and into the early morning, he's really congested. His nose is stuffy and he makes all sorts of snorting and squeaking noises when he tries to nurse. Poor thing. I wish we could do something for him.

We've been having a lot of sweet moments, too, though, and D. is actually awake for more of them. It's lovely watching him take in things going on around him-- like the music I mentioned earlier. Friday night we went out together and found live music playing down by the harbor. We went back on Saturday for this maritime festival. I carried D. around in a sling, and he slept much of the time and was content for most of the rest. He seemed to respond to the music then, too, but a few times he was interested in taking a peak at the world outside the sling, too.

2006-07-29T13:34:00.000-07:00

Everybody says your life will never be the same once you have a child. Mine bears very little resemblance to what came before. I look back over what I've written here, on this blog, and so little of it seems to fit anymore. More specifically, while before it seems so much of my identity came from my work as a professor, now that part of my life seems to matter very little. All my worries about my teaching & students seem pretty inconsequential now. Petty, even. My days revolve entirely around Bino (a better pseudonym than D., and an actual nickname-- short for Bambino-- what we called him when he was still in utero). Sometimes it's a bit exhausting. At times I wish I had more time to read/write blogs or go for a walk or cook or do something that doesn't require me having him attached to me in some way. But it occurs to me that when he gets older I won't be allowed this constant physical contact with him. For now, I want to be near him, just about every minute possible. He must be seven pounds, now. He's growing and changing so quickly. I'm so glad I'll be around for much of it. I'm teaching just one class at the college in town. I can't imagine what my life would be like this fall if I'd accepted the full time offer I had elsewhere and P. had followed me instead...

We gave Bino a bath the other day-- and he loved it! He nearly fell alseep in the water and was all smiley when I pulled him out and put him in his towel...

He makes the cutest faces when he's just woken up (he also moves his arms and legs around adoringly) and when he's just gotten done nursing. He's more alert now than ever, and sometimes his eyes are wide and just looking, looking, looking. His cry sounds like "Naaaaaaaaaaaaa Nnnnaaaaaaaaaaa Nnnnnaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa" and sometimes "Nnwaaaaaaaa". Though something P. read says that babies can't suck and grasp in coordination, Bino routinely holds his own pacifier in his mouth. He doesn't mind poopy diapers, but hates wet ones. He likes to sleep on us, in his car seat & in our bed, and generally wakes up quickly if we put him somewhere else for a nap. He gets the hiccups at least twice a day and waits patiently for them to go away, even though his whole body is moving with them.

He's hungry all the time. Like now.

part ii

2006-07-24T14:16:00.000-07:00

They kept D. in the ICU for about a week. Happily, P. and I were able to spend nights at the hospital-- gratis-- in this special room reserved for mothers who want to keep nursing their babies through the night. After 2 days of sleeping with D. in the room with me, it was hard to be apart from him even as much as we were. We spent days going to visit or nurse D. every few hours, and nights were much the same for me. We got to know the nurses on all three shifts. I've never had as much respect for the nursing profession (and I thought it was a noble vocation before!) as I do now. These women-- a few in particular-- were so patient, knowledgable, kind... they are the ones (not the doctors) who really seemed to pull D. through all of this. We had a few scary moments-- D. was put on a feeding tube for a little while, after still having erratic drops in his blood sugar-- & every time another baby in the ICU went home and D. didn't, I felt a little bit jealous. I didn't learn the names of any of the other parents we ran into, though there was communion and some conversation with them, but I remember the names of their children still.

D. turns a month old tomorrow. He's doing well. He's gaining weight and inches-- he was six and a half pounds at today's doctor's appointment. He's a lot more alert than he used to be. I'm not getting a lot of sleep yet, and I'm getting very little done during the daytime yet, either. Occasionally we can get D. to nap in his playpen or (even more rarely) in his crib. Most of the time he wants to be held. There are few things sweeter than watching him veg out and drift off to sleep in my arms. And there's this thing he does with his head after nursing-- he leans it way back and looks up at me... adorable.

Today we finally got D. to go into his sling and we even walked around outside with him inside it. Hopefully that will make it easier fo rme to get something more done in the house during the day. I've also just found a way to type and check blogs with the computer on the coffee table and D. on my lap in this chair... so maybe i'll be able to check in here more often, too.

There's no easy way to close this. But I can't resist posting another picture. I love the way he naps-- arms and legs sprawled out like this.

how it began

2006-07-10T12:00:00.000-07:00

Before another week passes, I need to write this down. There are so many things I want to remember about how D. came to us.

We'd only been in New city for 3 or 4 days-- and the movers had only brought our belongings 2 days before-- when my water broke in the middle of the night. I woke up, gushing, nudged P. awake, & called my mom as P. and I tried to figure out what to do. Back in Old city, I'd actually bothered to pack an overnight bag for the hospital just in case, but at the last minute, P. and I decided to pack most of what was in the bag in something else and use the bag for things we needed on the car trip-- we figured the baby wouldn't arrive soon enough to worry about it. The day before D. came, I'd thought about packing that bag again, but didn't get around to it. I jumped in the shower and P. tried to pack, hastily. When I got out of the shower and got dressed, I started leaking again, and wanted to change clothes, but P. kept rushing me, trying to get met to the hospital. We wound up taking an old towel in the car fo rme to sit on, and I kept leaking on the way to the hospital.

We showed up at the emergency room and someone wheeled me through this maze of hospital corridors to a different part of the hospital where babies are born. They confirmed my water had broken, got me settled into a bed, and called my OB, who I hadn't even met yet (I had scheduled an appointment with her for 2 days later). An incredibly nice and soothing nurse named Julie took down all my information and stayed with me while we waited. An on-call doctor came to do an ultra-sound and confirm that D. was still breech. Some minutes after he left, D.'s heart rate went way down, and suddenly my room was flooded with nurses-- at least half a dozen. I was given oxygen, told first to lie on my side, and then to get on my hands and knees. The nurses handled everything very calmly, but it was a chaotic and confusing few minutes. I couldn't see P., I didn't know what was happening... the heart rate went back to normal again, my ob arrived, and I was prepped almost immediately for surgery. Everything seemed to go incredibly fast.

In the operating room, a kind Indian woman anesthesiologist gave me a spinal. My nurse, Julie, was there, and told me to arch my back and lean into her, to hold her scrubs if I wanted to. I can't explain how nurtured I felt by this woman... I was nervous about the needle going in, but didn't even feel it. I started going numb almost immediately. I couldn't even move myself onto the table. The screen went up, P. was brought in to sit near my head, and D. came out of me, apparently urinating, minutes later. I cried.

They took D. away pretty quickly, and P. wound up going with him, and letting me get finished being sewn up and taken to recovery on my own. Eventually I was taken back to my room and D. was brought into me. I'm not sure I can recall getting to hold him for the first time, but I know that the first few days together with him were entirely bliss-filled. I stayed in bed mostly and held and nursed D. while P. spent some time back at the apartment trying to finish unpacking or hiding boxes to get ready for my parents' arrival. The morphine and other pain killers made all that time blur together. I felt like I was inside a dream.

There will have to be a second chapter here, about D.'s time in the special care nursery, but that will have to wait for a while as D. is rousing himself for what's likely to be a midafternoon snack.

he's arrived

2006-07-02T07:01:00.000-07:00

So much has happened in the past few weeks, I can't even begin to catch my breath. I've been aching to write for some time, but circumstances just haven't allowed enough time.

Our baby has arrived. In the very early morning of June 25th, my water broke, not even four days after P. and I moved into our New City apartment. We hadn't even finished unpacking boxes. D. was delivered by c-section some few hours later, weighing in at 4 pounds and 11 ounces of cuteness. Because he was early and small, they've kept him at the hospital all this time and P. and I have been through an emotional rollercoaster that all parents of "special care" kids must. As D's glucose levels fell and rose, so have our moods. We've spent more nights at the hospital now than we've spent at home, and that might continue a few more days. We finally seem to be on an upswing that will last, and hopefully we'll be able to bring the baby home by Tuesday. Cross your fingers for us.

(Isn't he cute? P. and I don't think we've ever seen anyone so beautiful. Everytime he looks up at me with smiley eyes, I think my heart will burst.)

growing

2006-05-21T14:38:00.000-07:00

My belly is so round and full now I'm not sure how it could possibly get any bigger, but if the baby really does hang out there for these several more weeks, it undoubtably will. While the baby used to sit in closer to my sternum, he leans out now, and while I can't discern which part is which, I can definitely tell where he is in there. Sometime he rests legs or arms under my ribcage. My fingers have swollen-- I cant' get on my wedding ring. My watch used to move easily around, and now it's uncomfortably tight. And yet, all these changes are terribly exciting, too, in spite of the discomfort. They mean that something's happening. There's a baby coming.

bipolar grading

2006-05-20T12:10:00.000-07:00

Believe it or not, I'm still grading. Only one huge stack of papers to go, then final grades to calculate for three classes, and boy, will I be happy when it's over.

I think I have a somewhat unhealthy attachment to how well my students do. I'm not a grading machine. I feel proud and disappointed and frustrated and sometimes even angry as I grade. With exams, the emotions seem limited to pride or sadness. When a student does poorly, I feel compassion mostly-- I feel sad the student wasn't able to recall the information needed to do well, or wasn't able to analyze a passage as thoroughly as she might have. I never take it personally if a student does poorly. Essays are a different story, though. My first-year comp. students finished up the semester with research papers (for example). Some of them turned in the best work I've seen from them all semester-- that's the idea, that's what we were striving for! When I grade these essays, I feel proud of the students. I can see how much progress they've made, I can tell that they've worked hard, and I'm glad to see it paying off for them.

But there's another group of students who, in spite of all the incremental assignments we used for the paper, appear to have turn in something they threw together at the last minute. These are the students who I've had to struggle with a bit more. I've given detailed feedback on drafts, I've met with students in my office, I've done my best to give them feedback I think can really help them improve. I don't mind spending that time, but when I see the final product, and there's no evidence of revision, I'm very frustrated. There are also students who are relying entirely on web sources, even though the requirements for the essay state repeatedly that they're to use primarily books and journal articles. I know that I shouldn't take it so personally, but I have a hard time not doing so. I work hard at trying to find the potential in each essay that I read, and at trying to encourage students to develop it-- but some of them just don't care.

And then there are the plagiarists. While I spent more time talking about plagiarism in this semester's comp classes than ever before, I am still getting students copying word-for-word from their sources and thinking it's okay to do so if they just put a page number afterwards. We did exercises in class on paraphrasing and summarizing, and they were told repeatedly that failing to include quotation marks around material borrowed word for word is not kosher. I've called their attention to this in previous papers they've turned in, and even had a few extended conversations about this in my office. And yet, here it is again, in the final paper of the semester. It's frustrating, and disappointing. I feel like I did all I could to prevent this from happening, and yet I still feel like I must have failed them.

I guess the good thing to be said is that I didn't have any over-the-top cases of plagiarism in any of my comp sections this year. That happened instead in an upper level Shakespeare class, in which one student copied and pasted pages of text from the Encyclopedia Britanica. I feel far more emotionally invested in this situation than I should be. I am disappointed, and even at times angry. In accordance with university policy, I contacted the student by email to tell him what I've discovered and what will happen next (he'll hear from the registrar). The student wrote back and claimed he cited his sources (they are mentioned on the Works cited page), so he didn't think he was doing anything wrong. I find this extremely hard to believe-- less than two full paragraphs of the entire essay are his own work, the rest is literally plopped in from an online source, and he thinks that suffices as a final essay? He expressed no concern at all in his message, just essentially denies he's done anything wrong. He seems nonplussed; I'm exasperated. Something's wrong here.

Final exam week is supposed to be a stressful time for students, and yet I feel far more stressed on this side of things than I did when I was a student and on the other side of things.

P. and I recently finished reading this excellent boo k (aloud, to eachother, mostly in the car). The writer is a psychoanalyst from Britain who has a lot to say about developmental psychology and biology in babies and young children. She claims that human responses to stress are wired in babyhood (during the time the brain is growing and new synapses are forming, etc.), and can even be somewhat influenced while the child is still in utero. So every time I feel stressed now, I start to worry about the large amounts of cortisol I'm sending baby's way. I wish I could just calm down. I want to create an environment that will allow the kid to feel safe and confident. I'm hoping some of this time away from work next semester will help, but I have a lot of work to do. I'm not in control of myself as much as I wish I were. I need to develop some new strategies for soothing myself and for keeping my mood at a more even keel. Where to begin, though? When to begin is a little easier to answer: as soon as I get the rest of this grading done.

highs and lows

2006-05-05T05:02:00.000-07:00

There are probably Kubler-Ross -like stages for dealing with news like this. I think I got the shock and (misdirected?) anger all at once. Now I'm blaming myself. I'm still not so happy with how the doctor presented this to P. and me the other day, but since we've been talking and reading more about clubfeet and possible treatments, we feel better able to assert ourselves at our next appointment and to ask the questions we need to.

Yesterday was a day of highs and lows. We attended our first childbirth class at the hospital. We had a tour of the labor and delivery rooms, nursery, etc., and got a lot of information from the nurse leading the class. I had no idea one needed to have a pediatrician already lined up before the birth! The nurse suggested interviewing doctors before choosing one. If we really are dealing with a birth defect, that's going to be terribly important. As nervous as I might sound now, the class itself was a bright spot in the day. I was excited about going, and I'm excited thinking about our little guy arriving. I think these classes (every week for six weeks) will make the time go by faster. We start separate Lamaze classes next week, too.

Here are the lows. First, I got the idea in my head that if the baby has a problem with his foot, it's my fault. Maybe I didn't take enough folic acid; maybe I shouldn't have had caffeine those times I've had it while pregnant. Maybe I squashed the kid accidently or did something else wrong. It's torture.

The other complication is this: while I'd been trying to deal with the situation by telling myself that we just don't even know if there's a problem or not yet, P. has been preparing himself for the worst. He handles all sorts of stresses like this, figuring that if he can resign himself to bad things happening, he's better able to deal with whatever comes. But his communicating these feelings of foreboding to me ("I'm pretty sure the baby has problems," he says) has made me jumpy and sometimes even panicked. I get easily overwhelmed thinking about this too much, especially now that I've started thinking I may be responsible for the problem. The "if this is the case, we'll do that" approach feels much safer to me. But P. works differently, and so we clash. Last night after getting in bed, P. started looking up yet more information about club foot on the internet, and it just got to be too much. I tried to explain the panic it was causing in me and wound up causing more tension between the two of us than I ever wanted. I guess I need to get a better grip on things, somehow.

Better news? Only a few days left of this crazy semester. Maybe I'll calm down a bit once my grades are in.

baby feet

2006-05-02T15:37:00.000-07:00

We had a second ultrasound today, and I'm not quite sure what to make of it. The doctor said the ultrasound technician had made a note about one of the feet, which could have just been in an awkward position at the time of the ultrasound, but which also could be a club foot. "I'm sorry to hit you with this zinger," she said. Whatever that means. She said that in six more weeks we can have another ultrasound to check and see how things look then. The whole conversation took only a few minutes, and she was speaking so casually, it was hard for P. or me to figure out how seriously we should take things. I'm confused. The ultrasound technician spent very little time with us: if there were something present that looked like a problem, wouldn't she take a little more time to check things out? Or wouldn't the doctor take a closer look herself? And why wait six more weeks before we can check again? Why not have another ultrasound at the next appointment (in 2 weeks)?

P. & I did some reading about this when we got home, and it wouldn't be the most terrible thing ever if a club foot were what we're dealing with-- there are ways to correct the problem after birth. The news is still a bit unsettling, though.

I have to confess that I chose this ob in part because she's a she, even though a friend at work had much to recommend another (male) doctor in town. My ob has always been very business-like and a little abrupt with us. Most of our appointments haven't lasted longer than 10 minuets. That was okay with me. But this time, that quickness and demeanor didn't feel quite so good. Moving early is starting to look less daunting-- maybe a new ob would be a good change?

a humble poll

2006-04-30T09:25:00.000-07:00

As ETBA (estimated time till baby's arrival) approaches zero, P. and are having to make lots of new, important decisions. They're decisions we unfortunately have to make without all of the information we'd like (this sounds familiar-- it was the same deal with deciding where to take jobs). The biggest one concerns where exactly we should have the baby. We can either have the baby here and then move, or move and then have the baby. But I'm oversimplifying even this. We're not even sure yet whether we'll be able to extend our lease-- if we can't, we have to be out of here no later than June 30. The other variable, of course, involves when exactly the baby will make his arrival. Will he be early or late? On time? It matters.

I've been trying to ask every mother I know to weigh in on this, and I'm getting conflicting advice. Some say that it's definitely better to have baby here if possible and then move. In that case, I won't have to worry about finding a new OB in a new city, and I'll be able to avoid a drive half-way across the country during which we'll have to stop every hour for me to stretch my legs and/or use the bathroom. This camp claims that newborns are very easy to travel with-- that the baby will sleep most of the time, anyway, and that moving 2 weeks after the birth is perfectly do-able. Besides, it's much cheaper to pay another month's rent here than in New City.

A friend in the other camp claims very forcefully that it's better to move as soon as I turn in my final grades, regardless of the expense it takes to do so; that it's infinitely better to travel pregnant with stops every hour than to try moving after the baby's born. Not only might the car trip be more stressful, but it will be very difficult to get settled in with a baby someone's got to hold onto and without a LOT of help on the other end.

So what do you think? Which is the lesser evil?

2006-04-15T19:24:00.000-07:00

I'm kinda consumed with work these days, and probably should be grading, even now. I hate how I've neglected this blog, but when I get this way, when I've worked myself into this big blob of stress, I really just don't like who I am or how I write.

The changes coming in these next few months excite me, but also make me verrrry anxious. Sometimes I feel that the way things have worked out is a good thing-- that the situation will force me to try out a nonacademic job which I have sometimes dreamed about. And yet I worry I just don't have the personality to go out and get such a job. I've only ever been in school-- how do I sell myself as something else? I also worry that finding non-academic work means less time with the baby. And then there's also that fear that I'm just not good enough at anything to get a job I might actually like doing/find meaningful.

See? You don't want to read this.

help

2006-03-15T08:38:00.000-08:00

Dear friends of the blogosphere,
It's been a stressful past few weeks. P. and I both got job offers in desirable places, but they were too far apart from each other to make it work. It came down to making a choice between his offer (which might give me part time, adjunct work) and mine (which would have given him a visiting full time instructor job). P. did extremely well on the market this year-- four offers and many more campus visit requests (several of which he turned down), but was worried that taking a ntt position right out of grad school would hurt his chances on the market next year. Emotionally he had a hard time turning down the jobs he did. I was/am also a bit freaked out since leaving a t-t job and giving up another, better t-t offer for low paid adjunct work seems very risky, especially if it's true that only 40% of English phds find academic jobs in the first place, and also because historically I haven't done as well on the market as P.

At any rate, seeing P. so sad and worried really got to me. He was convinced, and convinced me, too, for a while, that even if we went to my offer and both went on the market again next year we'd end up having the same problem. Since his offer was in a better location for finding jobs outside of academe (because we really want to stay together- no long distance commuter marriage for us), we figured maybe in the long run it was smarter to go there. He was feeling guilty. I was the one who even talked him into it; I'd toyed with the idea of exploring jobs outside academe anyway; if we moved to Big City, I could finally try my luck. Plus, with the baby coming, it might be nice not to have to start a new tt job only four weeks or so after the kid is born. Sure, our finances would be a bit tighter for the year, but eventually I might find something, and I could apply for both academic and nonacademic jobs until then, right?

The night we made the decision and I turned down my offer (an offer so generous I really don't think I'll ever get another one like it), I felt strangely calm, even like celebrating. It was so good to have the decision made and behind us. I felt like at last we could move forward; I was resolved.

But now, I'm just sad. I'm not sure I'm ready to give up teaching, and I'm worried I won't be able to get back into tenure-track work. I'm hoping I can use the extra time off to work on publishing a bit more; maybe that will help, but still. I'm scared. And I'm not sure sure HOW to break into other kinds of work, either. The only experience I have is what I've gotten from the academy. The job I have now is the first real job I ever took. I went straight from undergrad to grad school to here, no stops in between.

It's hard talking to P. about this because I don't want to make him feel guilty. I honestly want him to be excited about his job and future. It's just, with my current school now making plans to hire a new person, I'm feeling kinda sad. I need to make plans, figure out what to do with myself, and soon. I've read about non-academic jobs I might have interest in, and they all require writing samples-- preferably free lance work. But how do I get free lance work? (This is an honest question-- if anyone can help, please tell me!)

I know I'll feel better about this decision once we're in Big City and the baby is here, but for now I'm feeling very lost and futureless.

bedtime poems

2006-02-16T21:18:00.000-08:00

I haven't written in ages. Though there's been plenty of wonderous things to write about, I've been so busy (and still icky feeling, unfortunately), that I just haven't been able to get my head in the right place to write.

We had our sonogram, finally. It was amazing and strange, and the first time I really became aware that this little person that's growing inside of me is really something other, something that's not me. We could see little fingers, little hands moving to touch his own face. I can't help but think that this creature is learning, already. How strange it was to have a peek into this other world, one I imagine as warm and silent, though I'm told he can hear us now, may even be able to see light shining through my belly.

We've learned that he's a he, and that makes the personhood and otherness of this baby seem even more real. Those details somehow create more, not less mystery around the whole thing for me. I can't wait for us to meet.

Today I rediscovered another poem from my childhood, in this book that P. bought for the baby. It's a wonderful book-- comes with a CD which has lots of poets reading poems. I love the selection of poems there, and how much emphasis seems to be put on the pleasure of the sounds of the words. Anyway, since I know others have begun posting poems weekly, I'd just post this. It was one of my favoirte poems as a kid. I learned all of the words by heart. I found it romantic, somehow. I guess I still do.

Wynken, Blynken, and Nod
Eugene Field

Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night
Sailed off in a wooden shoe---
Sailed on a river of crystal light,
Into a sea of dew.
"Where are you going, and what do you wish?"
The old moon asked the three.
"We have come to fish for the herring fish
That live in this beautiful sea;
Nets of silver and gold have we!"
Said Wynken,
Blynken,
And Nod.

The old moon laughed and sang a song,
As they rocked in the wooden shoe,
And the wind that sped them all night long
Ruffled the waves of dew.
The little stars were the herring fish
That lived in that beautiful sea---
"Now cast your nets wherever you wish---
Never afeard are we";
So cried the stars to the fishermen three:
Wynken,
Blynken,
And Nod.

All night long their nets they threw
To the stars in the twinkling foam---
Then down from the skies came the wooden shoe,
Bringing the fishermen home;
'T was all so pretty a sail it seemed
As if it could not be,
And some folks thought 't was a dream they 'd dreamed
Of sailing that beautiful sea---
But I shall name you the fishermen three:
Wynken,
Blynken,
And Nod.

Wynken and Blynken are two little eyes,
And Nod is a little head,
And the wooden shoe that sailed the skies
Is a wee one's trundle-bed.
So shut your eyes while mother sings
Of wonderful sights that be,
And you shall see the beautiful things
As you rock in the misty sea,
Where the old shoe rocked the fishermen three:
Wynken,
Blynken,
And Nod.

15 weeks!

2006-01-13T10:54:00.000-08:00

Can I just say how excited I am to be more than a third of the way through this? We're having the sonogram and will attempt to locate boy/girl parts at the end of the month. I'm still feeling sick. My doctor prescribed some medication, finally, which wound up averaging (I kid you not) $40 per pill. It works well (for 24 hours, even, the first time I tried it), but since I was only given 6, and we can't afford the refills, I'm trying to save them up for this campus visit (early next week!).

Also, I'm wondering, if this academic job thing doesn't work out, might I have any chance of becoming one of these?

my parents... again

2006-01-10T15:22:00.000-08:00

So I'd been feeling terribly guilty about how grouchy I've found myself feeling during all these phone conversations with my mom. She calls a few times a week, and is always full of questions. I've found myself answering them in short sentences, wanting not to engage, wanting to keep my pregnancy and the rest of what's happening to me mostly to myself.

Now I'm starting to realize that I have good reason for feeling this way.

So, I mentioned this campus interviewI have coming up. It's at a school a really like, and in a part of the country I'd love to live in. If P. weren't to get a job somewhere else (I won't be surprised if he gets several offers), it would be a good place to bring him too, as there are large cities (= more jobs) close enough by. So I've been trying to pull together material for my research and teaching presentations. I was excited about the possibilities there.

But then, my parents called. My mom talked first, asked me if I was still going (???), asked if I'd found out more information about what the visit will entail. I told her a few more details, and she wondered aloud if it was "worth all that trouble." "Are you really suggesting I call and just tell them I'm not coming?" I asked her. No, it wasn't that, she said, but then she asked "what if they want you to commit right away?" and she asked about P. I told her that neither of us has an offer in hand yet, and this place is actually a really good opportunity. She reminded me that "you're married, and you two have to go together," and then suggested that really I just need to be waiting for P. to get a job because that school could probably come up with something for me, anyway. No, mom, actually spousal hires aren't that easy to come by-- we can't rule out anything yet--

she hands the phone to my dad. He mentions the high cost of living in the area where this school is, told me I better make sure to ask about insurance and benefits, etc., and then also brought up P. "Your job's really secondary at this point," he said.

What the fuck is wrong with them?!?!? P. and I have talked about the two-job situation extensively, and he's never been anything less than supportive about my career. We're already planning to do everything we possibly can to end up in the same place, but we recognize that doesn't always happen. We recognize we'll have difficult decisions to make later on, but we'll try to go where there are the best options for all three of us. I hate my parents' butting in on this (though they assured me in precisely those words that that's not what they were doing). It makes me angry and it hurts my feelings for them to tell me that my career is "secondary." This is a competetive school-- I had to beat out a lot of people to get as far as I have. It hurts not to have gotten a "congratulations" or even a "good luck" from them.

All my life I've had issues with trying to please my parents. I got a ph.D, I got a job my first year on the market, and they were proud. But now that P.'s degree is finished (and probably becasue I'm pregnant, too), that's all over. Now they find it necessary to talk to me about what my new and "secondary" role should be.

update

2006-01-07T13:51:00.000-08:00

one more rejection, but also a campus visit request. I have a one in three chance, and it's at one of my favorites of the places I interviewed with at MLA. Yikes. trying not to get my hopes up too much, but I'm feeling far more motivated now than I was.

where do i belong?

2006-01-05T13:50:00.000-08:00

First post-mla rejection came today. There will be more.

I dream of getting out of this line of work, but where can I go? I'm not even sure how to begin, where to look for something new.

two hearts

2006-01-04T16:01:00.000-08:00

another day at the OB. The whole appointment took maybe 10 minutes, but we heard the baby's heartbeat today! On the way home, I remarked to P. on the strangeness of my having two hearts inside of me, and he informed me that that topologically, that's not really the case. Sure it is! Baby's heart is beating about 170 beats per minute. Excitable little thing. In four weeks, we have the sonogram. The nurse claims they'll only do one unless it's medically necessary to do more, so if we can't tell the sex of the baby next time, we might just have to be surprised. I'm feeling very grumpy about this nurse. This is the same nurse, who, when I called pre-MLA interviews to ask about the possibility of nausea medication, refused me, when the doctor today offered to give me something without my even having to ask. grrrr.

I'm still puking and feeling nauseous almost all of the time which has made me a bit grumpy and unpleasant. I hope this passes soon. I've also gotten into this terrible habit of imagining what the dishes I eat might look like thrown up. I have more knowledge on this subject now than I ever wanted to have.

The interviews went okay, I guess, but I hestitate to get too excited about anything. I am getting more and more anxious about our soon-to-be three body problem, though. So far, none of P.'s conference interviews match up even with states I've interviewed in.

I sound grumpy to myself even here. Don't mean to. I am excited about the pregnancy, and have plenty to be happy about, and things are good with P. But this ugly sensation makes it hard to think about much else.

Hope to see you all on the other side of this soon.

st. p.

2005-12-22T18:34:00.000-08:00

p. has been taking care of me, these past several days. i'm still pukey and nauseous, and can't even bear to walk through the kitchen. so p. has been cooking and cleaning and bringing toast to bed. eating has always been one of our favorite things to do together, but food has lost all it's pleasure for me, and so p. has also been subjecting himself to boring things like bagels when he might otherwise be having mexican or thai or at least something not in the bread group. we cancelled our latin american christmas plans because of me. i feel terrible. yet he is saintly and cheerful and begrudges me nothing.

called the doctor's office the other day, mentioned i had job interviews coming up, asked if there was anything at all they'd be willing to do to help me with the nauea. they refused, on account of the fact that i am keeping some food and liquid down, and suggested i try any of the overthecounter stuff listed on a pink sheet they'd given me earlier, or having toast in bed, or ginger tea, or all the other things i've already been trying which haven't worked. so p. took me to walgreens, where i talked to a fatherly pharmacist who recommended-- "you're going to laugh," he said-- cola syrup instead. 2 tsp. over crushed ice, as needed. surprisingly, it does help a little, but only for a while.

i have seven interviews over the course of 2 days next week. really hoping i'll make it through without puking on someone's shoes.

aplogies... er, apologies

2005-12-15T15:41:00.000-08:00

I've had a hard time writing here lately, and have grown tired of my own whiny postings. Apologies to whoever's been reading them. I know that these sick feelings will pass eventually, and I just need to focus on doing the best I can to get through the end of semester, parents' visit, the holidays, in-between-holiday MLA interviews, and preparations for next semester's classes.

I have 6 (interviews) so far, which is more than I've gotten in any other year. Now I just need to prepare for them. I'm naturally a bit of a shy person, and interviews can sometimes be a challenge for me. I need to be able to relax, have some confidence, and just talk about what I do and what I love. It's that engagement that really needs to come across, I think. Wish I could borrow a bit of P.'s charm to take with me, though.

Every time a call comes in (P. has received 3 interview requests for this big math conference in January), we start dreaming about what it would be like to live in New York, in Connecticut, in Pennsylvania, Minnesota, and other places. Finding jobs near each other will be a challenge, but when we're not stressing out about that, it's pretty fun to dream.

mortified

2005-12-01T08:07:00.000-08:00

The nausea, unbelievably, is worse this morning than it's ever been. I have been trying to nibble on saltines and sip gingerale in the hopes that my stomach will settle down before I teach. And yet this image of me upchucking midsentence in front of the entire class keeps passing through my head. How mortifying would that be? Extremely.

return

2005-11-28T18:50:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving holiday at my brother's house, and with no parental supervision for the first time in many years. Somehow when my parents are around too, I never really get to connect with my brother. Conversation tends to be propelled by my parents, mostly my father, and I somehow get lost in the fray. When I left home for college, I missed my brother most of all. Some of the best memories I have of growing up involve these talks we used to have in his room in the afternoons before mom and dad got home. I'd sit on his floor, and we'd talk about all sorts of things. Often we'd talk about the parents and our frustrations at living in such a constricting environment, but we'd talk about relationships, too, and dreams for the future. However happy I am to be out of my parents' house, I still miss those days.

It was a foursome at my brother's house-- my husband and his wife along with the two of us, but there was a late night when we all sat up talking until we were about to fall asleep right there. My niece is a year an a half now, and adorable. She loves my brother. He'll enter a room, and she'll call out for him, even run to him on her short and wobbly legs. He's so gentle with her, and funny. And looking back on it now, I even catch a glimpse of my own father there.

Morning sickness reared its ugly head while I was visiting... and it hasn't gone away sense. I'd only had mild queasiness in the weeks before, but now it feels like something's squeezing some round ball inside me just below and between my ribs. This discomfort has also made me a bit anxious and even irritable, and now it seems I'm alienated P. This is the down side to pregnancy. I wish I could relax a little, that something could take the edge off of me, make it easier to go to work, to be around, to just be.

now things get complicated

2005-11-13T15:29:00.000-08:00

email from birthmother today, wanting to know what my feelings are on her being a grandmother to the baby. She wants to be involved, but doesn't want to presume, since she was never really a mother to me growing up. That's nice on her part, I guess, but it feels pushy this early on, and really I wish she hadn't brought it up. It is uncomfortable to think about, I don't feel like thinking about it right now, and I probably won't feel like thinking about it for a while. Argh. My parents don't even know I'm still in contact with B., or at least they pretend not to know. We haven't talked about that in years, and probably won't, ever again. It would be terrible for my child to mention "grandma B." around my parents, and I don't really feel comfortable drawing her or him into my web of deceit. Of course this entire thread is too early-- I'm not even out of the first trimester yet. Maybe I opened my big mouth too soon? I'm not even sure what my options are. I try so hard to make everyone happy, and in this situation, (as in all circumstances involving my b-family), that's impossible. Clearly my parents' feelings have to take precedence over B.'s, here, but I have a lot more to figure out that I want. I'll probably end up ignoring the email for a few days and worrying B., but I'm not sure what else to do at this point. I could tell her it's still early, that I'll need some time to figure things out, I guess, but it's just easier to pretend it never came up.

I feel guilty already, because I know that unless I keep keeping secrets, someone's not going to be happy with the way things turn out.

Somehow I thought that by having a biological child of my own, I could avoid him or her growing up with issues like these. I'm starting to realize it's not quite that simple.

out

2005-11-11T07:22:00.000-08:00

Last night I came home to find P., adorably, reading this in the kitchen and trying to make a fruit salad with yogurt (recipe in the book). He read some pages aloud to me. Unlike some of the other books for expecting dads (some of which struck me as extremely misogynistic!) which we saw while browsing the bookstore the other day, this one is senstive. P. is cooking. P. brings flowers home. P. tries to give helpful advice on what I should be eating. P. pours glasses of milk. P. brings me breakfast while I'm still in my pjs. I could get used to this.

Anyway, last night, it was just too much. We called our parents. His cried with joy. Mine were somewhat more controlled, but I could tell my mother was really excited. She called me back twice after we'd first talked. Everyone's excited. I can't wait.

still +

2005-11-09T08:08:00.000-08:00

I can't believe this is really happening. I'm having a hard time concentrating. Why do I have to work today? P. and I have been trying to keep things a bit quiet until we know a little more (until I've been to the doctor), but I'm terrible with secrets-- especially my own.

I hope everything goes okay with us. There's so much I don't know.

I'm nervous/reluctant to tell my parents... for a while, at least. I'm not sure I can quite make sense of it.... but when P. and I called home to tell them that we were engaged, their reaction was less than enthusiastic-- they hoped it would be a long engagement, it was no shame to not get married if we decided that wasn't the best decision, cultural differences, cultural differences. Some months ago, when talking about another relative who'd gotten pregant again with her second child, my father said something about how there's no shame in not having kids, that it's not for everyone... not quite sure how I'm supposed to take a remark like that. The best thing to do, I guess, to read generously. And by "read generously," I mean, not read too much into it.

if I don't tell someone, I'm afraid I just might explode. So slowly, the secret is eeking out.

(sigh) back to work.

update

2005-11-08T11:37:00.000-08:00

3 out of 3 varying shades of pink and blue lines seem to agree: the pink lines at Planned Parenthood were very, very faint, but the person who saw me read them as a positive. She said that many positive tests look that way--- very faint, sometimes so faint you almost have to squint to see the line. I guess she would know, right? She estimates I'm 5.5 weeks. Somehow I still feel very hestitant about this, though-- unconvinced, even. I want a darker line, darnit. So I'll test myself again tomorrow or the next day, and then must hie me to a doctor to find out if this can really be happening. Cross your fingers for me? I'll feel very silly if this all turn out to be wrong.

yowza. so much happening all at once.

faded blue lines

2005-11-08T06:38:00.000-08:00

so it's a bit too soon to tell, but i just might have some big news. we're visiting planned parenthood later this morning to follow this up. could it be? i'm having a hard time thinking about much else.

it happened again

2005-11-03T06:35:00.000-08:00

yesterday. up at 7, to work by 8, worked until class, taught, met with 4 students over the course of the afternoon, worked until 8:30 at the office, when P. picked me up, had dinner, worked somemore and graded a stack of midterms. went to bed at 1am, got up at 7, am scrambling to finish prep for the 3 courses i teach today. this is crazy.

the nose knows

2005-11-02T08:01:00.000-08:00

I forgot to mention running into the federal building where we had the immigration interview. Literally. It was one of those revolving glass doors. Seems I went past the opening where you exit the revolving door and enter the building... instead I went a few steps further, then tried walking through the glass that was just past the entrance. I hit it hard. In the nose. It really confused me, and so then I was putting my hands out in front of me trying to sort out where the glass ended, until finally the door went around again, and I made it inside. It doesn't seem I hurt it seriously because there wasn't any bleeding, but there were tears and embarrassment, and my nose still hurts. It hurts when P. kisses me, and it hurts when my glasses slide down just a little, and it just hurts in general.

ouch.

good news

2005-11-01T18:11:00.000-08:00

So P. and I drove up to Big City yesterday for today's Big Appointment with the INS (which they call DCIS these days). We'd read horror stories about these interviews; had heard of couples getting pulled apart; one sent back to Mexico, the other remaining in the US, five years before they sorted things out. P. got a book of INS askable questions, like "how did you meet?" and "when was the last time you and your wife saw her siblings together?" and "looking up at the ceiling, which side of the bed do you sleep on?" and "what color is your couch?" and "how often do you do laundry?" and "when did you last have sex?" and "what color underwear is your wife wearing?" and so on. In some of these interviews, couples get split up, asked a series of rapid fire questions, the answers to which are then checked for any inconsistencies. The book, written by a Nigerian who immigrated to the US and is now a lawyer of somesort, said, no pauses when they ask questions, said, be sure you and your mate have consistent and coherent narratives about how you met and how your relationship led to marriage, said, it's best you prepare for these interviews.

So on the drive up, we tried to remember everything... he met my parents for the first time in November of 2001. I met his in September 2002. Our parents met each other in June??? 2004. We met each other June 12, 2001. We were embarrassed about the fact that most of the time we do laundry every 2 weeks and not once a week, and considered whether it might be okay for us to just SAY we do it (and clean the house, too!) every Saturday. We got outraged about the personal questions. My parents don't even know the real story of our meeting-- why must I tell it to some suited bureaucrat?

Our interview lasted less than 20 minutes. We produced photographs, birth certificates, our marriage license, pay stubs and dozens of forms. We were asked very few questions, and none of them were personal. We left with a red stamp approving us for a green card. It comes in two weeks.

Funny I say "us," when really it's only P. who gets the green card. But after all we've gone through, I kind of want one, too.

on the market

2005-10-30T21:39:00.000-08:00

Someone's sure to understand what I mean.

D'you ever get the feeling, when you're reading a job ad, that THIS is the job that you're PERFECT for? The stars seem aligned, and everything the ad mentions wanting is something you have, something you already DO. You have the experience to prove it. And yet, the job's in such a lovely, sunny place that surely tons of people want to work in. It starts to seem like really, in the end, no matter how perfect you are for the job, the people behind the job just might not interview you anyway.

(sigh)..... if only.

today

2005-10-26T20:41:00.000-07:00

at 7:00 am, woke up to alarm and mewing cat. Made groaning noises at cat and violently slapped alarm clock for about 30 minutes. Prepared for class, taught class, met with two students, copied material for one of these students (who's asked me to direct an honors project), returned work-related emails, did some work for a program I'm heading, ate (finally, at 4:30 or so), did more committee-related stuff, came home (after 8pm), did some reading/planning for class tomorrow, wrote up a paper assignment.

It's 10:44 p.m. now. I'm still not ready for tomorrow's 3 classes. Before 9 am I MUST:

finish creating unit syllabus
make photocopies
finish reading play/ planning my Shakespeare class
finish planning 2 other classes

I would like to, but may not have time to:

grade response papers so I can hand them back (I'm behind)
shower
sleep
cry

This is utterly insane/impossible. How on earth did this happen? Where did the time go? Clearly I should've let the committee stuff slide for another day... I was just feeling so excited/ energetic about it at the time...

I'm so, so tired.

what the... ?

2005-10-25T13:01:00.000-07:00

In class discussion today, a student very suddenly got up and bolted out of the classroom. I'm not at all sure what was going on-- my back was turned when he stood up-- but it seems like something offended him. We've been talking about conversational styles, using the Tannen material I mentioned earlier, and how we've been able to see some of them playing out in our classroom (which is predominantly male). Mike (we'll call him) always has something to say in class-- many times, it's something with substance, too. Near the start of the semester, he would just blurt out his ideas, and since I instituted a hand-raising rule, he'll do the thing where he sometimes raises his hand and starts talking without waiting for me to call on him. Today he had his hand up for more extended periods of time. I noticed him, but would call on other students who hadn't said as much in class. When he'd blurt, I think he could tell that I (and other students in the class) weren't responding to him in perhaps the way he'd like.... he said something about feeling like other students were "looking at him funny." Maybe he felt singled out somehow? I don't want to shut this guy up; I only want him to be a bit more aware of his surroundings, and especially of the fact that other people in the room have things to say.

I've had a hard time with this class all semester, and while the hand-raising rule has improved things, it's not always being followed, and discussions still aren't running as smoothly as I wish they were... so we'll come at it again on next time and hope things go better. I'm trying to approach this problem in a calm and constructive way, and I'm trying to get them to think about the way they're interacting with each other. What I hope is that, as a class, we can draft a set of rules for how discussions are going to work from here on out. Maybe hearing their classmates' persepectives will make the problem folks more considerate?

And yet... enough is enough, really. I'm tired of having to yell over people when everyone starts talking at once. I'm tired of having to stop the interrupters from interrupting. I'm tired of students carrying on private conversations when others are addressing remarks to the entire class. Frankly, a number of people are being quite rude. I've tried to address this several times, and maybe they need a lengthier Come-to-Jesus lecture, too, like the kind Professor Bastard describes well (in a very offensively-titled blogpost, though, I must say).

Oh, damn it all. I hate having to discipline college students.

on parkinson's rule and gendered (?) teaching styles

2005-10-24T15:02:00.000-07:00

Parkinson's rule, according to a bunch of folks over at the Chronicle (I can't recall which forum) means that tasks generally expand to fill the time available. So, if you've got one hour to prepare for class, you'll take the whole hour. If you've allotted yourself five hours, you'll find a way to fill the five.

Last week my division chair came to observe my teaching. In anticipation, I insanely spent at least six hours preparing for a fifty minute class. After all that, the class didn't go so well. I had too many ideas and felt like I jumped too much from topic to topic... the students were a little less engaged than usual.

Today, I gave myself a break, and spent less than an hour preparing for class (beyond reading the material), and things went swimmingly. It figures.

I think my big mistake was deciding to manage a more teacher-centered classroom the day the chair came to observe, when often, chair-less, I use a lot of group work, etc. to get things going. I can give a good lecture when I have to, but I like using groups in this class in particular because it forces the students to engage with the text in ways that they don't with full-class discussion (where more people can remain passive) or with lecture.

Today I brought in silly "Hello, my name is" nametags with characters' names (from the play we started to day) written on them. I assigned each group an act and scene, handed them the necessary nametags, and gave them 15 minutes to prepare a two-three minute version of their scene to perform for the class. Today was their first day back from fall break, and I anctipated not everyone had done the reading, so when I assigned groups, I made sure that each had at least one person who I was sure had done the reading (and usually does the reading carefully). Once in groups, they decided who'd play which part, then went to work trying to summarize their scenes-- they all seemed pretty involved, even those who hadn't read-- perhaps because they knew they'd be presenting in front of the entire class and didn't want to be embarrassed any more than necessary.

Turns out they did a great job-- the scenes were hilarious (especially thanks to the deadpan way several of them delivered their lines), and by the end of the activity, I felt sure that everyone in the class had a good sense of what was going on-- who the characters were, what their relationships to each other were, what the major conflicts/ threads were. What's even better is that I think most people were curious about what was going to happen next-- I think the activity helped convey to them some of what's interesting and fun about the play, and I'm hoping that will make for more readers next time. When their scenes were over, I sketched out a bit more information on the board, we talked about what the title might mean, and then class was over. Some of them left the room still wearing their "Hello my name is Alibius," etc. nametags. It was a silly activity, really, but I feel very good about how things went and about what the students were able to get out of the class.

In another class, my students are reading a bit of Deborah Tannen on gendered communication styles. And as much I as wince at some of the ways she characterizes "male" and" female" styles, a lot of what she says rings true to me. Tannen claims that in conversation, men often like to lecture/share information while women listen/ work to build connections. When women find themselves talking for extended periods of time, Tannen says, women often find themselves uncomfortable.

I know this is true for me... in the classroom as well as in my personal life. 50 minutes feels like an awfully long time for me to be center stage. And yet Tannen might say that teachers who don't take center stage for the majority of classtime may be looked at as less intelligent or less capable than commanding lecturers. It was this fear, that my own style might be devalued, that prompted me to try to put myself in the center last week, even when it didn't feel quite right. But if the chair (he's male-- and that probably matters) had come today, and seen my students in groups and then in front of the room for the majority of class time; had he heard me in lecture mode for maybe 15 minutes max, I wonder what kind of write-up that would have gotten?

When I first started teaching, it was fear of being at the center that would prompt me to have students in groups for a bit. But now that I'm more experienced, and I've had to teach one mostly lecture-style course, I think I'm much better at using them. They have a purpose, and they work for me. But would their effectiveness be easy to recognize by an outsider? I just don't know.

This is strange...

2005-10-20T16:32:00.000-07:00

My dissertation is for sale via Amazon.com. I have no idea how or why.

fall

2005-10-20T16:27:00.000-07:00

I've been absent for a while. It's been a stressful several weeks, and it doesn't look like it's going to end soon. But thank god for fall breaks.

I've spent far too much time stressing out about work, but the afternoon walks home have been quite pleasant-- especially now that the leaves have started changing. Yesterday I saw two kids playing in a leaf pile under the most gorgeous yellow and red trees you can imagine. Gorgeous. In the past weeks, I've also seen a green millipede crossing the road, at least a dozen monarch butterflies alight on a flowering bush, a squirrel carrying a nut of somesort almost bigger than its head, and, my favorite thing of all, geese in flight, coming together to form a perfect V.

It's fall.

stupid spammers

2005-09-21T15:49:00.000-07:00

Is there a way to delete those pesky comments? Can anyone tell me how?

drowning

2005-09-21T15:41:00.000-07:00

so much anxiety this past week. i can't calm down. i am teaching and going to meetings and preparing for classes and trying to write annual reports and job letters and to finish finally this article... I feel like I'm rushing around even when I'm sitting still.

sometimes I really think I'm just not cut out for this job.

2005-09-20T21:29:00.000-07:00

surely it's got to get easier... soon would be nice. even though i read ahead this weekend, i still feel behind, and i'm still tired. it's only tuesday. this job is sucking my soul away.

young at heart

2005-09-12T20:35:00.000-07:00

I have wayyyyyyy too many papers to grade to be writing in my blog, but today's had me thinking about how much my being in this job seems to keep me still feeling like a college student. My little sister started college this year-- when I hear about what she's experiencing, that sense of excitement and wonder of my own freshman year comes flooding back into me...

I fantasize sometimes about being in college again, about which of my students I'd hang out with. I hear them talk about late nights spent doing and not doing homework, grabbing sandwiches and conversation at 1 a.m., and I feel nostalgic. Envious, even. Oh, to be a student! with so many possibilities still stretched out in front of me... all around me.

I was in an elevator sometime last week with a student I didn't know. She smiled at me and asked me what class I was going to. Clearly she thought I was a student, too. I didn't try correcting her. Sometimes it bugs me when I have to keep explaining (especially to other faculty or staff people) that I'm actually a professor.... but this time, it made my day.

insomnia

2005-09-12T01:47:00.000-07:00

It's three-freaking-forty-seven in the morning. I've been trying to sleep for ages, and finally got so frustrated being in bed and having nothing happen, that I've come here at last.

These past few weeks, since school started, since New Orleans, since everything, I've had so many thoughts swirling through my head at one time that it's been nearly impossible to sit down and focus enough to write. I'm constantly writing down reminders on my hands, then promptly forgetting them, switch from thinking about class to other class to other class to other class as if my brain is some kind of tv screen which someone else is controlling by remote.

All this leads me to conclude a few things. 1. I really need to lay off the caffeine again. It doesn't matter how tired I find myself tomorrow, if I want to be able to sleep, it's a terrible, terrible idea. 2. I need to commit to getting some sort of exercise that can let me release some of this stressful build-up. Stop worrying about the possibility of seeing students at the gym. 3. I could try those sleeping pills, maybe?

I can feel the stress-- in my shoulders, in my neck, in my stomach. Soooo frustrating.

My classes are okay-- good, even, but I'm finding myself having so much anxiety about performing for students that I can't relax until class is/classes are over for the day. Or the week. I tried falling asleep tonight scrambling to think about the single 50 minute class I teach tomorrow. So far, I've prepared at least 2 hours for that said class. More than that, if you count the grading. And the ridiculous thing is that I'll probably spend at least 2-3 hours more in the morning preparing for it. Seriously-- who spends 5 hours (or more!) preparing for a 50 minute class? I'm ridiculous.

My freshmen know terribly little about what's going on in the world. Last semester, they didn't know Abu Ghraib. This semester, they're utterly clueless about the hurricane. The sad part of it is, most of them don't seem to mind not knowing. One girl last week said "I don't watch the news," in a tone that made it sound like that's a good thing. What?? I want to do something about this. I'm seriously thinking about devoting at least part of one day a week talking about the news (and requiring them to read about it). I can do this. It's comp. class, after all. I can make them write about it.

I'm so tired.

And so sorry.

I'm not feeling much like myself-- or at least, not like the calm and relaxed and thoughtful self I have been some few times in my life. I miss her.

recalled to life

2005-08-30T14:40:00.000-07:00

Summer has ended, school has begun, and after some thought, I've decided to write once more. There's plenty now that I wish I'd written about before, like some of the beautiful places I've seen, solitary walks through meadows and over hills and among sheep, about the theater, and especially a few inspiring performances of a few of Shakespeare's plays-- most notably, an acrobatic Pericles at the New Globe. I could have written about a reunion with old college friends, about two wonderful nights with k. and r., swimming naked in the ocean and under a full and beautiful moon.

However much I long to share these things and others, it's starting to seem like the blog's not always the best place to do so.... but there's plenty else I think I can still do here, somehow. We'll see.

I've missed you folks.

gone

2005-08-02T05:56:00.000-07:00

I'll be out of the country the next two weeks. Take care.

blogicide and poetry

2005-07-29T13:33:00.000-07:00

I'm been feeling a bit blogicidal lately, but can't seem to bring myself to hit the delete button. I'm just taking some time to figure out what to do with this space. Many thanks to those who've inquired about my well-being.

anniversary

2005-06-14T15:39:00.000-07:00

Two years ago, P. and I set off from midwestern parts unknown across the country. We were headed towards California. We made a number of stops along the way-- in Wyoming, in Colorado, in Utah, in Arizona, in Nevada, and we saw mountains and deserts and strange red rock formations neither one of us had ever seen before. When we got to the ocean, at last, we found a nice beach, got a marriage license, met with a minister, and then, June 14, we got married. It was a small ceremony. No parents, just a few friends and ourselves, barefoot in the sand and in the late afternoon just before the sun slipped down into the waves. We stayed in California for a month, studying, then packed up again and made the journey back again, which was just as beautiful, if not somewhat more rushed.

That trip and those days are still so fresh in my mind, it's hard to believe it's been two years.

The days before the wedding, I was jittery. A few of our friends had flown in to celebrate with us, and we'd gone out for dinner that night. In the confusion of deciding who was going to sleep where, a tired friend of mine got a little snippy with me. I felt terrible. And so P. stayed the night with me, the way he'd been doing so many time before, and he consoled me, and lay with me, and somehow made everything better. The next morning I was perfectly calm. Serene, even. P. still talks about it. We married just the way we wanted to, and it was perfect.

Months before that, we'd been planning a wedding in my parents' home town. Our vision and theirs just didn't resemble each other at all. Parents wanted their So. Baptist church and their minister which was particularly hard for P., who is not at all religious. The reception would be held in a stuffy location downtown. The night my father started asking me about colors, we decided to elope. We tried inviting my parents, but they didn't want to come. They gave us two choices: the wedding the way they wanted it, or eloping (which they were fine with) without them. I'm still a hurt they didn't want to come, but I'm so relieved we decided to do things our way. When I think back on our wedding, I have lot of good feelings about it, and that freedom that came from stepping away from the parents was part of it.

Tomorrow I'm flying in to see them and my brother, his wife, and my exceedingly cute niece. I'm nervous, as I always get with these parental visits, and this ache of wedding past I still seem to be carrying with me doesn't help things. But P., darling P. (who just stepped out of the bathroom, naked and spiky-haired to check on me) will be here when I get back, and there's really no one better to be coming back to.

returned

2005-06-07T17:00:00.000-07:00

quite a busy vacation, with lots of driving. p. has recounted it all in Spanish on his blog & so I won't do it again here, but I do want to share a few highlights.

1. Oswald's Bear Ranch. We saw a number of adult bears napping under trees, then got to play with two of the adorable cubs. One sat on my lap, leaned back, looked straight at me. They're adorable animals, but strong! And they seem very intelligent, too. If they didn't grow, I'd love to have one as a pet.

2. P. & I rode a tandem bicycle for the first time. We rode it around an island-- literally traced the entire circumference. Beautiful scenery, and since no motor vehicles are allowed on the island, we were able to enjoy most of it entirely on our own. Splendid.

3. Saw a huge ship travel through the narrow Soo locks in Sault Ste. Marie, passing from the Huron into the Superior. Did you know that Superior is 7 meters higher than Huron? In the locks, they have to lift the ship to send it on its way. Apparently watching the ships go through is a past time for some of the locals as well as the tourists. Lots of loud teenagers there... can you imagine? Why? When the boats pass through sooooooooo slowly?

4. Camping. And though we've discovered that P. is not a camper, we had some bright and shiny moments. I loved how easy it was to wake up very early. At first light, I was awake. The first morning after we camped, we got an early start to the destination we were aiming for. The second, I got in a walk by myself through some dunes near the lake while p. slept. We made fires, cooked, pitched tents, skipped rocks, hiked a bit, and told each other stories once it got dark. P. invented a character called Peekaboo Crane.

5. Drive through some marshlands at a State park whose name I can't remember. Saw loons and swans and eagles nests, and families of ducks! 3 sets of 2 adults (mom and pop?) and 3 or 4 ducklings on family outings. Marshland is beautiful.

We're home again, and it's nice to have returned here, though the rest of the summer will be incredibly busy. I'm teaching a course near the end of it, and before that, I've a lot of writing to do. My dissertation director hooked me up with an editor and seems there's some interest in publishing my manuscript... which means I've got to get that thing finished. It's all there, but revision is always an agonizing process for me. When I was on the job market, I revised those blasted cover letter and diss abstracts nearly every time I sent out an application. It was exhausting. I have a hard time letting go.

P. leaves to teach at a math camp July1, so hoping we'll enjoy each other some before he's gone, too. He jokes that it's very fortunate that there will be no real camping at mathcamp. No sleeping bags, no tents, and hopefully fewer mosquitos.

gone fishing

2005-05-31T08:54:00.000-07:00

well, except for the fishing part. Had a traumatic experience seeing an Iron Chef behead a living squirming fish some time ago, and that officially took fish out of my (otherwise entirely vegetarian) diet.

but we're going. Our trip still isn't entirely planned out, but we're packed to camp. We're just going to drive in our desired direction and kinda play it by ear. We've got a book of campsites and phone numbers, and did enough checking about availability to find that it's really not crowded at all the week after memorial day.

I will be away from all phones and computers, and I'm pretty darn happy about that. No offense to any of you guys, of course. If you don't hear back from me in a few weeks, I've probably been eaten by a bear. Or something.

oh, oh, oh

2005-05-28T19:24:00.000-07:00

haven't been able to write. been still a little down. p. is making me a milkshake. strawberry with vanilla. fresh. mmmmmmmmm.

tuesday we set off for the great to-us-as-yet-unknown upper peninsula and for our first camping trip together. i can't wait.

last weekend we went for a hike, in the woods, pretty darn close to home. took a trail we hadn't before and ran into all sorts of deer along the way. we ran into only one other person (and his dog) during our entire walk. the deer were very dear. fawns stared at us and even came closer. the mother, more cautious, put her body in front of them. turned a bend past the river and saw one no more than five feet away. it looked at us, curious. beautiful animals.

in michigan, in minnesota, there are chances of seeing bears and wolves and moose, and surely more sweet deer along the way.

right now i wish i could show you a picture of one of our cats, though. p. has finished milk-shaking, and lay down on a couch in my office. the cat is on top of him already, curled up dreamily, legs extended, head cocked. some day i'll post a picture.

can't wait to get out of town, to get all these anxious voices in my head (worries about my summer class, about next semester, about my manuscript) to quiet themselves down.

weekend

2005-05-22T17:57:00.000-07:00

tonight's dinner:
grilled artichokes with tomato chipotle sauce
grilled mushroom & garlic tacos

P. is a god with the grill.

I'm still not done grading (I'm very close, though... have to be done by Wednesday, so this can't stretch on too much longer, anyway). We took a long drive today, listened to some Muriel Spark on audiobook, did some shopping (I have new pants, finally, and we have new camping gear), visited a bookstore to browse the travel books, made the drive home, chatted with elderly neighbor, did some cooking, lay in the hammock. This is what summer is about. We're hoping to go off camping next weekend for a while. Trying to decide between a tour of the Great Lakes (to Voyageurs National park via Michigan's Upper Peninisula and Isle Royale) or a somewhat further trek to the wonderous sights of Montana. We've never camped together, before, and P. is skeptical that I actually know how to start a fire that we can cook on, but it will be a blast when it happens. Can't wait.

i'm sad.

2005-05-17T18:41:00.000-07:00

i'm not sure why. i'm just sad.

The visit with my parents was okay; sometimes even pleasant. We went for a walk Saturday after lunch, P. with my mom (who walks much slower than dad), and me with dad, who takes very long strides. Dad told lots of familiy stories, especially about grand-dad, his father, who I learned left WW II at the time he did because he won a hand of poker. (The squadron was sending 5 men home, I think; poker was how they decided who went.) He caught hops on cargo planes and toook a ship through the Pacific (where he saw a bit more action), and by the time he made it home he'd officially traveled around the world. But what a way to do it.

the glitch came Sunday morning, with folks insistance I find my diploma so they could have it framed for me. A sweet gesture, but it didnt' feel so good, being told to find it, them watching me pull out drawers of filing cabinets and rummage through my office before I finally found it sitting in its envelope on a book shelf.

They've called 3 times I think since they left on Sunday. Mom asked tonight (after a dozen questions I really didn't feel like answering) if I missed them. I couldn't bring myself to say yes, so I said "I've been really busy" instead. Am a bad person?

In an effort to make me feel better, P. called me to come and see a mess he made in the bathroom, pushed the button on his shaving cream and unintentionally shot it all over the mirror, the toilet, the shower doors. "You're not the only one who's clumsy," he says, adorably. His shaving cream is blue. It looks like toothpaste.

I'm still sad.

double life

2005-05-12T06:15:00.000-07:00

My parents come to visit this weekend. I'm anxious. I have lived a double life with them for so long that it's hard not to turn into a different person when they're around. When they speak (especially dad) I find my thoughts wandering elsewhere. When I speak, it is stilloften with some crazed and juvenile desire to make them proud of me. There's not always much space for my speaking (because my folks are both talkers) and I'm thankful for that sometimes, because it takes some pressure off. And at the same time I wish it were possible to have an honest conversation with them, for them to know and like the person I am when they're not around. Of course the visits are a trial for P., too, who'se been pulled unwittingly into this double life with me.

I really should chill out a bit. There are masks I wear at school, and around strangers, and in uncomfortable circumstances. But they're starting to crack a bit. Will I be found out?

on mothers

2005-05-08T20:24:00.001-07:00

There's no time like today to write about this, and yet when I sit down to do it, I'm not quite sure how to start or even what I want to say.

I started feeling more compelled to write about this today after reading Vindauga's blog here on birds, bees, and adoptees.

I can't remember a time I didn't know I was adopted. I don't remember any big talk about it. No rugs were every yanked out from under my feet; it seems I always knew. That's a credit to my parents. I guess they must have figured if they didnt' tell me, it might one day slip out, anyhow, and so it was never really a secret to me. I wasn't told very much about my biological parents, only that they were "very young" and wanted me to have a "better life," but I do remember fantasizing about my birth-mother when I was young, trying to picture what she looked like and what she was up to now. I never thought much about the birth-father in the picture.

In first grade, there was a picture of a pregnant mouse (and the same mouse later, with babies) in our science book. When my teacher told us that every one of us was born in the same way that the mouse was, I raised my hand to say that I wasn't born that way; I was adopted. As if it were something special. She thought I was joking, in the way that parents sometimes tell their biological children that they were adoped when they do something out of character or misbehave. She laughed. I went home from school crying. Mom cleared things up, and the teacher apologized, but I think that was the first time in my life that being adopted was something that made me different, but not special.

In 3rd grade, I was requried to do a project on family ancestry for some sort of "Christmas around the world" project that the school was pulling together. Not having any idea of where to go, I became an honorary Italian, because my father had lived in Italy for a while as a young boy, when his father was in the army air-corp. In 4th grade, I had to do a similar project. When I asked my parents where my ancestors were from, they said to just use theirs. I hated those projects.

In 6th grade or so I came upon the word "bastard" in a dictionary. It fit me. Child born to unmarried parents. I told a friend about it, and later when she fell out with me, she told it to a lot of other kids, laughing.

In 7th grade, I was required to write an autobiography of myself, from birth to present day. In itI said my birthmother had died giving birth to me and that's how I wound up adopted. My mom discovered what I'd written and had a long talk to me about it, and made me re-write what I'd written. I remember crying, almost hysterically, and her holding me in her arms. Before I turned the project in, I tore out those pages and replaced them with my original story. I was ashamed.

In 9th grade, when my grandfather died, a young and unthinking cousin said I couldn't be as sad as he was because he wasn't really my grandfather. Another, more distant cousin, my age, who hardly knew me, told him off. He's probably forgotten that. I never will.

In junior high and high school, the subject of my adoption seemed to become more and more taboo at home. When I dared ask about my birth parents, my parents didn't want to say much, and the snippets I got came with warnings. They were very young. 14, even. On the television talk shows, there were reunion stories all the time. When they came on, the channel was always changed. Birth families were called "white trash." Some were drug addicts.

My first year in college, I wrote a letter to the agency that handled my adoption (I found the address in an old address book of mom's) asking them for any non-identifying information they might have about my birthparents. It came back to me in about a month. I must have read through those sheets of paper hundreds of times. "Your birth mother was 18 years old when you were born. She was 5 feet 1 inch tall. She had dark brown hair and brown eyes. Her father was __ years old when you were born. He had brown hair and eyes. He was a banker and a farmer. Your birth mother's mother was ___ years old when you were born. She had ___ hair and ___ eyes. She was a secretary at a local high school. Your birth mother had three brothers. They were ___, ___, and ___ years old when you were born." There was information about my birth father, too. He was 18. He was planning to join the army after high school. There was information about what she wanted to do, too, and about lots of other things, too. My time of birth. My Apgar scores.

I told my parents I'd gotten this information some time after it came. They were a little taken aback. I said things to them like "Did you know that....? " and they claimed they did know. Like how the birthfather had gone to court to try to gain custody but backed out at the last minute. They knew. They never told me. I think my mom cried. They both gave me lots of warnings about what might happen should I attempt to actually find my birth parents.

Some years later, in graduate school, I found them. A kind internet contact and a lot of luck made it possible. I made two separate trips, once to see each of them. I met half-brothers and half-sisters. 6 of them. It turns out I'm Swedish. With a pinch of Irish.

I wound up telling my parents about this, too. It didn't go over well. This time my father cried, too. They felt betrayed. I wrote them a letter, trying to explain. I sent them a book. Neither helped. They were betrayed. I ruined Christmas. When they'd calmed down enough to talk to me, I received more warnings from dad. They might take advantage of me. I should cut things off immediately. Not only that-- mom and dad had been assured this would be a closed adoption, that what I'd done couldn't happen. They'd been advised to leave the state shortly after adopting me, and to "never come back." If they'd had known.... (question trailed off into silence, but still haunts me.) Dad told me I should cut things off. To spare the feelings of him and mom, I said I would. Then I went about doing my own thing and talking about it only with C., and later P., and sometimes also with the brother I grew up with (their biological son) who seeemed to understand.

The relationship I've been able to form with my birthmother, and especially with her daughters, has been a blessing. It's striking how much they remind me of myself at their ages; they were/are involved in all the same activities I seem to have been. The relationship with the other side of my biology is a bit more tragic. I have really nothing in common with him or his kids. When I visited his house, it was dirty and falling apart. One daughter didn't have a bed. Another daugher had been molested as a child at a daycare. One son was in jail. None of the kids was good at school. I felt lucky I hadn't grown up here. I felt ashamed. This man had sold his cattle (he was a future farmer of America) to hire a lawyer and fight for me. When this happened, my birthmother's family decided they'd take me in before they let him have me (my b-mother says he drank a lot and may have used drugs, too). Eventually the lawyer told him he didn't have a chance and everyone signed the papers and sealed my fate.

Every mother's day I feel a bit uneasy. I always call and send flowers or presents to mom, but I've never been able to bring myself to do anything for b-mom, because it would feel like another betrayal. But I do think of her, and of what she must have gone through to make the decision she did. I don't know how she did it, frankly. She hadn't even told her parents she was pregnant until she went into labour.

This year, though, tonight, I sent an email. Thank you for what you did. For my life. For not letting the desperation get to you as I'm afraid it might have with me.... I feel good about sending this out to her. I feel good about having found her, and b-father, and their parents, to let everyone know I turned out okay.... and yet I still feel guilty, too.

I feel guilty also for how much I long for a biological offspring of my own, now that P. and I are trying. I know I'd be fine, happy, even, if we wound up adopting (which we might, depending on a lot of things), but I long for that connection to grow up with.... er, to watch grow.

I love my parents. I just wish it were okay to love all of them, in my way. There's more to say. But not tonight.

dry spell

2005-05-04T11:26:00.000-07:00

I've had a hard time writing lately.

My Shakespeare students have been presenting their research projects the past few days. They're stunningly good so far. Very smart, and sooo different from each other. I'm having a hard time keeping them from going over their allotted minutes, though. Had to postpone two of Monday's to today. I'm going to have to act as time police today, and that isn't fun at all. If I have them present the next time I teach this course, I should really schedule at least 2 more days for it.

I'm up to my neck in grading and planning for a summer course I'm teaching. I almost mean that literally.

8 more classes to get through. Then exams. Then grading. Then peace.

oops

2005-04-29T06:38:00.000-07:00

I don't usually read Crooked Timber, but p. pointed me to this link they have over there today to Louis Armstrong singing Britney Spears' "Oops I Did It Again." Lovely.

proofs

2005-04-28T14:22:00.000-07:00

Looks like Timna is working on proofs this week, too. I hate it. There's so much I wish I could change, but can't. So many horrible sentences. I think, "did I write that?" and then look back at the original and find that yes, yes, I did. There are a few icky errors that are the fault of the proofreaders and not me, but this whole porcess is making me nervous. It's doubtful more than a dozen people will ever read this article, but I still wish it were better written. I even have a better revision (one I sent out with job application materials), but since those revisions were made post my article getting accepted, they won't make it.

aragah.

dream

2005-04-27T06:01:00.000-07:00

P. gave birth to a cat. I helped deliver it in the backseat of a car.
Also, I dived deep into the bottom of a pool to bring up 5 copper coins.
Also, I won $10,000, but it was contingent on my returning all but 2 books I just got through interlibrary loan. Of course I had a hard time picking just two, but I had made my first choice at least when the alarm went off.

Even my dreams are scatter-brained.

edited to add this Usage Note, brought to you by our friends at Dictionary.com & my own "dived? is that correct?" moment. Very interesting stuff, I think:

Either dove or dived is acceptable as the past tense of dive. Usage preferences show regional distribution, although both forms are heard throughout the United States. According to the Dictionary of American Regional English, in the North, dove is more prevalent; in the South Midland, dived. Dived is actually the earlier form, and the emergence of dove may appear anomalous in light of the general tendencies of change in English verb forms. Old English had two classes of verbs: strong verbs, whose past tense was indicated by a change in their vowel (a process that survives in such present-day English verbs as drive/drove or fling/flung); and weak verbs, whose past was formed with a suffix related to -ed in Modern English (as in present-day English live/lived and move/moved). Since the Old English period, many verbs have changed from the strong pattern to the weak one; for example, the past tense of step, formerly stop, became stepped. Over the years, in fact, the weak pattern has become so prevalent that we use the term regular to refer to verbs that form their past tense by suffixation of -ed. However, there have occasionally been changes in the other direction: the past tense of wear, now wore, was once werede, and that of spit, now spat, was once spitede. The development of dove is an additional example of the small group of verbs that have swum against the historical tide.

edited again to add this. At dinner with C.'s parents long ago, somehow a question of the origin of the word "hooker" came up at the dinner table. C's is the kind of family that doesn't hesitate to get up from the table to bring back an encyclopedia, a dictionary, or any other book relevant to conversation at hand. I loved this. I want to be this. At any rate, the entry for "hooker" was quite lengthy, and I remember laughing hysterically as C's father read some version of the following:

hook·er²
n.

One that hooks.
Slang. A prostitute.

Word History: In his Personal Memoirs Ulysses S. Grant described Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker as “a dangerous man... not subordinate to his superiors.” Hooker had his faults. He may indeed have been insubordinate; he was undoubtedly an erratic leader. But “Fighting Joe” Hooker is often accused of one thing he certainly did not do: he did not give his name to prostitutes. According to a popular story, the men under Hooker's command during the Civil War were a particularly wild bunch, and would spend much of their time in brothels when on leave. For this reason, as the story goes, prostitutes came to be known as hookers. However attractive this theory may be, it cannot be true. The word hooker with the sense “prostitute” is already recorded before the Civil War. As early as 1845 it is found in North Carolina, as reported in Norman Ellsworth Eliason's Tarheel Talk; an Historical Study of the English Language in North Carolina to 1860, published in 1956. It also appears in the second edition of John Russell Bartlett's Dictionary of Americanisms, published in 1859, where it is defined as “a strumpet, a sailor's trull.” Etymologically, it is most likely that hooker is simply “one who hooks.” The term portrays a prostitute as a person who hooks, or snares, clients.

Who writes this stuff? Really, I'd like to know.

And the days are not full enough

2005-04-26T19:04:00.000-07:00

And the Days Are Not Full Enough

And the days are not full enough
And the nights are not full enough
And life slips by like a field mouse
Not shaking the grass.

Ezra Pound

These days my days are not full enough. And by full enough I don't mean that I have nothing to do; for here, at the end of the semester, I've definitely got plenty. Conferences with students. Papers to grade. Exams to make, to give, to grade. Meeting to attend. Proofs to read. Errands to run. Kitchens to clean, showers to take, hair to shampoo rinse and repeat.

By full enough I mean having some sort of meaning to them. Sometimes I feel like my life can just slip away (like that field mouse) if I'm not careful enough. I catch myself not paying attention to what's around me. I'm always missing steps, bumping into things, forgetting and misplacing things, but I feel like there's plenty else I've been missing in the rush.

The good thing about this detox program is that in the evenings I'm feeling calmer. I'm not coming home unable to wind down, though I am tireder (I think) than usual.

I long for this summer, and for fuller days of thinking and reading and talking with people I care about, and for travelling and hiking and all sort of other filling things. But I also long for balance, and for the ability to make more of my moments not wasted. I want to live more deliberately, consciously. Somehow.

poetrymonth

addiction

2005-04-25T11:11:00.000-07:00

I gave up coffee (and caffeine) in favor of baby-making this weekend. Over the weekend, it wasn't so hard. This afternoon... oh, mannnnnnnnnnnnnn I've got cravings! Headache coming on. Soooo soooo sleepy. Can't concentrate. Will sugar help? Let's find out.

weekendend

2005-04-24T17:12:00.000-07:00

it's not been sooo long, but it feels like it's been ages since I wrote last. Busy week. After than depressing Tuesday, things looked up and down and up again a bit. Highlight of the week was a tornado warning during a class I was teaching. Some burly administrator came nearly running into my classroom, where some students had just finished a presentation, told us to get us to the basement. We went and talked some more Shakespeare there, huddled together on comfy couches & a less comfy floor. When the warning passed, another admin person came by and told us we could go back upstairs, but we stayed instead. It wasn't the most spectacular class ever, but it was fun. I like these students.

The weather has turned cold again, but at least there's no snow. p. & i have had a good weekend together. Saw The Interpreter last night. The story's not great, but Sean Penn is pretty amazing. Without saying a word, he can reveal such depth. His face.... so expressive. Wow.

Spent a lot of time looking at P's face too, this weekend, from closeup. My nose as reflected in his eyes looks HUGE.

thin skin

2005-04-19T14:57:00.000-07:00

I have a student who sits in my afternoon class with a blank & angry stare most of the time. Sometimes she seems to be rolling her eyes. Is it me?

I've had a hard time getting this group of students to read, as I've said plenty of times already, and have finally dealt with it by pretending that everyone's read and breaking them into groups to answer some questions for discussion as that will force them to engage with the text on their own at least a little. This student, to her credit, is one who often reads, but she definitely doesn't seem to like me and her sighs and eyerolls bother me far more than they should. I'd like to sigh and roll my eyes at this class sometimes, too, but I've tried to muster up as much enthusiasm as I can just to get us through the end of it.

I need a thicker skin.

Last semester I had a student who exhibited similar body language when she came to class-- but at the end of the semester she wrote a very nice evalution for me (which I could identify because of her distinctive handwriting). Lesson should be-- can't always trust appearances. But the lesson I really need to learn is that it doesn't matter, they don't have to like me.

I wonder sometimes if I'm really cut out for this job. I dread the 75 minute class periods I have to teach every Tuesday and Thursday, and am even more wary of this compressed summer course I'm teaching for 4 hours daily (pre-travel). I do okay in shorter intervals, but being on-the-spot is still a very stressful experience for me. I love listening to people and learning about them. I've often felt very humbled reading papers for freshman comp of all things because of the details of their lives my students have chosen to share with me. I like watching them develop as thinkers. But I want them to like me, too, and that's a problem.

I think part of this stems from the total lack of friendships in this new place. I have some acquaintances at work, but none that I hang out with outside of work. I have P., I have some long distance friends, but in large part the students have turned into a primary source of emotional validation or stress. And that doesn't sound so healthy.

Punks. If they're not reading and we have poor discussions, it's not my fault, is it? So why do I feel so responsible?

blossoms

2005-04-19T06:47:00.000-07:00

A student introduced me to this poet, who, she claims, is one of the best young poets alive today.

From Blossoms

From blossoms comes
this brown paper bag of peaches
we bought from the boy
at the bend in the road where we turned toward
signs painted Peaches.

From laden boughs, from hands,
from sweet fellowship in the bins,
comes nectar at the roadside, succulent
peaches we devour, dusty skin and all,
comes the familiar dust of summer, dust we eat.

O, to take what we love inside,
to carry within us an orchard, to eat
not only the skin, but the shade,
not only the sugar, but the days, to hold
the fruit in our hands, adore it, then bit into
the round jubilance of a peach.

There are days we live
as if death were nowhere
in the background; from joy
to joy to joy, from wing to wing,
from blossom to blossom to
impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom.

This poem comes from a splendid anthology called Staying Alive, which I picked up before a long plane trip once.

It is spring. I was sad when the magnolia blossoms (the first blooms of spring here) began falling from the trees and leaving naked branches in their stead... but then tiny green leaves started appearing on the trees, and white and pink and yellow and glorious deep purple came out on others. And then our yard broke out in an epidemic of wildflowers-- violets and whites and pale blues and yellows. I'd never seen anything like it. But then the neighbors started mowing their lawns. And then P. started getting antsy to mow ours...

I put him off for a week, saying, please, please, let it along a little longer, you're going to destroy all those flowers! This weekend when the mower came out, I took my camera outside and took photographs, and lay among those blooms and inhaled their scent and felt sad that they were going....

... but they didn't go. Although there are fewer blossoms than there were before, the white and the purple and the yellow blooms are still there, peaking up through the grass. And yet another tree has opened up its buds to spill forth blossoms.

O, I love this spring!

when i die

2005-04-17T10:10:00.000-07:00

The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab and my loitering.

I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,
I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.

The last scud of day holds back for me,
It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadow wilds,
It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk.

I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun,
I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags.

I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.

You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.

Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you.

(Walt Whitman, "Song of Myself")

Some years ago, back when I was with C., a phone call came in the night. His grandmother had died. She'd been quite sick for a while. C's parents had been taking care of her, at home, and she'd finally passed away. They held a memorial service for her in the summer. It was the most beautiful thing of its sort I've ever been to. No priest and no body (she'd already been cremated), just all her family and friends, gathered in a white tent in her backyard, sharing memories. A string quartet played (she'd known the violinist, who once gave lessons to C.). She seems to have been an extraordinary woman. She was an avid birdwatcher. She took walks (in the mountains of Pennsylvania). She kept journals. She knew everyone. After her husband died, she took a bunch of classes at the college where C's father (her son) taught. One of the classes was an American poetry class. She loved Whitman.

In her last days, C's mother was spending a lot of time at her house. She'd read to her. Just days before her death, they finished Leaves of Grass. C's mother read this poem (an excerpt from "Song of Myself") at the memorial service. It's the most beautiful send-off I can imagine.

poetrymonth

clay and taxes

2005-04-13T21:08:00.000-07:00

The Potter
(Pablo Neruda)

Your whole body has
a fullness or a gentleness destined for me.

When I move my hand up
I find in each place a dove
that was seeking me, as
if they had, love, made you of clay
for my own potter's hands.

Your knees, your breasts,
your waist
are missing parts of me like the hollow
of a thirsty earth
from which they broke off
a form,
and together
we are complete like a single river,
like a single grain of sand.

poetrymonth

In the summer after my second or third year of graduate school, I signed up for a ceramics course at the university. We did a lot of handbuilding, but were briefly introduced to the potter's wheel, too. Since this was a summer course, I was spending hours and hours in the studio every day. The textures of clay became very familiar to me, and during the weeks we were working on wheels, I could see the swirling clay bottom of a cyllinder every time I closed my eyes. It was a magical experience, one that maintained quite a grip on my sensory life. My sense of touch became strangely hightened, and in the dark with my lover that summer, I saw and felt things differently than I ever had before. Skin became clay in my hands, I myself was claylike in his.

That summer, I rode my bicycle for a mile or so to the ceramices studio every day, and C. rode with me there in the early morning. One day the seat on my bicycle came loose on the way. By the time I got there, it was totally hanging off. When I left the studio that afternoon I found that the seat had been tightened. C. had ridden home and back with a screwdriver and fixed things while I worked.

He was always fixing things for me.

I messed up that beautiful relationship. C. is engaged now, and marries (I think) next month. I wish I knew more about how he's doing.

I'm very lucky to have found a good things with P., who is currently trying to pay our taxes online. It was P. who made me love Neruda and Garcia Lorca and Miguel Hernandez and all sorts of other poets I'd never have met otherwise.   It is P. whose body I fall asleep next to at night, and P. whose hands.... well, do magical things.   After a day such as this, though, even his paying of taxes is a terribly romantic and beautiful thing.

winging it?

2005-04-13T14:05:00.000-07:00

When I started teaching, I was spending on average of 3-5 hours preparing for each class I taught. If that sounds insane to you, it should. These were new preps, but I guess the excessive time spent had more to do with my own lack of confidence.

Today I felt like I was winging it, but things went fine.... and then I realized that no, actually I spent4 hours preparing for the 3 classes (2 preps) I had to teach this morning and afternoon. I was going to say "good for me!I didn't spend too much time prepping today"-- but then I remembered that I spent a bit of time last night preparing, too, which bumps up my hours of preparation to at least 6 (sigh). So that means I've spent nine hours preparing for and teaching today's classes. No wonder I have no life. No wonder it's felt so hard this week to get everything done-- the teaching + the committe work + cooking dinner + half-hearted efforts at cleaning + an occasional shower.

Please, please, let next year be easier.

SupposedlyI need to be doing some research, too, if I want this to turn into a tenure-track position and/or if I want to go on the market again next year. The good news is that I have proofs for my first article (submitted over a year ago) coming my way. I'm nervous about it, want to slip more revisions into it, but I'm not sure if that's kosher at this point. The bad news is that one article's not enough to boost my chances of finding a job somewhere near P. next fall--wherever that may be.

Oh, sweet summer, come.

rescue me, part ii.

2005-04-12T19:23:00.000-07:00

because this part of what i want to say is too ugly and inarticulate to put in the same post as a seamus heaney poem.

I had a conversation today that's completely caused me to rethink what it is I'm doing here at ______ college and whether or not I do fit in and/or should stay. Of course the conversation comes after I've already shut the door for another possible job opportunity for next year (at bigger state school in another state).

Even posting about it feels a bit dangerous. Maybe I'll wimp out (wise up?) and delete it, but right now I'm still trying to process things and it feels good to write.

This afternoon I had coffee with Dr. Feminist Outspoken, who is leaving _____ college and moving on to a better (and better paid and better located) job next year. The conversation disturbed me in ways I can't quite make sense of yet...

Except for on small incident which I thought I was blowing out of proportion, I've felt nothing but good things from my department. They are collegial, they are progressive, they are down-to-earth. For the most part, they also seem to not like Dr. Outspoken too much. Okay, that's a huge understatement. Several of them roll their eyes at her in department meetings.

Dr. Outspoken tells me (over coffee in a public place with students and staff and who knows who else milling back and forth) that many if not all of the problems at _______college stem from sexism, that sexism is the reason our deparment has only one other tenured female. She tells me that Dr. Respectable (male) is actually the devil incarnate, that Dr. Other Tenured Female drinks too much and that... many more other things that I'm not supposed to know. Her comments make me rethink a comment made towards me by Dr. Respectable in a recent deparment meeting that somewhat embarrassed me in front of everyone, and they also make me feel a lot less secure about my job and prospects and ___ college than I did before.

Listening to all of this was rather unnerving, especially since, were her remarks overheard by the wrong people, I could be associated with those comments. I know I should take those comments with salt, too, but they did give me what I'm sure is a valuable glance at the dark underside of our department and college culture in general.

I imagine this is normal for most new profs, but ever since I arrived at ___ college, I've known that there's plenty about what goes on and what has gone on here that I don't know. I can sense certain rivalries between a few faculty folk, I've known the college has had some troubles in the past, but everybody does seem to put on a good show for the new folk. They don't talk about the bad times. You might see this as optimism, as commitment to move forward, but the not-talking about distasteful things also doesn't quite feel so good.

I've been curious, and now I know far more than I should. But balancing these comments against what I'm getting elsewhere... ? whew. It's all too confusing right now.

I'm sure I can't be making much sense, but hope/imagine the scenario might be familiar to someone out there. I'm not sure what else to write. I can't even formulate an intelligent question to ask. All I can say is... Wow.

rescue me

2005-04-12T19:13:00.000-07:00

a short one today:

The Rescue
(Seamus Heaney)

In drifts of sleep I came upon you
Buried to your waist in snow.
You reached your arms out: I came to
Like water in a dream of thaw.

mysterious penguin dreaming

2005-04-11T17:33:00.000-07:00

Today's poem, for a day I'd really rather be dreaming away.

In praise of dreams
(Wislawa Szymborska)

In my dreams
I paint like Vermeer van Delft.

I speak fluent Greek
and not just with the living.

I drive a car
that does what I want it to.

I am gifted
and write mighty epics.

I hear voices
as clearly as any venerable saint.

My brilliance as a pianist
would stun you.

I fly the way we ought to,
i.e., on my own.

Falling from the roof,
I tumble gently to the grass.

I've got no problem
breathing under water.

I can't complain:
I've been able to locate Atlantis.

It's gratifying that I can always
wake up before dying.

As soon as war breaks out,
I roll over on my other side.

I'm a child of my age,
but I don't have to be.

A few years ago
I saw two suns.

And the night before last a penguin,
clear as day.

I've always thought this poem would be great to teach in an undergrad poetry workshop (or a poetry class in general, as it provides a form that might be easily played with/imitated (like Wallace Stevens' famous "13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird" poem). And I love hearing about other people's dreams.

A friend who's now become a fabulous neuroscientist (and who also writes great poetry) introduced me to Jung's notion that in dreams, the rooms in a house represent different parts of your unconscious. I'd been dreaming about houses, with attics and basements, and dark narrow passageways through and around them.

Years later I went through a phase in which I was having a lot of intense and sometimes troubling dreams. My lover at the time gave me a book on interpreting dreams for my birthday. I loved the inscription: "Just in case you dream of something besides me." But it was very ominous book, and quite sexist, too, with different interpretations given for some unnamed (I suppose male) person and for "a young woman." I had to stop using it to analyze my own dreams for a while because it was quite distrubing. I was so hoping there would be an entry for "penguin," that I could write about, but sadly, there isn't. But here's the entry for "lizard" (to give you just a taste):

To dream of lizards, foretells attacks upon you by enemies.
If you kill a lizard, you will regain your lost reputation or fortune; but if it should escape, you will meet vexations and crosses in love and business.
For a woman to dream that a lizard crawls up her skirt, or scratches her, she will have much misfortune and sorrow. Her husband will be a victim to invalidism and she will be left a widow, and little sustenance will be eked out by her own labors.

Yikes. Guard yourselves against lizard-dreams. Especially you ladies.

poetrymonth

more poems... because it's addictive

2005-04-10T19:00:00.000-07:00

This evening I bring you two poems by the fabulous Lucille Clifton. The first, a response to the Sharon Olds poem posted on jo(e)'s page, here. The second, for all you historians out there. (I'm starting to sound like a dj [deejay?], no? But if it's poetry & not discs I offer, perhaps a pj is a better word for it?)

I was inspired to collect African American women's poetry some years ago while prepping to teach an intro to poetry class. That's one class (and this is one poet) I'd love to teach again.

Poem in praise of menstruation

if there is a river
more beautiful than this
bright as the blood
red edge of the moon if
there is a river
more faithful than this
returning each month
to the same delta if there

is a river
braver than this
coming and coming in a surge
of passion, of pain if there is

a river
more ancient than this
daughter of eve
mother of cain and of abel if there is in

the universe such a river if
there is some where water
more powerful than this wild
water

pray that it flows also
through animals
beautiful and faithful and ancient
and female and brave

i am accused of tending to the past

i am accused of tending to the past
as if i made it,
as if i sculpted it
with my own hands. i did not.
this past was waiting for me
when i came,
a monstrous unnamed baby,
and i with my mother's itch
took it to breast
and named it
History.
she is more human now,
learning languages everyday,
remembering faces, names and dates.
when she is strong enough to travel
on her own, beware, she will.

poetry Rx: There are other poems of Lucille's here. I recommend the Lorena Bobbit poem & the Clark Kent series, especially if you're looking to put a little spunk back into your step.

poetrymonth

pretty how town

2005-04-10T06:46:00.000-07:00

I was going to post this e.e. cummings poem for sunday, but then I found it here. So here's another one instead. You should read this one aloud.

anyone lived in a pretty how town
(with up so floating many bells down)
spring summer autumn winter
he sang his didn't he danced his did

Women and men(both little and small)
cared for anyone not at all
they sowed their isn't they reaped their same
sun moon stars rain

children guessed(but only a few
and down they forgot as up they grew
autumn winter spring summer)
that noone loved him more by more

when by now and tree by leaf
she laughed his joy she cried his grief
bird by snow and stir by still
anyone's any was all to her

someones married their everyones
laughed their cryings and did their dance
(sleep wake hope and then)they
said their nevers they slept their dream

stars rain sun moon
(and only the snow can begin to explain
how children are apt to forget to remember
with up so floating many bells down)

one day anyone died i guess
(and noone stooped to kiss his face)
busy folk buried them side by side
little by little and was by was

all by all and deep by deep
and more by more they dream their sleep
noone and anyone earth by april
wish by spirit and if by yes.

Women and men(both dong and ding)
summer autumn winter spring
reaped their sowing and went their came
sun moon stars rain

I love the rhythm of this one, and also the uses of anyone, noone, someones. This poem also triggers a memory from my childhood: When I was learning to read, everytime I came across the word "nowhere," I would read it (aloud, sometimes, in reading group) as "now here." I remember being disappointed when my teacher corrected me with "no where" and couldn't understand why the word couldn't be what I'd thought it was, too.

And this: In first grade, to demonstrate that I should go to second or third grade for reading lessons, my teacher wrote a short passage of about five lines or so on the chalk board and had me read it aloud to another teacher. It was a silly passage about the antics of some "pet." I was a good reader, but every time I came upon the word "pet," I would read "cat" in its place. No one writes a story about a "pet," I thought. Good writers will be far more precise-- it matters if the pet is a cat or a dog or a mouse or an iguana. The teacher tried to appease me by adding this sentence to the end of the passage: "The pet was a cat." It didn't work. They bumped me up a grade, anyway.

poetrymonth

advice?

2005-04-09T11:57:00.000-07:00

I have a hunch some of you out there teach first-year composition, too. If any one has recommendations for textbooks (or "real books"), I'd love to read them.

amazing

2005-04-09T10:02:00.000-07:00

In the very moments I was typing out the marigold poem for you, P., sweet P., was typing out the very same poem in Spanish on his blog, here. He carries his laptop to the bathroom with him (where he seems to do some of his best thinking), and when he came out, he caught me having just clicked the "publish" button. Check out the time stamps. We posted in the very same minute.

Last night we spent some time reading poems to each other (it's happened before, and it's one of my favorite things). He read Garcia Lorca, and since Williams seemed to match the tone, I read to him the marigold poem. And it seems those images stayed with both of us.

There are always moments of wonder like these with P., moments that make me aware of how much more deeply connected we are than I'm often aware of.

There's something about that poem... the first time I encountered it, it was read aloud to me, too. I can't remember all the details of the circumstance-- I think what happened was this: Zack and Roxanne (two people I adore) had come to visit me my first or second year in graduate school. We visited a used bookstore together, and I think we all came back with books. Picture from Breughel was mine. Somehow we wound up passing around books of poetry and reading to each other. Zack found the marigold poem. Bless him wherever he is.

The three of us had taken a poetry-writing class together in college. The class met in the evening, and it was always dark when we left. I remember walking out of class into the cool spring nights with them, looking up at the moon, filled with poetry and love for them and every other person in the class, and for Professor A., whom one would never suspect of being able to teach a poetry workshop in such a way as that. It was beautiful to me that, long after the class, the three of us would be reading poems to each other. It's similarly beautiful to me, that years and years after that, I still have someone to read and listen to poems with.

I don't want poetry month to end.

poem for spring...

2005-04-09T09:05:00.000-07:00

and for YelloCello, who liked the plum poem:

A Negro Woman (William Carlos Williams)

carrying a bunch of marigolds
wrapped
in an old newspaper:
She carries them upright,
bareheaded,
the bulk
of her thighs
causing her to waddle
as she walks
looking into
the store window which she passes
on her way.
What is she
but an ambassador
from another world
a world of pretty marigolds
of two shades
which she announces
not knowing what she does
other
than walk the streets
holding the flowers upright
as a torch
so early in the morning.

Unfortunately Blogger won't let me reproduce the poem exactly the way it looks on the page, with the lines undulating in a back and forth movement.... they seem to be walking, each line a new footstep or few...

but you can still get a sence (or rather sense, since, scents) of it, and of why Williams is so often called an "imagist" poet, too.,

Marigolds for everyone! Happy spring.

poetrymonth

another poetry post

2005-04-08T05:56:00.000-07:00

This poem is for jo(e), and for her own recent and marvellous post about a monastery:

The annals say: when the monks of Clonmacnoise
Were all at prayers inside the oratory
A ship appeared above them in the air.

The anchor dragged along behind so deep
It hooked itself into the altar rails
And then, as the big hull rocked to a standstill,

A crewman shinned and grappled down the rope
And struggled to release it. But in vain.
'This man can't bear our life here and will drown,'

The abbot said, 'unless we help him.' So
They did, the freed ship sailed, and the man climbed back
Out of the marvellous as he had known it.

(From Seamus Heaney's Seeing Things)

I have seen the ship, the monks, the abbot, and the sailor drag their anchors, say their prayers, and climb their ropes a thousand times in my head.

poetrymonth

confession

2005-04-07T17:28:00.000-07:00

So inspired am I by National Poetry month, I've got 3 more poems saved in draft form to post tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. Can't get enough of everyone else's poems, either. Thank you.

national poetry month, part ii.

2005-04-07T09:10:00.000-07:00

mystery post-it note attached to my office door this a.m. :

I need to speak with
you about a class
in the next day or
two.

Stanley Fish (in an essay "Is there a Text in this Class?") once described a reading list he'd left up on the board from a previous class that looked like this:

Jacobs-Rosenbaum
Levin
Thorne
Hayes
Ohman (?)

He told his following class of seventeenth-century poetry students that this was a religious poem, and asked them to explicate it as such. They did. I like the idea of getting students to play with language, though something about Fish's excercise (something I can't quite put my finger on) bugs the hell out of me and reminds me too much of fellow graduate students who waved around names like Derrida as if they were magical keys that could unlock the meaning (or non-meaning) of everything. Maybe it's the names themselves (with maybe the exception perhaps of "Ohman (?)" that I find distinctly unpoetic.

The mystery student's note is much more to my taste. The hesitancy of those first and third line breaks, as if the student isn't quite sure of who he needs to speak with or when or how urgent his need is. The student is no poet, but those lines make me think of the doctor William Carlos Williams' scribbling poems onto his prescription pads. [I love the idea of a poem as a prescription. It's lovely how just the few I read in your blogs the other day uplifted my spirits. I don't know if this has ever happened, but I love imagining a physician handing a poem to a weary patient. "You'll be fine. Read this and come back in a week."]

I didn't understand or even like WCW until I took a creative writing (poetry) class in college. I couldn't figure out what that red wheel barrow poem was doing in every poetry anthology around. I couldn't appreciate the elegance. And then there was this one (which I like much better):

This is Just to Say

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

A note dashed off by a husband to a wife, perhaps. But what's the tone here? It sounds so playful to me, so mischievous. In class, the poem inspired more conversation than I ever thought possible. I started to see just how deliberate those breaks were, how much the breaks themselves could communicate. We practiced using them in poems of our own, experimenting with how else those breaks can convey meaning or tone:

We appreciate
your interest
We are unable to
include you

We were forced
to be extremely
selective

Thank you
for allowing us
to pursue your
credentials

Please accept our
best wishes
for the future

This "poem" seems to be sneering. The words are conventional, but there's still some fun being had. And unlike Williams' poem in which perhaps a joke is being shared between lovers, here it's at the addressee's expense. Putting the word "credentials" on a line by itself seems to convey exactly what the hiring committee might think of the rejected applicant. It's the tone I heard in my head when reading the numerous rejection letters (for grad schools, for jobs) I've received up to this point. Oh, sure, most of them seem nice enough, and some are even apologetic, but the perceived meaning "you're not good enough for us" was still there. I know better, now, how random the search process is, how much regret our committee really does seem to have that we can't hire or even interview more... but I digress.

I guess what I'm trying to say is... it's national poetrymonth. That's all.

in honor of National Poetry month

2005-04-06T11:28:00.000-07:00

How uplifting to find this new meme out there.

I adore this one:

Halley's Comet
(Kenneth Rexroth)

When in your middle years
The great comet comes again
Remember me, a child,
Awake in the summer night,
Standing in my crib and
Watching that long-haired star
So many years ago.
Go out in the dark and see
Its plume over water
Dribbling on the liquid night,
And think that life and glory
Flickered on the rushing
Bloodstream for me once, and for
All who have gone before me,
Vessels of the billion-year-long
River that flows now in your veins.

poetrymonth

Nothing comes of nothing. Speak again.

2005-04-05T20:33:00.000-07:00

It's a terrible feeling, having nothing to say. Work is sucking the life out of me again, and even though things are going okay, I fear I've become terribly boring.

Our department is hosting campus visits this week and next. I'm one of the first to meet the candidates; am picking both up from hotels and taking to dinner the night before their job talks and full day of interviews. I'm curious about them, especially the woman. But I'm done caring about how many publications they have or what they can teach. I wonder about their senses of humor, the way they talk, what their non-academic interests are. I find myself longing to meet (for us to hire) someone I might hang out with. I even worry, "will they like me?" How pathetic is that? Were I in a bigger town I might sign up for yoga classes or dance lessons or aerobics or a book club or a knitting circle or anything that might involve meeting new people. But in this small factory town, you'd be hard pressed to find any of those things....

So I go to work, I come home, I talk to P. and play with the cats and go to bed and wake up and do it all over again. And in between I read all sorts of far more interesting blogs & look at very cute pictures of other people's kids and feel encouraged and lonely at the same time.

What's wrong with me?

update

2005-04-01T14:18:00.000-08:00

For all the cursing I did about having committed myself to organize a panel with students and present a paper at this conference, it was actually quite quite fun. I finished writing my paper after 1 am this morning and did some more revisions on it when I woke up at 6. Met my students, drove them to the conference, ran a red light along the way and endured much teasing about it. We got seven or eight people in the audience which was more than I was expecting. The students shined-- they came across as the brilliant, brilliant young women that they are, both in their delivery and in their responses to questions and comments from the floor. Folks in the audience were impressed and said so. One suggested these undergrad essays could compete with those of some of her graduate students. I beamed. The students had a good time and received what I think is some helpful external validation on their writing, and they said nice things about me and my teaching. They said my class changed the way they think about lit. and (in a few cases) their own future teaching careers. This was so worth it.

And I have no idea how I did this on so little sleep, but somehow I managed to have a pretty darn good Shakespeare class this afternoon, too.

It's been a good day.

still writing. less fine-ish.

2005-03-31T21:32:00.000-08:00

O, grumble grumble grumble.

last minute paper writing... and I feel fine (ish)

2005-03-31T06:52:00.000-08:00

I tell my students not to do it, and yet here I am. Up this morning trying to write a conference paper for a panel presentation I'm giving tomorrow morning (!). Finding time to write this thing had been nearly impossible. I stay so busy during the weeks I'm teaching, and find myself so burnt out and exhausted during the weekend I'm able to do fairly little. I graded a lot over break, but also slacked off quite a bit, so got no work done on the paper. Every day this week has been a constant rush of trying to finish things up. Search committee stuff. Grading stuff. All manner of little things that seem to have piled up.

This may all change, but this morning I'm feeling pretty non-plussed about the paper. It is a panel on teaching, after all, and as I started taking some notes from my sources and filling in a few other ideas, I realize how much I already have to talk about. I only need to speak for 10 minutes, formally. I do that all the time, don't I? I've drafted short lectures to give to students in far less time than 24 hours.

So all I need to do is say a few things about other approaches for teaching what I taught, give a few choice reasons why many folks hesitate to do what I did, and then just describe the class's progression and insert a few choice anecdotes along the way. The students I'm brining with me (to present their final papers from the class) will do the rest. And I feel perfectly fine moderating the conversation we hope will ensue afterwards.

I really need to chill out about all of this. The stress level I've been experiencing this week (ha! all semester, all year, really!) is just insane. The stress at trying to make myself useful so I'd still have a job next year (my position was officially just a one-year job) led me to take on FAR too many other things I probably didn't need to: volunteering for all sorts of committees, judging a contest, helping out in honors interviews, giving presentations at festivals, deciding I must go to this conference (since it's local) and take students, etc., etc. I got my contract (for next year) yesterday, but I think all my panic was very unwarranted. I'm still up to my neck in teaching and all the additional things I've volunteered to take on. I have a hard time hearing myself think... but that's exactly what I need to get back to now.

Whoo. Self pep-talk and venting over. Back to work, z., you slacker.

search committee blues

2005-03-30T16:26:00.000-08:00

It's strange being on the other side of this whole process, having the fate of so many hopeful and highly educated, fine, fine people in your hands.

We narrowed our applications down to 5 today. The process seems so very random to me. Some not strong applicants are getting phone calls just because they can teach a specific course we want someone to teach. Some amazingly gifted scholars and teachers are getting passed over because their case for being able to teach the classes we need is a teeny bit weaker. The job market sucks. I feel for these people.

And then there's the question of whether any of these people are still available or if they'll even want to come here once they hear about how lousy the salary is. (Another assistant prof. in my department is having a hard time paying her monthly bills!)

And now I'm wonder what the committee was saying about me last year. Yikes.

thirty

2005-03-28T13:25:00.000-08:00

It happened. I turned thirty. Today's my birthday. So far, nothing feels out of order. Thankfully all the embarrassing stuff (being sung to in restaurants) was taken care of last week. Today feels conspicuously quiet. It's my last day of spring break, so I happily don't have to go into the office today. I did spend an hour or so at Big U. state library, though, and I'm having students over tonight for dinner to talk about a conference panel we're pulling together, so it feels rather un-birthday like. I want to find someway of marking today, just for myself. There needn't be any big celebration, but 30 does feel like a milestone of sorts, and I want to let it sink in. I spent most of last year telling folks I was 28 when they asked, somehow not remembering that I'd passed 29 already. 30 will be less forgettable, I think....

but what does it mean? What am I supposed to feel, now that my twenties are over? Do I rush at all the opportunities this new part of my life will have in store for me? Do I lament all the opportunities I missed out on in my twenties? Both? Neither?

I've never gone backpacking through Europe, or travelled to a new city or country exploring completely on my own (hideous MLA conferences don't count), or joined the Peace Corps, or held a really cool internship. These are things one should do in one's twenties.

I miss the friendships I had in my early twenties, in my college years, and I miss the openness of my mind to new ways of thinking in the first part of graduate school. I miss dancing. I miss late nights out. I miss and largely missed out on cool bars & martinis. (Parenthetical anecdote: as a wedding present, my brother and his wife sent us a blender with some liquor and margarita mix. When I got around to trying things out, I topped off both drinks with olives. whoops.)

I am, however, thrilled to finally be done with my dissertation, to have a "real" (?) job, to be married, to have pets, to be closer to starting my own family.

Instead of waiting for something to happen today, I should've tried to make it happen for myself. I could''ve scheduled a long hike, or invited friends, or gotten a haircut. But maybe writing will suffice.

I'm thirty. No turning back. Time to get on with things, & to cook a nice meal, at least, for my students.

public cat nibbling

2005-03-24T15:41:00.000-08:00

I'm home from an exhausting few days' "vacation" at my parents' place, during which I was publicly embarrassed only twice-- both times with happy birthday songs in public places. One of those occasions involved a sombrero. My parents are all about public embarrassments, but usually they're unintentional, and they'd never before involved sombreros. I do turn thirty this week, though.

Sat down here to catch up on all your blogs and the little cat (who missed me, it seems) jumped up on my desk, where he kept walking over my wrists and rubbing up against my arms before he finally decided to nibble on my ear. Lovely.

Hmmm... I wonder if this post will provoke a fun google search--like "public ear nibbling" or "cats nibble somberos." I've gotten NONE that are notable yet....

There's still time.

A few highlights of the trip:
First: I got to see my uncle bud, whom I mentioned before, along with a lot of wonderful photos of his mother (and father) which my aunt had compiled for the memorial service. They met at a dance-- swing dance-- they could really "cut up a rug," I'm told. They went to New York City on their honeymoon. She was beautiful. He was dashingly handsome. Her real name was W-----, it turns out, a name which she hated and which no one ever pronounced right, anyway. She started being called Shorty while she was working at Kroger, and actually came to prefer that name, so much that she'd introduce herself as "Shorty" to anyone she met. Apparently all sorts of folks (including my parents) had a hard time finding out anything about her status during the time she was in the hospital beacuse no one knew (or could remember) her true first name. I was soooooooo close to getting in a morning hike in a place I love with my uncle... but thunderstorms were in the forecast. :(

Second: Went back to the college where I got my bachelor's degree to peek in on two of my former (and one of them fabulous!) English professors. The fabulous one has much to do with how I ended up studying what I studied and being what I am now. They remembered me, greeted me with great enthusiasm. The fabulous one even hugged me. Will I ever get to hug former students this many years later? It was strange talking shop with them, particularly with Dr. Fabulous, who is also an early modernist and was interested in how I teach Shakespeare and the rest of it. My head was spinning so from those conversations that I couldn't even sleep that night. I wish I'd had more time.

Finally: the sound of my own voice as a first-grader. We were living in Germany at the time (I'm a military brat) and, since international phone calls were soooo expensive then, our family and both sets of grandparets sent cassette tapes back and forth. My aunt got her hands on a few we'd sent and passed them back to mom. So strange, hearing that voice. My r's sound a lot like w's. I'm excited about getting to wear a "weal cowgiwl" outfit for a fasching parade. My brother was going to be a "weal cowboy" and my parents "a weal sherwiff" and "a weal sherwiff's wife." Yikes. I still remember riding in that covered wagon float and throwing candy. In the first grade, I was also apparently obsessed with my cousin, C----, who I speak to repeatedly on the tape, encouraging her to come visit and telling her about things I think she'd like.

On another tape, I'm reciting this very troubling poem about goblins who snatch away kids who won't say their prayers or mind their parents or respect authority. Yikes. I memorized lots of poems before I could even read... and I could recite them by heart on command. (Here's another, also in dialect, which I actually recited at a base Christmas party.) There are many things that I find troubling about the fact that THESE are the poems my mom had me memorize. What kind of a world was I being indoctrinated into? And all those lines about goblins "gitting" you "if you don't watch out"? No wonder I had so many nightmares as a kid.

Apparently mom liked Eugene Field, as I also learned this Little Boy Blue poem, which I loved then, and still find quite lovely, really. And another, about a boy falling asleep under a haystack!-- though I can't remember anything else about it now, but that image...

I'd lost those memories about early encounters with poetry. I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed poems as a kid. I loved hearing the rhythm in my 6 year-old voice; to think about the pleasure I took then in saying the words and hearing how they fit together. That pleasure came back in a wonderful way when I took a poetry-writing class in college, but I'd never connected that to these early poems before...

I should start making a list of poems for my kids. Garcia Lorca has some poems for children (P. introduced me to them) which are simple, and short, and absolutely beautiful. There's a lovely one about a Mr. and Mrs. Lizard, for example, but I'll leave you with this one.

Caracola

Me han traído una caracola.

Dentro le canta
un mar de mapa.
Mi corazón
se llena de agua
con pececilos
de sombra y plata.

Me han traído una caracola.

which translates:

Seashell

Someone brought me a seashell.

Singing inside
is a sea from a map.
My heart
fills up with water
and litttle tiny fish,
silvery, shadowy.

Someone brought me a seashell.

[It's nice to be back.]

ouch

2005-03-18T10:11:00.000-08:00

Woke up this morning with a terrible, terrible headache. Couldn't get myself out of bed until nearly 10am. Managed to get myself dressed and to work, but was totally unable to do anything. So I took some Motrin, closed the blinds in my office, turned the lights off, and lay down on the floor in front of the heater, willing the pain to go away. Much of it has, now (2 hours later!) but it's still there, a bit, threatening me. Moments like this make life itself seem so precarious. I am helpless, completely at the mercy of my own body, which in those moments I seem to have no control over. The pain has exhausted me. I'm tired, still nauseous, I just want to go home, crawl back into bed and fall asleep until it's really gone, until it's let go of me for good (or at least for a while). But I've got to finish writing up a midterm exam to give later this afternoon, & I'd wanted to finish grading their papers, too. Not sure the latter's going to happen. Sorry, kids, I'll have to say to my students. I'm only human. I'd wanted to blog about more interesting things, like this topic on women and arugmentiveness, etc. which many folks listed in my sidebar & elsewhere are taling about... but it seems that's going to have to wait, too.

The good news? Spring break is just hours away now. Thank God.