Valentines Project

Of course now that I've begun cutting out hearts, my ideas of the whole project have begun to expand: what if we sent Valentines to everyone in Urban Home City and Urban Home State? It's very hard to keep up with everyone back there, so most of Absurdist Tot's family members can't keep up with him.

After I thought about how many extra hearts this would be (around 10), I came back to my senses. There are already 15 kids at playschool.

******

By the way, I'm sorry that AP has seemed to take a left turn into being a mom blog. Because I'm sick, I've given myself some time off from working on the two articles and one conference paper I have to do. It seems to me that academics just frigging work too much -- and I'm enjoying a little time off. I know most of y'all don't have the opportunity for this, but I'll be teaching and grading and everything when many of you are on vacation.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

And So It Begins. . .

the Mom projects. It turns out that Absurdist Tot's playschool (daycare) is having a Valentine's Day party on Thursday. I now have a list of all the kids' names. Do I buy the little Valentines that I remember from elementary school and just put names on them, which I can do easily and quickly one night after AT's in bed? Or do I buy red construction paper, cut our hearts, and begin our first craft project together? To me, this seems like a choice between convenient, yet anonymous commercialism and a handmade but time-consuming, potentially frustrating, potentially fun project. Of course, I am reading too much into it -- not every kid project must bear the weight of my deciding what kind of parent and person I am. But perhaps because I've been thinking about so much lately about how I need therapy to work through some really big issues from my own childhood and how I don't do enough with AT, this choice seems weighty and important. Especially because I'm always touting the intrinsic goodness of the handmade gift. Obviously, this means that I'm going to have to get myself to the drugstore and buy some construction paper and glue. We have some Sesame Street stickers that I thought were a silly purchase of mine at the time (ha! something in me knew better in that JoAnn's line), and I could get crayons, markers, more stickers, or, dare I say it, fingerpaint. The whole thing sounds daunting, especially in our Berber-carpeted apartment. But I was just reading about craft ideas for children his age last night (and saw many different things, including the very real idea that he is simply too young and the best play is self-directed -- of course, they all touted the goodness of pudding fingerpainting which is only good if you don't mind your child eating that much sugar).

I have long wanted to get his little handprint. It's no good always meaning to do something, but not getting to it from just not taking the trouble to get it done. AT needs a better example than that. He needs a good role model. Which is why I need therapy. Having such a happy child and not wanting to screw him up with my baggage is a great motivator.

Sick Again

When I brought Absurdist Tot into bed this morning to nurse, I noticed that he seemed sniffly. As the day wore on, this blew up into a full-on cold, complete with sneezing, running nose, crankiness, and strange sleep patterns. All this, while he fights taking his antibiotics (yes, the pink stuff) for the ear infection and upper respiratory infection he seemed to be over. This, so far, looks more like a cold -- a virus.

I could cry. I have. I probably will again.

That is all.

Still Sick

I was going to write everything in bullets, but then I realized that everything sort of bleeds into one another, which probably means that while my life might be particularly messy, most likely it's that I'm unable to divide, organize, basically control or make sense of my life. Yes, that is definitely true. I am definitely feeling my life is happening to me, wave upon wave crashing over me. It's not a great feeling.

First and foremost, I am sick. Really sick. I'm sure I have an ear infection because I'm hearing all sorts of weird sounds in my ear. I got it from Absurdist Tot, who got his first ear infection and is on antibiotics. I am not thrilled about his being on antibiotics because of the merry-go-round of sick-antibiotics-sick that so many kids end up on (where's the preventative medicine, dammit? but I guess that's all the good nutrition we're forcing on him). Anyway, since he's on antibiotics, he's actually fine, going to his second day of daycare on Thursday. They sent home three artworks of things he was working on (I don't know how they did this, because he's fifteen months and super active) on "four" and "yellow" and when I saw them I just started bawling. His first artworks! His first lessons! I'm weepy just thinking about it. We don't do anything like this at home. I mean I point and say things and try to get him to make connections between the color red in the book and the red Elmo doll, but all this really leads to is his throwing the Elmo over the gate and trying to bite the book. I confess I haven't really done enough to try to figure out educational activities for him. Mostly he runs around and plays and eats. I'm already exhausted, have very little time to read, and have no extra money to get books on development or games. But clearly I need to at least know more about how to teach him things. I don't know. The thing I'm really trying to encourage with him right now is communication. I want him to learn more words, since he's only really got two down. But I guess it's okay that I'm not doing the same thing as the daycare.

We took him to the eye doctor because one eye looks in toward his nose, and they want him to wear glasses all day every day. I just don't think this will ever work. He likes to pull my glasses off my nose. And he can't get at them all the time. Absurdist Lover and I haven't officially discussed it yet because I'm too sick right now. I'm sick still because not only have I been doing search committee work that has had me running around and because I don't have a doctor and when I tried to find one, first the local provider list on my HMO's website was completely wrong, listing doctors at locations where the people had never heard of them. Then I called doctors in the booklet. One number was disconnected. Another was taking no more managed care patients. Two more were closed that day. Finally, one is taking new patients but schedules a meet and greet so she can explain her policies. Why do I, who already distrusts medicine in general, have a bad feeling about someone explaining her policies to me? I just want to say look: you work for me. Not the other way around. But I've got an HMO and the real plain fact of managed health care in this country is that the doctors work for the insurance companies. Anyway, I'm still sick and am going to beg her to please look in my damn ear rather than just tell me her damn policies.

There's an unbloggable situation at work concerning other people, not me, but it's completely inflamed my imposter syndrome. Now I think: are they going to remember that I wore jeans come promotion time? I swear I really think this, often freaking out about clothes and how I present myself and what the full professor who wears suits and ties everyday (and, while nice and reasonably friendly, is sort of a caricature of a professor type) must be thinking about me. I feel like I'm just not presentable. And let's face it: with bunched up snotrags in my pockets, I'm probably not. I should not be at work. Of course, the head of the committee wants us to meet again on Monday. And though I think it's important to have my voice in the mix, I think I may bow out. Everyone who sees me says I should be at home (except my colleagues on the committee, of course). OY.

What else? I pretty much have a bleak and dire outlook on everything right now. Much of our lives seems hopeless. Of course, it is February. There's a reason why February is the shortest month. But it's probably really that I'm sick and that AT's two days a week at daycare (we can barely afford that right now) end up getting taken up with committee stuff. I've been trying to get work done on my scholarly projects. But I'm now so sick I really can't do that. Today, I got a nap because AT needed a long nap after waking up early and being tortured by the eye doctor. Glasses for AT! We can't even afford to pick up my glasses, making it good that the frames are on backorder. And I'm so stupid, I didn't sign him up for vision insurance because I figured, ineptly, that what kids needs vision insurance and I was trying to save every little bit of money for our monthly living expense. Stupid stupid stupid.

I want to be one of those women who can't be defeated, like Julia Child or the women in Steel Magnolias (and what else? What else should I be watching and thinking about for inspiration??? Let me know!), but I'm thinking I'm not a strong person -- or the kind of strong I am is flexible, if at all. I want to be one of those people who are just determined and positive and optimistic when things happen, just fighters, unable to feel defeated and sorry for themselves and like the whole world is out to get them. How does one become like that? I'm thinking I need therapy or to get religion or something. Well, first, I need to get well. Except for today's nap, I haven't been able to take care of myself and sleep in. My life just doesn't allow me to do those things. I need to nurse. I need to get up with AT. Absurdist Lover does help and do a lot, but I still don't get left alone much (not to mention the one room where I could get away if AL watches AT is the bedroom, which has poor light and is very cold and without money to rectify those situations -- well, this is what I mean by everything seeming hopeless). I told AL that I want to sleep in, that I'd nurse AT, but then he could watch him and feed him yogurt, etc. We'll see what happens. I'm sure once I'm reasonably healthy, my outlook will improve. Right now, everything but AT sucks. And the poor boy has my eyes.

So my friends you can see that I'm not altogether here. Absurdist Lover is also sick, but doesn't seem to have stuff in his ear. Of course, he doesn't have insurance, since we're not married and he's unemployed, so it's good if he doesn't need antibiotics. I clearly do.

Still I recognize things could be worse, and I'm thankful they are not. I'm trying. I really am.

Venturing Out of the House of Sick

I've been in the House of Sick and Snot for five days. We were going to start Absurdist Tot at daycare on Monday, but on Saturday he came down with a cold. A feverish, snotty, and now rattling coughy cold. Poor guy. He's in so much pain that he only sleeps a few hours at a time. Our usually happy baby just cries and cries for no outward reason. Of course, then he charms us with one of his cute smiles. Then cries again. It's really heartbreaking.

Of course, AT being sick means that I've been basically trapped in the house, on the couch, where he wants to nurse basically all the time. He doesn't want to be put down to sleep, so his naps are on my lap. I haven't gotten much sleep now that we're back to co-sleeping. (I feel like a retch for not liking co-sleeping that much. I swear I'm a better person when I get good sleep. And worrying that AT is going to fall off the bed is not conducive to good sleep.)

So today, when I've got an overstuffed day full of search committee stuff, I'm sick (oh my throat! no wonder AT cries!), tired (I woke up two hours before the alarm and tried to get comfortable while listening to "Interplanet Janet" loop in my head: which means I got about 4 hours of sleep), and lazy (I've been officially up for 40 minutes and haven't gotten in the shower and would really like to spend the day quiet and contemplative alone with my thoughts and my computer and no snotty whinings or indeterminable signs for. . .what? comfort).

In other news, on Monday I started the first day of Writing Your Journal Article in Twelve Weeks. I was trying to fit in each day's tasks around Comfort-Giving, but yesterday everything fell apart. Being sick is not helping. But I think day 3 or 4 is about committing to a writing schedule, which in theory of course I support. But in practice? Well, this author and writing guru is not thinking about those of us whose schedules are at the whim of infant-toddlers. I'll get time to work on my article when he naps and when he goes to daycare, both of which require his good health, so right now I'm lucky to get an hour to myself all day. I read a wonderful essay once on creative writers who are stay-at-home moms and how one way to remind yourself that you are a writer is to open up your work file in the morning and leave it open, coming back to it as is possible. That's the schedule for me, at this point in my life. Of course, I don't really want to do this with an article, really living inside an article for 12 weeks while I steal time from babycare. I'd feel differently I'm sure if this were creative work, if this were a poem or essay I left open on my computer all day. All the time I'm nursing and staring out the window has to count as writing or at least working, right?

At this point, I can't think about the future, about Cool Elective, which I need to work on, and articles and conference papers and everything, because I feel like I'll never get back to any of it. But the truth is, AT will not be sick forever. And neither will I.

I've got to get my lazy butt up and into the shower. Listen to this: I've decided I'm not going to wash my hair because I've got a lot of hair (the kind haircutters always look at, eyes bulging, and say, "you've got a lot of hair") and it will stay wet and cold all day, which will make me colder on a day like today, well below freezing. Crap. I hear AT. I hope he's just coughing and going back to sleep. I bet he's going to want a last-minute nurse. Oy.

May today be an easy painless enjoyable day, no matter how much work we have to get through! (At least I get to think that all my bloggy friends are out there too! Makes it more bearable that way!)

Writing Report

It's Tuesday, and I'm trying to get some writing done. Remember, I have the impossible goal of writing 100 pages of crap (journalese is fine) by April 1. Of course, I'd also like to get some good writing done in there too, but crap is a-okay with me. And I think blogging should count too. (Why do this, when 100 pages seems impossible? Well, because writing is one of the dominant ways I think through things. Yes, I need to communicate, publish, impress, get tenure, blah blah blah. But if I think of all these things, I'll never write a thing. I need to churn out crap. I need to show myself I can do it. Believe me, 100 pages of crapola could easily turn into a a decent 30 page article.)

There was this CFP I was really excited about at the end of the year that I sent out an abstract for. The editors sent me a question, and in answering that question I realized how sick and tired I am of trying to skew the argument of my dissertation in all these weird ways for different CFPs. I'm doing that now -- and basically I just want to tell these editors and everyone else to forget it, that what I really need to do is rock the world with my argument and that's the end of it. Not that I don't have a decent argument for the article I'm doing now -- I think I have a decent argument -- but I don't really care about the opposing argument, about the conversation that's going on that I'm writing into -- and maybe that just means I shouldn't be writing it. No, that's not quite right. It's that I think that the direction the conversation has gone in is totally wrong. Big Impressive Loudmouth Scholar made a grand proclamation on this subject once and just.was.totally.wrong and needs a smackdown. Though the article I'm writing is not really the smackdown this conversation needs. And so a lot of the conversation has gone in this other direction, which I think is the exact opposite of what it needs to be and is actually damaging.

I remember having so much time once and no ideas. Now I have ideas galore, but I don't want to have to flesh them all out. Part of this is I am an idea person. But part of this is that I think I see everything as connected to the diss book project -- and so while I have stuff to say about all sorts of things, it's still all wrapped up and connects back always to the stuff in the book project. Am I just saying that I want to work on my dang blasted book instead of all this other crap?

But what do I do about this article that I'm supposed to be writing? The argument is, I think, a worthy one. If I could actually write it, it would be a worthy addition to the conversation.

Let me put it this way. Let's say that my book project is all about Fashion Theory and why we should wear certain things and not other things. This article I'm supposed to be writing is about mittens, which my Big Fashion Theory says is something we should be wearing. But it's hard to argue for mittens without bringing in the whole Fashion Theory that explains why mittens are better than fingerless gloves or other currently fashionable items. What's more, some people say that mittens are good, but only because of the ways they are like fingerless gloves, which are bad! So I'm trying to make the argument for mittens, but without bringing in all the other Fashion Theory behind it, because it really has nothing to do with this CFP on Mittens. But without the Fashion Theory, it's short. Second, it's lame without all the Fashion Theory behind it. Or maybe this is the crux of the trouble I'm having writing the damn thing (warning: epiphany ahead): without the Fashion Theory, I'm not that interested in arguing for the worth of Mittens.

As you can probably tell, I just want to junk it. I'm really sick of twisting myself and my work in knots over this when I have a conference paper to write for Big Spring Conference and I wanted to go ahead and expand that conference paper into an article and then there's the Big Fashion Theory article I should write for Favorite Journal. I think I'm still in graduate student mode, trying to clutch at publications no matter what, instead of professional mode, realizing that I have a limited amount of time and some big contributions I want to make to the Conversation on Fashion and Fashion Theory. Or maybe being pre-tenure is still about clutching at publications, but it's that as a mom with a baby in the other room I don't want to waste my time.

(By the way, this fashion metaphor is so funny because I am pretty much the most unfashionable person in the whole world. I am not hip. I'd probably be anti-hip if that didn't turn out being as hip as hip is. I wear one of the same two shirts every day and pretty much the same jeans, which is to say, I dress like the mom of a messy one year old. Moreover I don't care about fashion or clothes much.)

In other news, I notice that I actually have more projects and in some ways get more done than I did before I had a child. I have these crochet projects and these cooking projects. I make muffins and potholders. I bought Julia's Kitchen Wisdom yesterday. I'm obsessed with watching Julie and Julia and pointing out the inaccuracies because I'm also reading Child's My Life in France. Clearly, if my scholarship were about Julia Child or learning Tunisian crochet, I'd be set.

This clearly counts as at least one page. And I did at least another page trying to write, again, for the article on mittens. Gah. Am I going to just write those editors that I've given up? I know it's unprofessional, but GAH!

On Writing

So this week has been totally useless for writing. There's no way that I'm going to be able to make up the amount of pages I wanted to get done this week today. Especially since we're going to the new-to-us natural foods store. We're actually very excited about this. I hope to find some granola element to this town -- but not too granola. I did an internet search and found a meetup list for people doing attachment parenting and other "alternative" stuff. I would totally categorize myself in that camp, especially when it comes to my commitment to organic food and breastfeeding, but we don't do cloth diapers (which they listed as one of their commitments) or much babywearing (mostly because from the get-go Absurdist Tot was very active and it didn't seem safe to have him flopping around in a sling, which wouldn't hold him anyway, though I did walk 10 miles once with him in a Bjorn on a pilgrimage, which I think should prove my alternative cred, but doesn't). So we're like attachment parenting with a practical bent. Why do I think we're not granola enough for them? Sigh.

Anyway, I really did want to write about writing. Since Dr. Crazy was writing about her writing process, I've been thinking about how useless the word counter on the left of my blog is. There are really two phases to my writing. One is freewriting and dialogue. Basically I write a lot of crap for a very long time as I attempt to write through my ideas, figuring out what they are. I outline a bunch of different organizations, usually, because that's usually the hardest part for me, since everything I think seems connected to everything else and I really wish sometimes I could write in a non-linear way (which I know is the promise of hypertext, but I haven't done it). The other part of this is that I research and read related texts, pulling out quotes that are interesting to me and writing in response to them. Then there's the second phase. Way late in my process, I finally figure that I have to put something together and maybe I steal from the actual text of my freewriting and dialogue or maybe not. Often this is a rush job. In the best case scenario, I put something together and then ask a writing group to read it. With the piece I'm working on now (if ignoring it for over a week can actually be said to be "working" and I think it is because I'm "getting some space from it" which counts as working on it, if not actual writing, in my book), there may be no writing group on it, just a frantic click of Send.

Anyway, all this means that word counters are actually only useful when I get to the "putting something together" phase. But I'm writing, really I am, even while I'm doing all the freewriting and researching. I want a way to be able to document that I am writing, just not coming up with stuff for some final word count.

My goal for this quarter is to write 100 pages of crap, which means 10 pages per week, obviously starting next week. I think, unfortunately, that the freewriting has to be counted in this total, though wouldn't it be wonderful to come out of 10 weeks with 3 or 4 articles? Alas, it is not to be. Not for me. But if I wrote 10 pages of crap, even freewriting crap, for the article I'm working on now, I feel sure I'd be quite far on the article by the end of that. Because there really is no rushing my process (I need so much time to mull!), I guess I should just accept it. Just as I have to accept that this week's not included in my goal. Obviously when Absurdist Tot is actually in daycare, I'll be able to get this writing done. Until then, I've got to carve out some time to work. But probably not today. We've got too many things on the docket. And soon, AT needs to have his nap so we can get going.