A Whole New Level of Absurdity

So now Maude has gone and done it! She's rated me E! Really, lately I'm more like AWOL. This must be Maude's sneaky way to get me to blog! Am I supposed to pass it on? First I have to figure out who has not been E'd.

So lately I've thought about blogging about how not teaching -- and not having a job generally -- is really demoralizing. After all that work on that frigging PhD! I had a dream a while back that I was teaching the next day and that somehow I was a newbie teacher again with people giving me inane advice -- that I was taking! Oy! Last night, I dreamt that I was talking with a brand new cohort about doctoral work while I was graduating in August and getting weepy. I guess I miss the academy.

So since I basically didn't get on the stick about spring adjunct work, I've now just sent off an application for the only place even remotely nearby (in a very broad and ridiculous sense) that is on the quarter system. Cross your fingers that I get a couple classes! Even driving all that way (at least an hour and probably more in Urban City traffic) would be good. I also got a job teaching SAT prep. The training starts in a week and goes on every weekend for about 50 hours, during which I'll be paid minimum wage. Sigh. But then my PhD and teaching experience should get me a good hourly rate teaching the SAT. Assuming I can manage it. Absurdist Lover and I are really trying to get jobs and get out of the camper and into an apartment because. . .

In the tradition of total absurdity, understanding that I have no job, no insurance, none of my stuff, only a couple friends (though most of my family), and no apartment in Urban City and the fact that many people would warn us not to say anything for a while,* I'm telling y'all that I'm pregnant! In spite of all the obvious reasons of concern, we're happy anyway. Not least of which is because I had totally convinced myself (with the help of some doctors bandying around the term Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome) that my hormones were screwed and that fertility was going to be a problem. Rather I can tell you that my hormones are now in fact totally looped. I'm exhausted all the time and want to do nothing but lie around. I don't have morning sickness (thank goodness and knock on wood), but my digestion is all screwed up. I now understand why it's sometimes seemed to me that pregnant women can't talk about anything but their pregnancy: your body basically feels like it's been taken over by an alien. It's pretty hard to forget about with the cramps, aches, headaches, backaches, digestion nightmare, and exhaustion. And that's just the glory of the first trimester. And then there are the emotional swings. Before I took my at-home pregnancy test, I was pretty convinced I was losing it because I would cry hysterically at basically nothing. The pregnancy test confirmed that I was not crazy, just being buffeted around by hormones. Oh joy. I will say that Absurdist Lover is totally sweet, cleaning things up and taking care of the cat (oh yeah right -- after a lifetime with cats, I'd get toxoplasmosis now -- gimme a break) and letting me be a big lumpy demanding whiney lazyhead. It's enough to make you fall in love all over again.

So according to my most scientific calculations (the exact same method that doctors use of calculating from the first day of your last period, meaning that conception doesn't even start until two weeks in -- a very strange system, if you ask me), I'm seven weeks pregnant. I have not yet gone to a doctor, because, get this people, I have to do the whole thing on sliding scale and low-income options. I'll be the most educated person in the Medicaid line (though I think on paper I make too much money for Medicaid -- I'll keep you posted). Now, is that the most absurd thing you've ever heard? I couldn't have gotten pregnant after I lined up a job or anything. That would be too easy. And I'm applying for these local community colleges that are hiring in my field for the fall -- but of course October is when I will give birth. OY!

So now I will blog for you the complete absurdity of being an over-educated, low-income, camper-living pregnant woman. There's got to be a book in this, right? I haven't even caught up on all the other things I'm supposed to write about! (My sister said I should keep a journal, but really all I want to do is cross-stitch and sleep. And eat when I suddenly have to eat or my blood sugar drops to nothing.) I promise to occasionally write about academic and educational matters, but let's face it -- part of this blog is going to become about this half-centimeter in my belly who has already made my belly pooch! For those of you who are going to be turned off by this, I apologize. But I'm sure that even though I have some amount of fuzzy happy hormone brain, there should still be a giant load of the kind of snark for which Maude so sweetly rated this blog E.

P.S. My grandmother is having her lumpectomy next week and my mother is coming down to help her. The gang will all be here. Bedlam. Can I just stay in bed?

*Some people say that you should not tell people until week 12, because one out of ten women have a miscarriage in the first 12 weeks. This is a good theory. But if I don't out this on my blog I will surely never blog! And I had to tell my friends because otherwise I feel like I'm being dishonest -- and probably have nothing to say anyway. I'm very bad at keeping my own secrets. Hopefully, the sesame seed bean is totally healthy and everything and there will be no more complications beyond how on earth I'm going to get some exercise when I feel totally like crap and live in a teensy camper. But if something bad happens, well, you'll probably hear about that too.