ABSURDIST PARADISE

I planted another seed

2011-09-17T12:20:00.001-04:00

a seed of a new blog. If you're interested to find out the new spot, please email me at earnestenglish@gmail.com. At this point, I'm not thinking I'll close this spot up completely, but I'm not sure I'll update it much either.

I planted seeds today

2011-09-10T23:26:00.006-04:00

I've been thinking about what to do with this blog -- whether I should close up shop or start a new one or let this one morph quite a bit. The truth is that not only do I have less time to focus on academic work, I find I don't really want to spend my free time thinking or writing about work either. I'm still reading y'all's blogs, but I just don't have anything to say about my job. I'm behind on grading, as usual. My to-do list is insane. I have this committee report hanging over my head and walloping me in the eyes. I don't know whether I want to work on the Article Slightly Outside My Field, but I know I sure don't have time for it. Who wants to spend any free time at all talking about all that? After so many years of building a career and carving out a research agenda and living my life around my career, I now want it to be just a job, no longer my whole life. I want to de-colonize my mind. I am more than my job.

Part of this may be temporary, as I was burned out big time by this time last year.

What I do want to talk about is how I recently hacked at and finally uprooted a climbing rose gone to seed (and mounded in a big bush rather than draped on the trellis, which had fallen) from the raised bed, then added three cubic feet of the best organic soil I could find, and then, today, seeded it with 2 kinds of lettuce, spinach, arugula (a lot of it!), leeks, kale, calendula, and nasturtiums. It is totally ridiculous to be starting a fall garden this late, and a winter garden is only possible here in greenhouses of one sort or another. But I don't care. We're all here: the place, the soil, the seeds, and me. So we'll do what we can. I did get very cold tolerant varieties, so much so that the kale should be harvestable in the snow. But it is sort of ridiculous. But it also occurs to me lately that some very good work in the world gets done because some naive person doesn't realize that what they're trying to do is impossible. Impossible Harvest? At Impossible Farm.

Alice laughed. 'There's no use trying,' she said 'one can't believe impossible things.'

'I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. 'When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast. '

The title of Absurdist Paradise was always meant to describe academia. When I was not part of academia for that half year or so, the blog became more about my life, which also felt absurd. But now I want to spend my time focusing on gardening/farming/homesteading and Big Non Academic Project (BigNAP?). I want a space in my life to focus on those parts of my life that I wish could grow into bigger chunks of my life. But I'm not sure y'all are interested in my little family's long road to homesteading. I'm not sure this blog is the right place to discuss that. But our little family has to do something, because it sure doesn't feel like this so-called "normal life" is sustainable, from a spiritual point of view for us. (I don't mean religious. I mean this life so rubs against the grain -- it just feels wrong and abrasive. Meaningless.)

Even if nothing comes up in Impossible Farm's raised bed, I'll be planting garlic within the next month or two. October-December. That at least shouldn't end a shambles.

You think I should start a new blog?

Over and out.

Funkified Scholarship

2011-08-24T10:41:00.009-04:00

So I've taken Tot to daycare (Montessori is closed for two and a half weeks so he's back at his old daycare where they love him and they're much more flexible about hours, but it's rowdy and crazy -- when I feel badly about him going to Montessori when he's obviously so well loved at the daycare, which is not to say that the Montessori teacher is not charmed by him, and doing okay, I think that they may love him, but my duty is to do the best I can for him -- and I literally couldn't do better than a Montessori school, not if I were the perfect stay-at-home mom, which I am so so SO not). I've watered the plants, taken out some trash, unloaded the dishwasher (which makes me feel better because as the family cook I'm constantly waging a war against dirty dishes). Today's Wednesday, and it's my day to not be on campus. And I'm in a funk.

I'm just so disgusted with politics and government and big business. Our regulatory agencies are staffed by those with significant industry ties to those who profit most from keeping consumers in the dark, no matter which president we have in office. And yet they are in charge of protecting consumers and keeping them safe. Furthermore, corporations have unlimited anonymous power to sway candidate elections with their big bucks. (What does this mean for initiatives and referenda? I don't know.) And when I talk about these issues, I'm the one who sounds nuts. I'm engaged in a project right now to address some of these issues the best way I know how, but even though this is the most exciting thing going on in my life, the more I research, the more I know, the more I get depressed. And it's also a big timesuck, as I evidenced by yesterday when I ended up spending time I should've been working on scholarship talking with someone about related issues and researching and working on the project.

There's also a work-related report that I haven't done that's weighing on me. I definitely find that finishing up some projects and getting them out the door lifts my mood. As does working out, which I definitely want to do today. But what I really want to talk about here is a certain piece of scholarship.

(Can I just say that Absurdist Lover is the most wonderful man in the entire history of the known world? He just sent me a text message saying that I should go somewhere and do something for me. I have tons to do work-wise, but this is quite literally the only time I truly get to myself. When I'm at work, I'm at work and yes, I can close the door, but it's not relaxing. I can veg out, but it's not relaxing. I don't even know what I'd do since we have no money. But maybe he's right. Maybe I need to get out of the house.)

Okay, so there's this chapter I'm writing for an edited collection that now has a publisher (that I'm not at all impressed by, but that's not a particularly significant consideration in this case). I worked hard and pumped a draft of me on this thing last summer. (I taught through the entire summer, so that was no small feat.) I knew when I turned it in that it was not good. But it was a beginning. I didn't get comments for a long time and so focused my scholarly energies elsewhere. I finally got my first set of comments back a couple months ago. They were harsh yet non-directive. So I took it to my multidisciplinary writing group which has a number of people situated much more inside the field than I am. While a couple people really didn't like certain parts of it and everyone agreed that it was very very rough, some others saw what I was trying to do and gave me good comments and direction about what the piece really needed to do in order to be useful. Then I got much more directive comments from the editors that emphasized their interest in it (the earlier comments hadn't) but made suggestions about where to go.

While I had a little spurt of energy on the project and ILL'd books like mad, my interest in the project is at an all-time low. Here's what I think is going on, besides just being in a funk about United States, Inc. and the fact that we're all guinea pigs in a country where Big Business is the bottom line:

The Comments A-Swirling in My Head: The comments from my writing group suggested more focus on practice. Okay, that's not easy, but it should be doable. I understand why. This is the most important single aspect to work on to make the piece do what I want it to do. It takes a lot of time to put that stuff together, and I feel I have to rob some of my other work or do a lot of new stuff in order to do it. It's time-consuming and means really starting over, but I can do it, and I agree that it should be done. The comments from the editors concurred with this. But they also wanted more of a specific kind of analysis that I don't like to do very much, which means a lot of new work, and asked me to do one thing that I absolutely will not do because it means a whole lot more research. I completely respect that it's their collection, and they need my piece to fit in with other pieces. But I'm not sure whether it's that the piece doesn't feel like mine anymore -- the comments taking up more of my mental space than the engagement with the work -- or my lack of interest in doing the things they want me to do, which probably brings us back around to the issue that this piece is not in my field.
I haven't gotten a lot of work done on this lately. It needs to be done in 5 weeks (they'd have liked it at the end of this month, but I'm teaching this summer (boo) so I asked for an extension). Not getting work done on it and barely knowing where to start is enough to be in a funk about this.
The Big Picture, aka Tenure Requirements: As of now, I'm halfway to the university's official tenure-able publication requirements. But this piece is not situated in my field. Now it just so happens that at my institution, I have a lot of flexibility in defining my field the way I want to. While the major field of the collection is not my field, the focus of it certainly is, so much so, in fact, that this and related foci are what my university colleagues outside my field remember about my work (especially when it lines up with their interests, so I've gotten people in the social sciences asking me about my work, which is cool beans indeed). What's more, my particular angle on it is also very much a key research interest for me that anyone would see from looking at my work or even my CV. So within my university, this piece probably does count as a sincere full-fledged publication. But when I think of outside reviewers in my field, well, it's not in my field. A nice outside reviewer will easily see what I'm trying to do, but it doesn't help cement, or even contribute, to my work in my field. And because of that, I see this piece not as useless but as counting as a half publication to my tenure requirements. (I have another half publication that is extremely short and not published in a field journal, so it works out. This and that equal one whole publication.) But probably the prospect of needing to do so much additional work and not getting much out of it (and of course they can still reject it entirely) isn't very motivating.
The work I need to do on this piece -- rewriting the whole thing and doing some new research for it -- is keeping me from working on another big project that requires copious research but is very well situated in my field. (Okay, it's putting two fields together: mine and one is that I have a lot of familiarity with, though not enough at this point to write scholarship in. But it's on a topic that I know very well in my field, and my particular focus is on something that no one has done yet. So with the four or five months that I have for it, I feel much better about that one, though the research is daunting. Plus it counts as a complete publication. It also has a well-respected publisher already. And the editor is completely excited about it. Maybe that's more significant than I realize: I know the editor will help me hone it because Zie is a generous rockstar and very much in love with the topic. Not so with this piece where I know I'm already skating on thin ice.)

(I love blogging because it helps me figure myself out. In my journals, I'm too prone to whining, but here I have to explain it all to someone outside my head and not whine. So I actually get somewhere rather than dwelling in the emotion of it all.)

So the whole context around this piece I'm supposed to be working on is negative. With this revision, I have to prove that this piece is worth including, even while my methods are not the field's methods. I'm sure it's occurred to you that I'm thinking of just hanging it up completely. But I hate to do that. It wouldn't exactly hurt me because these people are not in my field, though, yes, the academic world is small. But giving up can be a hard habit to break. (Who am I quoting? I can't remember.) If you have managed to make it this far and have an opinion on this, please please please leave it in comments.

I do think it's difficult to write to a resistant audience. That's what this feels like to me. I need to imagine that I'm writing it to someone who is receptive to the ideas. I know this won't lead me to exquisite argumentation, but right now I need a strategy for getting words down on the page. (I do freewrite on the damn thing, but I've got zero usable pages right now.)

Part of me really wants to not deal with it at all today but take the day off for a little EE time. Though perhaps not working on it will lead me to feeling worse about it later. It's difficult to know. I have no idea what I'd do -- probably work out and. . .oh dear lord, I don't know. Cook? Repot my plants? I should do that report, but that's not relaxing. Take a nap? Get outside? Oy vey. What is it that makes me happy and hopeful again? Organic agriculture, lovely food, farmy stuff, being outside. Good books. (Oh yeah, I'm sad also that I haven't been writing -- not scholarship, but the real stuff. Of course, this is old news. Maybe I'm just in a funk, a physical funk, and looking for mental reasons for it. Maybe I just need to snap out of it, work out, take a shower, and find something lovely to do. Go EE! Get off your lazy butt!)

Seriously?

2011-08-22T07:51:00.003-04:00

Warning: snark ahead.

Mostly I try not to write pejorative things about students on this blog for a host of reasons, but I must share with you: WTF?

No, dear freshmen, emailing me even the most apologetic message a whole day after you miss your presentation in class is not going to explain to me why you didn't email me beforehand. You weren't suddenly abducted by aliens at the start of my class and only now came to, or were you? I can imagine a bunch of reasons why someone would not be able to contact me beforehand, but the excuses I've been handed for missing presentations are totally and completely the kind where anyone but a child would realize that they should send an email upfront to save the situation. And therein lies the problem. And I just love having to send the email that says: if this were a job, you'd be fired.

This is not making it easier to get up and get going today. In good news, I managed to freeze my entire bushel of green beans by 9:20 last night. We now have 16 packages of green beans in the freezer. That should make winter much nicer. I love green beans.

I do not love stupid student tricks. But I better get going anyway. For those of you starting today or soon, I envy you the hopeful excited part. I hope it all starts and goes well.

On Call: A Troubling Start to the Weekend

2011-08-20T12:08:00.004-04:00

So this weekend Absurdist Lover is on call at his job. This means that he gets disturbed all the time for problems as lame as printer jams. Ugh. His being on call every six weeks or so is absolutely the worst part of the job for him -- and for the whole family because it means that I have to be prepared for him to have to leave at any point. Double ugh.

So last night, Tot decided he wanted to go to sleep at 7pm. This from the late-night toddler. (Speaking of: he's two months away from three years old! I can't believe it. Surely he deserves a better moniker than Tot, now that most sources seem to call him a "preschooler." Am working on it and thinking about whether he and AL should have monikers that really fit them more than just their relationship to me, but I digress and still don't know what I think about it all.) But I am not one to argue against his sleeping. So he slept. I thought it would be a good time to start freezing the bushel of green beans I ordered from my CSA. A bushel. I had no idea how much a bushel really is. It's a lot. So I took a nap, then got up and made a start around 11pm. AL was gone on his first visit to work at that point. Of course, Tot woke up at 2am and stayed up until 5am, so that nap I took that robbed me of some green bean time ended up being totally inspired. I went to bed at 6:30am. Tot woke up at 9:30am, bright-eyed and shiny-faced. At that point, AL was already gone, having been called in for the second time since he started being on call at 7pm. (The first notice of the first call-in was at 8:30. The darn place can't survive without him for even two hours!)

All this to say: his being on call sucks for the whole family (no going to any of the fairs going on right now because it would suck to waste the entry price); Tot was on some weirdo schedule yesterday, though he's fine today, though I'm quite tired because of it; the upshot of all this is that I managed to freeze about or at least almost half a bushel of green beans in the wee hours last night.

I did take a picture of the now half-full bushel box, which I'll post later. (I haven't downloaded photos to my computer for ever. Though not a big deal, of course, it seems like a big job for some reason. Perhaps everything seems big now.

Oh, gotta go. Tot wants to take a nap. More later.

***A half hour later***

False alarm. He decided he wanted to look at a particular page of The Cat in the Hat, which then meant that we went through all the subsequent pages (not reading, but he likes to flip the page and ask, "What happened?" and then I try to help him figure out what happened based on the pictures). When he got to the last page of the book, the one with just white on it, he did what he did last night: asked about coloring the pages. And I said no, that we don't color our books, only our papers. And then he promptly got up and ran to his desk so he could color pictures of trains. He loves trains and asks daily about going to the train tracks. He also loves cars, buses, and motorcycles. And most recently, probably because his Montessori teacher is an artist herself, painting. Actually his paintings have really nice composition. We hung them up. I like them, even apart from being his mom.

I'm sure I should get started on those green beans, but my energy level has dipped. (I never do well when he teases me that he's going to take a nap and then doesn't.) He's busy with AL talking about "orange" and "red." So cute. I'm going to go and grab what family goodness is available to me this weekend. Talk to you later, most likely about green beans, transplanting container garden vegetables and herbs, and the bounty of local organic food in this region. (Not about work, though I'm up to my navel in summer quarter. I really don't like being so far off the normal academic schedule. It's very alienating. So instead of gearing up for the fall semester, like so many of you with that familiar mix of excitement for it all to start again and dread that summer is over, I'm deep in midterms. Next academic year will be better, I've been promised. I swear I put it on the first draft of my annual report that keeping myself from complaining about my schedule was a part of my departmental service.)

Happy fall semester, everyone! May all your syllabi write themselves and your copying get done!

Grading

2011-08-17T09:58:00.003-04:00

Must grade. Am being very virtuous and getting started on it as soon as I can. Have six projects to do that have taken me 30 minutes each in the past, but I'm hopeful I can reduce this time. Wish me luck.

***

11:35am

I've finished three projects. There is no way to fit the work into 20 minutes, and even though I still have three projects to grade before I can consider myself done for the day, I MUST take a break. Most of these projects can only be described by the term "hot mess." Almost all of these students are very early freshman students (as in they graduated from high school about three minutes ago) and are difficult in the usual ways of such young students. I used to really enjoy teaching such young students and being involved in their "transition to the university," but I don't much enjoy teaching this class to these students at this university. Part of it is the focus of the course, which in many ways I support. In other ways, I think the focus does a disservice to colleagues who will have these students down the line. Because of this concern, I may be spearheading a department project on a related topic.

Oh, I wish I were closer to done with grading for the day. Tot is at daycare instead of Montessori, so I can take extra time today if needed. (His Montessori school is closed for a couple weeks before opening for the official fall school year, which I finally managed to get Tot registered for and everything: money has been an important recent concern with moving to a house and everything.)

Oh it's simply been forever since I blogged. Mostly this is because with Tot in Montessori my teaching days are more frequent but shorter, so I really have to use all the time I have. I have far less free time, it seems. (I feel quite behind on work things, especially the chapter I have due.) A big part of this is Tot being more of a handful. Part of this is my recent obsession with Big Project, which I'll tell y'all about some other time. And part of this is my pact with myself that when I'm home with the family, I'm really with the family, cooking and doing home things.

I've been cooking a lot because we're getting beautiful bountiful vegetables from our CSA. Have I mentioned my oodles of containers of plants? (And more coming because I just ordered seeds from Seed Savers Exchange to attempt a fall harvest. There's a raised bed in the backyard that I hope and pray has not been treated with RoundUp and other noxious chemicals that have been linked to birth defects. I haven't yet decided whether to experiment with it yet, though of course I'd build it up by putting in new organic soil.)

My favorite things in my life -- besides my family -- center on food and farming: getting cheese through this ordering system for local farmers I'm experimenting with; going to the New City farmer's market to get organic sweets (last week: blueberry crumble pie -- does it get any better than that? I think not); working on my own garden for a fall harvest; cooking and adding new recipes to my recipe book. I'm considering taking a correspondence course on medicinal herbs in the fall as well. Of course, I'd want to grow some herbs as well.

But for now, I've got three projects to grade. See you on the flip side.

***
2:15

I'm done. And thank goodness because that last one was a complete fail. I did manage to read one today that was pretty much okay. Now I've got to do something else, because jumping right into scholarship? Not gonna happen. I need a break before I can even think of working out. GAH!

Instead of blogging, I'm looking at things like this

2011-08-12T23:36:00.000-04:00

Amazing!

2011-08-04T15:00:00.005-04:00

The impossible occurred: I actually graded one project the day it came in!

Of course, now I have to go and pick up the Tot, so that's all I can manage. But one is better than my usual, which is none. . .for days and days and days. And then there's that pressure to grade and the procrastination and self- and project-loathing. I've made myself a resolution to try to bypass all that by moderating my emotions, not beating myself up about grading, and just getting the hell on with it.

Since I am prone to not giving myself enough credit, I have to say: I'm pretty proud of myself. I really could've easily wasted the time.

The one I graded was very interesting. I look forward to reading the rest of them.

Unexpected Day Off

2011-07-28T09:18:00.003-04:00

So we're having a terrible storm that has robbed Tot's Montessori of power, which means though I have a complete day of teaching along with a department meeting nestled between my two classes today, I'm home with Tot. So many things are power struggles with him lately that I'm not as overjoyed for the unexpected day with him as I wish I were and, of course, feel a bit bad about that. (Lest y'all think that we're terribly traditional in the Absurdist Household, Absurdist Lover did offer to stay home, but he's got this huge deadline at work tomorrow, and I'd rather that he just go and deal with the mountain of work he's got rather than let the stress mount even more. For me, getting behind in my classes by cancelling today is just an annoying and unwelcome wrinkle.)

(Another power struggle over whether putting one's feet on playing cards one has just dropped is a good idea. We do a lot of threatening time in his playpen these days. It's easy to feel like a terrible parent. I lose my temper often.)

But the upshot is that I can blog. Unfortunately, I feel like I have little to say. I'm teaching, doing service work (wow: it would be great if I could make some headway on this report I meant to start but didn't yesterday), and trying to work on the major revision for Article Slightly Outside My Field. For that article, I've been putting some very odd things together, but I knew before that there were some Australian researchers putting them together too. Now I see they have a book due out next year. I can't figure out whether I feel bad about being scooped or relieved to know that I'll be able to simply gesture to them as evidence that putting these things together does make sense. I wish the book were out now. But as much as I went nuts researching and ILL-ing articles that I could find from these researchers, this aspect of things is a small part of the overall argument. (That is, this is theory while the main thrust is application.) Why is it so easy to get all obsessed about one difficult part of one's argument rather than focusing on that which is going to get the most pages? Of course, there's lack of self-esteem and imposter syndrome in the mix, but is it also, in this case, that I'm more interested in delineating that theoretical argument than the main thrust of the chapter, which includes both application (which is okay) but also a specific kind of analysis that I'm not really thrilled about doing?

It's foolish to think I'm really going to get a lot done today, when keeping Tot out of trouble is already a major never-ending project. If anyone has great ideas about specific indoor activities to do with an extremely active tot of 2-3/4 years, please let me know.

Where Am I?

2011-07-18T00:00:00.002-04:00

I am in a new house which is still only half-unpacked, but liveable enough, and I'm too exhausted to care that many things are still in boxes. Tomorrow begins my second week of summer teaching. I also have a couple reports to write and a really strong revision to do. Tomorrow, Tot begins his third week of Montessori, which he may be a little young for at this point. He is also testing boundaries all the time and making ample use of his favorite word "no." He lies down and refuses to budge in all sorts of places, and we have to threaten him with his playpen all the time. Taking care of Tot is really exhausting. And on top of everything, I feel, as is usual when I teach in the summer, completely separate and alien from the academic world that very wisely has packed up its ivy-covered ivory towers and gone to the beach. I want to be at the beach too (but only metaphorically). I can't make myself read the Amanda Cross mystery I have because it's too academic and sardonic and feels too much like work. I'm teaching a class and engaged in some activities that require me to be very active and forthright, to push myself out there, to advocate, to be present and articulate. All I want to do at this point is read something mysterious and magical and watery where things can be understood yet remain unsaid. I want to watch Practical Magic over and over again. I want to investigate the divine feminine principle, amid all this assertive masculine doing energy. I want a vacation where my only duty is to vegetative life. I'm thinking a lot about religion, about how Judaism tugs at me, though my life would be so much easier if I became a Christian, but I don't feel it the same, how I don't know why Judaism should be so important to me since I'm not Jewish by Jewish law and the family nostalgia shouldn't work on me because 1) they weren't that Jewish in terms of religion, except when my mother converted; 2) whatever good points my family of origin had, I don't have nostalgia for them. How my first religion really was astrology and wicca, coral rings of protection, and that calls to me too. (Maybe it's just ritual that is tugging at me?)

In short, I have a lot going on and a lot of other stuff going on in my head, but it's a blur, a whirlwind, a summer thunderstorm threatening hail. I want to back to writing creatively, discover a new way of being a writer in this very busy life. Do I wake up an hour early like so many dedicated women writers? The danger with this is that I get so little sleep as it is. My schedule is somewhat flexible, surely I should be able to sneak in some writing? But then I get ambitious. If I can get some writing published, it might count for tenure. Just like with crochet: it's not enough to just enjoy the doing of it, suddenly I have to crochet all my Christmas presents. Chanukah presents. Solstice presents. (Solstice is the one that really makes more sense to me, though Christmas makes more sense to me now that I have a child.)

I'm rambling. I'm also dozing off. I just wanted to say to hi to y'all. I'm enjoying reading y'all's blogs during the few minutes I have between activities. I hope things will balance out soon, and I can write a blogpost that makes sense. Have enough alone time so that the talk in my head makes sense to me.

Epiphany and Resolution on Grading

2011-06-29T13:41:00.004-04:00

I've been so grumbly and fierce lately, looking at everything including Tot and AL through a black cloud. (I had an annoying project hanging over my head along with laryngitis on top of the move.) But I've just finished an annoying project and I'm almost over this laryngitis and Tot is taking a nap, and it's time to recommit myself to being more positive.

So here's one thing I'm thinking about: as much as there is a lot about grading to hate, both theoretically and actually, the way I typically grade (waiting until the last possible minute and then grading in a huge black cloud huff) doesn't allow me to enjoy it. It's really not much of a possibility. I always read papers with the seeds of interesting conversations in them, conversations I would like to have and should broach with my students (especially considering who my students are and how little intellectual engagement is part of their everyday lives). (I'm not trying to bash my students here; I'm always surprised at how interesting my students are, considering everything. I teach at a specialized institution where only certain kinds of students apply/attend -- students who are not at all like me or who I was at their age. Moreover, they do not come to my uni to take my courses. In fact, my department doesn't have a major; we're purely a service department.) So when my students are up for interesting conversations, I should jump on it. I always put the paper aside and sigh that there's no time for that. Grade grade grade. And I always forget about the pedagogical opportunities of grading when I'm procrastinating digging into a big stack.

I want to enjoy my job more. In fact, I'm determined to. Procrastinating essential parts of my job that I don't like does not make me like my job more. I'm not sure how I'm going to do it -- especially since I tried contract grading, but this doesn't work with my procrastinating tendencies -- but I'm getting control of this grading issue. I am interested in what my students say. I do want to have these conversations. I do want to wade through their prose and help them fix it. I need to think of grading differently.

Quickie Update

2011-06-26T10:03:00.004-04:00

Quickie, because I haven't been able to leave Tot alone -- or be left alone -- in days. We've moved from our apartment to a house. We're partly moved, that is. No dining table, no couch, no bed. We're sleeping on an air mattress and in our new two-person sleeping bag (bought for that camping we were going to do) that's surprisingly comfortable. This place is a tri-level, though, and maybe it's in the nature of the tri-level or just the layout of this house, but it's very difficult to keep tabs on Tot in here. So I'm constantly going up one flight or two flights to find out where he is. So I've been following him room to room (no gates yet, and it would be really difficult considering the design of the stairwells to put up traditional toddler gates) with my book the last few days. Ahh, here's Tot coming down a flight of stairs.

I just sent him back up to play with his cars. Is he too young to be playing without supervision, I wonder.

He just came down the stairs again. Oy.

He's had pinkeye for the last few days, which has meant really terrible antibiotics that are wreaking havoc on his g-i tract.

But what I wanted to say to you all is that the differences between our apartment and this house really makes me reflect on my relationships to nature and people. I'm even thinking of writing an essay about it, about how much I've loved communing with the ducks and geese and swans, especially this spring when they all had babies. Oh how I marveled at the swan tending her nest, then worried when I saw the nest was abandoned until I finally saw the four signets. The Canada geese parents (both) who spend their entire lives walking their babies around, sometimes in the creek, sometimes on its banks. The duck mama and her tiny babies all running down the bank to the creek at the same time. Now our backyard, which is big, gorgeous, and unfenced, looks out into other people's backyards. When I look out the front, it's worse: just houses up and down.

Here's what I'm trying to say: We have a lot more space -- inside and out -- but I feel more closed in.

I think part of this has to do with my dislike of subdivisions and how much this feels a bit too much like the place I grew up. Some of it is, perhaps, my discomfort about being "the mom" and therefore representative of the family, my discomfort about being observed at close range, being someone who has coffee with the neighbors and seems like she has it together. But some of it is my relationship with nature. I'm thinking since there will be no waterfowl in my backyard, I think I must go and seek out spaces where I'll get to hang out with the birds. Until then, I'm going to get very into vegetative life -- me with my nineteen potted plants now sunning themselves on the deck.

Must go now. Tot's been very patient.

Grumble Grumble Grumble

2011-06-22T08:45:00.003-04:00

It looks like Tot has pinkeye. Which means that all plans for the week, including grading and moving books into my office, getting together with a colleague for a good end-of-year grumble session complete with drinks, and, on Friday, moving stuff into the new house, all of which depended on daycare, are pretty much dashed. Grumble grumble grumble. And Tot woke up in the night and came into our bed, natch, so I'm so frigging exhausted. Family bed be damned, but I can't sleep with Tot stretching and turning and hogging the bed.

I wish I had some eternally patient single friend who would come over and hang out with me while I'm in pinkeye jail with Tot. Luckily, pinkeye has not stopped Tot from happily playing with his cars. That he's not completely miserable is the only saving grace of the whole thing. Instead, I'm the one who's miserable, realizing the serious limitations of coffee. I gave up the Coffee Corporation a while back, trying to save my stomach and money. Now I see the error of my ways.

It would be a whole lot easier to be blase about the whole disarrangement of a week's worth of plans if I had gotten enough sleep. Sigh.

I have to call Tot's daycare, my dental appointment, and his doctor for an appointment. Impossible feats, I tell you. So.frigging.tired.

Update 2:42 pm

Tot was nearly down for a nap when I jostled him too much and though he tried to go back to sleep, now he's up and driving me crazy (throwing rather than rolling his damn ball -- I can't believe that more people don't go insane with toddlers -- how many frigging times do I have to say that he can't throw it but only roll it, and I know he knows what I mean -- grrr).

And now the damn landlord of our new rental is driving me insane with hir antics and crap. I'm really beginning to think that this is the most ill-fated move ever for a variety of reasons. I'm beginning to hate everyone right now, except the sweet blogger-friends who've left me comments. (And, of course, at just this moment, Tot throws another damn ball. I'm just going to melt down, people. Just like the Wicked Witch of the West. Please. Throw water on me.)

RBOC: Will This Quarter Ever End Edition

2011-06-13T10:00:00.009-04:00

Hi everyone. Things have not exactly calmed down over here -- in great part because the quarter isn't over but is getting there which means mounds of grading and grumbling -- but they are different, so that's good. Today I have so many things I should do that my brain boggles just thinking about the edges of it -- and I need to figure out which things I must do today versus the things that can wait, alas, for another day. (Some things have been on the "can't do today, but must do soon" list for so long it's ridiculous.) So I'm going to blog, partly because I just haven't blogged in forever, but also to figure out what I must do today versus what can wait. In the process, I hope to update y'all. I look forward to blogging again like a real person soon.

So here goes:

We're moving into a house by the end of the month. It's stretching us financially, because we had to cough up a huge security deposit, but we figure our quality of life will improve so much that it's worth it. I don't have to do anything on that front today; we're expecting the lease agreement but that's not urgent. We have not begun packing or anything. ETA: They sent the lease agreement. Some stupid ridiculous things that make no sense. Oy! Another thing to deal with.
Grade 12 portfolios. Yes, I need to grade. Must do today. ETA: Graded three. Oy gevalt.
I wanted to take my yoga class, but 1) I need to pay because my pass ran out and we don't have a lot of cash right now; and 2) I don't have a lot of time today, but will have time later in the week to focus on my headspace and health. It bothers me that when I'm busy the easiest thing to get rid of is the stuff that actually makes me more balanced, but today I think it just cannot be helped. No yoga today. Go later in the week, if the money's there. Otherwise, work out with Leisa Hart at home.
I have a therapy appointment in the afternoon. I don't really want to go, because I'm too busy to do navel-gazing, but I've cancelled so much lately I don't want to do that. So off I go to that. Do this today. ETA: This ended up going really well.
Tot has a water day at school tomorrow, so I have to 1) make sure his trunks still fit (why, oh why didn't I do this before I took him to school today?) and 2) I must buy him a beach towel. I don't know why I feel like I just cannot take his regular bath towel to school and forget this shopping expedition today, but I just can't. He deserves a darn beach towel from his parents who can more or less afford it and are just lazy and skeptical about many of the normal things that kids have. Check the trunks against other clothes he can wear, then go to get a beach towel and new trunks, if needed. ETA: Checked his not one, but two sets of swimming trunks (which is hilarious because we never, and I mean never, go swimming because I'm a big weenie about Tot and the swimming pool), and I'm just not sure that the larger won't be too tight. Must go and get swimming trunks on top of the beach towel. But where? The websites for what's in stock at my usual stores is pretty disheartening. Why is it that I don't think of doing this after I pick up Tot? Hmmm. Interesting possibilities there. ETA: Got trunks and beach towel at Kohl's after therapy.
I've got to remember to bring a check to Tot's school for his field trip this Friday that I have to go on too, right before I jet to a dental appointment, then back to campus to pick up all the last papers from my courses. Just write the check and be done. Done.
Tot has lost one of the little feet that cushions his nose on his glasses. I've got to get a replacement, which means I should call around and find out who has one. Have I mentioned I hate talking on the phone (in part because I have a "Smartphone" and it's one of the ones that has really high levels of radiation, which is bad health-wise). Yes, I bought a headset. It's okay. Call Tot's eyecare place because maybe the little foot will be free. ETA: I called, but apparently there are hundreds of nose pads and so they have to be brought in. Right now, they are on Tot's nose at daycare. The next day I can realistically bring in his glasses is Wednesday (considering that I teach all day tomorrow). Sigh.
I keep buying plants at the Farmer's Market. Yesterday, they had a booth that was all organic heirloom vegetables in little pots for $1 each. Okay, it's basically like they asked what would EE most want to see at the Farmer's Market. It was amazing for all the obvious reasons, but also because while our farmer's market has some organics, it's not as if every other booth is organic, by a long stretch. (Not even every other booth is food! There are lots of crafts too.) So anyway I have all these plants on the patio now, and they really need to be replanted into larger pots. I have to buy said pots. I do have organic potting soil that I bought especially. But no pots. It's getting a little ridiculous out there. I also need a decent watering can because going in and out of the house with a 2-cup pyrex measuring cup to water about 15 plants is just silly. But when will I be able to get to even buying the pots? I do not know. Don't ask me why I couldn't manage to get this done over the weekend. I think it had everything to do with the fact that I was reading a book this weekend. (Despite what my academic calendar says, my brain saw all the sun and the plants and everything and screamed "summer" and hasn't been the same since.) Buy a bunch of pots and a decent watering can wherever I get the beach towel. ETA: This will have to wait another day.
Since I finished my delicious mystery last night, I'm really dying to go and get another one today. At least, AL said I should go get it today. He must have no idea how long my list is already. I think this is going to have to wait. I could call and find out who has the next book, but I think I can't pick it up today.
Because Tot is making this transition to his toddler bed, which means he gets up every few hours, I was in bed getting a few needed Zs with him instead of getting up early, taking a shower, and drinking some coffee. Shower and coffee are both still on my to-do list. I'd love to take a nap too. Coffee and shower done. How silly it is that I have to put such things on my to-do list!
I have a student who wants to see me this afternoon. I think I basically need to say no because how can I get any of these things done and make it into the office this afternoon, however late. The grading, while not totally horrendous, is going to take me the bulk of the day. Everything else has to fit in at the odd angles of my day. Sadly. Send him the email that you'll see him tomorrow. Done.
I need to send an email to this workshop thing I was very excited about going to, but now have decided to not go to. Why? Here's the story I'm telling myself: I've been in moderate pain since practically the beginning of this year. First it was the back pain (which hasn't gone away, but it pretty manageable now), then the terrible tooth, then just when the tooth was over, I got the worst heartburn/acid reflux of my life. I really thought I was going to die. Now, it's all abated except the referred pain from my back. But during all this time that I've been in on-again, off-again pain, I've been trying to work on Much Needed Article. I decided on a direction, then figured out exactly why that won't work, but in the process missed all my deadlines. Now, I've received word that I need to work on that article from last year because it does seem very likely that the collection is going to pick up a publisher very soon. During all this time, I've been teaching, doing service, taking care of Tot. And me, me in all this? I just want to rest. I want to rest and garden and read books. I want to do yoga and take care of myself and get healthier, because lately I've just been dragging my sorry ass from one thing to another. With Tot and his challenges (sleep and super-activity), I feel like I have very little time off from others' expectations and needs. I have almost two weeks off between the end of spring quarter and my full-time summer obligations, time when Tot will be in daycare during the day. And the workshop is scheduled during those two weeks. No. Just no. I can't. And now it turns out we're going to be moving during that exact same time. No. Sorry. I just can't do it. I.need.some.time.off. This email does not need to be sent today.

But I think the absolutely first thing I have to do is make some coffee. I can't believe I've even gotten this far without a cup of coffee (though I have been wondering whether I should quit coffee -- come on, EE, not today: don't you have enough to do? Don't you want to try to get stuff done today?). Then a shower. Then. . .everything else. As much as I don't want to do anything right now (except buy that book and dive in), I better just do my best to race to the finish line so I can have the bulk of those two weeks to myself, even though we'll also be moving and I'll be preparing summer syllabi. I'll have true time off. . .in October. Sigh.

Playing Catch Up

2011-05-27T10:20:00.007-04:00

My dear friends, I'm sorry I haven't blogged recently. There's been a ton going on. In the words of Inigo Montoya, "let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up."

I had terrible tooth pain for weeks, finally went to the dentist, waited for three more weeks for my appointment to roll around, and then had a root canal. Icky. I feel diseased. (And I have not yet had the usual cleaning and diagnostics to tell me what other nightmares await me in the teeth realm.) I'm still on pain meds. It absolutely ruined our weekend last weekend along with. . .
AL has been on call at work. It's over now, as of today. But he's gotten up in the middle of the night so many times I swear he works more at night than during the day. This made root canal weekend even worse because he was too tired to take care of Tot. Even still, he tried. We managed.
My sister fell off a horse and actually fractured her spine. She had to have spinal fusion surgery. She's at home now, trying to manage the pain. She's going to have to wear a brace for six months. It's awful. Which has also led to. . .
My mother came back up from the deep to send me text messages about my sister. The latest ones are all about whether I know whether my sister knows the recipe for my late grandmother's "Miracle Soup." As if I would know. As if my sister, at home alone because her husband and kids are at work and school, respectively, should be making herself soup rather than having someone else make her soup. As if my grandmother's soup was anything more than Whole Foods vegetable soup powder with an awful lot of vegetables in it. Finally, I stopped texting back about that one because it's just so stupid. I really liked it much better when my mother wasn't talking to me for reasons I'm not sure about but can guess. I'm sick of the hot and cold with my mother. It finally occurred to me, because I'm incredibly slow, that not only have I been putting up with the same kind of BS from my mother for my nearly 40 years, but that I'm tired of it and have no more energy to invest in relationships that merely drive me crazy and don't pay off in any way; in fact, I'd be stupid to invest what little time I have that way. As AL said so well, our lives are so busy with full-time jobs and an active toddler. My mother could be a support, something that adds to our lives. Instead she takes away. I'm no longer going to invest time in the minus column of my life.
I've decided to start Tot in Montessori in July. We've observed the class, we've talked with the director, and I, at least, am looking forward to it. Tot, on the other hand, seems to love his current daycare, though all I have to do to firm up my resolve is to come in at snack time when some deranged parents think it's a good idea to pump their kids full of donuts and cupcakes. (Sorry if this is insulting to you, dear readers. AL says I shouldn't judge. But really: sugar, fat, and likely trans fats and GMO. Oh, and I realize this is a trivial consideration: no actual nutrition for kids' growing bodies. I'm not against the occasional fabulous dessert, but donuts from a coffee place as a kid's everyday snack? Bringing in a giant cupcake snack for a whole room full of early preschoolers? I feel especially responsible for bringing tasty and healthy snacks when it's my turn to feed the entire room. Am I the only one?)
Tot has started asking to be with "other kids." Which means that I'm concerned that this long weekend isn't going to be as fun as it should be. AL and I are determined to do nice things for ourselves beyond the usual laundry, dishes, trash. Unfortunately, it looks like it's going to rain all weekend, when the things we want to do involve being outdoors and eating outdoors. We might try to take Tot to a restaurant, something we've really stopped doing because he is so active.
The Farmer's Market started up last weekend. Thank God and Hir's wee angels. It was rained out the day it was supposed to start.
I hate the quarter system and especially my Uni's academic calendar that makes me way off of every other academic's calendar. The good news is that I have today off, though it's only week 8. Which means. . .
That today is the day I.simply.must.make.amazing.progress.on.the.article I now owe to Grad School Colleague and will soon owe to a professional workshop thing I'm scheduled to go to (but can't quite imagine since I have to leave AL and Tot here) AND to my regularly scheduled writing group.

I've decided that there is no earthly reason why I can't write two articles per year if I just put in the time. I've been doing other really useful reflection, like that I really do feel like teaching, which I value amazingly, does get in the way of my regular work on my scholarship and I find that annoying. Which is how I've come to realize that while I really love teaching and would love to be in a place where I'd be able to teach courses across the range of an English generalist, I'd not like the heavy load, unless class size were really limited. So while there are lots of things I don't like about my job -- the calendar, the lack of majors, the focus of my bread-and-butter teaching -- the teaching load is certainly one of the amazing perks. Another thing I really dislike is the lack of an academic community where people discuss things. Now I realize there are plenty of big and small departments that for whatever reason don't foster a sense of intellectual community. Mine certainly does not have intellectual community because most of the people in my department live elsewhere and commute in (which amazes me in the winter, but I grew up in a place where people start driving wonky in the rain -- snow would be impossible). I need to go seek it out -- at conferences and other schools around the state.

But you'll notice that none of this is helping me get my article done. So here's what I'm going to do:

I'm not going to panic.
I'm going to take my outline and dump in the various discussions I've been working on into it. Had to do a course correction, but done!
Then I'm going to print it out and do some handwritten revision. Thwarted! Our printer is so close to out of ink that it's giving me very choppy unreadable pages. GAH! Okay, I could go to work or I could go to my friendly nearby Staples. Since I have laundry in the communal laundry room, I suppose Staples is the smart choice. Done.
My goal is that I'm going to get one of the five sections of the piece written through today. Done.
But before I do any of that, I'm going to read that blogpost from the day I calmly wrote that article. I have done it before, and I can do it again. But I just need to remind myself how. Done.

I hope y'all have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend! And if you're already done with your academic year, well, remember that there are those of us who are not so fortunate. It is your responsibility to have more fun, read for pleasure, be nice to yourself, and take more soothing naps and, above all, as my professor grandfather said and AL last night quoted: don't should yourself to death.

ETA: I just figured out that my organization is not going to work because, as always, my points are intertwined with one another. Instead I'm going to group the discussions together differently, which of course means I've spent some of my productive time on important discoveries that don't yield actual pages. Sigh. Back to it.

Article Breakthrough: It's Real Now

2011-05-06T16:28:00.002-04:00

There's been radio silence over here because of super-busyness and some really good things: AL got a new job and enjoys it (the uncertainty over all that was what caused the weekend of suckage) and so we're looking to rent a house. I'm quite obsessed over this last point actually.

But what I want to note right now is that I've been agonizing over the revision to my article -- and think I've had an epiphany. I work and work and work, researching bits and writing out possibilities and thinking through different choices. But I don't actually revise an article by adding to it or toying with the existing draft -- at least one I completed so long ago (Chapter 1 of my dissertation). I just can't do that. Instead the old draft becomes what I call a feeder document. It becomes bits and pieces I can cut and paste into the new article, which has to be a new document. I think of it like this: to build the house that is an article, the framework has to be new. I can then use existing pieces to paint and even build ductwork and all that, but the framework (by which I don't mean a theoretical framework) has to be new. I did my dissertation this way, using other stuff I'd written but connecting it together with a new articulation of the main argument. Only when I figure out the movement of the article (how it will flow) can I realistically think about keeping a word count or anything. Until then I'm writing-to-think or working out issues or doing bits and pieces that will end up in the piece (after all, I have to do all the research that I will cut and paste!), but not actually tallying up pages.

The nice thing is that when I do finally write it through, the pages accumulate quickly because so many of the pieces just need to be tweaked. (When I started really humming on my dissertation and I'd do six pages a day, it was always like this, though I'm sure everyone thought I was actually writing all six pages and that I was some kind of fast writer -- yeah right. Instead, it takes me ages to collect all the crap together and write innumerable comments before I can get to this stage.)

The good part is that I think I'm at that stage. I've reduced the scope of my argument and worked out some of the biggest kinks, I hope. I've managed 438 words in a new fresh document, though mostly it's still notes. But it's a start. And it feels real now. Cross your fingers that the pages will accumulate quickly because my May 22 deadline is right around the corner. And I'm teaching and looking for houses and then there's the Tot's terrible sleeping fiasco. I should ask y'all what to do about that at some point. For now I have to go. I hope all y'all's semesters are coming to an easy and happy close. Whimper whimper whimper for those of us on the quarter system!!!!

Research Monday

2011-04-25T09:56:00.006-04:00

Thank goodness it's Monday. The weekend sucked. AL has been super-stressed about some work things going on early this week and has been really ill as well. I've been stressed because AL is stressed and because the work things may affect some immediate plans we have -- so we've been in limbo and still are for the next couple days and that's just never a good feeling. Even though I told myself a zillion times that there was nothing I could do and so should let go of the stress and try to be there for AL, I failed utterly. Tot is making an on again off again transition to his toddler bed, which means that going to sleep is a new kind of ordeal. (It always was, of course, but now it's a new ordeal.) I think Tot also felt the stress or is just exploring and experimenting because he crayoned over some toys and then the walls. They're washable crayons and everything, but you can't just act as if it's nothing, can you? Because then they won't know what's right in the future. Parenting is hard. Sometimes it sucks. Like when Tot steals the bed so that I'm smooshed in the middle of the bed between two restless sleepers. Needless to say, I woke up and got up early for a change.

And it's no wonder to me that some part of me that would usually rather sleep wanted to get an early jump on today because I am simply Deeeeeelighted that both of my boys, whom I love dearly, are taken care of for hours upon hours and I can be alone and focus on me. (No making dinner or taking Tot out on walks or going to the children's museum or whatever because I should. No shoulds!) Mondays I'm scheduled to do yoga and go to therapy. I doubt I'll do either today because I need to take care of me. I don't want to go to therapy because I don't want to rehash the weekend of suckage. And yoga is in less than an hour and my back hurts and I just don't think I'm going to get there. I actually have tons of things to do today, but what I really want to do is research. The entire weekend, actually starting with Friday, I wanted to work on my research, perhaps because it belongs only to me and I have control over it unlike the various reasons that made the weekend of suckage what it was. Partly also because Thursday, which is supposed to be a lesser but still significant research day, was almost completely taken up by this service document I had to crank out. And I really missed not getting to work on my work! (This feels like a really significant difference from the version of me who had to basically cajole myself into writing my dissertation and thought I might be perfect for a job that required little research. Now I know that's not.true.at.all. I love research.)

So work-wise, I want to

Write up an abstract for a conference paper and send it to the panel organizer.
Work on article. Accomplished.
Possibly finish the email I'm carefully crafting to a contact asking for help on a project.
Stage a creative work submission so all I have to do is print and mail when I'm at work before the window closes at the end of the month.

Other things I have to do:

Do laundry. Done.
Do the bills. Done.
Pick up Tot's favorite seed butter across town at the only place that carries it which happens to be on a street that is now under construction and is just a major pain to get to. Done.
Call and reschedule therapy appointment. Done.
Figure out dental insurance, find a dentist, and make an appointment so I can stop living with tooth pain.

I also have daydreams of things like watching a movie and napping, though I doubt that will happen. I also wish I could go and help out at my friend's farm, though that's not even on the radar for today.

Can I just say that I love being invited to do things by other scholars in my field? It just makes me feel like I have something to say and have some expertise for someone somewhere even though I work daily in an institution that merely pays lipservice to the necessity of the skills I teach and I teach things that not only are not my specialty, but are things I don't value to students who on the whole wish they didn't have to take such classes at all. And when I do get to have wonderful scholarly conversations with my colleagues, it's usually not on anything I really know anything about -- though I tend to love having them anyway. It occurs to me now that going to conferences can be a lifeline for some of us, probably most of us, because most institutions hire people to cover certain areas, which often means that when you get right into the fine detail of your field, there's no one right across the hall to talk to (unlike grad school). I didn't go to the Big Conference this year because I don't like to be gone from home a lot and I already went to a specialist conference and am going to a workshop, then two conferences in the fall (one is local). That's a lot. But I think from now on I'm going to make it more of a priority, even though in the past I really haven't liked Big Conference all that much. It's too big, for one thing. And I find going to conferences and sitting in session after session really difficult, so I tend to go to too few sessions. But maybe I have to look at it more as a chance to slurp up new ideas that I can then digest for the rest of the year.

Knowing that a senior scholar that I respect is asking me to do something (or if I'd like to do something) also makes me more careful in my work, wanting something to be good rather than merely done. I'm going to enjoy writing my annual report this year since I've had some rather good luck. In fact, I admit I often go to sleep thinking about the good luck I've had research-wise.

(By the way, the reason why I'm not inundated with grading and counting down the weeks until summer like most of you is because I'm on the quarter system and so am getting my first boatload of papers tomorrow. Worse than that, I'm teaching right though the summer -- with maybe three weeks off at most. So while I'm not in grading jail right now, I am off the normal academic calendar, which means that while you're all writing about your summer plans and then lightblogging because you're out having fun, well, I'll be doing the regular thing, same bat time, same bat channel. Being so far off the academic calendar is another thing that makes me feel really. . .well, alienated from my academic colleagues. The final cure for all this is obvious, but wouldn't do anything immediately for my headspace. So instead the real cure for all this is research. Who knew?)

A Whole New Me: Organizing

2011-04-11T10:16:00.003-04:00

Inspired by my new schedule (with Tot in daycare another day per week) and feeling like I really need to take control over my life and my job (therapy is probably helping with this a lot), I've been doing things that really I should've done a long time ago, like organizing my time.

Taking a hard look at the work I need to get done each week, including my seemingly never-ending service commitments, helped me to say no to a campus-wide venture that, while important in its own way, would probably not do much for me tenure-wise. (It's more of a staff project than a faculty project.) But more important than any tenure issue in my decision was really putting Much Needed Article on the front burner and thinking carefully about how many hours a week I need to get it out in the next few months. I also need other things: I emailed a grad school friend I used to work with a lot and begged zie to please read it. So now I have a deadline of when I need to turn it in (though really this friend would look at it if it were in pieces -- that's how good of a respondent zie is) and a good reader in my field who is well-acquainted with my work and central questions (unlike anyone around SU). And it turns out that the workshop that I'm going to at the end of June also wants us to circulate papers, so I'm hoping to get it to Grad School Colleague (who deserves a better moniker) in time for me to revise it and turn it around for the workshop. I don't know whether that will really happen, but feeling like I have an immediate and real audience for this piece will, I think, help me get it out the door.

So I've organized my time and days, and this is my first research-focused day. I've been looking forward to it all weekend, when I spent some late-night time making notes for this article. Unfortunately, there is a yoga class in about a half hour that I really need to take as well. AL got me a yoga pass two months ago now because that's what I wanted for Valentine's Day. But then I got that back sprain and didn't go all this time. The last time I was at the doctor's, she said that if I am not going to take the muscle relaxers because I'm still breastfeeding, then I need stretch a lot. What is yoga if not stretching a lot? So I'm going to break up my day by going to yoga, which is also incredibly good for me. (Though my back feels terrible -- stupid bed.) And good for my brain.

I've been in a terrible mood, one that makes me suspect that I'm depressed. I'm back to trying to work with Write Your Journal Article in 12 Weeks (though I'm going to try to do it about 8 weeks), and there was a blurb in there about depression and how the problem is that once you're depressed, no matter what the cause, you begin to react to every situation as if it's a stressful one. I certainly have been like that recently. Especially at work. Not only at work though. Luckily I have therapy later in the afternoon and can focus on all that there.

It's amazing to me how long it's been since I really tried to organize my time. Since I had Tot, I've felt like my life is running me, not like I actually run my life. This is silly because I've read Academic Self many times and the author extols the virtues of organizing and planning -- especially to keep productive and prevent burnout. Obviously, I haven't read this book in the last couple years. Just having a plan for my week (which has to be adjusted weekly because I've never been able to keep a schedule unless it's super-flexible) makes me feel more on top of it all, more like a professional. Not someone running from class to meeting to service deadline.

Free at Last!

2011-04-06T12:01:00.004-04:00

I'm newly sprung from grading jail and not a moment too soon. Unfortunately, the terrible issue that I'm mad at the university for (I think I blogged about it a bit earlier in the quarter) is still an issue -- and it didn't end with the end of the quarter. Not only does it fall on me and my colleagues to engage in the sticky issue of addressing it so that future professors will not be screwed like I am, I am in fact also still screwed for, at least, the current quarter. F***!

Now I have to go play with Tot. Poor guy. All morning I've been pushing him to the TV and away from me. It's too bad it's raining, or we'd go to the park and play. I've got to go make up for some very bad mommying now.

Hello from Grading Jail

2011-04-06T00:28:00.002-04:00

And that's pretty much all we have time for.

But I thought I'd just grump here for a moment: since my last post before I went to bed last night, I've overslept by an hour, got the Tot all organized to go to daycare earlier than usual, dealt with a banking snafu created by an overconfident check writer (that would be me), went to campus, figured out that my printing was still down in the basement, picked it up, started grading a portfolio, taught a class, graded through "lunch," if you can call a couple of handfuls of cheese bunnies and some cashews that, taught another class, graded graded graded until I had to pick up Tot, took care of Tot (albeit sometimes almost dozing on the couch), put him down, and went back to grading. I have to wake up early to grade before Tot wakes up. I kept the hardest ones for tomorrow, I'm sad to say. But at least I have some options with those.

Well, that's definitely all we have time for. I have to go to bed so I can wake up and grade before spending the day with Tot. Did I mention I have a toothache? And a slightly scratchy throat? Send flowers. I really hope to see all y'all on the other side. Especially if it's a healthy other side.

Getting Down to It

2011-04-04T13:17:00.002-04:00

Shhhhh. Don't tell anyone, but now I'm really really going to grade. I've got three hours. Let's see what can be done. And since I need to report back to y'all, at least I'll feel compelled to do something besides absentmindedly checking email and FB.

Get ready, get set, GO!

***Late Update***

So in 3 hours, I was able to get grades done for 5/20. Each one just takes a long time with all sorts of pieces. In the last two hours (from 10pm-12am) I've managed to do all the grades for my other class, except for some small fine details. So at least I won't have much of that hanging over my head, though I will definitely have to try to sneak in as much grading tomorrow (teaching day) as possible. Gah.

I'm Working!!! April Fools!!

2011-04-01T13:26:00.003-04:00

So today was supposed to be a day when I could relax, grading last quarter's portfolios and projects and starting my new syllabi from bed. I don't know why the image of this "relaxing" day always had me in bed, except in years past, I used to love working in bed with all my papers and books strewn about me. But, of course, there's no rolling out of bed and into coffee and work. There's taking Tot to daycare and then there was the leak under the sink.

So Tot, who deserves a better moniker, is moving up into the next room with the big kids. I think this is a great move for him, because being with the babies had him asking for a bottle. He's done a lot of new things lately: he's talking up a storm (often too fast for us to understand); he asks for milk, which is completely new; he responds to our calls that it's time to go to bed, somewhat. Which is a great foundation for the future. So I met the lead teacher, and we talked about organic and non-GMO food preferences and all the things they do in that room. It's more structured than the toddler room. On the one hand, I think this is great. On the other hand, I'm pretty convinced by the Montessori method of having children be self-directed in a carefully-constructed environment where they can work together and teach each other, as I went to a Montessori myself (though too late for it to be pivotal) and I am also highly critical of the general educational method with the hidden curriculum that says: sit and be quiet; the teacher will tell you the answer because you can't figure it out yourself; all answers are in books rather than in direct observation and experimentation; the way to success and approbation is through docility and following orders. Though I went to a nearby Montessori's open house day pretty recently and saw Tot focus on moving beans from bowl to bowl with a spoon, AL and I have been so busy and wanting to do our own thing in the odd hours that we haven't been able to have sustained conversations about this -- or anything. (We're totally talking past each other in our discussions of whether to move, sign another lease at this place, or what.)

Anyway, Tot moving up to the new room is good in any case.

So I've got ten portfolios staring at me (out of 19 I need to do and, I think, odd projects for about 8 students in my other class), but that doesn't mean I've done a darn thing. Instead I've been on the Timesuck, a.k.a. Facebook, which I had ignored for a few months. Two important discoveries: one person who I'm not friends with anymore but who I'm still curious about (I did Zie wrong, though I didn't do it on purpose and so Zie ended the friendship, which, I admit, was too much for me and had grown into something where I felt I couldn't be myself) has finally un-privatized hir FB info. So I'm weirdly glad to see that Zie looks so happy. Part of me wants to send a message to hir just saying that for all my thoughtlessness when we were friends, I think of hir still and wish Zie the best, but on the other hand I don't want to intrude. Much worse, it looks like my favorite couple in the world may be splitting up. Since I moved to the other side of the country, I've been out of touch with a lot of people -- and this split is just terrible. I hope I'm wrong.

There's been a lot of stuff going on at work -- lots of stuff I'm not very happy about. Lots of situations that really need to be addressed, but can I address them? Should I address them? And how do I explain to a certain Dickhead that rushing to a solution for a complex problem really disappoints me, angers me, and shows me that if Zie thinks that hir students don't take open-minded inquiry seriously, then I can bloody well see why. I realize lots of people don't agree with this, but to me service is a place where I'm called upon to walk the talk -- where I'm supposed to put my thoughtful and reflective scholarly self to work on shared problems. In fact, I've been raging pissed about this recently, but my therapist helped me with all this.

Therapy is going well. I'm also putting Tot into another day of daycare so I'll get more done. I'm determined to get that article to Fave Journal for a variety of reasons. Just determined. Since I got back from that conference I've felt so isolated -- both from friends and from the exciting conversations in my field. (Hence back on FB.) I've decided that I'm going to read more scholarship and do an article swap with a great friend-colleague of mine from grad school. Truth be told, I don't want to work on these student papers or my syllabi because I really want to be working on scholarship, but obviously I'm not doing that either.

So. . .I need to get to work. Even thinking of what I should do first and everything just takes the wind out of my sails. I guess I should get to work on a syllabus or two. Actually read the teaching journal I wrote. Blech. It doesn't sound like fun at all.

Another Day. . .

2011-03-28T10:59:00.003-04:00

after another night of Tot's restless nursing. I've felt a lot of external pressure lately to wean the Tot (from doctors and such), but ultimately had decided not to. Right now, I wonder. Though I guess that if he woke up in the middle of the night and I did not nurse him, I'd have to be much more awake than I need to be when nursing. On the other hand, I don't get a lot of sleep flipping us over from side to side either. Anyway.

Another day in which I discover another big lack of communication around a specific issue that absolutely affects students. It's one of those classic maneuvers actually, one of those that shows how faculty members do not understand how our classes build on one another, how faculty members treat their classes as if they are all one-offs, accountable to no one. No wonder students have such a fragmented experience. No wonder knowledge seems so disparate to students. Students are rarely encouraged to put it all together in a whole. Apart from the cognitive dissonance that this causes, other problems emerge with the bureaucratization of the mind, each piece in its own compartment. We're like that too, each faculty member in hir cell. It's not good. Not good.

Some of this is because of my department specifically. But I've also seen this in other departments, though, perhaps, less so because of majors and things. Sigh.

This week is my "spring break," as much as one exists on the quarter system when one still has all one's Winter grading splayed out over one's desk while syllabi are calling forth from the World of Possibility to be birthed into the world by next week, when we'll do it all again. I hate the transition from Winter to Spring quarter. I really do.

But today I have other fish to fry. Tot's eye doctor has prescribed patching, so I'm going in search of pirate hats and patches to make it all more fun for Tot (who is currently being annoying by taking apart the Hot Wheels track I just put back together). Any ideas of where to find pirate patches and hats during non-Halloween times? I figure a party store might be good.

Rallying for the Right to Know: Label GMO Foods Now

2011-03-26T12:59:00.005-04:00

Even if it's all icy outside (gorgeous -- the ice glistening on the trees), it's still time for a springy change here on the blog.

Today, there are Right to Know-Truth in Labeling for GMO foods Rallies all over the country. I'm not going to the one about an hour away because I got very little sleep (sick -- yes, still -- plus Tot sleep shenanigans), but I want to support them in any way I can. Even if you can ignore the research that shows that GMO foods are bad and ignore the doctors who are prescribing non-GMO diets to everyone as cranks, the fact is that here again we have big business unduly influencing government agencies. Apart from potential harm to human and animal health and the environment, the danger is that the biotech companies involved in GMO development (you know who I'm talking about) spend millions of dollars on lobbying the FDA to keep GMO foods unlabeled -- which means most of us are consuming GMO foods without knowing it. I don't want Big Biotech to decide what it's okay for me to eat. I don't want to be their guinea pig. And I don't want to have to find out whether GMO foods really cause pesticide production in our guts.

Moreover, scientists are warning the FDA that new pathogens are being developed from GMOs, pigs are too smart to eat GMO feed, and then there's this incredible scariness: agribusiness takes schoolteachers on Agriscience Bus Tours so that teachers will develop curriculum based on what they learn. And they are not learning about the dangers of GMO, nor are the tour leaders answering GMO concerns satisfactorily. I challenge you to look up teachers and GMO -- while there is plenty of stuff that is anti-GMO, there are also things like the Biotechnology Activity Book and other biotech lessons, "educating" our kids so that totally unnatural foods seem normal by teaching them in schools. Yuck.

Corporate propaganda in our public schools. Corporate influence on regulatory agencies. It's disgusting. I say we all revolt.

Conversation I Would Like to Have

2011-03-22T06:06:00.003-04:00

If Mommy doesn't get more than three hours of sleep per night, she will never ever get well from this cold!

To review the action for those lucky enough to have slept through the play by play:

9-11:30: Tot too restless and overtired to sleep. Mom would've had no trouble, but alas.
11:30: Woke up from what Mommy thought was a sound sleep
12:00: Finally got him to bed. Mommy went to bed.
2:00: Tot woke up with a leaking diaper.
2-3: Fitful sleeping by Tot and Mom with Mom fighting for space from Tot and Cat.
3:00: Must've slept.
5:00: Mom had to get up.

GAH! Thank God and all the little angels that this is the last day I teach at 8am.

As is usual when I wake up on time, I'm still late getting into the shower. No doubt my being in the shower will wake Tot, still in our bed.

A Few Minutes R & R

2011-03-20T23:31:00.004-04:00

from the I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired war.

I'm only letting myself write this blogpost because even though it would be great if I would use the last dregs of today getting some grading done to make tomorrow easier, I will probably go insane if I don't do something fun, something that reaches out past my life and its tight circles right now and toddlers who refuse to sleep at reasonable times.

You remember how in my last post I said I hate being sick? Well, let me amend that: I hate being sick for more than a week. Because this cold bloomed on the last day of the conference and was instrumental in me deciding not to bother turning back across the reservoir to hit up Taco Cabana, which is the greatest "fast food" in the world and can only mean I was feeling very very bad, its start date is etched on my memory: Friday, March 11. Today is Sunday, March 20. For the record: ill every moment since that time. It just sucks. (Then I got my period. And that super-sucked. TMI. Enough about that.)

So it's the end of the quarter and, having gotten so sick, I'm totally behind so now I'm grading a lot and being ill and taking care of Tot (that is, the usual -- and he's sick too) all at the same time. I'm also planning things to make my overall life better, like putting Tot into daycare another day each week, and picking him up earlier so that sometimes we can spend time together going to the park or whatever. But this doesn't help my immediate grading drama, because he's also got an eye appointment tomorrow -- and even if Absurdist Lover calls the daycare in the morning, which he said he would, it would be silly to put Tot in daycare for a few hours in the morning so I can get some grading done. (Of course, when I write it out like that, it seems perfectly reasonable to put him in daycare to get ahead. Well, if I can get up at a decent hour tomorrow, then maybe I can get a few done before Tot even wakes up. That would really help.)

During the times that I'm either wearily taking care of Tot or when I absolutely cannot grade and so am doing something else, I'm daydreaming a lot. I find myself obsessed by two different big and important work-related thoughts. I think I'll focus on one here and then save the other for another time.

I've decided to write a book.

How did such a decision evolve? Because it did evolve and now seems inevitable, but of course a few days ago it wasn't so obvious. Since I went to the conference, I've felt that I really should get on revising my dissertation work and writing this article for my Fave Journal. I even saw this CFP that is completely up my alley that I decided I wouldn't pay much attention to because what I really need to do is write this article for Fave Journal. In thinking about my problems with that article, I had this visual epiphany -- that I want each argument to really be a big file folder unto itself because I feel like everything I read is connected to those arguments. I just need more space than an article allows. And so I thought I'll write a book, but then thought I'd organize it completely differently from the dissertation. And then it occurred to me: instead of writing a book that places this new theory into too many sites and possibly takes on more than it can chew, why don't I look closely at the site I care most about and which will be most important to people in my field? I've gone back and forth on this in the past, deciding it would be a good idea, but not really being passionate about it, but this feels different. I want to do it, I ought to do it, I can do it, and I'm going to do it.

When I look at books in my field, some of them that are very powerful are actually very short. Some are barely over 100 pages. Of course, there are books that hit 200 pages, even 250. But that's about it. Not very many really big books. So I'm thinking about 180 pages, because I just can't imagine it being any shorter than that. And I've been thinking about how I want to proceed, how like Dr. Crazy, I'd like to set up a three-ring binder and tabs, though I also need some pockets as well to just put stuff in. I tend to end up cutting stuff up.

I think that the real hard part is going to be finding each major chapter's organization. I hope that at least one or two will come together organically; others I'll probably have to construct each awkward plank that gets us from here to there. Organization is my weak point because to me every argument ends up leading to every other argument in a way probably easiest to imagine representing with hypertext, but who wants to read that? I certainly don't want to construct that. (Sorry, all you hypertext scholar-writer-innovators.)

What does this mean for my tenure bid, which I had decided to base on articles? Well, as much as I've had a good year so far with decent things in the can, and another piece drafted, and another piece promised, I really want to keep it up. I'd like to have three pieces published in really stellar places by the time I go up for tenure. I've already got one, I think. A very important collection, I think, though I haven't yet seen any post-publication reviews. (Though this is the scholarly world: it could take years and probably will to get the thing reviewed. Now, if anyone quotes me, that will be a very different thing.) But what I'm saying is that even though I want to work on this book, I also want to work on articles. I must write that piece for Fave Journal; as I work on it and see the difficulties, I'll take notes for the book. If Fave Journal hates it, I'll revise it closer to the book and send it to Cool Journal.

What I'm doing is allowing myself to work on the book for 10 minutes per day -- and then that's it, because I have so much grading to do and when I get some time (like the three seconds between this quarter ending and the next one starting -- oh I hate this schedule so much) I need to really just cobble together a draft of the Much Needed Article and get some people to look at it. It just must be done and out, so I can think of other things.

But at least in my head, I'm writing a book. 10 minutes a day.

Back Home: Conference Reflections, Scholarship Concerns, Illness

2011-03-14T02:46:00.002-04:00

So I'm back from my conference. I survived. But here's the thing: I'd like to do a little better than surviving. I presented and people talked about my work (which was lovely, considering how isolated I am by the fact that no one does anything like my work at Specialized U -- that is, I focus on Root Vegetable Studies and related things, while my colleagues work on all sorts of other things in the Vegetative kingdom), but I felt underprepared and it showed. That is, I think my paper was underdone. The next conference I go to, which may be Interesting Conference or Fabulous Interdisciplinary Conference, both in the fall, I want to go with a much stronger paper. In order to do this, I think I must circulate it to my colleagues first. (I did this for my paper for last year's Big Conference, but ran out of time for this conference.)

But as I think about it, I realize that the problems I had were not general, but pretty specific to the focus of the conference -- as in not being able to speak to one thread of scholarship involved in the conference. Mostly I couldn't speak to it because I think the theorist and thus much of this one particular trajectory is bogus -- everyone in the world has critiqued the main theorist, but then they go on using some of the language and assumptions of the main theorist, when some of the main assumptions of the main theorist, in my opinion, are so flawed as to make any of the theory unusable. It's as if everyone feels they've got to argue with . . .Freud, let's say, but if we all keep agreeing that Freud was totally whacked, then what's the point? The issue, of course, is whether I'm in one of those fields that depend on Freud. (Like, if you're in psychoanalytic theory, I guess you'd still have to tangle with Freud.) I don't think of my field as having to tangle with this particular Freud. I didn't position my paper in any relation to Freud, but that didn't stop one of the featured presenters asking me to speak to my argument's relationship to Freud. Gah. I couldn't and ended up saying so. Though of course I spent the next 24 hours first thinking maybe I shouldn't position my work in the particular trajectory of my field that I do (which I still don't think depends on Freud, but maybe others do), then thinking through my ideas about what I remembered of Featured Presenter's question, then coming up with what I should've said to FP. Useful, in its way, but for a while there I was thinking I should just position my work in a totally different trajectory and get rid of all this crap. The truth is that my doctoral program wasn't strong in the trajectory of the field I eventually chose (which still doesn't depend on this Freud and that mini-trajectory), though very strong in another trajectory. This question and my lack of an answer really did mess with my confidence about myself as a scholar -- and I guess is still making me feel pretty iffy, though at least now I'm not thinking I should position my work in a totally different way.

In any case, this conference showed me a number of things, totally apart from whether Freud belongs in my work (and whether FP maybe had hir own ax to grind as well). One, that one of the major conversations of my General Field doesn't apply to me anymore because of the needs of the institution I work in. So when everyone talks about that, I feel really outside of things. This is sad to me. And one of the reasons why I think I really can't make a career out of teaching at this institution. Two, that I'm too isolated where I am, and that I need somehow to work on that. I really need the conversation of other people who are doing things sort of like what I do. As I think of people from grad school, for example, I knew several people doing work in my field, but only maybe one or two doing anything related to my specific focus. Now, those two that I'm thinking of were not people I was really close to. And there are problems with me trying to invent a group with them. But one way or the other I really need to find people who do work like mine, because somehow my work is so different that if I had to figure out outside reviewers right now, I'm not sure I could name them. Maybe I'm just not up on things anymore. Which wouldn't be terribly surprising. Seriously -- I was up on things, finished my dissertation, went to Adventure City, came back, got pregnant when I was underemployed, adjuncted, and got this job, which doesn't promote my being up on my field. So I guess I should cut myself some slack.

I say all this, but it's mainly my dissertation focus that is the trouble. It's so sweeping, really creating a new theory. Who else creates new theories that are like mine? Well, there's this one guy who is not in my field, but I've read his theory-creating before. But since he's not in my field, he's probably not a great choice for an outside reviewer. In some of my other work, I know who the movers and shakers are, who I'd call on to affirm the value of my work. Still. It's daunting.

Anyway, I would just once like to feel like I rock at a conference. I realize that's not the purpose of sharing one's work at conferences, but here I felt the stakes involved in presenting and wanting to come off as a serious young scholar, whereas at the biggies, I haven't. Of course, here one of my favorite scholars in the field, someone whose work was instrumental to my move from Backburner Field to my current field, was at my panel (not to see me, but to see someone else). Here's what I really want to say: I don't want to be mistaken for a grad student at my next conference. Period. End of story.

So, I need to make use of what resources I have. Circulate my paper to my local colleagues. See about making better relationships with people who can sustain my work, either because they're good friends or because they do similar kinds of work.

Oh. And also, going to a conference where you don't know anyone is not fun. You can't just sit there at dinner eating alone, which means you have to talk with people. But deciding where to sit is not easy. I realized how much social anxiety I have. It's just not easy for me to go up to people I don't know.

I realize that my attitude toward all this is also not the best because I managed to get sick on Day 3 of the conference, the day that I was returning home. So I have been sick ever since I got back, have saddled with AL with even more housework and toddlercare since I got home, got very little grading done, and am SO behind and am staring down the end of the quarter, which is great, but I've got to get so much shit done, it's scary. And I'm sick. I can't really even think of what to do about it all, except that I'm going to try to get some work done tomorrow (later today really) when I'm taking care of Tot. Gah.

I hate being sick.

Teething, Grading, Conference Paper Writing. . .Long Layers???

2011-03-07T12:18:00.002-05:00

I'm having one of those classic moments. I'm so anxious about the conference paper I've got to write and ALL the grading that is piled up (just give it up, English -- it ain't gettin' done), and I've got students emailing about their revisions and everything so that, of course, I'm browsing the internet for hairstyles. Oy gevalt. (Is this me trying to have me time or is this just avoidance? I am thinking about getting my hair cut for increased confidence at the conference, since my clothes are threadbare and my work not so hot.)

We finally figured out that Tot's cough that keeps waking him up is probably not a hold-over from his last cold, but from a new round of teething. Yay second molars. Oh goodie. Tot slept for a whole half hour of his nap yesterday and then woke up after about an hour last night. Tot ends up nursing all night, so I'm not getting much sleep. So I'm grumpy anyway today. I don't anticipate that tonight will be any different -- and I've got to wake up at 5am tomorrow. And as if I weren't already freaked out about going out of town (not being prepared plus just hating being gone, often convinced I'm going to die on the plane), now I'm worried that AL and Tot are going to have a terrible time because Tot won't have the comfort of nursing.

Meanwhile, I'm trying to figure out what to say in those three pages. I mean, who cares about Animal Mating anyway. And what does it have to say to Root Vegetables anyway? Am I just a pretender to Root Vegetable Studies anyway, since I'm really more of a theorist? Eeegads. So, in the interest of naming things properly: anxiety plus. Waaaa.

I Feel Better: Back to Overwhelmed

2011-03-06T11:50:00.004-05:00

I feel much better than I did when I last posted. I went to my therapy appointment, and Therapist is great. She nailed something about me immediately: I'm very anxious, but it comes out as anger. So true. I mean, for frigg's sake, I'm nearly forty years old, and I still bite my nails. Down to the quick. Except for a couple periods when I became devoted to getting acrylics, I've never had long nails in my adult life. I tend to bite off the acrylics, even.

So I feel better about the things that I was really worried about, mostly because when I came out of the therapy session, I decided to address them. And, as impossible as resolution seemed, they got resolved.

So now I'm just back to overwhelmedness -- or as I like to say -- overwhelm because of the normal things: I have a conference in mere days that I only have four pages for my seven page conference paper. In the paper, I'm presenting this research that comes from a Totally Different Field, so different we could call it Animal Mating, that I often draw on that illuminates some important issues and proclivities to Root Vegetable Studies. (You can see that people would often say: why use research from Animal Mating in Root Vegetable Studies? Well, I may be the only person who sees that these are related.) So I have four pages of Animal Mating -- and now I've got to draw out the implications for Root Vegetables and Root Vegetable Studies. Gah. Important work, of course, but could someone else do it please?

Last night, between the time that Tot went down to bed the first time and when he woke up coughing three hours later, I organized all my teaching materials for Freshman Class -- so now I know exactly how much grading I need to do, and it's all organized. Wow, I have a fair amount of grading to do, and it really would be good if the majority of it were ready for class on Tuesday. Could I carve out some time today and tomorrow to do it? Of course, but if I do that. . .what about that conference paper? Do I just leave it for the plane? Dear lord.

I must be in denial -- or I'd be anxiety-ridden and therefore, likely, angry. Instead, I'm just tired tired tired even with the thought of all this. While I was never good at the networking part of conferencing and the thought always stressed me out about conferences (note to self: anxiety), I really don't like conferences so much now that I've had Tot. I always get depressed at the thought of leaving town. And then I get there and can't sleep and feel all weird (note to self: anxiety about being gone) when I should feel elated that I can go to sleep and wake up when I want.

All that said, I've been doing some wonderful research gathering for my new elective. There's a field that I've long argued is vital to Turnip Studies that I'm really boning up on. And there's some local interest in there too, so I can immediately turn this stuff over to students too.

I'm teaching the exact same courses in Spring, which starts maybe a week or ten days after Winter ends. Blech. But at least I'm saving all my materials and handouts. I'm determined to be able to get more research done and stay caught up more on grading in the Spring, because I'm not making anything new. Prep done. These are my two core courses. No wonder I get burned out easily. Thank goodness I have an elective coming up soon after.

PS There's a terrible situation at my uni that I really feel I should do something about. Very depressing.

Compromise

2011-03-02T11:01:00.004-05:00

Today, everything in my life seems like a compromise. A compromise in which I've had to give up something important or several important things in order to have what I have. Today, I wonder if these compromises are worth it, whether what I have is worth having. In all this, thank God for Tot's smile and jubilance, without which things would be a whole hell of a lot worse.

How can I tell whether these compromises are worth it, just the cost of doing business, just the way it is and I should toughen up and not be such a whiner? My feeling about this fluctuates. Today, well, today just sucks.

Therapy tomorrow. That's good. And that's all.

Oh the Slog

2011-02-28T17:17:00.004-05:00

Well, I managed to do something I thought impossible. I graded 5 projects today while taking care of Tot. (AL's at work.) I'm finally done with this batch, having done 5 each day for the last 4 days, which I realize sounds like practically nothing, but. . .ugh. It's a lot. It's a lot to take time out of being with the family on the weekends. It's a lot when there's already so much to do. And these take a lot of time. Some are fine, just having trouble at trying something new that they're going to need to master. Some are completely maddening. All of them just require a lot of commenting because I do let them revise. Eeegads. It's just the usual stuff. Some plagiarism. Some blowing the assignment off, though the major assignment-blower also hates the subject we've been covering, so I had to be careful about how to address hir's work. Part of me just wants to scream: you're wrong! and be done with it. But there are other, more serious issues to address, so I don't do that.

I want to feel triumphant because I'm finally done with this set of projects, but instead I feel deflated. I have these to hand back tomorrow, but I'm going to have to look at practically all of them again, hopefully in much better shape. There are some great points to my job that especially work for my life right now, but the teaching situation of exactly what I'm teaching and whom I'm teaching it to is not one of the perks. Basically, remember that I'm working on a project that I'm calling Turnip Studies, which is very closely related to Root Vegetable Studies. I consider myself very much a scholar of Root Vegetable Studies. My field is Vegetable Studies, but what I teach is Tomato Studies, which many people consider a part of Vegetable Studies, but it's also a field unto itself and connected to Fruit Studies (not Sisyphus's Fruit Studies) because there are so many tomatoes in the world and they are quite popular and distinctive. I can do Tomato Studies and even have some non-academic experience with Tomato Studies, but I am not a big fan and never dreamed I'd be teaching Tomato Studies quarter after quarter. (Most people in Vegetable Studies focus on Squash Studies, by the way.) I am teaching a class in Root Vegetables pretty soon (yay!), but since most of my students don't care about any vegetable but tomatoes and the occasional pepper, I don't know if anyone will sign up.

In a recent department meeting, I found myself so depressed to realize that all of the issues on the table were ones that really require members of my group to address them (and there aren't enough of us to spread them around and some of us really don't help either -- and we get no course releases for resolving these issues for the university, though that's exactly what we need to do) that I started fantasizing about lifting up and out of this situation and going to a new one. On the other hand, I look at what some of y'all are up against, and I think how well my job works for my life, if not for me, right now. For example, most of the faculty in my department live elsewhere and drive in. So it's normal that people aren't in every day, but only on the days they're teaching and for the occasional meeting. This situation is exacerbated by the fact that my department is considered non-essential to the workings of the university and that members of my department have really low morale for a bunch of good reasons. So no one expects anyone to be there beyond their duty. This works for me right now because I get to spend time with Tot during the week. Now, really I'd like to spend my career in an active thriving department where we spearhead a lot of projects. But this way I can spend my time with my family. It's all very strange because when I was in grad school thinking about the kinds of jobs I wanted, I didn't imagine a family in the mix. Of course, I couldn't imagine how having a family would change my perspective on what's important. And all that said, I really love my scholarship and love what's coming up for me in the coming months on that front. When I went up on the job market the year I got this job, all I wanted was a regular paycheck. I still want that. I can't complain.

But grading's a slog. A merciless slog. And there's more coming up.

Here's a bit of what I need to do in the next ten days:

Read and respond to a colleague's article.
Write handout for Junior's project 4.
Grade Junior class presentations.
Grade Freshman class presentations.
Grade Junior class projects.
And, by the way, I have a conference paper to write for next week.

GAH! Gotta go. Tot needs his diaper changed.

Attempting the Near Impossible

2011-02-26T11:28:00.004-05:00

It's 11:30, and I'm totally not really awake yet. Despite my efforts (giving my two-year old the purple stuff that he's not supposed to have until he's four -- but what do you do when you want your congested and coughing tot to sleep so you can sleep and your pediatrician has already prescribed something extremely similar previously -- so much for doing things the natural way -- wow, I'm totally defensive about my parenting -- anyway), Tot woke up at 6am and kept me awake until 8, then we let him watch a movie while we slept, then finally AL got up with him so I could sleep until 10:30, and I'm still completely exhausted. As you can probably tell from some of our parenting choices, we're totally overwhelmed right now. I pretty much feel like a terrible parent, but I hope our choices are defensible in that put-the-oxygen-mask-on-yourself-first way. Also, I suppose Tot will not be forever scarred by watching Elmo in Grouchland in his playpen.

Also, I just feel a bit defensive in general. I don't get much time for myself. Why when I'm at work and supposed to be grading do I end up surfing the web looking at your blogs and get so behind? Because I don't get much time for me in my life, and I'm a person who needs a lot of alone time. Just to figure out my muddled thoughts. Just to figure me out, because I am moody and volatile -- pretty much, by nature. So I've already told AL that I'm staking the claim for more me time -- so that I'll be a better parent, a better partner, a better professor.

On that front, I'm delighted to tell you that I actually called and made an appointment with a therapist. Yay! Huzzah! I have issues, dude. And I need to work them out. I need to work on my anger management. I also need to work out big issues from my childhood and how this affects my perspective on things. It bothers me how many times I've been over the same territory, but I think I figured out the other day that it's just never over. It's never just finally done with. I want it to be done and worked out and never have to think about it again because I'm okay and well and the trauma is over, but perhaps it's just never over. For years and years and years I've figured there has to be something wrong with me medically because I'm so volatile and sensitive -- or maybe I have ADD, or I'm bipolar or whatever. Maybe I just have PTSD. I don't know. But I want to be a better less volatile parent -- and if love of myself and my friends has never provided the kick in the ass I needed, well, finding myself screaming at my kid because he's doing kid things, well, I'm sure that other parents have screamed at their kids in bad moments and I'm pretty sure Tot won't be permanently scarred, but I refuse to be my mother and I really do love Tot more than anyone else in the world and he fucking deserves better, so I'm going to therapy.

Well, obviously I needed to say all that. I had a very bad Thursday where I basically showed up near-tears in my best faculty friend's office. And I haven't even had time to reflect on it or write about it or anything because that's the way my life is. Errgh.

But the near impossible thing I simply must do is try to grade. Tot is taking a very early nap, which means I've got to hop-to and get some grading done -- since I spent Thursday focusing on me things instead of grading and now I'm behind. (I hate that. There's no time for me in my day. I go straight from Professor Earnest to Mommy to a smidgeon of time if I'm lucky between Mommy and bed.)

Anyhoo, I've got to find my Professor hat and work on these projects. Gah. But I'm glad I'm managed to tell y'all that I finally am making some great strides toward this year's goals of health and peace.

Musings from Grading Jail

2011-02-23T11:59:00.006-05:00

We had another terrific snow this week, after highs in the 50s and all the snow melting away last week. I swear we had a couple days of spring, though I didn't like it at the time because 1) I worry about how the warm-up and refreeze will affect the apple trees (the apple harvests in our areas tanked last year because of a late freeze); 2) I haven't ordered the seeds I'm going to start indoors yet. So the snow means I've gotten a reprieve on that front.

But the grading front? There IS no reprieve. Let me recount for you. I have had one class's projects for an embarrassing length of time. I'd really like to get them back to students on Friday (when I'll be picking up projects from my other class). Then I also have two stacks of other stuff to grade and get back: one from each class. Eeegads. Every quarter I say I'm going to keep on top of grading, and each quarter I get sick, the world seems to collapse, and I get behind.

So. Tot is asleep at an uncharacteristically appropriate nap time. He keeps waking up in the middle of the night and wanting to come in with us, which I let happen because it's much easier than staying up and trying to get him back into his crib. But then I don't get much good sleep. There was a ridiculous moment where the cat was taking up all of Tot's space, who was basically squishing me off the bed. AL manages to sleep through all of this most nights, though there are the nights where he's hanging off the edge of the bed for dear life. A Queen size bed. When Tot got out of bed at 7:30 this morning, I was not a happy camper, especially because my leg hurt from all the weird positions I was sleeping in.

(Can she procrastinate for another paragraph? Yes, she can!) Part of the problem with these projects is that each one takes a long time -- and even though I've done my best to make sure it's on a topic that I'll enjoy reading about, it's still in a format that I never thought I'd be teaching quarter after quarter. It occurs to me that this is not what I went to grad school for. I mean, I remember wanting to teach a class like this so I'd be more competitive on the market. But I didn't realize I'd be teaching this damn thing every quarter.

It looks like we may have to wait a year to buy a house in order to have the two years of solid paychecks from both of us -- and maybe that's a good thing. Despite that I love some of my colleagues (some), maybe I really should look around next job season. Maybe we don't want to stay and put down roots here. (Easy to say that in the winter with the scary slippy-slidey winter driving.) Maybe I don't want to spend my entire career here teaching things I don't value. (I don't always teach things I don't value. Just some of the things I have to teach. In every class, I teach things I value highly -- granted, to students who just couldn't. care. less, but they're the ones who need it the most, right?) I don't know. I do know that I'm inordinately excited about putting my annual report together this year (which is still several months off) because my long-awaited article finally came out and I have another, much smaller, much less prestigious publication (but still!), due out before annual report time. Of course, if I go on the market, this isn't really enough. Well, I'm not going to drive myself crazy. Looking around is not the same as really doing the job market. But in any case, I'm really excited about doing more scholarship and sending things out -- to paraphrase The American President: I don't want to just make tenure; I want to make it with a couple of touchdowns.

But alas. Those papers aren't going to grade themselves. It's even more difficult to get myself to do these because this class has been full of stupid student tricks -- like people just blowing things off and then a bunch of international students who really don't have the literacy to be in the class, yet are. Ah freshmen.

Okay, so I'll try for two projects in the next hour, which is all I can count on Tot to sleep anyway.

***Update***

Alas, I barely got one done, and Tot is awake! But at least it was interesting.

Back to the Old Accountablogging

2011-02-20T11:56:00.004-05:00

One of the most difficult things about my life for me is using the little pockets of time I do have well. AL took Tot with him to Target, so I have a little time to grade. Oh dear, do I have to? But I want to just lie around and sleep a bit more. Look at seeds I should be starting very soon. Read blogs (though y'all are "helping" me with that one, since none of you are updating your blogs -- no doubt you're curled up sleeping, which is what I'd like to be doing).

But because public accountability/avoiding humiliation usually kicks me into gear, I'm blogging to let you know that I'm going to try to grade before the whirlwinds come back. I'd really like to grade three projects. I'll let you know how it goes.

***Update***

AL and Tot came in before I finished the third project, but then Tot was tired and fell asleep for his nap. So now I've finished the third one and geared myself up for working on a fourth. Though truth be told, I'm going to look and see if any of y'all have updated your blogs first. I need a break.

***Update***

Got part way through a fourth, then Tot woke up.

Too Frigging Much

2011-02-17T23:01:00.003-05:00

Oh my friends, my brain is scrambled. There is too much going on, hence no blogging. It's been ironic and silly to see that last post up so long, as if I were going to get scholarship done. As it happens, it's been impossible. For multiple reasons.

The first and most important tonight is that my father had life-altering surgery a few hours ago. My sources say that it went well and that it was a good decision considering what they found. Though there will be a long recovery period, this surgery is hopefully the show-stopper for my father's continuing problems. The man has been in and out of the hospital for a month. I talked to him a few days ago, and he was quite slurry, very down. Getting ill is so bad because it's not just a physical one, it's an emotional and psychological one as well. It colors the eyes with which one sees and encounters the world.

And I know this because I've developed back problems -- an actual ligament sprain or something comparable and have been in intermittent pain. Sometimes really bad, but mostly pretty manageable. But it's still pain. And I get grumpier faster. At first, I thought I was somehow imagining it, but after three weeks I went to the doctor -- and it's completely real. I'm on prescription doses of ibuprofen and now two people have suggested that I wean Tot off breast feeding so that I can take the muscle relaxers the doctor would have given me if I weren't breastfeeding. It really would never occur to me to wean Tot so I could take some pill, but partly this has got to be because I've had really bad experiences with muscle relaxers.

Tot is sick. AL is staying home with him tomorrow, thank God and thank AL.

I have my impossibly-early and long day tomorrow. Teaching all my classes. Oh woefully behind grading. A weird possibly stormy possibly thorny issue arising in my department that I'm very concerned about is helping me crystalize my thinking about pedagogy. An upcoming conference for which I believe my paper was misplaced in its panel. An abstract due tomorrow. Appointments with students. Myriad service obligations. Must call my father. Must get the abstract done. Must grade. Must prep for class. tiltTiltFULLTILT.

What Is This Scholarship Plan You Speak Of?

2011-01-30T00:25:00.004-05:00

We're back down to Defcon 5 in the Absurdist Household. We're all sick with some weird thing that comes and goes, and I've talked with the Head Teacher at Tot's daycare and remember why we put Tot in her care. It's not that I like the daycare (or that I don't); I like her. Since he is due to graduate from her room probably at the end of the academic year, that might be a natural time to take him somewhere else, if in fact we're going to do that. Basically, if there's one more problem, then we'll pull him.

But one thing I've found as we're all sick and have very limited downtime is that I'm enjoying using that free time to think about research. But in order to turn that thinking time into progress on projects, I need to figure out which projects I'm working on, what to do next, etc. I've gone ahead and proposed a writing group, but I need to be more specific with myself, both about times and plan of attack.

Times: I only have three days that I can realistically think about writing/working on scholarship: Tuesday, Thursday, Friday. Two of those days are also big teaching days in which I might, might occasionally be able to swing an hour on one or the other day, but not both days in a given week. I think my goal is going to have to be something like doing four hours per week, tops, one on one the days I teach and three on the non-teaching day. Maybe I can do some work at home too. I think whereas other people fare better if they pick a definite time, I will be better off if I pick a certain number of hours per week. But doing so begs the question: how much time should I be spending if I work a 40-hour work week? It's been a while since I looked at the faculty handbook, but I don't think it divided our jobs into percentages or anything. Though from every single report I've heard at Specialized U, the important issue to focus on for tenure is research. Even without those anecdotes though, there are still very clear signals in the structure of my job that research is important. But how much is enough? How many hours per week on research is appropriate considering its perceived importance in terms of structural elements and its actual importance to my bid for tenure (which, yes, I'm obsessed about, but only since I got ever closer to my requirements recently, as I dream about my much-improved-from-last-year annual report -- yes, I am a nerd)?

From the perspective of the importance of research to my tenure bid, I'd say I should spend at least one-third of my time on research, which would be 13 hours/week.

From the structural stuff, I would think that there's an expectation that I'm going to spend 25% more of my time on research during an entire year. But more than what or whom? Someone who has tenure. And what's that expectation? I just don't know. If it were 1/3 of the time, then instead of 13 hours, it would be 16 hours. (I think. I've had a long full day and math is not my strong point.)

Of course, I do get other time off, so it's not like during teaching quarters is the only time for me to get that work done. But truly, I have, maybe 5 hours per week to write right now. Sure, I do other things, like do searches and write emails and search for conferences and all that stuff in the in-between hours, but I can't write in 5-minute intervals or bleary-eyed end-of-days (but I apparently can make my plans then -- though in looking back over this in the morning, I've had to fix tons of typos). So, I think my goal is going to be 5 hours of focused stuff: writing and reading. (I say this, and actually I've been reading a scholarly book and writing long emails and things in the in-between hours, but I haven't gotten any writing done. Should I focus this time on writing? Probably, though that would never actually fly because I need the reading as a transition.) So I'll try to do one hour on one of the hard days, and then three hours on the easy day and maybe try to dig up another hour somewhere. So I'll try for four hours initially.

Now, there's the matter of my projects:

Article for Fave Journal: I've been talking about this since the beginning of time. It's getting to feel like this work is, for me, a bit historical. And I kind of hate that feeling, because I did so much work and have recently read the Second Edition and have done other things in the same area. But right now I'm having a problem. Basically I argue for this cool new idea/concept/area of Turnip Studies. But whereas before I didn't distinguish between whether Turnip Studies was to prevent badness or promote goodness, as if in preventing badness you're also doing goodness, now I think that distinction may be an important one, one where you can't say that in preventing badness, you're promoting goodness, because there's a difference between not doing badness and actually doing goodness. There's that whole area where you're not doing bad, but you're not doing good either. And I can't figure out whether it's enough of an argument to develop Turnip Studies just to prevent badness. I also really want to draw connections between Turnip Studies and doing good. Yes, I think that's the problem -- and maybe my challenge. That's what I need to make sure to do more: draw connections between Turnip Studies and promoting good. That's a goal. I can do that research. Then I also really just need to revise what I have and get cracking on the revision ideas I already had.
I've been invited (how cool is that -- yes I mentioned this before but I'm still totally jazzed about it, especially as I start to scratch the surface of research) to write a chapter on something that puts two of my interests together in such a way that is so cool, yet makes me need to do a ton of new-to-me research. This thing doesn't have a publisher or anything, so it's not on the fast track or anything. But I would like to collect research for this -- and already have. So really, first I have to find the stuff I need, then write about it and sift through it for the good stuff to write about, then do the focused study. I don't think I'm going to bother with focused study until the thing is contracted and has a deadline (which I have no doubt it will be -- just with whom and when, etc), but I do want to collect the material and sift through it. So that takes up some research time: the finding, the reading, the writing.
Conference paper due in March. I haven't started but I've got serious ideas -- and think that whatever I write there is sufficiently different and useful enough that I should think about another article coming out of it. Part of this paper is theory, which I've covered before elsewhere and just need to craft, but part of it is also going to be a study, and that's the part that once I've started, I might as well go ahead and flesh out for an article. Be that as it may, the conference paper's got to get written -- and it's already the end of January.
Conference proposal due in April. I want to go to a certain conference I don't usually go to, and while conference proposals are usually not really difficult for me to come up with, this one may well be. So I'm going to have to devote some time to a newer side project, because my usual work doesn't fit into their call.

That's a lot. I know I should work on that conference paper due in March. I always leave these things to the last minute (though I was done editing my last conference paper on the plane to the conference, which is a record for me lately) and the paper suffers for it. And this conference is so cool that I'd really like my paper to be pretty decent. But I also feel like if I continue to put off Project 1, I'm never going to get it done. So I think I need to figure out a way to work on both Projects 1 and 3 at the same time -- and as the conference gets closer, I'll do less and less on Project 1 and focus on Project 3. But for the next two weeks, let's say, I still need to make some small headway on Project 1 because I just haven't made any since classes started. Just none. And no matter how things are livening up for me publishing-wise, that doesn't feel good to have this article I've wanted to write languishing for so long. I just feel like I'm never going to get this article out. So I must do something on it -- and soon.

I'll also continue to collect Project 2 stuff; I already got something ILL'd to me that looked really good, though I shouldn't spent the time I'd like to reading the entire book. I should just read the chapter that matters.

And I'm officially putting Creative Work on the backburner: I've gotten two rejections in the last two weeks -- and I'm thinking that my Creative Work just isn't very good. Though I'm simultaneously thinking that whether my CW is good or not is not a reason to stop writing it; my job is not to evaluate the work, but to keep plugging, writing it and sending it out. But I have no time or energy to work on it right now. I will try to send it back out though. When? In those mythical in-between times.

Daycare Problems: What Do You Think?

2011-01-26T08:00:00.008-05:00

Oh, I feel so beaten down, trampled really. I know part of it is that I'm sick. My dad is still in the hospital and we're wondering if his being in so long for extra tests signals the Big C; I talked to my brother yesterday and among other things, we discussed Dad's values -- his fancy cars and charging high rent to his kids on an apartment he probably couldn't get rented anyway. So it was already an emotional day. I also didn't manage to eat after breakfast until I got home. But the trampling has to do with Tot's daycare. I desperately need an outside perspective.

Last night, when I picked up Tot, I noticed he was trying to sit down without sitting on his butt -- and his thermals were all bunched up inside his pants. When we changed him, we found had the worst case of diaper rash I've ever seen on the little guy. Painful to look at. A couple layers of skin off. Really bad. And he was clearly in pain, though before he had been basically his happy self, though he's sick (and we clearly shouldn't have taken him into daycare yesterday in the first place).

Both AL and I were freaked out about the diaper rash: he didn't have it in the morning. I changed him, and though I don't remember particularly looking at his butt, I know I would've noticed that. Of course, this puts the question mark on what's going on at daycare. But really, he just has a terrible bout of diarrhea (which we've figured out since) and it's irritating his skin -- and I'll bet dollars to donuts the poor guy is scratching. (Poor thing has my super-sensitive skin.) I had initially thought that he had a skin reaction to the eucalyptus oil I was experimenting with because it's supposed to be good for colds. But now I don't think that was it. Anyway. This isn't the problem.

The problem is that when we took off his pants and thermals, we saw there was poop on them. That's not cool. He has extra clothes, so it wasn't that they didn't have extras and he had to wear them. The daycare people must've not noticed. On the one hand, I can see how it happened -- how they would just not notice, especially in the case of a big bad terrible poop, which is likely what was going on. On the other hand, do I really want my treasure in a place where they didn't notice that there was poop on his clothes? Even on the outside of his clothes? (I guess it's possible that they saw and made the judgment that it wasn't worth changing his clothes because we'd pick him up soon, but that's not a great judgment either.) This comes on top of some issues that have made me a little worried about this daycare in the past, especially about their respect for following parents' instructions. I could go on and on about their totally insane food choices -- okay, so they don't care about GMO or organic or whatever, but everyone knows about what sugar does to children and how children need nutritious food and someone please tell me what possible effing nutritional value Nilla Wafers have? Anyway.

AL put it very simply: we pay them to provide the care that we would. He took me into the bathroom to look at Tot's clothes soaking in the sink: is this what we want for Tot? Is this what we pay for? He's decided that Tot is not going back there. He's taking days off work to make sure Tot is okay. (And there's no way that Tot is starting new daycare all sick and rashy.)

In order to present this correctly, I have to say that Tot has learned all his letters and now sings the alphabet song (though with letters omitted) primarily because this place has done such a good job with him. Not that I care whether Tot is a verbal genius, necessarily. I want him to eat well and be well cared for. I want him to be able to run around. When he's there, he seems to be quiet and into himself. That's not strange for his age or temperment -- AL and I were and are both very animated and goofy at home (when I have the energy, which I frequently do not), but are sometimes withdrawn and reserved out there in the world, especially when we're uncomfortable. Is Tot uncomfortable there? I don't know. He's not as excited about going there (and I can say that the tenor of the place has changed a bit lately), but doesn't cry when I leave either. (He does sort of follow me around and doesn't want me to leave, but I don't know if that signifies anything but that I am his mom and he prefers me.)

Here's the thing: on the one hand, I think AL is leaping to a decision here. He's not being fair to the place. Tot was not endangered in any way -- and a little poop on his clothes is not the worst thing in the world. On the other hand, is that what I want for Tot? What duty do I have to be fair to the place, when the most important thing is Tot? When it comes to my kid, I don't have to be fair. In fact, my duties are to do the best for him. Can I really say now that this place -- poop on his clothes, food issues, respect for parents issues -- is the best we can do? Furthermore, do I want to argue to keep him there? Do I feel so great about it that it's worth arguing about? No, not really.

I'm really freaked out. And I'm not sure whether it's the daycare, my concern for Tot and his diaper rash (which is really terrible to look at), that I'm sick, AL's strong reaction, or just the accumulation of all this on top of my father in the hospital and my poor unhappy brother.

Oh, I hate searching for new daycare. Despite that there are tons of daycares in the area, it never feels empowering. Our stance on vaccinations and food makes us fringe -- and I always feel at a disadvantage. I know I'm paying them -- and in a consumer economy (yeah right) that's supposed to give me the advantage -- but they've got something up on me -- we're talking about my son. My precious, my only, my baby son. (Yes, I'm being melodramatic, but I feel melodramatic. And he's no longer a baby. He's two.)

I'd really like to hide under a rock.

Sitting in the Dark, Writing

2011-01-23T23:57:00.003-05:00

It's the middle of the night -- everyone's finally asleep and I called my father and he still doesn't know whether he's his chronic illness has gotten significantly worse or not -- and anyway I should go to sleep, but here's something about this last week that I want to remember:

When I was at work, I had those moments when I couldn't settle down into doing the next thing and was sort of at a loose end -- I think this often or maybe even always happens after teaching -- and since I teach at 8am, it's the first thing I do and then I have a big break after it -- and so what I did about it this week was I tried to stop myself from checking my email a dozen times and clicking through webpages and instead got out my notebook to figure out what it was I should be doing. When I got unmoored, I returned to the page to get my bearings. My creative work may be going no place (I got a rejection last week from a place I thought I had a good chance with), but writing is still a home place for me. Maybe that's what being a writer means for me, nothing about publication or readers or a vision.

But then what about the place of blogging? In some ways, it's some of the most private reflective writing I do -- not like the notebook where I'm often negative without being reflective about it -- I mean I get there eventually, but I think I'm often pretty generous with myself about letting myself bitch -- it's not like the pressure of an audience to make you hurry to being a better self -- that accountability for what you're putting out into the world and who you want to be. On the other hand, this writing is also some of the most public communication; as I sit in the dark at my kitchen table, I have no control over who reads this, little over how it gets used. This is one of the outlets for the democratic voice, but not necessarily the one most likely to effect change in a political way. It's really interesting that way. I'm just forming my thoughts about it all. What do you all think about writing and blogging, blogging and politics, blogging for social justice and change?

By the Skin of Our Teeth

2011-01-23T13:01:00.003-05:00

We made it through the second week of what will likely forever be known in our house as the Winter-from-Hell. This waking up super-early is really hard on the entire family. Tot has a cold, natch. I was having some mystery pains and then got my period and was super-bitch yesterday. Absurdist Lover is slogging through his job, which he hates. My father is in the hospital with a bad flare-up of his chronic illness. Fun the whole way around.

I have some stuff I want to blog about my scholarship. I've been doing important things while nursing and praying for my son to sleep, like deciding to name my work Turnip Studies. (He's been going to sleep at midnight and, you have to understand, there's not a lot that can make you smile while you're sitting there in the dark hoping your tot will go to sleep and hoping you will not.)

But this is not the time. I can only describe the mood I'm in as the kind of mood when you decide that it makes sense to go trolling the internet for celebrity gossip. I think I'm going to order some old movies. I'm just tired and grumpy, glad it's the weekend because I could not be kind and supportive to worried students just now (especially those having trouble following my directions!!!). We're a sick house, watching lots of Elmo videos. I haven't left the house in over 24 hours, and I'm sure the Coffee Corporation is suffering without my patronage. We ate all the chocolate in our house last night. It's freaking cold. Grumble, grumble. I'm still here, but not so pleasant. Sorry. I shall return when I have something new to say.

Making It through the First Week

2011-01-14T23:20:00.006-05:00

Wow. I don't know even what to say, but wow. I'm teaching at 8am course. Teaching at 8am means I have to wake up at 5 because it takes me a really long time to wake up and get my tongue untied and because I'm still nursing the Tot and he needs to eat before I run out for a really long day. It's also winter, which means there's all that extra bother in the morning with the car -- and then there the actual driving which could be terrible. And when I'm driving, it's still dark out. I'm visiting the Coffee Corporation before I go into work, not that I haven't been normally, but this is a must! And then there's actually teaching a full course of none-too-happy freshmen who only reluctantly take my course even as they grudgingly admit that it's useful and they need it. Great. That attitude always makes everything fun -- especially at 8am.

But this is the course I decided to theme, and so I'm determined to have fun with it. I've actually completely revamped my courses, and, inspired by this and the example of a Senior Scholar back at Grad City U, have decided to really experiment with non-traditional grading. I find myself hating grading, and it occurs to me that straining my brain to figure out whether a paper is a B- or C+ is not a great use of my time -- and does the students precious little good too in terms of actual learning and improving their skills. I also revamped my upper division course. Whereas last year I felt that I was in the wrong place, now I feel a bit invigorated by the challenge of presenting such alternate ideas in front of them. (They can argue them down and become more critical thinkers that way.) Or, maybe, with my birthday this year making me feel distinctly middle-aged, I just want to be less Miss Nice and Trying to Help, and relax into being more myself. Maybe not so helpful all the time.

I calculated my hours by writing down when I was working at home and assuming that when I was at work, I was working (which was not always true because sometimes, like today, I find it hard to settle down after I teach into getting anything done). For the week, it is about 32 hours. But who knows what I will do over the weekend (and I do need to do quite a bit actually). I think it will be just about 40 in the end, and so I shouldn't worry anymore about the actual hours or whether I'm overdoing or underdoing, but whether I'm getting done what I wanted to get done. I'm going to try to keep on top of things this quarter, though I already feel all my different commitments spreading me out. For that reason, this financial seminar that I thought I'd take to get the money under control -- well, I've decided I'm not going to add any activities that do not contribute directly to my immediate physical and mental health. The finances certainly do that but at the cost of one evening per week. This quarter is already going to be severely taxing. I'm changing the habits of a life time and saying no to spreading myself too thin.

I actually want to use little bits of time I may have for work because good things are happening on the scholarly front: my little article got accepted, and another Senior Scholar (who surprised me in the dark ages of this blog by asking me for a copy of my dissertation when such dissertation was more imaginary than real) invited me to submit an essay for a volume. The volume is in an area I used to do more work in, or was trying to, but when I received the invitation I couldn't help but sketch out some ideas, even though I haven't yet answered Zie's email. In addition to that, I looked online and saw that the Edited Collection should be out any day now. Hopefully winging its way through the mail to me! I still need to work on a piece for my favorite journal, but these other good things help me to build confidence because my article is not a small one, but an encapsulating theory for doing things differently. Some would say that such a young scholar shouldn't sketch out such big ideas, but. . .who cares! That's the other side of my Middle Aged Status: I just want to say to the powers that be: look, I've done it your way and it's never made me happy or made it easier to sleep at night. Now I know what I'm doing. I know the risks. Leave me alone. I'm not sure who I'm saying that to though. Probably my own voice of fear. So, I hope, I'll soon stop wringing my hands and get started on revising the darn thing.

I also did a colleague a favor. While I was happy to do it, especially when Chair came to me looking distinctly uncomfortable and I had the power to make Zie comfortable, I only realized afterward how this favor makes it impossible for me to do some fun things that I might not have done anyway, but at least I would've had the chance. Oh well. I think this is one of those short-term trade-offs for long-term dividends.

Finally, I'm taking a break from Facebook. There are just too many people out there who drive me crazy. I keep thinking that Facebook can be this space, like other aspects of our lives, where we can live our values. And if someone says something stupid or heartless or racist, we can engage them and try to do something about it. Lived activism. But maybe we can and maybe we can't. But I don't have the energy to pour into engaging with these people. Instead of telling you exactly what's going on, I'm going to tell you a story.

~~~Wavy lines. Wavy lines.~~~

In my high school, everyone ate outside in their own little enclaves (except the Band people, who often ate in the band room), rarely mixing groups. But I moved around a lot. I had a group of friends who were the Good Girls, a group of Mormon and other girls who often talked about the details of the soap operas their mothers would record for them. While the Head Mormon Girl and I often clashed on different things, she and I agreed that this was stupid and we rolled our eyes when the girls started up. But I could only take a certain amount of the whole thing, and when I'd had enough I would silently vow that the next day I wasn't coming back to the group. I'd make some excuse for the next day, say I had to do something, but the next day I'd really dash into the lunch area for a bagel, then jet into the library and hide in a cubicle. Sometimes I just needed to be away from people, away from where I could be looked at, from where people would ask what I was thinking, where I could read or stare out into space, or just be. I'd also wander to other groups, often not rejoining the group for weeks or months.

-Dissolve to present.-

That's what I need to do now. I need to admit that I'm no longer interested in hearing from this little group (actually a specific person) and remember that there was a reason why I jetted out of my nice little suburban Republican upper-middle class subdivision just as fast as my little legs could take me. They don't get it. And while I think someone needs to set them straight, I'm not that person. I have students who I have high hopes for. I have a gorgeous son. I'm chronically exhausted because I have to wake up early, and then later I can't fall asleep and just toss and turn. (True quotes from this morning: "I tossed and turned for about an hour last night." "Wow, maybe you have a problem." "Yes, I do. It's called insomnia." You can see what a snarky bitch I am, even to someone who I love and who loves me, in that wretched place called morning.) I've got scholarship to work on. I can't be thinking about how pissed off I am about one idiot's idiocy. (Of course, the real problem is not Facebook or even this person, but that I can't control my mind's propensity to obsess and fret. I think really I'm just mad that I don't have the ready tools and evidence to argue her down, as if since I'm a professor (isn't that nice to say?) I should be able to refute her arguments from memory. But I can't. And I can't control my mind's obsessive nature either. So instead, just get rid of the contraption causing the problem.)

No yoga yet, but I'm close. The first week is always hard.

I'm falling asleep. Well, that's good at least. Good night and happy long weekend full of inspiration to join together and work for social justice!

Theming the Year and Trying to Get to the Truth about Workload

2011-01-10T12:01:00.004-05:00

I don't usually do the whole theme-the-year thing that a lot of you do, but this year I think I'll try it. I'm torn between "Health" and "Peace," which roughly amount to the same thing. I want to approach various parts of my life in a healthier or more peaceful way: academic work, parenting, partnering, connecting with others. I want to be less angst-y and recognize that in some cases it really is a choice. Writing my recent short article was a great lesson for me -- instead of metaphorically grinding my teeth and generally working with a great deal of friction, I just got on with it and did it. I didn't panic, didn't worry anxiously that the editors wouldn't like it or that I sucked or anything. I just worked and got it done. I think that this is how I got the dissertation done on my best days, but it's hard to remember that when those days were interspersed with angsty, procrastination-filled days when I couldn't sit still and settle down into the work. That anxiety often gets in my way. And so often it's about the future, which I can't control anyway.

Then there's my actual physical health, by which I mean that I need to get some exercise, especially since I eat pretty well -- probably too much, but I eat tons of veggies due to my winter CSA. I'd also like to get a handle on my finances, which I've got a plan for.

But what I've been thinking about for the last few days is really marking how many hours a day I'm working. I have this general sense that because I only go to campus three days a week (typical for my university with all the commuting professors) I'm not really working enough. And then I have this inferiority complex and try to take on too much. I really do too much service, probably, but most of it is stuff I really believe in so much it would hurt for me to leave it alone. (Some things are using skills and interests that only I have, you see.) But though I was having a really hard time getting my syllabi done when I was sitting in my office last week, I did notice that I had very little problem working on them in the in-between times this weekend. At no point this weekend did I freak out and yell: "Take care of Tot because classes start Monday and I've got to finish my syllabi GAH!!!" Not only did I just get on with it, but I didn't have to sequester myself from AL and Tot to get it done. Now, mostly I got things done when Tot was asleep. I certainly couldn't grade that way. But I also noticed that I was working a LOT of the time. I didn't take a lot of time to relax either. If I were in my office daily, there'd surely be some time when I sat there staring out of the metaphorical (not actual, though perhaps I should put a lovely picture up that I could ~~space out to~~ meditate on) window pondering. But instead my pondering time -- or much of it -- is when I'm doing something else -- like trying to keep Tot from killing himself by jumping off his new toddler bed. (No, he's not sleeping in it. But he likes to climb into it and say he's going "nigh nigh." I still haven't gotten him off sleeping via nursing. I've tried. He's two years old. I'm tired. I have no great excuses here. But at least I'm only torturing myself. And Lover.) So at some important point (I think actually when I started at Specialized U) I started writing down everything I did and accomplished each day (sometimes week), which has proven really helpful come annual report time. But now I think I also want to spend some time focusing on how long I spend as well to see whether my fears of underworking are really founded or not. (Not that academics necessarily have to work 40 hours a week to justify themselves, but that I feel like I do radically under that, except when grading, when the figure jumps up.) It's not that I will necessarily change anything if I do find that I underwork, but I'd like to really know rather than act out of fear. Knowing the truth seems to be the first step to approaching work in a healthier way.

So I may actually keep track of my hours here on the blog. I've already done a lot of work this morning -- proofread 2 syllabi and associated material, emailed them into printing (twice because I was too tired the first time), checked work email several times, written some email back, and done some hmmphing and thinking because this colleague that I'd like to work with on a specific project thinks I want to do something different but because he's having family crises right now it's not a good time to sort it out. How long did I spend on all that? At least two hours. So that's a good start to this.

Happy New Year!!!

2011-01-02T09:02:00.003-05:00

Right now, Absurdist Tot is watching his Cookie Monster DVD, totally charmed. Since he woke up with a fever, which made him very toasty when he snuggled in bed next to me but of course is not a good thing, it's a pleasure to see his face break open into a beaming smile even with his watery eyes. This is after he's already gotten one dose of Elmo. My son loves Sesame Street, just like his mother. One of the first songs I sang to him was C is for Cookie, probably not the most brilliant thing to sing a child who you're hoping will eat healthily. Oh well. Consistency and hobgoblins.

Absurdist Lover is sick too and actually taking some really productive steps toward health. And amid the sickness, I feel very optimistic about the new year on many fronts. First, I am committing to doing those things that will make me feel better: namely, exercise. Instead of talking about going to the yoga studio near my house, I'm actually going to go. Exercise makes such a huge difference to my brain and body health that I practically owe it to my family to do it. Yoga especially just makes me feel. . .high. How much of an idiot does one have to be to avoid doing something that feels so good? Just because of a little sweat. The whole pressure to be a good mom also does its number on me. Like many toddlers, Tot is a particular eater, which for him means that he still eats a lot of baby food jars. (At least he eats a bunch of vegetables that way.) He also still falls asleep nursing and goes to bed really late. I feel so behind and bad motherish because I've allowed these things to go on. Most of the time, even AL is itching for me to try to move Tot forward on these fronts, especially the sleeping. But lately AL said not to worry about it, that Tot is fine and will grow out of it. And that's opened up a tiny little ray of grace that maybe these issues do not signal my bad mothering, but just are what they are.

(It's taken at least an hour to compose this post so far. Now Tot is asleep on the couch, which is a marker of just how sick he is.)

So I'm going to exercise. I'm going to try to not beat myself up. I'm going to do other things -- like take my vitamins -- that contribute to a happy, healthy head. I'm going to go to therapy. I also need to find Tot a better pediatrician, because I feel like we're getting drive-through doctoring. He looks at Tot for three seconds, then writes him a prescription. When he's got a cold, okay. I know, the doctor has probably seen the exact same symptoms a dozen times the same week. But when I'm talking about a bump on his penis? No. I need a doctor who will say more than "Don't worry, Mrs. Earnest." I'm also thinking about enrolling Tot and myself in a toddler art class. We need to do fun things when we're together.

I'll be teaching in a week, and I haven't put together my syllabi yet. But I've got some great ideas and revisions to these classes that should jazz up the classes for me and present more involved learning experiences for the students. There are also some little things I'm going to do that to me signal that I've gotten more comfortable at Specialized U. And I'm working on an elective that I'll likely be able to teach in the fall. I'm also one of several people who've been approached about developing a new class that's really right up my alley. So that's exciting.

On the scholarship front, there are good hopeful things too. I'm going to an awesome specialized conference in the spring that will help me further develop my elective and is on a subject I'm completely devoted to. And then there's an awesome workshop in the summer that is in an adjacent field to mine -- I should hear back from them one of these days.

In the past three or so months, I have sent out all my creative work, wrote and sent out a short article, started two groups designed to support my continued writing, and held a successful and very meaningful event. I also worked on our department website, making some changes that I hope improve its overall look and usefulness. That's not bad. I've also managed to get myself excited and hopeful again about teaching.

On personal fronts, I've managed to get on top of our finances, send out Christmas cards to most of my friends, and, with yesterday's strange warm weather after weeks of snow, planted those bulbs in the little patch of grass around our patio. (Yes, even totally missing bulb planting last year, I totally missed prime planting time again this year. But with the wacky warm weather, I figured it might be another chance. I'm not terribly hopeful for the bulbs actually, because the earth doesn't seem particularly fertile and they'll have to make it up through a net of grass, but at least they are in the earth now instead of in a bag or the refrigerator. Maybe next year I'll get them in on time. Maybe next year, we'll be in a house. I've seen some very hopeful looking rent-to-own possibilities here.)

I don't know. I guess taking those vitamins that are especially good for my brain chemistry has really helped. I feel hopeful, even in a house of sickos. Here's to good starts to the year!

Parenting at Christmas

2010-12-24T10:51:00.009-05:00

I really appreciate everyone's comments on this, but I'm sick of looking at this post, so

***poof***

Meeting a Deadline

2010-12-20T10:41:00.010-05:00

No, this is not yet the self-congratulatory post of having met a deadline. Actually, instead of beating myself up for still working on an article submission on the day it's due, I've decided to be positive -- I will make this deadline. I have before, and I will again today. I worked all day on Friday, despite being sick. I couldn't really get that much done over the weekend, of course. So I have no time to lose in my usual puttering and procrastinating. (I already started toying with template changes, but working to change the blog so I can have a black font will just have to wait for another day. Sorry folks.)

I also have a number of more substantial posts brewing. But I have to focus. I'm writing here what I need to do, because I love that feeling that even though I'm alone in my house, I'm actually working in the context of a lot of other fellow workers. (Yes, I realize that most of you are probably braving the winter roads and overpacked malls to get Christmas shopping done. No, mine is not done, though as usual I'm going to make things for gifts. This year I'm thinking granola.)

So here are the things I have to do to this article:

Print it out. DONE!!!
Read through existing over-long narrative section for main points. DONE!!!
Restructure over-long narrative section by points. DONE!!!
Hope to God this takes off about 500 words. NOPE!!! Still over by about 300 words. GAH!!! Ahh, just found I could rid of an endnote that was incredibly long. It was a good one though. Sigh. Oh well.
Go through the entire piece and see what else can be hacked off. DONE!!!
Write bib.
Update page numbers to second edition of Incredibly Important Main Text. DONE!!!
Read and revise piece for academic language, making sure that none of the freewriting placeholding blab is still there. DONE!!
Format for any weird particularities. DONE!!
Proofread carefully. DONE!!
Submit. DONE!! (By 3:15pm: oh good, just enough time for me to get cracking on this abstract, then run and get Tot)

I also need to write an abstract for a conference today. I have some ideas, but sadly I'm stuck at the "so what? what does this get us?" part.

And I have to get everything done by about 3:45, because I promised the daycare I'd pick him up at 4pm. They have special sign-up holiday hours, and I just hate the idea that some poor young person is going to have to stay late just for me.

While I'm doing this ~~impossible~~ totally doable work, y'all can help me out. What do you get the lead teacher of your daycare? The cute idea I had totally fizzled out. How much do I spend? What kind of thing should it be?

Reflections on the Job, Religion, and My Family of Origin

2010-12-15T10:38:00.006-05:00

Hi everyone! First, let me just apologize. I know. . .reading a white font sucks, but I just loved this template and color theme. We'll see how it goes. (I kinda wanted something snowier -- to go with the outrageous snowy outside and my new snowy Firefox theme, but this assemblage of greens, well, I likes it!)

Here's something I want to remember: when I feel hurt or upset about something and just want to withdraw, sometimes the best thing I can do is go engage it! Here's why I say so: not only did I talk to my chair about the lack of electives I get to teach this year and get a good result, but I also held an event on campus that I really believed in. It started small, and I had to fight to keep it high-touch and deep rather than let it get industrialized (which might have made more "product," but would not have been a deep experience for participants), but it went better than I expected. A couple students thanked me for having it as they were exiting. Knowing that I brought something to campus that even a few people think is valuable and interesting makes much of the swimming against the tide worthwhile. Lesson learned: doing something I think is valuable makes me feel good. It boosts my morale.

I want to tell you about these realizations I've been having about my family of origin, but in order for all that to make sense, I have to back up and tell you about church. I'm Jewish and naturally skeptical about God. My father is proud of describing himself as someone who actively disbelieves in God. My mother is a seeker, one of those people who has explored religion after religion, converting to Judaism, but then exploring other things after that. I have also explored religious and spiritual traditions, feeling that Taoism makes the most sense, not that I'm good at all at going with the flow, which is pretty literally what Taoism is about. Judaism is also really important to me. I love Jewish culture and traditions. I felt bad this year until I bought a menorah for Chanukah, though I didn't light it each night. I'm proud of my Jewish background and think that there are some things that are fundamentally Jewish. But do I *believe* in the Old Testament G-d as the truth? Nope. Do I even want to *try* to believe in the Old Testament G-d as truth? Not really. I wish I had faith, have always sort of envied people of faith, am fascinated by nuns and monks and Haredi who reject our materialistic and competitive world for better values. But faith in an organized religion doesn't come naturally to me.

On the other hand, I've immersed myself in academic skepticism and found it wanting. Being a critical thinker all the time doesn't make me happy. Believing in only the material world doesn't explain or make room for the sense of awe and wonder which genuinely seems part of our world, at least the more natural parts of it. I believe that humans don't know all there is to know about this world, that just as there's light that we can't see (ultraviolet) and sounds we can't hear (dog whistle), there are energies that are just as real that our hubristic and materialist explanation of things just doesn't include or make room for. I *believe* in this, even while I also think that there are good reasons to believe it. (The history of science, which I was lucky to take as an undergrad, shows a long history of people knowing one thing to be true, then having that knowledge overturned by a new discovery. What this means to me is that while science may ultimately be progressing, we could very well be sitting right in the middle of some big scientific errors that people will laugh about generations hence.)

Since logocentrism doesn't work for me, I've been trying something else. While I grew up with the notion that those "crazy Christians" aren't very smart, many of the Christian students I've met over the years are, and what's more, they're good people with good values who do worthwhile things. Not all of them, of course. I remember some Christian students who tormented themselves and their loved ones with scriptural dogma rather than love and acceptance. Some things, like being anti-masturbation, seem to go against human nature in a way that can be seriously detrimental to all, I think.

But for a variety of reasons -- including my own curiosity and need for community -- Absurdist Family has been exploring a church. And in general it's been good. I love this pastor's sermons. Maybe I'm susceptible to a message that says that even though I'm a total fuck-up, God loves me and thinks I'm okay. Maybe I'm susceptible to such a message because of my fucked-up childhood, where even though unconditional love and acceptance was occasionally said, it was contradicted by action as well as words on a regular basis. But get Christ into the mix with all that dying for my sins and my needing to accept Christ as my lord and savior in order to get into heaven, and I check out. Out the door. But, this pastor doesn't focus on that. He says: if God is with you now, why wouldn't he want to be with you after you're dead. And the truth is, the pastor says, God is with you, with every one of us no matter what our religion. I don't know if I *believe* it, but I can see the use in believing it, in trying to believe that someone who loves me is with me in the dark times, of which there are many because, as we all know, parenting, living, working, trying to live in partnership with others, trying to do the right thing and waiting long enough to figure out what that is without self-destructing, etc. are really fucking hard.

Having written this, I find I think I'm a little crazy. I was greatly confused for a long time when I realized there were religious people in the academy. I thought those people must be a little crazy. And now here I am, a little crazy. But that's okay, I think. I can deal with a contemplative tradition (which I often can't find in the Jewish world, except in places with a high saturation of Jews).

So, jumping into the deep end of the pool, AL and I joined a small group at this church. And the group's focus was (it's over now) on the intersection between emotional and spiritual issues. One week was focused on messages we got from our family of origin. And now we catch up with what I really wanted to say, though I've long wanted to post all this church stuff, since I know many of you are much smarter about religion and church stuff than I am.

Here's something I realized was very true even though it was originally a throw-away comment to AL: I spend too much time and energy on my family of origin and not enough time and energy on the people who love me. I don't mean AL and Tot, who are my life now. But when we were back in Urban City, folks from Grad City sent me two boxes worth of gifts for Tot, even though I'm notoriously bad at remembering other people's showers and birthdays. These people care about me anyway, despite some really seriously faults at showing them how much I care. (Let's not even talk about the fact that I still haven't sent thank you notes, of which I'm deeply ashamed. Though even after two years, I still mean to.)

Instead of making sure to keep in touch with these people, who've obviously forgiven my faults time and time again, I spend a lot of mental energy being disappointed in my family of origin. It's as if they have to take up a certain mental space in my life even though they're not really in my life. I don't want to be disappointed in them. I realize that it's just who they are, but still, the way they are is just no way to be, at least for me. I managed to get very tense right around Tot's birthday, because I was paying attention to who remembered and who didn't. That is my problem. But my father texted me for Tot's birthday. Texted. Nice to know he didn't forget, and of course he sent a present, but he's not interested in seeing what Tot looks like or checking in or anything -- and for his lack of interest in Tot, I just cannot forgive him. I know my father is who he is -- one of those people controlled and overwhelmed by what is in front of him. And we're not. But my son is a treasure and has never borrowed money and not paid it back. He needs a grandpa. And my father is just not it. My father doesn't answer my emails in general and did not respond when I recently sent him a picture of Tot. At least I'm doing what I think is right. My mom is also a piece of work, frankly. Right now, I think she's giving me the silent treatment for reasons I can guess but have not been told. Not only is the behavior just totally ridiculous and infantile, but it's not deserved, if the reason I'm thinking of is the right reason. I know everyone complains about their parents (at least everyone in places like Urban City), but AL affirms that I'm not insane -- these people really are pretty awful. At the small group, we could see very clearly how most other participants really had no basis for comparison (not that I talked about it much, but most talked about their wonderful relationships with their families).

Now I'm staring down my own birthday. I should make sure my phone has plenty of money on it to accept their texts! Okay, that was bitter. But if I want love and acceptance (which is obviously a hole that no person can fill up), my family ain't it. Don't get me wrong -- my family has been good to me at times when I really needed it. But I'm still paying for that time, for those decisions. But there are these people who care about me even from a distance. Surely, I should be spending more time showing them how much I care and less on thinking about how my family of origin sucks. Instead of thinking about how much my family of origin sucks, I should thank God, heaven, or my lucky stars that I'm out from under my family enough to be able to see that they, probably through no meanness, are not good for me. And I need to have the mental discipline enough to turn my focus to things I like and can do something significant about, rather than just getting whatever it is I get out of (playing the victim, which is way too simple) opening myself up to being disappointed by them. That said, I know also that this is something significant I need to mourn -- and I'm going to feel bad about it until I stop feeling bad about it. But I think I need an outlet to explore how deep the rabbit hole goes instead of thinking about it now, when I should be working on an article with a deadline!

By the way, I never got to therapy or yoga. These are goals for January now.

Happy Thanksgiving, Everyone!

2010-11-25T10:33:00.003-05:00

There are so many things I'm grateful for, including that I don't feel as wretched as I did when I wrote my last post. Thanks those of you who responded to my previous post. I'll respond later, but for now I've got a turkey to get in the oven, a wonderful feast to prepare (without getting frustrated or annoyed, I hope), and a lovely little family to enjoy! (We're not going anywhere nor are having people over.)

Have a lovely Thanksgiving, complete, hopefully, with loving warmth and harvest feasts!

Losing the Faith

2010-11-17T10:17:00.004-05:00

I had been thinking seriously about folding up the blog because I started it as an academic life blog, and I'm getting to the point where I don't even want to hear about the academy! Perhaps this is just another phase in the life of an academic -- the point where having gotten on the tenure-track and ruined her life with outrageous student loans, one must ask: is this worth it? Maybe this is what the second year of t-t academic life is all about, losing the faith in what we're doing and then, hopefully, finding it again. But I decided to post today because I really need your wisdom -- especially to know if this is a phase and what I can do to make things better. Here are some of the things that have made me lose the faith in what I'm doing in the past few months (hence my bloggy silence):

Morale at Specialized University (lookie! I made a pseudonym for my institution -- that is, the one I work in, not the one I should be checked into) is disastrously low. Money issues have been bad there for the past several years, which has made many faculty members cynical and uncooperative. One of the slightly more cooperative ones even proudly declares that he is cynical. Many faculty members are at each other's throats. Faculty and administration are having a face-off, and those who are more vocal about trying to repair this relationship by listening to the other side are considered by many to be "too soft." Since this blog is one space where I can speak back to this unreservedly, I just want to say: these people who think that barking in administration's faces is going to help the situation are total f***ing idiots. There's a lot of sky-is-falling stuff going on at SU, and I know much of the crap is because people are very very scared. (This is the nicest thing I can say about these people.) I'm scared too, especially having moved Absurdist Family across the country.

So what usually keeps me engaged in the work despite depressing institutional crap is teaching. But my last quarter was terrible and really instigated this downward spiral. An us-them relationship developed in one of my courses that I was never able to totally repair. (I repaired things with the ringleader, who was pretty reflective about the whole thing eventually, but it was too late.) Everyone has bad classes, but this was really hard for me because of my situation in the institution. Let me explain: this place is a Specialized University -- not in my specialty or anywhere near. While the mission of the university certainly includes what I do and my department, we're really seen as tangential. Most, not all, students are interested in very practical, non-intellectual things. Everyone agrees that what I teach is important, but generally students don't want to take my courses and aren't good at or engaged in what I teach. I knew that when I took the job. Many of us in the academy live with that. Because of the particular mission of the university and the immediate needs of students, the slant on my core courses is not what I value, though I had worked out a workable compromise that was well within the scope of the class. Perhaps more important, one of my core interests includes a focus that many in my department find absolutely essential for these students. Great! But in an assignment that I gave (to a class that did not blow up), it became clear that many students really believe in something that I think is totally wrong. And much of American society agrees with them. Now, of course, this means that I should spend even more time on similar issues and be proud of getting even one student to think more deeply about such things. Here's the crux though: in order to perform this great educational service of working within and against, I must continue to spend a great deal of my life constantly confronting these mistaken values (I was going to say "evils," but then thought maybe these students, faculty, etc. really are that ignorant -- I'm being charitable here). In short, I have to swim in the ick if I want to try to do some good there. And I'm not so sure I can swim (really live so much of my life) in the ick and keep a hold of my sanity and my best self, which is not only important to me, but to being good to my child and my family. (I'm just not able to completely compartmentalize my attitude or life.)

Working at the CSA farm with people who've chosen alternative lower-cost and value-based lifestyles, our bad money situation with my terrible credit even in a place where we could buy a house that costs less than our rent if I only had decent credit and a downpayment, and AL's being totally overworked and also screwed by his workplace have all led me to feel that I've screwed up all of our lives with all this debt. So I feel trapped. AL also feels trapped. We each recently confessed a half-hearted hope to be let go at our respective jobs. (And I took out almost $200,000 in student loans for that??? What kind of idiot am I?)

The very latest news that brought all of this to a head yesterday was that I found out that a colleague who got hired when I did is teaching three electives in a row. I, on the other hand, am teaching the core courses. So in two years, I will have taught one elective, while s/he will have taught three. (This is the same person who used my syllabus, that issue I wrote about forever ago and then poofed the post, but it's been so long now that I think it doesn't matter.) Why does this bother me? I realize that Colleague's specialties are sexier, more appropriate to the university and desirable to the students than my specialty. That said, I also found out that another colleague is teaching back-to-back electives. While I am teaching none this year. I haven't made a lot of noise about teaching electives lately because I'm trying to be amenable and flexible. Also, I thought that there were basically a limited number of possible elective offerings. Clearly, I am operating from mistaken assumptions. What's disastrous about this whole situation is that I can't quite teach the courses I'd be excited out of my mind to teach because of certain institutional limitations. But one way of restoring my faith in what I'm doing is to teach an elective I'm happy about, since the focus of the core courses is, for me, a compromise. I thought that each of us basically got to teach one elective a year. I was totally and incredibly wrong. So I'm mad at myself and my chair, who I know gave me the impression of a limited amount of elective availability. So my department, which had been a place where I could at least feel that we were all in this working-against-the-grain together, now doesn't feel so good either.

When I told Best Faculty Friend about my loss of faith in what we're doing at SU and how I want to retire from all the crap and go live on a farm, s/he said that I'm too engaged with political stuff to do that. But I'm not so sure. I would love to homeschool Absurdist Tot far away from any place that brings TV or computers into the elementary school classroom. AL says he wants to spend more time with Absurdist Tot and me, but he feels he's always at work, preparing for work, trying to relax after work. He's actually great, as much as someone who works a full-time job he hates can be. My father sucked at engaging with us kids at the end of his long sucky workday.

I haven't told BFF about this latest development of my totally misunderstanding elective availability, but I'm sure I will very soon. I'll see what s/he thinks.

So, supposing you've actually made it down this far, what do you think? How do you find the faith again in what you're doing? I don't want to poison my classes or my work or my life with all this. I want to find a constructive thing to focus on. BFF gave me a good idea for revising one of my core courses to focus on one of my interests, so at least I'd be reading things I'm interested in. (I don't usually "theme" my courses beyond the subject matter, but I'm excited about what I'll be able to accomplish by theming this one. And I need something to make me excited about these classes, so being this tiny bit selfish seems much better than what could happen if I don't try to reinvigorate the work for me.) I trust that many of you have been through these kinds of things before me -- I'd love some advice.

Fantasy Life

2010-10-19T09:55:00.002-04:00

So the CSA and the farmer's market both ended last week, leaving me only to copious fantasizing about farming. Now I realize that farming is not an easy life, but right now I'm dreaming of being supported modestly with farming-related work, writing, and AL's business, which he's been wanting to start up in earnest for a while now. Sigh.

So what I'm dreaming of is having a limited-menu restaurant or maybe an agro-tourism bed-and-breakfast. There's a lot of fabulous local food here. It's just that a lot of people don't know where to go or are more interested in going to cholesterol huts than farms. So a restaurant that features local organic food would make this area's bounty accessible to those with more money than time. Really this comes from the fact that every time I make a meal, AL says I should open a restaurant. I've tried to tell him that when you've got wonderful fresh ingredients, you really can't go wrong. But he thinks it's me. Sweetheart.

Realistically, I'm probably better off trying to start a home bakery, since that's what I seem to be good at. (We won't talk about my failed canning attempt yesterday. We'll be eating some tomato sauce in the coming days.) But I love the idea of a restaurant, maybe on someone else's farm or orchard that already regularly brings people in. Here are a couple things that would definitely be on the menu based on family reactions: potato leek soup (hot, so it's not really Vichyssoise), banana bread, zucchini bread, omelettes. I'm going to work on a carrot cake this week because it's Tot's second birthday on Friday, if you can believe it! I'd also have lots of sausage and pork products on the menu because I know several sources of really fabulous sausage, bacon, and ham. Like phenomenal food that would bring all but the super-kosher back to the pig. And of course everything would be organic -- if not officially certified, then at least small o organic supervised by yours truly.

Imagine going into a restaurant -- not a really expensive one or ooh la la one -- and being able to be told about every piece of food -- and knowing that each thing is organic and sustainably grown/raised. I want to go there, which is how I know it's at least a decent idea because those of us who are really into organic and local food know that once you turn your back on CAFO meat, you really limit your take-out and dining options. This place would also have to be extremely kid friendly. I do know of a restaurant that was all or mostly organic that went belly up, but it didn't market itself well, I think. It was too specialized. The trick would be that my eaterie would need to have pretty ordinary food at ordinary prices because most people are going to be used to going to Applebees and in order to stay in business I'd have to rope those people in unless it was located on a farm.

Realistically, I might start developing organic baked good recipes in earnest. A new bakery just started up and they're really good so I wouldn't bother except that when I asked about organic, the baker said that he's really going more in the direction of gluten-free. Of course this is important. But my hook would be that everything is organic. Always. All the time.

Even more realistically, AL and I hope to buy a house and have a big garden and that will be the end of it. But even that's just fantasy right now. But if you like the restaurant or baked goods idea, let me know. I'm reading this great book called You Can Farm by Joel Salatin and he talks about a home bakery as a viable farming centerpiece enterprise. So who knows?

There are other things going on in my life, but this one is absolutely the most fun.

This Is the First Day of the Rest of Your Life. . .I Wish

2010-10-04T11:56:00.004-04:00

Today it's easy to remember why I love being an academic. Because at 11am, I was crossing my apartment complex to go talk to the central command rather than working. (I'm not trying to be annoying to all of you who are teaching right now -- I worked through the summer myself, so while you guys were going on vacation and doing fun things, I was slogging away teaching. Now it's my turn for a little R & R.)

It's noon now, and I've taken Tot to daycare, filled out a permission slip (my first mom permission slip!), went to buy canning supplies, bought bulbs and a bulb-planter, and gotten one of those food mills because I refuse to shell out big bucks for a food processor when I might still have one in storage. I paid the rent and the storage.

Instead of giving myself a week off, which I fear might cause a slide into the slough of despond, I have this wonderful list and all these things to do. Right now, I'm running the jars (why is it called canning and not jarring?) as well as my brand-new stew pot in the dishwasher. So I need to begin my new plan of working on scholarship and creative work. I'm not going to go crazy and drive myself too hard, of course. But I am going to get to work. How exciting! And there are all these apples that need to be cored and softened into applesauce and then "put up." (Really I want to make apple butter for Christmas gifts this year, but I think I don't have enough apples for the recipe. Also there was a terrible late spring freeze that really ruined a lot of the fruit crops in my area, so my wonderful apple orchard is sparse in their offerings -- to say nothing of the astronomical price of Honeycrisps. Mostly I got Galas, which are supposed to be wonderful for applesauce. We'll see how it goes.)

That's really all. I'm working on an article I'm determined to be done with by the end of the calendar year, and I want to make significant strides on a project that has long since been stagnant. There is also work stuff to do: committees and pet projects. But I don't want to deal with that today. Better get to work before I blog the day away.

Hello Fall!

2010-10-01T23:45:00.005-04:00

So I'm back, or almost back. I've turned in most of my grades. And for unbloggable reasons, I'm not teaching during the fall quarter. So I've already, tonight, a mere hour after I turned my grades in electronically, made lists and lists of what I want to accomplish in the next three months.

I've been very burned out -- at least on teaching and service. I had a crap class. The other class was new to me, the first time I taught it. I had some great students in there, and it went decently. But with the article I was writing and the annual report early in the quarter, I got behind on things and never really caught up. These students were really great about it. But the situation also made me feel like crap, even as I was taking mental health days.

Perhaps it was just that I starting settling into my second year -- a colleague noted a slump in hir own second year. Or maybe it was my grandfather dying and all that and not having the time to deal with it. There were a bunch of other things too that made me disengage from work: the fact that morale is so low there right now that paranoia and cynicism are prevalent; crap teaching; disheartening service; Absurdist Tot developments; and a growing love of all things gardening to the point that I really wanted to be gardening or cooking all the time and suspecting that I'd chosen the wrong path for my life and now I'm stuck with all these student loans and no way to go and live simply and close to the earth somewhere.

Interestingly, I have an insane list of things I want to get done in these three months, but even though there is an intimidating number of items, I feel tired (now) but excited to be able to focus finally on those things. I'm planning to spend a certain decent amount of time each week on scholarship and creative work. And then there are, unfortunately, even now some service things I need to do. Usually I don't mind service -- am even excited to be part of something larger than myself -- but when I think of doing these things, the wind immediately sucks out of my sails. But what is noteworthy here is that I'm not burned out on my scholarship and creative work. That's good. That means that I probably did not make the wrong choice of career.

I've been sort of haphazardly reading blogs, sometimes preferring not to read academic blogs because I'm burned out on academia. I just don't even want to hear about teaching or students or dumb colleagues sometimes. Because I just don't want to spend my personal time on hearing about the academy, I've been checking my favorite blogs less often instead preferring to read about homesteading and small farming blogs, learn more about FarmAid and Homegrown.org. Because of all this, I'm wondering about whether Absurdist Paradise should morph to reflect these new interests. Partly I'm thinking that the blog has to change or else soon I'm going to feel disengaged from it because it represents only a part of my life. This wouldn't be so bad but I feel sort of weirdly closeted at work because I can't talk about my current passions, so I think if I did that here that I would soon disengage from the blog too. So there'll either be more food and farming talk more here at AP or the blog I started for that several months back will become more important. I don't know yet. Y'all could weigh in on your preferences.

So that's what's going on here on Absurdist Paradise Farm. (Oh wouldn't that be awesome!) Glad to be back, neighbor.

There will be a lull in our lull. . .

2010-09-13T07:41:00.003-04:00

I just realized in reading others' blogs how much I appreciate it when people tell me that there's going to be light blogging, so: readers, there's going to be light to no blogging for the next two weeks. (I'm so ornery or my life is so unpredictable -- I'm not sure which -- that having said this I'll probably start blogging like mad.)

In a nutshell, I've been in the professional funk that I mentioned last time for the last few weeks and have now just got to buckle down and get some stuff done. I'm also wondering what this blog is now for related reasons, though maybe that will pass when I have some time to reflect on funkitude.

Thanks for visiting, and I'll have something new to say soon. Meanwhile, happy fall!

Owning Up and Trying to Have a Sense of Humor

2010-08-30T08:09:00.005-04:00

I'm so behind. SO behind. I still haven't gotten things back on track since Tot and I were sick. Then last week I had one of those funk days where I got a number of good things done, but I didn't make great headway on the things that are really behind. I'm just hanging on until this is all over, so I can focus for a while on an old (creative) project that I'm all excited about again. But first I have to slog my way through to the end, starting with catching up on things I'm having a hard enough time getting myself to do already.

Now, this morning Tot is sneezing and sniffling. And I've already had a minor freak out. This is not a great way to start out the week!

My emotions were also running high yesterday. I hate apologizing for being a bitch. But I certainly was. I'm pretty sure it's that I'm excited about this new-again project, but I have no time to work on it. My home life is almost completely Tot-care. Tot is not the kind of kid who can be held on my lap while I work. In fact, if the laptop is out, he wants to plunk on it. If we're not paying enough attention to him, he starts running around the house screaming. So I can't get work done here, whether teaching, scholarly, creative -- you name it. The only thing I can do is cook, and then only if Absurdist Lover watches him. The trouble is we both have our agendas for the day and have to compromise. I was definitely not a good compromiser this weekend. In fact, I pretty much sucked at being a decent adult, at least yesterday. But I did make a pretty fabulous zucchini bread, my first. Not that zucchini bread makes anything okay, but it certainly makes for a nicer breakfast.

Now, I'm going to pull myself together and try to be a calm mom and academic with a big supply of humor. Is anything so bad that it's really worth freaking out about? This is just the natural absurdity of our lives. If I just look at it right, I know it's super-funny.

Everyone: have a great week full of focus, self-knowledge and -control, and lovely things going right!

On Cooking (Finally!)

2010-08-23T13:09:00.005-04:00

So cooking is now my main creative outlet (though I'm also trying to coax myself into writing again). I love it. I had forgotten how much I loved it. In the past I've gone through periods of being really into cooking, and then sort of falling away from it. But right now the loads of fresh gorgeous vegetables that we get from working at the CSA and the fact that we now get ALL of our meat from local and organic sources means that I must cook. All that good food deserves good care. So lately I've learned how to cook kale in garlic and onion (everything tastes good with garlic and onion -- that is my kitchen motto). I also stuffed a zucchini really vying for baseball bat. I make a lot of small organic burgers, like my grandmother used to make though she wasn't American at all. I made pizza with homemade pizza dough, though it had too much whole wheat flour and AL wasn't a big fan of that. I've also made two rounds of pasta sauce starting with these amazing heirloom tomatoes from the farm. Then there are the sausages we get from the farmer's market. Tot loves ground meat, so he eats sweet Italian sausage and brats and burgers. If only I could get him to eat some fresh veggies! (Though he eats some root veggies he really loves from jars -- organic, of course.)

In addition to figuring out kale, which isn't a big hit in my house (the kale chips went over with Tot like a lead balloon), I've made homemade coleslaw (also not a big hit with anyone but me), cooked beets for the first time (oh my! delish!), made tomatillo salsa, and figured out a sure-fire garlic and onion green bean recipe that AL loves. (Made it with bacon yesterday -- and he was totally overthetop happy.) I also have a broiled zucchini recipe AL loves.

And then there are the omelettes I make when I'm tired and want to make something fast.

AL has sort of despaired of ever eating takeout again, but I don't want to eat CAFO meat (which means eating fish or vegetarian, which is fine) and I want to support Tot's growing interest in eating whatever we're eating. I want Tot to eat mostly organic foods and definitely not CAFO meat since a kid DIED from eating a fast-food hamburger. (How can we live in a country where the government does NOT have the power to recall bad meat? Or to notify citizens of where it came from? How come it's more important to protect the good names of cows (okay, some of these laws probably cover more than just beef -- or not even beef) and CAFOs and the four main meat processors and stock prices than it is to protect citizens? Government by the people for the people? I think not. More like government by the people with money for the people with money. Why aren't we outraged? Why aren't we rebelling against our corporate-driven government? Do we expect that someday we too will have the money to shape policy? I think we're so disgusted we've opted out. AL and I want to move to Europe. You know, no country quite has CAFOs like we do. And many countries in Europe have outlawed GMOs while we have them rampant all over our food and can't even get a law forcing companies to LABEL their products! What is wrong with us???) So takeout is not a great option, though we did get pizza over the weekend.

I also taught myself how to make cheesecake, which has nothing to do with organic or healthy anything, though I'd really like to teach myself to make cream cheese so I can be sure that it's rBGH free. (By the way, did y'all see that Haagen-Dazs has not gone rBGH-free? I bet they use the same arguments that so many others use, that "the market" simply won't allow them to make a commitment to using milk products that don't increase the likelihood of cancer. The fact is it's totally possible to get rid of rBGH completely. Other countries have banned its use, leaving the good old US of A as the only industrialized nation that permits its use. But it's bad for cows and people. But guess who developed rBGH and sold it to a division of Eli Lilly? Yes, one of the most powerful transnational corporations in the world. Yes, the one that seems to care WAY more about their own profits than the health of any of us. If Haagen-Dazs won't figure out how to get off the Monsanto dole, well, they don't deserve my money. Goodbye Haagen-Dazs coffee and chocolate chocolate chip! I'll eat Ben and Jerry's!)

What else have I been making? I can't remember. I think I'll go and cook up some beets.

I Wanted to Write about Cooking, but This is What Came Out

2010-08-23T11:43:00.006-04:00

So while many of my academic friends are starting their semesters or gearing up to start them, I'm waist-deep in my summer quarter and taking the day off because I'm sick.

I've been thinking a lot about how I grew up -- or specific shaping experiences from my childhood -- and how they affect me now, how they color my view of the world. And I'm thinking that they do. I see possible menace around most corners. Sometimes it seems amazing to me that people don't kick in locked doors and smash through glass much more often than they do. I guess some part of me doesn't really believe in safety or security. Many of my dreams are about being chased or found -- or acquiescing to some terrible more powerful person in order to live through it. (I guess that sums up some aspects of my childhood pretty well.) I also have a terrible temper, a really low threshold for frustration.

I've explored all this -- written about it, talked about it, addressed it. I was in therapy once, though I think we focused on other things, and it seems like therapy is probably the next step now, but I also had a bad therapy experience. (Don't get me started about therapists I've known from the way past and the problems I can see with therapy.) My former therapist said I had a lot of stuff that was right on the surface. If the point is to talk this stuff out in order to get it out of my subconscious, well, I've done that. I know at least some of the ways in which this childhood stuff colors my life. But what do I do about that, dammit? I want practical strategies, not to just talk about it all the time. I told this to my former therapist, but I think developing practical cognitive strategies wasn't really his strong point. Of course, he also wanted me to go get diagnosed and medicated as manic depressive. I will admit that I feel like I've spent a fair amount of my life trying to cope with fluctuating moods, but not in a manic depressive way. More of a turbulent way. (Super rapid cycling?) A friend of mine said it really well. What did she say? She said I was. . .unpredictable? Something like that. Well, if you think it's hard to predict how I'm going to respond when you're a different person, imagine how much harder it is to live inside that? I try for self-awareness, growth, self-acceptance, but there's a lot going on in here. I often don't know what's going on! It's not that I'm deliberately emotionally dishonest, but I've got a lot of conflicting emotions, some that are elusive even to me! I'm trying to be more mindful. And Tot definitely deserves someone more in control. I certainly don't want to recycle that particular childhood with different players. AL says that a good therapist would help me to see it differently, would ask me different kinds of questions that would help me see it in a different way. It's hard for me to imagine that there's territory I haven't explored, read about, written about, talked to other people about, etc., but I guess that's when you go to therapy. So that is likely coming up in the coming months.

I also really have an aversion to some of the discourse around childhood experiences like mine. The victim discourse. The overuse of the word "abuse." I do understand when people say "I'm this way because this happened to me when I was a kid and I'm still dealing with it" but I don't like to do that. I guess I really want to pass as normal in some ways. I know I'm not. But I don't want people to look at me as some maladjusted misfit either playing the victim card. Yes, I have the credibility to play that card. But I like being able to pass. I really don't want to blame my present lot on my childhood -- that was a long time ago and I'm an adult. But I can see the ways all this fear and crap self-esteem sort of lowers the horizon of my expectations. Sometimes life seems so bleak. (On the other hand, there are great gifts of all this too. I think I understand better when people living under political oppression say that they wonder if every car they hear is for them, if soldiers or whoever are going to break in and drag them out from their beds. How do people live with that, most Americans wonder? You just do, I want to say. You can't help yourself. You live with it, around it, under it. You get used to it, even as it weighs on you, even as you wonder if your kids will make it home from school. You half-expect something to blow up between here and every there you go to.)

But why does all of this lead to crap self-esteem even eons hence? I know I didn't deserve those experiences. I really do know. I know the circumstances and life histories that led to those experiences. I've done work on forgiving the people involved. I can conjure up anger at them if I want. But it does me no good except that anger is a firey emotion and is not as debilitating as grief. But it's all so stupid. Of course, having a child has brought all this up. I wanted to be better by the time I had a kid. I get so mad -- and at what? The fact that being a toddler, he has different priorities. He doesn't understand the importance of getting out the door right now before the cat scrambles out. Or that he can't have his way all the time. Ridiculous. He's a child. He needs love and discipline, not a mom who flashes red because of stupid things. I really do think a part of this is that I feel so worn down that those flashes of anger are also flashes of energy. I need to work out, which is the only thing that I've decided I really must do today, even in the face of a bunch of work that should get done but which is not compatible with the relaxing and recuperating taking a sick day ought to involve.

Why is all this on the surface and why do I feel compelled to share it? Well, I saw a website that advertises parent coaching. It might good. It might be totally inspired. I don't know. But it basically said that when I lose my cool, this reflects on my maturity level. Parenting is about the parents. And while I totally agree with this, reflecting on it in the moment only contributes to my feeling terrible about myself, something I'm trying to work on. I'm actively trying to have a better outlook and not indulge in the ridiculous self-fulfilling self-talk that I'm undeserving and undisciplined and nothing good is ever going to happen for me (a line of logic that my lived life already proves false, but these things aren't logical). Somehow saying to myself that I've got problems or that I'm not good at controlling my temper means that I'm a totally terrible person, rather than a person with an important flaw that I'm working on. So I'm not that mature. Okay, I can live with that. But is parenting really all about the parents? Is this discourse really about blaming parents for all that happens with kids, when that's really just not fair at all? (I'm not linking to these websites because I don't feel I'm representing them fairly or accurately. I haven't participated in their programs, so I can't really say. But I wonder if I would want to participate in their programs or if this is just another way to make parents feel bad or what?)

Why post this on my blog? To own it? To come out? I don't know exactly. I'm writing it because though I really want to write about other things, this is what's come out. But that doesn't explain publishing it. Hmmm. I guess I'm pressing publish because I need to connect with others, share, be heard and listen to what others have to say. Your turn.

***Postworkout***

I feel flipping fantastic! Worth 50 mg of Zoloft my friends. Surely if I worked out regularly, my frustration would just melt away. So much of my life is good. Blessed, really. Thank you, Legs of Steel 2000!

A Quick Grumble

2010-08-21T01:47:00.003-04:00

I've got HFMD now. I should've realized it was inevitable; Tot would likely have not shown symptoms if I'd be immune. It's not so bad. Mostly the blisters are just painful to the touch, as if I've got splinters or something inside my skin. I was having some other trouble anyway, so now I just feel pretty diseased all over. It took Tot forever to finally go to sleep. Absurdist Lover went to bed hours ago. I should go to bed and get some sleep before Tot wakes up and wants to be brought to bed. I always do better if I get to sleep and get some sleep before he comes to bed. What a great start to the weekend.

I've been trying to be more mindful of what goes in and out of my head, so I won't vomit grumbles though it's really tempting (but will it make me feel better?). I wish to spend at least part of my day on things that make me feel better. The interesting thing about having to stop like this mid-quarter is that I've been thinking a lot about creative work. It's nice.

Grumpy Tot, Grumpy Mom. . .Not?

2010-08-18T15:11:00.003-04:00

So guess who was at the farm today when she got a phone call from the daycare saying that Tot has blisters showing up on his hands and feet? As in Hand, Foot, and Mouth Disease.

That's right! Me!

So despite that there is a local conference I've been looking forward to for months, I'm looking squarely at least a week of full-time Earnest-as-Supermom Totcare. I wonder how many times one can watch Follow that Bird before one becomes stark raving mad? I've been reading Amanda Cross mysteries (thank you, Ink, if you're out there, but what happened to that Professorroman link?), and finishing the last one I thought maybe I'd try to read some inspiring creative work or something on anger, but clearly I need to get over to the used bookstore immediately because I'm going to need to read something soothing after hard consoling-Tot days.

He's in his crib now crying because he threw toys when I said not to and that's his punishment. Dear lord. I feel like a terrible mom. Maybe the next week will be fun. Right? Any ideas of consoling things to do since we can't go to the park? Sigh.

At Long Last! Finished for Now

2010-08-15T08:26:00.002-04:00

So I've been in article-writing mode for the last three weeks. Blogs haven't been read, emails haven't been returned. Obviously, I haven't been writing here either. I finished and turned the article in last night. It's not very good -- and I don't mean that just in the usual self-effacing way. I've got to figure out a new way of approaching an article so that I'm doing more of my own writing and less picking out of quotes earlier on, because this article really feels like quotes strung together. I think I'm going to take my advisor's advice about comp exams and transform it into advice for articles, which is that after some reading, stop and write for a while. I sort of did that, but not very well. I can do better. I really need to teach myself a way of writing a journal article that feels more organic. Cutting and pasting a bunch of small writings just doesn't lead, usually, to an article that has organic flow. I need to be a better tour guide through my ideas. Now I have to figure out how to do that.

I'm so glad to have this one off my plate for the time being, so glad in fact that I've been pondering my next project, which is to turn one of my dissertation chapters (the first fundamental one) into an article for my favorite journal. One of my fundamental research sources for that project has a new edition, so I need to catch up on the latest. I also have tons of things I just want to read and understand, some related to this immediate project, some not. I'm also going to use my write an article in 12 weeks book for the upcoming article as well. I'm planning on giving myself until the end of the year to experiment with new ways of writing while I revise this piece. Maybe one day I'll get back to some creative work (though not before October).

I'm completely behind on grading and service, naturally. But I'm not worrying about that today. I've plagued my poor little family with my stress, compounded with Absurdist Tot's incessant teething of his two-year molars. But Tot slept through the night (until 7:30am) last night, the first night in weeks where he hasn't gotten up in the wee hours and come to bed with us. So I'm going to try to have a relaxing family time, complete with cooking, which I finally figured out is the great project of 2010. So far, I've taught myself how to bake bread, make homemade pizza, make cheesecake, and countless things having to do with wonderful farm-fresh vegetables. I intend to continue doing great things in the kitchen. We're also going to the farmer's market today. Yum. I'm looking forward to a shower.

Article Progress!!! Huzzah!!!!

2010-07-23T22:52:00.007-04:00

Today I made very important -- really breakthrough -- progress on my article due. . .way too soon to be mentioned. At the start of today, only a third to a half of my note mess was cut up, labeled, and then put in like piles. But today I determined that I was going to set aside three hours to transform the mess of notes into something else. Now, it's a paper-clipped and ordered collection of cut-up notes awaiting transcription and working over into my outline. So far, I have two single-spaced pages of my outline. This is excellent progress. Not just for this one day, when this project sprang to life from being stalled, but also because the next set of tasks are completely known quantities and so will be easier for me to do as well as dip in and out of. It's true that, as ever, I'm having trouble with organization because everything really does lead into everything else in a sort of web, yet I'm writing a linear article. So the next work is not completely mindless or anything -- I certainly do need to pay attention and make decisions -- but it's not daunting or not as daunting as all the work seemed when I woke up this morning.

Here are some notes about my process for this article that I think are weird and so worth noting:

This is how I used to write my papers in college and Grad School Part 1. Even in high school. Ultimately, I would end up writing a very complete outline (in complete sentences and with plenty of support often just breaking out of the outline into transition sentences between paragraphs even) and then revise the work while I was typing it into a file (or a word processor, in high school). I would get to the outline by putting together a lot of notes or, for grad school, a list of page numbers and post-its. (I learned the benefit of writing one's notes in a single file from my comprehensive exams and dissertation.) It used to be I just couldn't really write on the computer -- or on the index cards foisted on me in high school. Now I seem to be going back to that, using writing on my yellow tablet to make hard decisions, and still using a mix of more tactile creative strategies with the revision into a very complete outline.
Much stranger than the pattern by which I seem to work (now that I think about it, I did a lot of cut and pasting, moving things around, and then revising them as I moved slowly through what was there, adding and reworking things in the dissertation as well) is this silly fact: I typed all those quotes into my notes, right? So those quotes are in a file already. But even of the work I've already begun typing and revising in my outline, I notice that I'm just typing the passage again. It actually helps me to be really grounded in the point, making my own explanations clearer. You'd think I'd typed it once and would just go to the old file to find the quote, but no. It's actually faster -- and more involving -- to type it. Weird.

Through Sick and Syllabus

2010-07-09T11:16:00.003-04:00

This morning I woke up with a terrible headache, one that left me feeling nauseated. But since Tot has been sick, this is the only day I have daycare, so I somehow managed to get him up and out and to daycare. I've also managed to clean up the patio -- after days and days of a heat wave, the sky darkened over and burst out a rainstorm yesterday afternoon, knocking the chairs and small plants over. I've also managed to do the dishes. I ate a donut and had my corporate coffee. Now here I sit.

I start teaching on Monday. It's usually good to be prepared with things like syllabi and any initial readings. I know that. I need to work today in order to get these vital things done, especially so I don't have to be away from the family this weekend too much to get it done. That's what daycare is for. But I feel terrible. Just terrible. The headache's mostly gone. But I just want to fall over and sleep. I also want, inspired by her Royal Cogness that starting a project from a dead stop is bad, to work on the article that is due in three weeks. I also want to work on my annual review report that is due in less than a week. My brain has great plans. But I just feel terrible and haven't been quite able to get myself started. Really, I think sleep is such a wonderful elusive activity. Oh goodness, I'm tired. I'm sick. I'm a wee bit whiney. I just want to watch movies all day. Crochet. Sleep.

Of course, if I don't get these syllabi and plans ready then I'm going to have to steal from family time. I don't want to do that either. Sigh.

It doesn't help anything that I'm teaching a new course. Well, let's face it: most of the syllabus is policies and that sort of stuff. I can do that, right?

Some of Us Never Learn

2010-07-08T09:14:00.002-04:00

So Tot is still sick -- ear and upper respiratory infections. AL has also been sick since the holiday. And guess who's sick now?

Guess who still hasn't worked on her syllabus? And is now late with her annual report? And has less than a month to write a well-written article? Remember when I said that being a mom means that you can't leave everything to the last minute because the last minute is when everyone's going to get sick? Well, I may be smart, but I'm not wise. I haven't learned this lesson yet. Luckily, I have the weekend before the syllabi really need to be done. And Kinkos is open 24 hours (somewhere, not near here).

What a dork.

I'm keeping Tot at home because he doesn't look good and because I can, in contrast to how it usually is when I can't stay home unless it's really bad. Also, I'm sick too, though not terribly. It's also super hot; we've been having a terrible humid heat wave.

Tot is trying to say letters to Superwhy right now. He says these sounds in a very staccato way; it's very cute. Poor guy.

Telegram from the Sleep-Deprived

2010-07-07T09:20:00.003-04:00

I wanted to respond to this and say something about how parenting is more about contentment and fulfilled-ness and not about participating in pleasurable activities (for frigg's sake: if you want a pleasurable activity, try a movie, a book, pick up a sport -- do NOT have a kid), but I'm too busy hating not just my life but everything right now. After, not one but two nights of sleeping through, Tot stayed up most of last night crying and wailing. I finally got to bed -- with Tot in tow -- around 5am, just in time to wake up and get AL to work by 8. I'm supposed to go to the farm. I'm supposed to get my syllabi done. I'm supposed to be looking for cars. I'm supposed to be a human being. No go on all fronts.

Must call doctor. Must then figure out if I can get Tot to daycare for two hours so I can get some frigging sleep. (Nope.) Must call farm. I'm feeling musty today.

Stop.

Taking a Sick Day from My Life

2010-06-30T11:58:00.004-04:00

So yesterday I ended up being a total crabapple (at first I wrote crapapple, which is maybe more accurate) to Tot, at least during the first half of the day. He's going through a phase now where there are just so many ways in which for him to be annoying or hurt himself. He's started some tantrum-like behavior and then there's the screaming. Oh god, the screaming. And he wants to go outside to the patio every three seconds. As in, he goes in of his own accord, then wants to go right back out again. I don't know what he's thinking. Why not just stay outside?

Absurdist Lover said last night he thought he was fighting something off, and AT had some dreadful cough this morning, but otherwise was fine. I was totally set to go the farm -- sunscreen on and everything (I have forgotten in the past and ended up all red), not feeling particularly well and trying to prop myself up with coffee (not the Corporation because we're scant on funds) -- and then, my stomach started gurgling. I swear, I was on my way, 10 more minutes and I would have been there. I had to turn around. I called in sick. So now I'm at home, trying to figure out what to do with myself. This is the first day in a while when I haven't had that grading hanging over my head. Of course, I know I could work on the thingamajig and my research. But I wonder if I should be doing something else, like figuring out some magical elixir of balance-making so I can be healthier and more balanced for my family and myself. But exactly what would that be? Reading a book because I can? Watching a movie without interruption? Taking a bath? A shower? Truth be told, I don't feel like doing any of that, anything really.

Here's something I want to focus on right now. Once upon a time, I was a creative writer. I focused on creative writing in undergrad and Grad School Part 1. For my doctoral work, I started out with that purpose, but I wasn't happy with what was going on in the creative writing courses. I wanted more. . .meat to the discussions. Intellectual meat. Not just "this works" or "try this." Not all creative writers are intellectuals. Some are amazing artists or craftspeople. In fact, creative writing is an art, not an intellectual pursuit (which is not to say that there aren't very intellectual approaches and intellectuals who are also artists/writers). I felt there was something wrong with their approach for me and began to look elsewhere for meatier stuff and ended up in the field I'm in now. With very few regrets. I have always been wary about staking my survival on my creative writing. Which maybe has always been the problem. I'm too scared or not romantic enough to put it all on the line to write that novel and be poor until I'm rescued by an agent or publisher. Or maybe I just have so many other related interests that trying to put it all in my creative writing is a problem. Really, I want to be one of those writers who ends up writing fabulous op-ed pieces and belles lettres about the issues of the day because people want to hear my opinion about such things. A certain version of public writing. So I have some interest in nonfiction anyway (though when I was a kid, the dream was always about writing novels and it's SO hard to let that dream go, even as I have failed at it a number of times and am probably tempermentally unsuited to writing something that long). But really, I'm sad to have lost creative writing from my life.

I feel it most when I see what my colleagues are up to, when I see my Grad City colleagues publish another book. (Okay, I like it when my friends do it, but when those people who were real stinkers publish another book, I just want to imagine that they have really awful personal lives to balance out that good fortune.) And I wonder: am I just upset because I wish I had published a book by now? Is it about the publication or do I miss the writing, that particular discovery process, the way those finished writings become encapsulations of a particular event or thought or time in my life?

It's also because I feel like I don't know how to write, in some ways. Obviously I know you have to show up, apply butt to chair, and get the pen moving. Not that. But I sometimes feel I have no idea what makes a piece of creative writing good. What's the magic formula? How can I do that? What do I have to make sure to have? How can I get better?

While there is some craft talk in the creative writing world (and I've been out of it for several years so I may not know what I'm talking about anymore), there's a huge strain of creative writing talk that is about the *mystery* of writing, the *inspiration* of it, the muse striking. That doesn't give me much to work on. I realize that there's no guaranteed path to becoming a better creative writer, but I would like to work on it -- and I'm kind of sick of the idea that working on it just entails showing up, applying butt to chair, and getting the pen moving until the muse rolls in. There's got to be more than that. Any ideas? Please?

But no matter how I end up working on it, I need to start writing again. (See how creative writing is really what *writing* means to me? I *work* on scholarship. But *writing* is creative writing.) Absurdist Lover agrees that I need to write; he likes to see me even writing longhand in a journal. What a sweetie.

I don't know how to fit creative writing in. My life already feels so scheduled, so determined. In fact, I don't have time to do the things I need to do -- I feel like I'm constantly giving short shrift to my job because I take care of Absurdist Tot and work on the farm. I don't work out or do yoga, both totally necessary to my brain chemistry, either because I can't figure out how to smoosh it in there. But I've got to figure out how to get these things into my teaching life -- and soon, because summer courses are going to start almost immediately.

And I'm nowhere on prepping for those courses I'm teaching. But I think that taking a sick day means thinking about those things that got me sick in the first place, especially if I'm not going to be able to do the one thing that really most feeds my brain chemistry. (Though I said I'd go to the farm tomorrow or Friday.) So I think I need to think about how to make time for writing and working out/yoga at least twice per week.

And then, of course, there's the report and the research. Ugh. Can I go take a nap now?

2010-06-29T09:59:00.002-04:00

So I've been working on the project of getting Absurdist Tot to sleep through the night. I found the No-Cry Sleep Solution at the used bookstore and have been trying to really watch what AT does. I've long felt really bad for him that AL and I (but especially me) are very undisciplined and unscheduled. Which is not to say we don't get plenty done, but just that we're not very consistent about what we do when. Since AL is quite ADD and who knows what on earth my problem is, I worry that AT may be too, or at least may thrive with more of a schedule. Which I fail terribly at. But I've been trying to work on it, especially around AT's sleeptime.

And he's been going to sleep at 8 (unheard of -- remember, he used to go to bed at 11), 9, and variation thereof, sometimes waking up again, sometimes not. Last night he woke up at 10:30, I got him back down by 11, and then he slept through until 7.

But he's erratic! Case in point: he usually takes his nap around 11ish at home, 12ish at daycare (which he is at 4/days a week now). Today? He crashed hard before Dinosaur Train, which was at 9:30. I had promised myself that I'd start some bread when he took his nap, but I've had some trouble getting going today because the Corporation at the grocery store was closed (I took it as a sign) and decided I'd try to go back to yerba mate instead of coffee. Especially since we're low on coffee and have to make it to Friday morning before we can purchase anything pricey.

I was going to have a protein shake, but then he went to sleep! The laptop is in the kitchen, though, so I'm trying. I've started the first bit, which is putting the yeast, ACCKKKKK! The Tot is up. Oy gevalt.

Grading Prison: Because You're Going to Be Here a While

2010-06-28T08:54:00.010-04:00

So this morning, I have way too much to grade. This is my last day of daycare before grades are due, so in a fit of virtue, I'm going to dedicate the day to getting it done, rather than starting off with research or the annual report thingamajig. I have a lot to do. But can I just stop to say that it's not virtuous to wait until the last minute. Being at the tail end of things this quarter frankly just makes sense (my grandfather dying and accompanying fall-out really did take my head out of work for a long while, delaying things to this late date), but while I usually turn in my grades pretty quickly, happy to get done and be done, I almost always wait until the last minute to grade a batch of projects. I wait even with a batch of reading responses. Not during the first couple weeks, but eventually and pretty regularly.

When I was a grad student, I was notorious (at least in my own mind) for holding onto projects for ridiculously long times. I once had an all-time low and held on to them for such a long time I'm frankly just ashamed to tell you. Bad. Very very bad.

Now I always tell my students that it's going to be two weeks. When teaching two sections of the same prep especially. You don't want to hand back one class rather than the other, but it gets so tedious to read 50 of the project, no matter how interesting or unique. But really, there is no way it should take me 2 weeks to hand back a set of papers. I know -- to some of you this amount is already scandalous. I've seen a teacher I worked with hand back a full set of comments for drafts in one class period (it met every other day). The class was at least 25 students. It was inspiring and dispiriting. There really are people who are totally on the ball.

So when all this is over, I want to stop and think about why it takes me so long to make myself dig in to a stack of papers. I think part of it may be that there is no lull between projects -- we turn a project in and start a new one on the same day -- and those project introduction days are usually much more intense for me. Whatever. It makes no difference now, but I know I need to come back to this later. (Hence I put this in a blog, rather than a journal. I feel no responsibility toward consistency or logic in a journal. I don't even necessarily reread my journal for the most part. I feel responsible to the blog though because y'all are out there.) Also, once I dig in to them, they're usually more interesting and easier to grade than I had feared. Could fear have something to do with putting off one's grading? Hmmm.

Please discuss while I stare at a young squirrel who is half-splayed on my patio.

By the way, remind me to tell you about the patio and the wildlife. We've had a very eventful spring turn into summer, with squirrel babies and Canada goslings and the crazy goose who goes up and attacks tires and people. Oh yeah, and if any are interested, I have stories from the farm. I've been working at the farm for three or four weeks now. I really feel I can breathe better there. I swear it's just being so close to so many plants, who are putting out fresh new oxygen at me. I love it. But now it's not enough. I had to go to the farmer's market yesterday in the storm for a booster shot of produce and oxygen and gorgeous green onions that remind you that they are beautiful plants -- as gorgeous in shape as a tulip or iris or calla lily. I'm getting weird in my old age. And five plants on the patio, a place which has become an indispensable part of the house, especially to Tot. We are becoming much more granola earthy farmy people. AL can really feel it at work, how different we are from everyone sharing YouTube videos and apps or whatever. Anyway. Can you tell I'd really like to do something else? I don't even let myself think about it.

So this is what I have to do today:

~~Grade revisions.~~
~~Record revisions.~~

~~Grade all-quarter work.~~
~~Calculate grades.~~
~~Grade final projects of Elective.~~
~~Calculate grades.~~
~~Contact any stragglers.~~

~~Turn in at least Class 1 grades.~~

Yes, I wrote every little thing in there because I'm going to need the satisfaction of striking things off the list. I am profoundly tired. After a wonderful night of a full, uninterrupted night's sleep on Saturday night, last night Tot went to bed around 8pm, but woke up at 2:30, came to bed, and was very demanding this morning at 6:30. I have a giant coffee from the Corporation (which for money reasons and political reasons I really need to stop frequenting -- there I've made it real by putting it on here -- I really just need to get my espresso machine out of storage) and am fully ensconced in a spot in the house where I shouldn't need to get up for at least two, three. . .minutes.

When I wake up more and am out of coffee, I'll make myself a protein shake and take my vitamins. I would love to be done with Class 1 by about 1pm. That would really set me up for the day.

Sigh.

Hope your day is shaping up better than mine.

***12:15pm Update***

So I'm done with the first class completely. I pretty much rock. I can put all these papers somewhere (to go to the office, since I don't want to keep all this stuff here).

Now, I think I need to eat something. A protein shake. Lunch. Something. And then. Maybe a little bit of rest before I launch into Class 2. Dear lord. But at least if I keep this up I might be able to either work out or do something else besides grading before I have to pick everyone up.

***4:30pm Update***

Well, I'm done. But now I have to pick up the other Absurdists. No shower. No cleaning of the house. No nothing. Sigh.

On with the Show

2010-06-25T10:41:00.009-04:00

Okay, so yesterday I did not end up doing any grading at all, and then last night it hit me: I'm going to have only today and Monday to get it finished up, because I'm booked already for all the other days. So I must get at least some grading done today. But I don't get tenure for grading (well, I'm sure I'd not get tenure if I didn't grade, but beyond that. . .) so I'm still going to make sure I get some research and annual review report thingamabob do-hickey done today too. Because I enjoy those, and they make me feel good and productive.

So on with the show:

~~Go through last 10 pages of Great Article, transcribing the notes I made when I read it the first time. (Yes, this does count as research.)~~
~~Work on annual report thingamabob. Try not to get lost.~~
~~Grade Class 1's Final Projects.~~
~~Assign Participation grades.~~
Start Revisions, maybe, possibly??? NOPE
~~Work out~~
~~Shower~~

Blue Accountablogging

2010-06-24T11:59:00.007-04:00

I'm feeling low. My grandfather died last week; while my father was willing to pay for the tickets, I got sick and Tot was just finishing up an ear infection, so we didn't go to the funeral. My father and I had it out, finally, over some unfinished business. Members of my family are having catastrophically hard times right now. Lots of death. I'm just feeling low, like everything's dismal and unlikely to get better. But really I'm probably just worn out, not terribly healthy, sore from working at the CSA, and grieving, not just the loss of my grandfather, but the loss of the way I wish my family were. I know that an important part of being an adult is to accept the way things are and stop getting angry or upset that things -- and people -- aren't different. But I think I need to grieve right now, instead of telling myself I should be over it by now. Which I should. It's just more of the same. But I'm obviously upset about it. I don't have the strength to fight too hard with myself.

Which explains why I've been home for two hours and really haven't done anything that I set out to do. I need to finish up the spring quarter (we have a really late grade turn-in date, mercifully, considering that this is the first quarter that I haven't had everything in more than a week early, but then it's been a very eventful end-of-quarter). I have revisions, final papers, and some other stuff to look at in one class. The other class is just final projects and assigning grades to things like participation. I'm not going to get all this done this week. Not even close.

Then there are other things I really need to get to, like this article I'm trying to write and for which I really should have a draft written by the end of the month. That's not likely to happen, but still. And then there's the annual report, which I really need to pound out. Then there's planning for the summer, but I'm not even going to put that on my plate just now.

There are other things I'd like to do today, like work out, do the dishes, and try to take care of myself, since I'm so run-down and borderline sick it's crazy.

So what to do? Originally I was thinking an hour for research, an hour for the annual report, then two hours for grading. But if I do that now, then it'll be 4:30 by the time I'm done and I won't get anything else done, not even, likely, some working out, which I think I need. Maybe 45 minutes for each, then an hour and a half for grading. Then I'll be done by 3:30. That sounds better.

Here's what I've done so far: made the bed, threw some clothes in the hamper, cleaned up the toddler toys all over the floor, watered the plants and took care of the patio, read lots of blogs and wrote a couple emails. Pretty pathetic.

Here's what I'm going to do:

~~Do dishes, so I get that instant satisfaction that comes from being able to see progress.>~~ DONE!!
~~Work on research for 45 minutes.~~ DONE!!
~~Work on the annual report for 45 minutes.~~ I think I spent way more than 45 minutes here, but it felt good to make clear and visible progress on this puppy!
Pump? ~~Eat?~~ Mmmm. Swiss chard. Wow.
Grade for 1-1/2 hours. Hmmmm. Not so much.
Work out.
Take shower.

I realize this is the most boring post in the world, but I need that public accountability. I'm depressed; what can I say?

Grandpa

2010-06-11T11:51:00.007-04:00

I found out last night that my grandfather is dying. The doctors say it's a matter of days. He has two different cancers, and he is in his eighties. I should've seen him when I was in Urban City a couple weeks ago for my sister's wedding, but I was barely functional the one day I could've seen him so I didn't.

Though I haven't seen him in a while, my grandfather is a very important person to my writing and my scholarly life. He really started me on the trajectory I'm now on -- in trying to understand the mystery of him, I developed a whole collection of scholarly interests that I am still fascinated by. He was always a very difficult man, sort of cold and distant emotionally. He worked all the time, talked about war and politics during the holidays. He couldn't really relate to people on other people's terms. He was only really interested in talking about a few subjects interesting to him. Luckily, he and I shared interests -- mostly stories about his rather remarkable life -- and I wrote about him over and over again.

Part of me wants to hop on a plane, but I really can't. We don't have the money, for one thing. I would have to take the Tot because we are not at all prepared for me to be gone -- no breastmilk saved up, days that the daycare is closed when Absurdist Lover has to work. I have responsibilities here. I could ask my father for the money to fly Tot and me to Urban City, but there is a whole drama there. I owe my father tons of money already which he is angry about and mentions that "we need to talk" but then doesn't call me when he says he will and doesn't pursue clearing the air with me. Yet, I know he's still mad at me because he didn't call to tell me that Grandpa was in the hospital or anything and because my brother made reference to it. I know Dad avoids confrontation, and I should just deal with it because of course he has every right to be angry, but we're doing our best with one car and can't pay him back yet. It's hard for me to believe that he needs that money to eat the way we do. And maybe I've just been avoiding the whole thing too, because it pisses me off to have to be the one to pursue it when I'm already ashamed of the whole mess and I also have a full and exhausting life without worrying whether my father is angry at me and won't deal with it a dozen states away.

I don't want to borrow pretty much near a thousand dollars right now. I want to honor my grandfather and what he means to me -- my brother says he's only sometimes lucid -- but I also don't want to further weigh down my little family's half-deflated liferaft of hope that we're going to eventually be able to climb up and out of the financial mess we're in. I just can't do that to AL when he's working so hard and not really loving this job -- really finding some of the corporate crap impossible and ridiculous. If my father gives us the tickets, that's something else. Though it would be nothing but headache, I suppose I would take Tot on a couple planes and tough out dealing with all the stupid issues (Tot in some sort of living space not meant for an active toddler, Tot with Dad's dog, etc.) if Dad would buy us the tickets. I'm not holding my breath, though maybe he would. Obviously, I don't really want to go to Urban City, don't really think it will do much for me and my needs when losing my grandfather to deal with all that. I'm really torn. I swear to God I was already really exhausted from trying to be a good little trooper finishing up a sort of depressing quarter, driving everyone around, and dealing with Tot's being sick, which means he wants to nurse through the night, i.e., bad sleep for Mom.

I can't really expect the family to understand and respect that I'm torn between my duties to them and my duties and responsibilities to my little Absurdist Family. (My needs in the face of this loss: how do those factor in to them?) I'm not sure that there is much I can do there in Urban City -- for my grandfather, my father, my siblings. I can see my grandfather, if he makes it that long. I can go to a funeral. I should probably call my father and ask him how he's doing, despite his idiocy. (How angry and disappointed at him I am to realize that his anger toward me outweighs his letting me know that his father is dying! Did he say anything about his anger toward me at my sister's wedding? No.) I know what's important is that I make the right decision for me and feel good about it -- but that's so much easier than it sounds. What is the right decision? (Is not going the right decision for me? Or am I just trying to justify it? I don't know.)

I feel terrible. I've been in my office for hours now. I should be reading some student papers already woefully overdue to be graded. Instead, I've been writing about my grandfather (which I'm sure will turn into a eulogy that I can ask someone to read), remembering things, and reading things I wrote about him. And crying.

So what do you think? Am I the terrible daughter and granddaughter I think I am for thinking that I really can't just up and go to Urban City? Do I wait for the funeral? Do I go to the funeral at all, if I have to pay for it? I figure I shouldn't go anywhere until next Tuesday anyway, when my classes are over. Not really because my job is important, but for my own peace of mind. Maybe I'm terrible, but I'm exhausted and I need to finish up my courses. I have a couple weeks between the end of this quarter and the start of summer. Maybe I can go to Urban City then and help with whatever Dad needs help with.

More on Writing: I Wanna Do More of It!

2010-06-08T22:18:00.005-04:00

I was rereading the terrific and varied comments on this post and wanted to respond, but when it got super-long, I figured I better just write a new post. (You all rock, dear great readers! Rock on!) But it's been so interesting to re-read all your comments now after a week where I really wanted to work on research and so I did in weird odd hours.

I read once that the key to writing with kids at home (I think this was a stay at home mom) was to pull up the file and keep it open all day, so that you have that sense that you're still working on it, but that you were pulled away from it and will get back to it.

Now, I didn't do this exactly (I usually have tons of things open on my computer, so having a file open doesn't really exert the tug on me that it should), but I did have this sense that if I had a few spare minutes I wanted to use it to read and take notes on an article, do another library search and request stuff from ILL or even, one exhausted evening, type up my handwritten notes (which is a must for me) into a file.

What I think works about this strategy is that they are all short assignments, little almost modular pieces I can work on and then leave. In fact, in the idea-generation phase of scholarship, it's even better if I come to the work many different times so I get different perspectives and ideas.

This tends not to work as well when I'm actually trying to draft the damn thing, which is usually a terrible battle because I have to figure out how to organize the piece. This part really needs the kind of focused effort that requires a longer session. And then I might try to organize it multiple times until it feels right or at least okay. It's so tempting to not even think of this researching-and-taking-notes phase as writing. Except that it is, and I know it. But this is why I never want to say "I'm writing scholarship"; it's always "I'm working on scholarship."

Anyway, what I noticed about this engagement with working in little bits was that I was much happier and more fulfilled on the days I got something done on the research front. I think I've finally really grokked that research IS the way to tenure as well as the option of moving elsewhere and that I've got to do it. But I think there is something else going on too: I just like what I'm doing.

So it was weird for me to write a blogpost that said I probably can't write every day, then find myself stealing moments to write/work. Since Friday (when I stole some moments at the Corporation, if you can believe it!), I haven't done diddley-squat though because 7am is really really early -- and that's the time that AL has to be at work. And also I'm finishing up the quarter. And Tot is sick. So: no time to even dream about research. Okay, I can dream about it for two seconds before I fall asleep, before Tot starts crying to come to our bed. . .again. Poor guy. Poor us.

I'm going to bed now, because I'm an awful person, a really bad example of an attachment parenter: after a few nights when Tot needs to come sleep with us, I absolutely relish being in bed without him, able to stretch out, able to sleep in any position I want. Off I go. Good night all.

Oh. My. Freaking.Goodness

2010-06-05T22:39:00.004-04:00

It has been the most exhausting. . .I don't know anymore how long it's been. . .long time.

So to start where I left off last week I woke up late to get to my flight to Urban City, but made it nonetheless. I slept, somewhat, and worked on research on the plane. Then despite the fact that I told my credit card company that I was going to Urban City and what I was planning to use the card for, the idiot company still put out the fraud alert when I tried to rent a car at the airport, making it impossible to use said credit card. Gah! The rental car company was really nice and let me call AL from their phone while we tried to figure out what to do. Ultimately, we had to let the rental card company hold money in our checking account so I could rent the damn car. So that was an exercise in purgatory.

That day, finally, I visited my grandmother. That was fun. Then it was off to the wedding locale and though I thought that everything was going to be mellow, I ended up being whisked away by my sister and her friends and it was a whirlwind from then on, right up until the part where one of the bridemaid's (not me!) didn't have her dress with her until 15 minutes before the wedding. Oy vey! I've never had so much hairspray on my head in my whole life -- and I was an inventive teenager. It took several days to wash it all out.

I got home Monday evening, then Absurdist Lover started his new job the next day. Because we share a car, I had to drive him, then take Absurdist Tot to his eye doctor appointment. The next day I worked my first day at the CSA (yay! in the rain! squashing beetles! yay!), then I went off to my final workshop that makes me despair of any other such workshops. I'm not signing up for anything outside my field that proposes to teach me how to teach from now on. I could critique the facilitators up and down, but I won't. Suffice to say: madness and badness.

Then Thursday, driving everyone everywhere, then going to teach, locking myself out of my office, driving everyone everywhere again. Friday, same thing without locking myself out of my office. All this, while making sure that Absurdist Lover is there at his new job by 8am. Which is a time I don't really believe exists. I now understand how people get their children to sleep by 9pm and themselves crash by 10: it's called waking up at 6. I crashed on the couch at 10pm last night watching Pollyanna. How embarrassing.

Today, I woke up at 7, took a shower (unheard of on the weekends), got Tot, etc. By 2pm, I had baked bread, gone grocery shopping, started the laundry, taken care of the Tot. I wanted to do anything but the grading I needed to do. When I finally got to it at 5pm, I figured I could do one in 20 minutes. And by the end of 2 hours, I had 5 graded. Then I nobly did 3 more once Tot went down to sleep. Now I'm considering my options: I could work on research, which I've strangely been doing in between other things; or I could eat chocolate chocolate chip ice cream. The last few nights I've been too exhausted to get to dessert! What is happening in this world?!

All I can say to all this craziness is that I can't wait until two things: 1) This quarter ends in less than two weeks and then I have about two or three weeks off. 2) We get another car.

I basically go through my day telling myself what a trooper I am, what a good job I'm doing, mostly just because I'm still alive at the end of the day.

This is the first time in a week I've been able to actually consider putting together this blogpost, meanwhile so many of you are off now. Next week will be better, even though I have to have AL to work even earlier (egads!); at least I won't have to go from quietly planting seeds in flats and hunting beetles to pretending I find a bunch of hot air intellectually and pedagogically inventive in a matter of hours.

Tomorrow's the farmer's market. Fitting all the lovely things -- like homemade bread, working at a farm, and going to farmer's markets -- alongside all the other things that must be done means pushing myself to do things when part of me just wants to park my butt on the couch, watch some 8 hour saga, and drool. I feel like this week I've been living my life in a higher gear (or a lower gear -- one that has more oomph). I'm not sure I'm up to it. Two weeks from now I'll be taking Tot to daycare and probably coming back home to sleep. Oy vey.

Inspired to Work, not Travel

2010-05-29T00:15:00.005-04:00

I'm not sure if it's the great meeting I had with my mentor or the great feeling I have from having a plan (get those articles drafted and out: you've got 2 years. ready? go!) or if it's something about thinking about the way I'm going to talk about my work in my annual report, but I've been working on my article in drips and drabs, mostly collecting articles to read. I'm really excited about reading some of the stuff I've printed out as well as working on my annual report, so much so that I'm taking those two things with me as I go to Urban ~~Home~~ City for my sister's wedding. I hope to get time to work on them, which I know is terrible, but there it is.

My mother has been totally over-the-top bubbly about it all (sending me text messages at 3am is so not cool, Mom), while I'm just trying to live through each day, get things organized (renting a car when you have no money is no fun), and get it done. I honestly hadn't even thought about the prospect of fun until she mentioned it. Maybe it's just that it feels disloyal to have fun without Absurdist Lover and Absurdist Tot, who are both staying here because it's just too expensive for us all to go, not to mention that I think we'd have a terrible time flying with Tot, despite that his daycare providers say he's the happiest baby they've ever seen and he never cries there. Well, he cries plenty here. He's been tantrum-y lately, pulling my hair and grabbing at my glasses. Maybe I just have a bad attitude about my family, or large parties, or saying the same things over and over again. ("Yes, I like my new job." "Yes, I somehow survived the snowy winter." "No, I'm not looking for a job anywhere near here.") Maybe it's just that I have to wake up way too early, fly, land, visit people, and drive all around way before I'm ever going to get any real sleep. And since Tot has been having a hard time sleeping lately, so have I. I'm pretty zombified.

I'm going to go and try to get 3-1/2 hours of sleep before I have to get up, take a shower, etc. Maybe more blogging on the road.

On Why Writing Daily May Not Be for Me

2010-05-22T23:51:00.003-04:00

Undine and Kathleen Fitzpatrick over at Prof Hacker are talking about writing again and the old writing-in-the-morning game again. I know that this conversation, while inspiring, may not really be for me. Yes, I can wake up and plunge into something, but the brain that plunges is certainly not my best brain. Not to mention, one's time with an active nineteen month-old is not one's own. But I'm sure I have friends who'd simply wake up before the Tot and get much done. But here's the thing: when I do wake up before him and focus on work before I get him, I don't really want to stop. And I'm not sure I really want my brain to be in work stuff and wanting to be in work stuff when I really should be with him with my whole head. Especially now as he has just vaulted into some incredibly annoying phase where his favorite things are all things he's not supposed to do: standing on the chair, climbing over the sofa, and sitting on the bottom shelf of the entertainment unit. These are all things he's heard "no" to a dozen times, so he does them while watching us with that smile. I don't know if he can truly understand "no" yet, but he spent a lot of time today in his playpen, which is the punishment for naughty things. Is he too young for that? Are we still supposed to be doing distraction? Any thoughts?

Anyway, back to writing. After a horrendous week where I actually got some strange sickness leaving me very very weak but without many symptoms, I was determined on Friday to get some scholarly work done, especially because it's Annual Review time and I have that my scholarship -- or lack of published verification thereof -- on the brain. So I worked and made good progress. I did not actually write. I read a vital source for my article and took copious notes and really allowed myself some time to wade around in those ideas. It was great. When I was done, I didn't really want to stop. I didn't want to work on the backlog of student marking I have to do. I didn't want to prep for Monday. I couldn't make myself sit still to do those things either. I wanted to do research, Annual Review things like work on the report, or chat with colleagues.

This is my problem with the whole writing in the morning idea. It works really well for people who are better at transitions than I am. I suck at closing something up and going on to the next thing. My brain really wants to stick around in the research. Which makes it hard to focus on even the most worthy student project.

So I have teaching prep to do tomorrow that I couldn't get myself to do on Friday, even though I stayed until 6pm. I don't know if other people have this problem. I don't know how to get around this problem either, because I definitely have to work on research on a regular basis, because this article I'm working on must be done by August 1, and I'll be teaching pretty much straight through until and past then. (We're on quarters, so we're still a month away from being done with this quarter, then I'm teaching in the summer.)

But I feel amazing for having finally read the source article and taken notes. Also, I met with my mentor, and we have a plan. I need to work on getting some articles out. There's even a timeline for this, if you can believe it. So I have to get serious. I am to learn to say no until I get these articles done and out. It's very liberating.

So I'm trying to figure out exactly how I'm going to get work done while I'm teaching. I had a mentor long ago who was one of those giving dynamic beloved rock-star professors who saved one day a week to focus on scholarship. Maybe I can do something more like that, since a half-hour each day may work for me when I'm revising, but not really in the earlier stages. And I hate feeling badly about teaching or taking care of the Tot because they're not research when my brain refuses to shut off and move on.

Trying to Honor My Emotions while Focusing on What I Can Control

2010-05-13T00:44:00.004-04:00

So, there's a lot going on right now -- and as is usual probably for all of us, that which has been most tumultuous is pretty much unbloggable. But beyond that, I've been feeling pretty hemmed in by my life lately. AL drives me to work, then I'm inside my building teaching and running around until pretty much the second that AL comes to pick me up. Then we pick up Tot, and I'm mom again. What I'm saying is that I get very little time to myself. I guess this is what my chair meant when s/he said that being on the tenure track and having kids at the same time takes discipline. What's made it worse the last few days is that I've been grading, grading, grading -- and so even when I'm home, I'm holing myself up in the bedroom trying to get stuff done. I really don't feel well in my body and know that the answer is going to have to be to get some exercise, but I'm really struggling to figure out when I'm going to be able to do that. I know I'm not completely insane, because a colleague who is also junior faculty says that she doesn't know how I manage at all, because she's running around like a beheaded chicken without a child. Still, I'd really like to live to see my child grow up. And I really feel like I'm run down in a serious way. I'd rather not wait until the heart attack happens. But when? When am I going to fit in some exercise? And how without putting the entire household out? I'm sure that this one is going to take someone else to figure it out, someone who is not staying up late blogging after grading after a particularly hellish day.

Sometimes I don't know whether I'm an idiot for the choices I've made. I guess that's not a very productive thought just now though.

So I'm going to meet with my mentor about the big picture of what I'm doing from now until I go up for tenure. I have to say that lately I've been dealing with the minutiae, really just running from thing to thing and hoping it's enough to keep everyone happy. (Can I just indulge in my bleak mood for one second and say that my running around lately has not been focused on whether I'm happy? But then, that may not really be fair. I'm happy when I'm looking at the six goslings following their parents. I'm happy when I look into Tot's face. Sometimes I feel a wave of love for my life; I'm just tired now. And achy. And dispirited.) So the question of what I want to accomplish and how my goals for P&T fit into that has been interesting and productive. While I thought last year when I was writing out my plan that I really would write the weird fat book where I discuss three different related heads of the hydra, I've thought lately that even though the weird Three-Headed Hydra book would be super-cool, and there would definitely be productive and cool stuff to see when I put the heads together, it really would short-shrift each Hydra Head. And because of stuff going on in my midst lately, it's clear I have even more to say than I thought about one particular Hydra Head. Even in the diss, this Hydra Head was pushing at 50+ pages; one of my readers commented that he thought that the overstuffed chapter probably suggested that there was a book in there waiting to come out. So now I'm thinking of writing the obvious and more conventional book: One-Headed Hydra. It's hard to figure out whether it would actually sell, but I'm not angling for the book by tenure, only a realistic plan for articles by tenure.

There's another set of concerns I'm interested in -- and these I'm sort of collecting into a second book. So I can write aspects of either and still feel like I have a trajectory. I like this. I like feeling like there is a plan. Like I actually have something to say to my mentor. This is exciting.

Call Out the Men in White Coats

2010-04-30T22:44:00.003-04:00

Well, a lot has happened since that foolish post. I realized how ridiculous I am -- how up in arms I get. It's as if chronic and sometimes even acute sleeplessness not to mention overwork is not enough, I need to make more drama. So of course my comments were responded to in a polite way -- and implemented really very little so far. I also totally freaked out in front of a colleague and realized post-freak out how crazy I was -- and felt calm. I then had a lovely day punctuated by a baby-addled night, leaving me exhausted and unable to get anything done today beyond talking with colleagues (which is important, but then so are the twenty things on my to-do list that turned into twenty five after I spoke with so many colleagues), so instead of being able to finally relax this evening and reap the benefits of having had this epiphany about going up for tenure, my brain is absolutely swimming in all of this undone work.

I really am truly insane and having the hardest time getting uninsane. I get better just to go wonky again. I don't know what it is.

It was actually a nice week. I had a good discussion with a smart student. The discussion reminded me that no matter what the learning objectives say, my one real job with students is to encourage them to think for themselves. Yes. That's it.

And surprisingly and ironically, a person told me she thought I was very down-to-earth for someone so educated. When I repeat it back, it doesn't sound like the offering it was, as if she were handing myself back to me and saying "you are okay." And maybe, "you're different and in a great way."

I'm glad I can enjoy it now, after Absurdist Tot had such a terrible night last night and I had such an unproductive day today that leaves me feeling pretty hopeless about the huge list of tasks. You know what though? I make mountains out of mole hills.

Lately, I've been trying to choose being happy and positive. Those who know me in RL are cackling hysterically at this point -- yes, I can hear you from here. And while being catty and self-deprecating has always been entertaining, it hasn't made me happy. So I'm trying to choose being a happy, more positive person. Trying being the operative word. I read this wonderful description of a person -- actually it's from a review describing Ashley in Junebug, and while I don't want to be Ashley, I do find this description inspiring: "a nonjudgmental optimist savvy enough to recognize the shortcomings of others, but sweet enough to offer encouragement, not condemnation." Now, doesn't that sound like a worthy goal?

I think I'm going to retire now to some Anne Lamott and chocolate.

Going Out on a Limb

2010-04-27T17:44:00.004-04:00

Gah! I just did one of those things that makes me fear for my future. I'm just not one of those people who can shut up until tenure when I see something that I believe is a big mistake. So I told the people in power that I believe it's a big mistake (of course not in those terms at all), suggested what I thought would be better, and tried to emphasize that I mean only the best for them and their goals. There was no way that I could sit still and do nothing, because it was driving me batty -- and I know at least one other person who was also being driven batty. And really, I hope to be remembered by these people as someone who puts my best brain and the wisdom of my experience in service of their goals. But I fear I just look like a big jerk. I'm always the squeaky wheel.

In theory, everyone wants a passionate and smart colleague who wants to help, right? I'm a professional. I can't just sit by and watch something I'm participating in die an ugly death. But in practice, I fear, people want to carry on with business as usual -- or business as they think best (which is usually easiest). Dear lord, I'm obviously going to be sweating this until I hear some kind of response. Crap. I wonder if I should've talked to my department head first. Or a mentor. Double crap.

Well, being me, I could do nothing else. At least if I don't make tenure, it won't be because I pretended I was someone else for six years.

Is the right thing really to keep one's head down until tenure? If so, I am oh so not going to make it!

Rainy Sunday. . .Now with Chocolate!

2010-04-25T16:35:00.004-04:00

So things have continued along the crazy path, hence my lack of blogging. On the days I'm on campus, I run frantically from one thing to another. On the good days, I'm pretty clear-headed about what I need to do next. On the bad days, my brain is like six people trying to get through a door at once. On the days I'm at home, things are considerably more mellow, but of course I still have to get work things done around taking care of the Tot, so it can be stressful to try to steal moments to respond to papers and email and read for class.

I really shouldn't blog about this, I suppose, but (oh! how I want to) it's amazing to me how much people can just not know about effective teaching and teacher development. Active learning just hasn't occurred to these people. Apparently they think the way to get people to make things their own is to just yammer at them. Dear lord! I mean, I realize that most people with PhDs haven't gotten them by studying pedagogy, but I don't think it should require specialized study to figure out that you don't inspire people to make changes in their work and take up the baton by just talking at them for a number of hours. Makes me wonder about their own teaching. Okay, enough said.

So I woke up this morning just completely not wanting to do anything. Taking care of Tot is fine, but I didn't want to work. I was just grumpy and grumbly, especially about tomorrow being a work day. (Tot keeps up waking up in the middle of the night and wanting to nurse, which does nothing good to my ability to sleep.) Absurdist Lover had to go out on a shopping expedition, so when he came back he showed me a lovely chocolate bar that I can eat while working, then a DVD of Tombstone he bought to inspire me to get done quickly. I know. I have the most wonderful man in the world. But here I am in the other room and what happened to that chocolate bar? (Ooh, he just stopped in to tell me he was taking the Tot to go change the laundry -- and he's getting me the chocolate bar!) It's official. I am the luckiest woman in the world. But now that I've shared with him that I've been blogging, I really better get to those response papers. Absurdist Lover, Tot, and Val Kilmer are waiting. It's a hard life, but it's also very very good.

Moving Forward while Sick

2010-04-19T18:45:00.002-04:00

Things have been crazy. On the heels of getting well from one ear infection (taking the last dose of medicine), Absurdist Tot got another one. He went back to daycare today after being sick most of last week. Sigh. Of course, this means I'm sick again too. And last night AT woke up in the middle of the night and came to bed with us so I barely got any sleep next to little Mr. Fitful Sleeper!

Maybe it's that I'm sick and sleep-deprived right now, but I feel as if I've forgotten everything I know about teaching. Case in point: I'm teaching this great elective and the students have all sorts of interesting questions and topics they want to address. But we never get it all done. Each day I feel like we're leaving more and more cool stuff we could be reflecting on behind. I'm having trouble figuring out how to roll up all the stuff we're doing forward. Maybe this is because the readings we're doing right now address sort of similar stuff but from very different disciplinary perspectives. That might be part of it. But I'm just at a loss. I don't want to lose these other threads that students are bringing up. And I keep asking them to do these in-class writings and then we don't have time to discuss them much. But I think the point with the in-class writings is to do them, to experience them, not necessarily to talk about them, which I guess I should say in class. I don't know. I'm tired, I guess. If anyone has any tips for carrying the threads of class discussion forward in good ways, I'm all ears.

Also, despite telling myself to not engage in a zillion service obligations, I've found that I'm engaged in a couple email conversations that really get to the core of some of the work I want to do and I can feel myself wanting to be a mover and shaker on these issues. Down, girl, down. I'm laying groundwork. I'm also trying to develop a more cooperative and supportive style, rather than trying to storm the castle all by myself.

I've almost been here a year and I can really feel it, with my annual report due in a couple months and different end-of-year tasks on my to-do list. This is an interesting time. I'm not getting any research done yet, but I'm hopeful that once I'm well I'll have more energy.

Survived the First Week, the Second Will Be Better

2010-04-11T09:48:00.005-04:00

So I made it through the first week. It was an absurdist nightmare: I was sick, had pretty much lost my voice, and got my period (I know TMI) all on the first day of my classes. As I was sitting there in my office pumping, the words of a colleague kept ringing in my head: this colleague gets the same amount of research done whether s/he teaches or not. Meanwhile, I was sitting there dealing with all these things that my colleagues don't deal with: pumping, periods, getting sick because my son is a bacterial and viral sponge at his daycare. No, I don't get the same amount of research done whether I'm teaching or not. As a good friend of mine said when she had kids, this is just the time in my life when I don't get a lot done.

That said, I've been trying to get a lot done. My major victory? I finished prepping for my Monday courses last night. (Okay, a lame way to spend a Saturday night, but whatever.) I had a terrifically long list (the list is already a victory) on Friday that I managed to get through most of. This weekend when I'm freed up from Tot duty, I take out the list and see what I have energy for. So far, working on research has not gotten done, though it is on the list. I've got to work on that, first because I said I'd have a piece for an edited collection for June 1, second because research is not going to do itself.

So I have all sorts of craziness going on this quarter: a class I've taught before, an elective I haven't taught before, an eight-week professional development course I'm taking, and a bunch of tasks associated with my upcoming annual review, this article due June 1, my sister's wedding, working at the CSA. Of course, all this stuff is already conflicting with each other: the first CSA meeting is during the professional development course. Sigh. So I'm trying to be more organized and forward-thinking that usual.

I've been worried that I don't actually work enough, because the days I don't go to campus, I really do spend most of my time taking care of the Tot. So I've been watching the actual hours I spend when he's awake and asleep doing work. Yesterday, it was about four hours. If I do that every day I'm not on campus, then I'm definitely working 40 hours per week. 40 hours per week of actual work (rather than just being on campus) seems totally reasonable; of course, it also means I have practically no time for anything else, but what else is new. It also doesn't account for all those times I'm nursing or chasing Tot down but thinking about the best approach to teach Concept A in my course. Most people get to do that productive daydreaming in their offices; I get to do that while picking little green monkeys off the floor. (Of course, when I start getting piles of papers to grade, this will all change, I'm sure.)

So I'm determined to get research done in my weekly work schedule. (Writing daily, while ideal and the best thing to do, is just not practical for the working mom.) Right now, I still have this Very Important Article to read and take notes on, the same article I've been promising myself I'd read for the last couple months (while I was worrying over my conference paper). This last week -- the first of the quarter -- was a weirdo, a one-off, being sick and everything. Even Tot's daycare was weird. But I am going to get research done this upcoming week. I'm determined.

Good Friday

2010-04-02T16:57:00.005-04:00

I'm working in slow motion, trying to ready myself for next week. Next week! Sigh. Absurdist Tot went from totally okay and running around during the day on Wednesday to snotty and watery-eyed Wednesday night. So no daycare yesterday. And today they're closed, but it doesn't matter because AT has green gunk coming out his nose and yellow out his eyes. Poor thing. He's napping now -- one of God's small miracles. Yesterday, we had to resort to sit up nursing because the pressure in his head when he was lying down made nursing impossible. Poor little guy.

So I did manage to get some work done yesterday -- solid progress toward the new quarter -- all thanks to Absurdist Lover. So with the wee bairn asleep in the middle of the floor and the beautiful day shut out (we'll take a walk later -- Absurdist Tot loves going out for walks), I'm asking myself what small step I could accomplish at this point that would make me feel a bit closer to the goal. Yesterday I managed to roughly outline the quarter -- wow, a quarter is a short period of time! I always worry that there are better readings out there somewhere, but clearly I won't be able to even use all the ones I'm excited about. Well, it's a new prep, an experiment. Some of my favorite classes (gosh, maybe all of them, now that I think about it) have been experiments. I guess I could start to order the stuff -- or I could start some of the other aspects of the syllabus. It's easier to just open a new tab and start looking for even more texts and films. I know! I wrote some stuff down longhand that needs to be typed. That kind of super-easy stuff is definitely what I should do. (They're actually learning objectives -- and our campus, like so many others, is very hip on including learning objectives on the syllabus.) So that's a big step in the right direction!

I made bread today, though this one looks funky. Mostly, we're just mopping up Absurdist Tot, though AL has his usual long list of projects keeping him busy.

By the way, if you need to laugh -- and who doesn't? -- read Paul Reiser's Babyhood. This guy knows what he's talking about -- but he's so frigging funny that I'm reading and trying to hold my laughter in so I don't wake the baby. It's the kind of funny because it's so true. Oh.my.god. So frigging funny.

***Update 5pm***

When I finally settled down into typing out those handwritten learning objectives I was talking about above, AT woke up from his nap crying. I was in the bedroom with the door open -- a pretty normal occurrence and he usually just toddles in to me, but this time he was looking for me in the kitchen and wailing. He had all this gunk coming out of his eyes. When I tried to open the blinds, he shut his eyes tight for ten minutes, even when we closed the blinds and put him down on his boppy, even when he was nursing. The gunk kept coming out of his eyes. AL suctioned his nose and two seconds later it was running green again. Really, he's about as sick as I've ever seen him, with big red eyes. When I went to call the doctor and handed him to AL, AT started wailing again. This is not my usual active child. He didn't want to be put down until, finally, he saw that he had unimpeded access to a couple of DVDs he likes to play with. Then I figured he would be okay. We started up Follow that Bird, and -- get this -- he looked to me when the Grouch's Anthem started up. (I like to sing it. See what kinds of madness I start?) I even got a glimpse of his usual sparkley-eyed self when I sang it. Now, he's watching Big Bird's adventures and hanging on to one of his socks. We now have a doctor's appointment for noon tomorrow. Poor guy.

Note to self: You can no longer wait until the last possible moment to write a syllabus, because that's when AT's going to get sick. Or you're going to get sick. Or whatever. Moms are more organized because of their extremely limited time. You're a mom now. It's time to realize that the last possible moment is about two weeks before you think it is.

The Count is counting the telephone poles. All is right in the world. ("Once you set your heart to moving on. . .there ain't no road too long." Words of wisdom.)

Spring Break Monday Freak Out

2010-03-29T10:55:00.004-04:00

Absurdist Tot is at his new daycare. Gulp. I wish I could have a camera on him all the time so I could see what's going on there -- just so I could see how he is there and whether he's outgoing or reserved or having a good time or whatever. Not because I'm worried about the daycare. The people there seem great. Sigh. I'm totally a helicopter parent. But then, he's not even a year and a half old. I might get over it by the time he's in college. Especially if he's got all those weird boy smells.

I feel like these totally normal daycare people are going to figure out that the Absurdists are totally fringey -- that we don't help our child figure out how to sit still. They're going to figure me out -- that I'm a terrible person, a terrible human being. Like when my ex-therapist asked me what time I usually awakened, and I said that try as I might I don't really have a set schedule. He replied: "well, that's not very adult, is it?" Only he's saying it over and over and over in my head. Obsessive, are we?

So I have so much to do -- for the new quarter, doctor's appointments to schedule, sister's wedding and dress stuff, student loan stuff. I'm whelmed and overwhelmed. I'm embarrassed how behind I am in all things -- so much so that I dare not put my to-do list on the old blog. I'm all nervous and freaked out. Sigh. I've got a bunch of different tabs open -- and I keep flipping back and forth from this blogpost to a bunch of incoming emails. It's terrible. I need to control my input in order to be able to figure out what needs to be done first, then focus on just one thing and get it done. Furg, I need to mellow out just to be able to write a damn to-do list so I don't go mad mad mad. I'm not well. I need to calm down. (Did I mention that Absurdist Tot is going to daycare again on Thursday and then not on Friday because it's Good Friday? So I really have to be productive here.) I'm quite flippery. Soon, this is going to be a full-fledged coping-with-ADD blog.

Happy Monday. Blech.

Beginnings: New Daycare, New Quarter

2010-03-28T23:24:00.004-04:00

Absurdist Tot starts a new daycare tomorrow -- with a more regimented daily plan. He's such a wild kid, I can't tell whether it's going to be a complete no-go, making him feel confined and ruining his sunny disposition, or whether he'll thrive in more structure than Absurdist Lover and I are good at providing. This place has a lot of art and music, gymnastics and outside time. So he may well thrive. I hope so. Why am I the one who is nervous?

I really hope he doesn't cry when I leave; I just hate that.

Tomorrow officially starts spring break, which means I've got to use the time to high-tail it and wrest the spring quarter under control. Learning objectives. Syllabi. Plans. All that. Not that I haven't been taking notes and planning and researching and thinking and rethinking. But I haven't written my syllabi, finalized exactly which readings to include, things like that. I certainly haven't mapped it all onto the quarter calendar. It all begins again tomorrow.

I long for the sleepy winter, everything blanketed under snow, with good excuses to stay in and hunker down. I must wake from my winter hibernation. Some hibernation -- I've been tired the whole time! Back to walking back and forth between my classroom, the women's bathroom, and my office for hours on end. Back to teaching. Back to trying to find time to get scholarship done. This winter, instead of pumping out some articles, I crocheted up a storm, worked on a huge cross-stitch project for AT, taught myself how to bake bread, cooked a lot. Started working out a little bit. Spent a lot of time with the tot. Spent some quality time with AL. Went away to a conference which reminded me how lucky I am, for all my grumblings about how hard it is to be a working mom, an academic mom, a mom mom, a mom on the tenure track. I'm very lucky. Even very barely squeaking by financially and incurring the irk of my Urban City family, I'm very lucky. Even though it is certainly difficult to balance everything, I'm still very very blessed.

On Self-Confidence: Trying to Become Comfortable with Being My Messy Self

2010-03-19T18:11:00.007-04:00

I went to a panel that basically has gotten me thinking about my unease as an academic/professor. I'm not at all going to (or even try to) do the paper I heard justice, but basically what I want to think about here is what I get out of not being myself as a professor at my job and whether I can do anything about it.

So first off, I like my job. But for the last couple years, I've felt messy, like I have no idea what I'm doing. I've talked with some people (including Peppy Advisor, God bless her) and feeling like I have no idea what I'm doing seems pretty much par for the course during the craziness of having a baby under 2. Really, and I know this sounds strange to anyone who doesn't have kids, but I haven't caught up with the fact that I'm a mom. I don't feel like a mom. . .no -- maybe that's not quite right. I don't feel like my image of what a mom feels like. Like so many things, being a mom just isn't what I expected. (What is, right? But even though I know nothing is like its hype in theory, in practice it's all still surprising.) On the other hand, I'm totally a mom. I worry about my darling boy. I think he's the cutest thing in the world. I tell Absurdist Lover to look at the cute thing AT's doing at least five times a day, though he's seen it. I worry for AT. I worry he'll have all my bad habits, my negative self-talk, that because he's a boy he'll get totally bored with school and do all the things that led most of my male friends to take drugs, get in trouble, and drop out. I swear the reason I got through it all was because I wanted to go to college so badly and because I was used to being a reasonably good-ish girl and was scared of straying too much into danger and harm's way. (My mother really helped instill a big fear of men and the world in me. Which may have saved me in some ways but of course I worry about now that I have a son.) Anyway, not to go off on that tangent, but the daily work of being a parent, being a mom means I've never really caught up to the fact that I am a mom and done the reflective work around it that might make me feel like I know what I'm doing as a parent or a person. I just am not sure I've really integrated my identity as a mom into who I am, which is strange and interesting as I discover that, as the Bill Pullman character says in The Accidental Tourist, "I'm just not the person I thought I was" or maybe as the William Hurt character says in the same movie, Absurdist Lover (though Hurt was talking about the Geena Davis character) "has given me another chance to decide who I am." These quotes really resonate with me, obviously. To make a long story short (too late), my identity has been in flux these past couple years.

And I think fundamentally I feel really embarrassed about that. Like I don't want people to see how messy I am. Now, I've always been kind of messy. But before I was more messy cynical. Now I am a more. . .sentimental. I'm a bit embarrassed about loving crochet (though I always loved cross stitch before too), enjoying making dinner and baking bread. As if I'm some weird throw-back, undoing the progress of the women's movement or something. I'm embarrassed, a bit, and defensive about how granola I am, how I've started praying pretty regularly (though I still love astrology, even as I truly know how ridiculous it is), how I've come to believe that affirmations may seriously help someone with such toxic self-talk. I say that "I'm such a nerd" way too often. I'm a much better friend to my friends, who I find myself telling that they are fabulous because I really believe it and I think they are just hard on themselves, than I am to myself. I need to be a better friend to myself. I know this. Dammit!

Of course, starting a job in the middle of all this doesn't help. It's another identity transformation -- from grad student to professor. (Yes, there was that first job at Adventure U, but then I was an adjunct after that -- and we all know how that contingent status just does a wonderful job of making a person feel like contingent person.) I'm also the only person in my department who has young kids and looks like an exhausted mom. I feel totally like I do everything half-assed. Which, from what everyone who's done this before tells me, is normal. But I'm also isolated and have few people to laugh about it with. I've got to work on that.

So being in an identity flux and feeling like I do parenting and academic work completely half-assed (also my scholarship is changing a bit, but that doesn't feel quite as foundational) makes me feel insecure in who I am, feel insecure in my job, and feel not even remotely self-confident. But I don't want to feel that way anymore. One of the most wonderful people I know in the world is just so upfront about her messiness that it doesn't even come off as lack of confidence or anxiety or anything. Instead of trying to hide anything, she's confident enough to admit her frailties, her messiness. I think I might have once been like that -- or at least come off that way. But that's the way I want to be. I don't want to hide. I don't want to pretend I'm not an exhausted momademic. I am. And it's exhausting. And I'm not trying to get out of any work or anything. Not at all. This is just the period of my life where I don't sleep much and am pretty sure I'm not doing my absolutely best work. But I am doing the best work I can right now.

I want to find a way to stop feeling defensive and silencing myself. Remember the clothes obsession I was having a while ago? I used to wear jeans to teach when I was in grad school -- not in the first weeks of the semester, but eventually. Occasionally I would get comments about it, but generally it was fine. I never wear jeans in the classroom at VPU. Just never. I do occasionally wear them to work, but I'm always super-aware of the fact that I'm wearing jeans and then I feel underdressed next to the professors (always older and tenured) wearing suits. (In fairness, there is a colleague who wears jeans and a sweater every day -- and I've been told he's done that since the start of his career here. But he's male. Is it different? Is it different because I say it is and am overcompensating for my insecurity? I don't want to see something that is not there.) I want to be taken seriously. But I also want to be myself. I don't know if this means I should start wearing jeans. Maybe not wearing jeans here is not out of fear but from a more savvy sense of what's appropriate in this very different context. I do have students call me Dr. English, not because I'm not a casual person, but because I'm not a grad student anymore. I deserve it.

I'm a hard worker. Not that I feel like a hard worker when my elective is so radically underprepared at this point, but I think I also have impossible perfectionist standards and then I procrastinate and fail in my own eyes. This is not good. I need to be better to myself. Not that I'm really having a problem with my teaching, but I think my teaching will be more enjoyable if I just try to be a good role model of a person who is authentic, realistic, and honest about who she is, and, most important, not ruled by fear. I want to work on this. I don't want to project all this insecurity out onto my colleagues as if they are making me feel this way. I honestly can't really tell. But I think I need to make more of an effort to talk to my colleagues. It's true that the first year is just grueling -- and having a baby at home means that I can't just get together with people for drinks or anything. But I need to meet and talk with my colleagues more. Perhaps I'll make a goal of meeting with a colleague once every couple months. (We're all so busy, this is probably a very reasonable goal though it sounds ridiculous -- surely I should be able to manage one a month, but. . .I know we're all sort of running scared most of the time.)

I'm going to have a better spring, I've decided. I'm great, absolutely stellar at tying myself into knots. Now I'm going to figure out how to be Houdini and get myself out of them. If anyone has any advice on how to become more self-accepting, less anxiety-ridden, and more mellow, I'm all ears.

How Different I've Become -- and Coping with ADD

2010-03-18T13:39:00.005-04:00

Sssshhhhhh. I'm up here. In my hotel room, far away from the rooms where the sessions are taking place. I can see y'all in your smart suits, geek tags swinging. I'll be back down there with you soon enough.

Yes, I'm at a conference. I flew in today, leaving home at scary early in the morning after practically no sleep. After weeks of looking forward to this conference for the hotel room and not having someone bang on the door when I'm in the bathroom and having the luxury of taking a bath, I just miss AT so much. I just never knew I could love someone so much that it feels wrong to be away from him. I miss AL too. And my life of baking bread and crochet and finding organic stores and farms with AL and walking with AT to see the geese. I thought it would be good to get away, and I realize that the good of leaving is to realize how much I miss them. Yesterday, I was sad just thinking about leaving. I've run into a couple colleagues from grad school days already -- and I realize how different my priorities are now -- not in terms of the conference (I'm not good at all the glad-handing and networking of conferences -- I just prefer to sit down and have longer conversations with people rather than the quickie who-are-you-and-what-do-you-do stuff and have always been that way), but in terms of my life. It's weird but nice to think how I've changed. I wish I could feel more comfortable in those changes, but I think more sleep is probably key to feeling better in a bunch of ways. One of the colleagues I ran into and I commiserated about how being a parenting academic means feeling you're doing everything half-assed. It's so nice hearing that come out of someone who always looked, at least, like s/he knew what hir was doing. Maybe this is just what a parenting academic looks like. I mean. . . this is what it looks like! Anyway, this is what I look like -- and there's nothing wrong with it. No more of this mental toxic sludge! Just stop!

I had this classic moment at the airport. I was reading this fabulous-looking book on ADD that was talking about all this mental toxic sludge that goes on in our heads when we're just ADD when I booted up my phone and it said 7:30am, the time my connecting flight was supposed to leave. Which means that I had been blissfully reading the book as if I had all the time in the world -- for over an hour! I freaked out. Dropped the book and started down the hallway back to my gate. Luckily, it was just that my phone hadn't yet registered the time change and I was fine. But that freak-out like I could've been flipping through this book for more than an hour felt totally real -- and totally ADD. Just zoning so totally out that I have no idea how much time has elapsed. If I needed proof of my own ADD, there it was. In the book, they were talking about a state I know very well: Overwhelm. I get overwhelmed pretty easily -- or it's that my brain races and worries and obsesses so I'm overwhelmed early, way ahead of schedule. Obsessing is the one thing I don't procrastinate.

Right now, I'm too tired for true Overwhelm, but as always I'm having trouble figuring out what to do (and so I blog -- sorry everyone). I did a great job (if I say so myself) revising my presentation on paper on the flights, so now I need to incorporate those changes into the file and figure out where to print it. (Note to self: Don't forget again that you are a paper person! Revising on paper is doable, if wasteful. Just do as Anne Lamott says and plant trees and give it up already! Work with not against your natural proclivities, girlfriend, as I'd say to any of my friends.) Do I do it right now, when I'm tired, but not really sleepy enough to take the nap I surely desperately need? Or do I turn on the TV and trust that after a couple stressful days I will surely zone out and conk out asap? Why can't I ever make a decision? (ADD.) The book said when overwhelmed to back up and get back to a decent mental state. Which requires sleep. So TV and sleep, here I come. See? I can follow directions. Which maybe means I'm not ADD. Ha ha ha.

Daycare Update and Things Are Springing (Slowly) Forward

2010-03-16T14:08:00.001-04:00

It's ironic that I began last Thursday's blogpost with my concerns about our daycare over the long term, because by the end of the day we decided we really can't take Absurdist Tot back there. When we went to pick him up, the person in charge told us that AT had a big mark on his eye that they found after his nap, but even though he asked the morning person and researched whether there was anything in the nap area that could've caused it, they found nothing. He said this before we saw AT, as the little ones are not in the front room. When we saw AT, it looked awful. Not only was his eye puffy, but he had big sort of square splotches above his eyebrow. How could they not know what caused it?

Now, I've certainly had my back turned with AT when he smashed into things. He's a very active little boy. But I can put two and two together afterward and surmise what must've happened. I'm not that upset that he got hurt at daycare, or even terribly surprised that it happened when someone's back was turned, but how could they not figure it out? It was bad enough that it looked like AT must've cried when it happened. And as AL quite rightly pointed out, they didn't call us about it, even though they must've known about it for hours before we picked him up. What if he had needed a doctor? Since this is on top of some other icky vibes we've gotten, we're not taking him back there. So we have no daycare now and are searching, again, for a place that will deal with us with the food. We had seen some other decent places when we were searching before, but it's hard for me to feel good about putting him in a place where he's going to get non-organic food, not because I think somehow I'm going to keep his little system pure, but because I just want him to have the best I can get for him -- and if he's going to get pesticide-ridden things in daycare, then it's going to be on a regular basis rather than the occasional bad thing. The more good food he gets, the stronger his system will be. The more his little liver is trying to rid him of bad things, the less energy his body puts into things like growing and developing.

The strange thing is that I feel sad about leaving our old daycare. But I know it's for the best, because the caregiver we really felt confident about was only there for a halfday anyway. And I don't feel as confident about the other caregivers, especially because it really seems like they have just too many kids and not enough caregivers. The prospect of looking for a new daycare leaves me feeling deflated. I'm trying, again, to find out where the granolaheads send their kids, but I'm afraid the answer at his age is either expensive (private nannies) or impossible (staying home). But in the time it took to write that AL called up a new (to us) place and asked about opting out of the snacks -- and they volunteered that it was fine because they have a number of kids on organic-only diets. Cross your fingers. It's a Christian daycare, and in the past that would've been a complete no-go for me, but now I'm so confused about religion that. . .I just don't know. The new organic co-op we found has a box of prayer requests, so maybe. . .I just have no idea.

Both Absurdist Lover and Tot are sick. AT has not been sleeping well, which means I'm not sleeping well -- and I spent a number of hours lying in bed thinking about my elective, thinking while ostensibly doing something else being the operative way I work nowadays. I don't feel like a good academic just now. I don't feel like my classes are prepped as much as they should be by now. Sigh. Next week, when Absurdist Lover is well, I'll ask him to watch AT more so I can get stuff done. AL reminded me recently that I should ask him to watch AT so I can do supportive and restorative things for me too. We put a hopeful sum away for me to buy a car. AL is likely starting his own business. We're determined to be more positive. So good things are happening over here. Spring has sprung, and I long to be outside more. We're trying to find more community. It's all just sort of slow going right this second. The daycare thing is a drag, but we'll figure it out -- and maybe this new place will be much more in line with us.

Big changes may be afoot in my department -- and I have some things to say about them to the bigwigs proposing the changes. (I'm not against them, but I want more explanation for some particular curricular revisions they're proposing, since I've been trying to get some curricular revision done around some particular courses -- and it's clear they're not thinking what I'm thinking.) It feels a big David-and-Goliathy but probably only in my own head. Imposter syndrome. The young mother in jeans against the men in suits. It's just me. I'm smart, dammit! I'm going to start daily affirmations or something. This imposter syndrome has got to stop. I need to be a good academic, professional, and colleague -- and I can't do that if I feel like I shouldn't say anything until after tenure. No. That's not who I am. It's just hard to have so much on the line. (And all this hand-wringing in my first year. Ee gads!)

Today Is Brought to You by Day and Org: Daycare, Organic Food, and Organizing My Day

2010-03-11T10:42:00.009-05:00

It's official. Before Absurdist Tot is old enough to move into the next room at daycare (which is maybe preschool -- and I guess there is time), I'm going to have to find a new daycare. When we dropped him off today, I heard the teacher (who is not the usual teacher, but still a pretty decent one) tell the kids that because they were good at whatever they were doing, they could go get a sucker. At 10:30 in the morning! I'm sorry. I know I'm probably much more extreme about controlling what my kid eats than a lot of parents (organic everything), but I think giving kids sugar (not to mention HFCS and food dye) and nutrition-less food as a reward for good academic behavior at 10:30 AM is. . .well, not criminal, but certainly going to set up crap behavior as well as sugar-related behavior problems throughout the day. It's not that I want to keep AT from candy forever -- it's really just almost impossible -- but not as a reward for school and not before lunch. I'm sorry. No. I don't like it. I don't want my kid eating that toxic crap, and I don't want him to feel excluded from having what everyone else has.

I also just feel like they have too many kids in AT's room. I believe the official and legal ratio is 1 and 6, but some of the other daycares we looked at had 1 and 4 at his age. I like our daycare, how it doesn't feel all clinical and institutional and the people are warm and friendly, but I'll be very happy next week when the woman who made us fall in love with our daycare will be back.

One of the reasons we went with this daycare is because the food was up to us, so AT wouldn't be eating a bunch of organic-but-state-approved food. Sigh. Food and daycare. What a nightmare!

I wish the whole organic thing weren't such an uphill battle, especially when the argument is, at least to me, so obvious. Kids eat a lot more vegetables and fruits than adults do. With their more vulnerable and still developing systems (remember, we worry about when to give them milk and peanut butter and all that because their systems are fragile and they could develop an allergy at that age that they would not have later), pesticides are much more difficult for their little livers to deal with. There's research on this. Dr. Sears's Baby Book and the website contain wonderful discussions on the dangers of pesticides for children and how pesticides include brain-damaging toxins! The Pesticide Action Network (yes, a special interest group, so they are biased, but then so is our conventional food system who I swear is putting out propaganda suggesting that organic is only for effete upper-class individuals who have the luxury to buy gourmet food -- damn it, organic is not gourmet! it's old-fashioned, non-toxic food! and you know what? my organic salad fixings are really not that much more expensive than the conventional, even in winter across the country from the state that's putting out most of the organic stuff in winter -- and I don't have to worry that I'm going to be paying later in health costs) also has great info and research on the harm of pesticides on children. And yet state-mandated food for daycare is not organic. It should be. It should be, dammit.

So AT is at daycare. Which means it's time for me to be productive. I don't feel like night-of-the-living-dead, as I've felt on and off for the last few days. In fact, AL suggested doing something fun, but something in me was immediately against it -- maybe because daycare is supposed to be when I get things done, and I have a long list of things I haven't been doing and while I don't exactly feel like a failure in every direction (because I did get that conference paper done for now), I know I could feel better about my workload. So.

I want to read some research and take some notes. I've got two different articles I could read for. I haven't decided which I'll read for, but I know if I do this, I'll definitely feel like I've gotten something done. DONE: That is, I looked at two smaller pieces of research, only one of which is at all really helpful. I want to look at the big piece for the other article, but it's clear to me I don't have time today. It's okay. Really, Earnie, it's okay.
I really need to try driving the car. If I could drive that car, it would make a huge difference in my feeling of freedom and independence. I'd be able to go to the store when we need more food. I could run to school when I need to rather than dragging the whole family. Can you tell I'm trying to convince myself here, because driving a 5-speed is just so damn scary? I tried driving with AL, but it freaked him out and so we never got out of the complex. I'm super-frustrated. Am I going to have to pay money to pay someone to teach me -- someone who is used to people being unsure and vulnerable in order to learn how to drive the damn car?
I've got to work on the elective. I haven't firmed up my reading list and need to. Because so many of my books are out of reach, I'm going to have to ILL some books in order to make copies. It's so damn stupid, but there it is. I'm also just plain having trouble coming up with some readings.
Workout? DONE
Pump, since I'm going away soon and AT needs a cache of breastmilk. DONE

I feel so much like that moment in Parenthood when Steve Martin is having a super bad day, having just found out he's not getting the partnership at work and has quit and his wife says she's pregnant, but he's got to go coach Little League and she asks if he really has to, and he responds: "my whole life is have to." It's not true in my case, of course, and I love AL and AT and my job, but. . .well, sitting in a hotel room watching bad TV without having to worry about whether it's scrambling AT's brain and making him ADD sounds pretty good right now.

It's ridiculous. I'm all stressed out. But if I just spend an hour on each of the above things, it'll be time to pick AT up. (No time for fun -- waaa. And it's so sunny and nice -- the snow has completely melted off our patio.) So I better quit whining and just get on it! Why is that so hard? (I think because I used to have so much time to explore my feelings and get my inner house in order -- and now there's no time for that. And I have a pretty messy inner house. I've got to get things done now or they don't get done.)

Please remind me to write about the following things: being on a search committee, because some of the things I found out really surprised me and would be good, I think, to share, and the book I'm reading on boys. Let me know if either of these pique your interest.

*****
*Pouf*

Things Are Looking Up But I'm Counting Spots on the Ceiling

2010-03-08T13:49:00.005-05:00

Here I am at the kitchen table, Absurdist Tot in daycare, and I'm ignoring the print-outs of the two different documents I have on this dumb conference paper. AL is even at the grocery store doing the shopping. I should be working. Or working out. I'm just so tired. Spent. I spent a couple hours writing some emails about this elective I'm teaching -- and now I just want to lie down and count the spots on the ceiling.

In good news, my sister wrote and explained to me that she totally understands my coming to the wedding without AL and AT. She totally gets it. That's a load off my shoulders. Though maybe it hasn't sunk in yet. Forget the folks. If they can't appreciate that my focus/commitment is to my little Absurdist Family, then sod them. They might make gestures toward wanting to see AT, but they have never followed up with Skyping to see him or asked me questions about him or anything. I'm hurt. And concerned that he'll not have as many people in his corner as he ought to, which puts more pressure on me to compensate/surround him with other people who love him, but right now he's fine. He doesn't care about anyone else, only that I don't leave the room even to go to the bathroom. (Oh how he cries!) So whatever.

Can I tell you a secret? Last night I was thinking of scholarship as this little game I play in order to stay employed. By the clear light of day though that statement feels more like a lie, like scholarship has some importance. Whatever my scholarship's intrinsic worth to my field, department, world, it's also a necessary part of my job and therefore contributes to AT's well-being and so it follows that it's.worth.getting.done. Especially when one's conference is in less than two weeks. Somehow this argument is not so motivating.

Maybe I should read something in the conversation to which I'm responding.

Maybe ten minutes of lying down before I dive into this conference paper is in order.

*******

I took a walk, and it occurred to me that the hard part of this conference paper for me is writing in sentences. When I think of standing up there in front of people, I just can't imagine reading at them about this stuff. I just want to be more casual, more conversational. I wonder if this is because I just don't feel that this stuff is scholarly enough. Or maybe I just am having trouble believing in scholarship and scholarly discourse right now. Or maybe I'm just so comfortable with this stuff (I wrote this original draft for this about five years ago) that I want to talk it. I don't know. I don't know what this means. But I'm going to go write longhand for a little while, then workout. I picked up a bunch of pinecones out there. Can it be possible that I'm not ready for spring?

A Bit of a Sulk

2010-03-04T11:38:00.006-05:00

I realize I made a commitment to trying to be more positive, but I've also learned that trying to be relentlessly positive is counterproductive and just ignores all the black and blue feelings that need to be dealt with or at least expressed. Though I am still committed to trying to get underneath the snark to what's really going on. It's interesting how I edit myself in this space, though that's probably a subject for another time.

Right this second I feel like night of the living dead. Absurdist Tot is in daycare (yes, he cried again today and it breaks my heart -- the kid who is always all over us when we're there was banging toys in his face -- no, I don't think this helped) and so I should be productive and everything. But I'd like to sit on the couch and zone out to a bunch of depressing movies I've seen at least twenty times. Why? Well, partly I think it is just physiological. I just had a fasting blood test, but didn't make an appointment, so, more vulnerable and grumpy that usual, I had to wait in a waiting room of characters (including a older woman who had had part of her legs amputated but was hilariously whispering about how she told the doctors to "leave her sex so she could have some fun -- after all, she didn't want just to sit around." Clearly, whatever crap I'm dealing with is nothing compared to having your legs amputated! I should just get a grip.) There was also a person of indeterminate gender being wheeled around who seemed only capable of making intermittent cries of our her (I think) rather permanently gaping mouth. It didn't seem that this person had much awareness of what was going on around her. I admit that I'm not always good at being around people who are so seriously. . . impaired. But really it's probably that all this is very out of the ordinary for someone who leaves the house to go to work and the grocery store and that's it. But probably none of this was anything compared to the book I was reading about trauma. So low blood sugar plus blood being drawn plus AT crying plus being surrounded by strangers for a couple hours as I waited. . .probably not a great beginning to the day in which I should be unusually productive.

But then there is everything going on at home. We have practically no money until I get paid again over a week from now. I did the taxes and am expecting a refund, but that is likely to come in at the same time I get paid. Scraping and scratching and paying late fees on things so we can eat just depresses me and grumps me out. Absurdist Lover is sick and doesn't have insurance (no domestic partner benefits and we can't get married yet). He's also up for a job that looks really good, but now we're just waiting and we all know that tension and how it makes everyone grumpy and crazy. (Please cross your fingers, toes, and eyes for us, because it's a perfect job for him.) Compounded with our financial troubles? GAH!

Then there's my sister's wedding. I love her dearly. I want her to have the wedding she wants. I really want to be supportive. But getting to the wedding is going to cost at least $1,000 to get us out to Urban Yuck City if not more. Then there's the fact that we have no place to stay (my fault -- my brother asked first, though he's traveling only 300 miles and has friends in the area while we're traveling over 2,000 miles -- I'm very upset about all this). And then there's the issue of the dress -- she picked out one that I really think I'll look like a cow in, but though I expressed some concerns, I said fine, but that I needed to know how to get it and what it's going to cost. Now, she's going to look for new dresses. I'm really not sure why -- she just announced it to me in an email.

When I think about this wedding, I think how secretly I don't want to go at all and how guilty I feel about that: it really feels like we're going to have to use the very money that would allow us to get ahead (I don't have a car and I feel very trapped plus I want to get my stuff still in storage several states away) just to get and stay there. The traveling and probably the wedding itself sounds like nothing but hassle with AT since the wedding is on a boat and that makes me nervous with a toddler who wants to run around so much. Absurdist Lover and I are still talking about the possibility of only my going, though we know that my family will want to see AT. My feeling is I'm not taking AT without Absurdist Lover because I will most likely lose it and actually go insane if I have to deal with traveling and AT and my family all on my own. Then there's the totally selfish catty stuff. I can't ask my folks for the money to go out there because I already owe them so much already, and they are not actively hassling me about it, though they live high on the hog compared to people like us. Also, this wedding is totally beyond my sister's means. When she sends me links to her honeymoon in Obnoxious Resort City, I'm angry and disgusted. The truth is if Absurdist Lover and I get married, we will probably get married here in Snowy Town quietly -- we may invite my family and his but with the full expectation that they will not come. His, because they have no money. Mine, because they don't travel to see me. And I would never spend so much money on a wedding. I totally get wanting to have a great party to start off a marriage, but to me a great wedding is having all your friends and family at a beautiful outdoor place with food and presents they made themselves (though I'm not immune to the attractions of Le Creuset and KitchenAid - if anyone wants to give me either). So the fact that my sister is getting married in a rather overblown and pricey way totally out of touch with her finances so she can't pick up the tab for my dress and has been telling me to get airline tickets for literally months when she knows that we don't have two nickels to rub together (because I've borrowed $20 from her at time just to make it to payday) -- well it all makes me angry.

And I know that no one is trying to piss me off and really the reason why I get angry is because I'm hurt. It's easier for me to be angry -- anger has energy to it and being hurt feels like such a disempowered and disempowering and deflating emotion. On the one hand, I want my sister to have the wedding she wants. On the other hand, I feel like the concerns of me and the little family that I'm supporting are going totally unnoticed and uncared about by my sister and my folks. And our poverty starkly contrasted with my sister's wedding and my father's million dollar house, the yuppie cars, the kids with the flat screen TVs and play systems in their rooms -- GAH!!! Now, in reality I don't talk to my folks much, so it's not like I've been filling them in on our financial situation. I still owe them money, my father is mad, but both of us are avoiding the confrontation and have been for months. I know I should deal with all this, especially since it's coloring my feelings about my sister's wedding, but I'm not really feeling that adult right now with all the other things I'm dealing with. There's also a long history at work here. It hurts my feelings that my folks don't call about AT. They have no idea that AT needs glasses and that we can't afford them right now ($250 because I didn't get vision insurance for him).

When I mentioned all this to Absurdist Lover (who saw me blogging), he said maybe I should write a list of all we have to look forward to. Good idea.

The CSA. We're really looking forward to this. Really. I'd be happy if it started today. Yesterday.
We're getting a refund and that should help somewhat.
I'm also very grateful that we don't have worse things to worry about. We could have terrible acute illnesses. I don't. AT doesn't. Thank God. I hope Absurdist Lover doesn't.

By the way, I've been praying a lot. The old sarcastic me doesn't recognize this me who thinks that as a purely practical matter, it's much more hopeful and wonderful to believe that someone is listening to all these fervent hopes and requests for help and cares about them, even if sometimes S/He says no. To all my atheist readers, if this makes me a weak person: fine. I'm weak. I can live with that. (To all my faith-based readers, you can see I feel really defensive about this. I can just imagine what my folks would say if I ever said I believed in anything. Or that I prayed. Why do I even care what they think? If you have any ideas of things I should read beyond Anne Lamott, let me know. I'd appreciate it. Thanks.)

With all of this stuff weighing down on me, I need to figure out a way to work because I've got things to do:

I've got a conference in 2 weeks and need to get a draft to my writing group by early next week, no matter that at the last writing group meeting, it seemed to me silly the way we all sit around and split hairs about theory as if it mattered. (Okay, it matters, but when I'm worried about feeding my family or not being able to pay for AT's glasses, whether Foucault or de Certeau or whoever is the right theorist for whatever point just doesn't matter jack to me.)
I want to bake some bread because we're out and because there's something so primal about it. (Though I need to get the rest of the cookie dough out of our single mixing bowl I need to make the bread, which means, I think, that I need to bake those cookies!)
I want to work out because that's something I can do that will make me feel better in my body.
I wanted to practice driving AL's car, because if I can just figure out how to drive a stick, I can occasionally get out of the house without making AL come with us. (SCARY!)

There's no way I'm going to get all this done before we need to go pick up AT. It's already 1:30! Having a good sulk takes time. So I'll bake cookies, start the bread, work on the conference paper, and get some working out done. Maybe no car today, though I really should. I'd really like to be able to drive myself to Starbucks or wherever. Not that we could afford it. But it's the idea of it.

Thanks for listening. I feel better.

Tot's in Daycare, So I Should Work: Blogging for Organization

2010-02-25T11:55:00.007-05:00

Okay, my beautiful child is in daycare for the day. I did NOT like that I saw the older kids watching TV with popsicle sticks in their mouths at 10am! I realize this is not the worst thing to see in a daycare, but what's the point of being so careful about organic everything at home if he's going to get high fructose corn syrup and other poisons at daycare? I don't like it. Absurdist Lover does not thing it's the worst thing in the world.

I also did not like that Absurdist Tot starting crying again today as we left. He got this panicky look even when he got into the room. It's just a phase, right? Please let it just be a phase. Please let this not be some signal that he's got good reason to be unhappy there. They always say that he has great days there; that he only cries for a few minutes when we leave and then he's fine. Of course, if there were anything bad going on, that's exactly what they'd say. Not that I really think there is anything bad going on. But it's very hard to know. Oy!

But anyway, he's in daycare today. Which means I cannot waste the day reading blogs and being slothful, which is what I want to do since I'm still sick. I must get organized. Since having him in daycare is supposed to be about getting work done, I need to make some movement on my conference paper. It would be nice to get something done on other projects as well, but I'm flexible on that point. I also want to bake some more bread because we got organic flour and butter -- and we just need bread! I also need a shower. (I know, probably TMI, but I'll tell you -- with an active toddler just as with a baby, it's very hard to get away long enough to take a shower. And when the baby is sick too and wants to nurse and sleeps with you in the bed again because he's having trouble sleeping on his own, well, watching movies all day is a cinch, but taking a shower or keeping AT away from the tissues is very very difficult.)

I'm having trouble organizing all this disparate stuff I want to do, so I'm going to do what is best for me (and probably boring for you), and write through it. Bread is great because it takes so many different steps that I can work on it, then go to take a shower, work, read, work out (something else I wanted to do today that if I do manage this I should do this BEFORE I take a shower), and come back. So, here's the list:

Bake bread. Done.
Work on Conference Paper. Have typed in notes for all 20 pages. Need to make some decisions about how to focus the thing. Probably need to print it out again so I can see what there is. I wish I could do more, but this is probably it for the day, since it's already 3pm.
Take shower. Done.
Workout (maybe). Amazingly, I worked out. I'm exhausted.
This is as far as I got in my list. I'll have to do the other things betwixt and between. Gotta go pick up the kiddo. (Do you know -- I don't have much time to contemplate this, but I can't believe I have a child?!)
Think about submitting something to Cool Little Conference.
Look for any open and interesting panels for Big Icky Conference that is in Urban City and so would at least pay for my ticket to Urban City.
Do some more research work?

Potholders for Tenure

2010-02-24T22:41:00.008-05:00

So here are some of my crochet projects, which I wish counted for tenure:

You'll see that the two on the left are similar -- potholders done in Tunisian crochet, a special kind of crochet that is sort of a cross between crochet and knitting, so there's a special long hook with a stopper on the end like a knitting needle. The one on the right is actually not a potholder, but a coffee cozy that I designed myself in single crochet. What is a coffee cozy, and why would one ever need one? Well, we have a French press coffeemaker, but because Absurdist Lover and I often get up at different times, the coffee often gets cold. We know we need to buy one that has the heating guard thingie on it, but we don't have the money, especially to replace something that is perfectly good but annoying. (We need to buy a vaporizer and new immune-boosting supplements for Absurdist Tot -- let me know if anyone has any recommendations on that -- he's been sick once too often for me. Anyway, we have to buy the stuff we don't have way before we ever get to upgrading the stuff we already have.)

This is the Coffee Cozy at work:

And as crazy as it sounds, it actually does keep the coffee warm.

I'm also excited about this new and super-easy potholder pattern, so I made two of them. Ironically, I think these were both the easiest and the most professional looking:

I'm even thinking that those friends of mine who are newly married (ahem, Maude) might want to tell me what colors they prefer in their kitchen so I can make them a bunch of handmade-with-love potholders (from this last pattern that looks so good and is so easy, of course).

I love crochet because unlike teaching or writing, I can see the progress moment by moment. I realize this is probably not what an untenured academic mom should be doing when not teaching, but this gives me such happiness, as does the bread I just taught myself to bake (no bread machine, no Kitchenaid to do my mixing for me). I just love these homey things. And hope everyone I love in the world wants potholders and scarves!

Just like Susan Gubar describes quilting as the thing that helped her to do the difficult work of working on Poetry after Auschwitz, an amazing tome on Holocaust poetry, I bet everyone has their own coping project for the tenure battle. So far, the tenure track process does not seem like dissertating: there are so many different aspects of the process and no one is eagerly awaiting my work, ready to comment on it, stamp it as good enough or not. I'm on my own. My own illness-addled brain has put together this idea about where I need to focus my energies lately: I'm doing the teaching, though maybe I'm not doing as well as I'd like to, I'm doing service, but research is where I need to focus, because that is what I'm just not getting done enough. I'll get them all on track, then work on improving each one. What do other people do to help them cope with the rigors of the tenure track? What other coping projects/hobbies do people have?

I also have pictures of my bread, but maybe I'll forego that project right now. I also have thoughts I want to share about being on the other side, being on the search committee, but I'll save that for another time.

Sick Again Again

2010-02-22T20:21:00.003-05:00

I am sick.

My son is better at being sick than I am. He's still pretty good-natured except when something hurts and then he cries -- but who can blame him? Mostly I am just grumpy. AL's been very sweet. So I'm not so grumpy as much as just slow. I feel like Frankenstein's monster.

I did get some work done in slow motion while waiting to see the doctor.

Over and out.

Work Epiphanies and Runny Noses

2010-02-21T22:58:00.004-05:00

So Absurdist Tot has some kind of nose cold again that I hope won't turn into some terrible ear infection. Because of that and a big winter storm coming in, we're keeping him home from playschool tomorrow again. It's too bad because I could really do well with a working day. Last Thursday I stayed home and worked, but because I had things I promised other people, I kept my head down and focused on those, got those off my list -- then I talked to my mom and that was the end of the day. My worst days with AT are those in which I want and am trying to get some work done but then he doesn't want to cooperate, taking a short nap or being impossible to put down, like he was today (luckily I had no expectations today that I'd get anything done -- so I was able to teach myself a new potholder technique).

Over the weekend, I figured out the injunction to write research 30-60 minutes per day actually means to work 30-60 minutes per day. Which means I can write notes on something already written or read research and take notes or whatever. As long as I move forward somewhat five days a week, things are ideal. Of course, I haven't quite gotten that or asked for that. Tomorrow would've been a great day to try to refocus. Oh well. I'm glad I can be flexible now, because too soon I won't be able to. I could always ask Absurdist Lover to watch him for an hour, though AT's been very whiney and it's hard to get to even leave the room to go to the bathroom!

Absurdist Lover has been great about looking for a job too. Obviously a winter storm gets in his way too. He's also pretty much reorganized the entire apartment. All of the sudden, there's more space everywhere. We finally got rid of our Christmas tree (though we're still finding pine needles). This weekend, I've been contemplating my elective and read through five pages of my conference paper (the update on that is on the writing project sidebar, which I've decided would be a good thing to keep up). Mostly I've been crocheting and mopping up AT's nose.

On Friday, I managed to get all sorts of tasks done in almost no time at all -- including scheduling my flights and hotel for Big Conference. But though I should use the conference time to reconnect with what's going on in the field, really all I care about is hooking up with old friends and colleagues. I guess that's what happens when you move to a new place and don't really know anybody.

It's so silly. I've been wanting to blog this great epiphany about how the key for me to working on research is going to be just looking to the next step (like driving in the dark) and working a bit on that. I think next year I'm going to try harder to get research done during the teaching times -- and try to take real vacations. I need them. But really it's hard for me to care about any of that. I'm loving cooking -- I made pork chops with apples and onions last night. I now have yeast for bread. Scholarship seems very far away, almost silly, in comparison with the the dark night where we wait for snow, hoping AT's simple cold doesn't turn into something else, and my throat just this minute starting to feel raw and sore.

First Step

2010-02-18T23:26:00.005-05:00

There have been all sorts of things going on -- I got some needed work done today, AT has started crying when we leave him at daycare (and I'm trying to figure out whether that's significant or it just goes with the clingy phase he's in at the moment), it turns out we can't stay with my folks for my sister's wedding which has brought up a bunch of anger and resentment in me, but underneath all of that is just plain feeling hurt for not being seen or understood by my family as well as epiphanies about the uses of anger in my life -- but after a very work-focused day, I just want to share the cool thing that is coming up, the thing that has Absurdist Lover and me really excited: we joined a CSA! Instead of paying for our weekly share of the harvest, I'll be working at the farm! We're so excited to be connecting with people in this way, since we have no sense of community here. (It seems that very few faculty members at my university are my age or have lives like mine. Other than that, it can be hard to meet people. I've poked around a little for playgroups, but the one close by us here is for stay-at-home moms, which is obviously not me. And I'm not a very good joiner anyway.) The CSA share people will have get-togethers -- and of course the workers too. We're very curious about the other people who have invested in this organic farm! We'll find people like us, maybe! I'll have my hands in the dirt one day a week. I'll learn how to be a better gardener. I'll get some much needed exercise and take in big breaths of good clean air. AL is a huge Star Wars (the originals, thank you very much) fan so he often quotes "you've taken your first step into a larger world" but this time I think it's true.

Have I mentioned recently that when I took one of the tests on one's various interests back in high school career guidance, my top field was not writing or art (like I wanted), but agriculture? Maybe I'll catch up with a different self in those fields. Maybe I'll find out how hard it is to work for one's food. I'm excited!

Time for a Change

2010-02-13T14:34:00.002-05:00

I decided that it was time for a change for Absurdist Paradise, partly because some people have commented over time that the blog can be hard to read, but also because I've decided to turn over a new leaf. In order to combat my sometimes dark vision of the world, I've decided to respond with crochet and handmade things and what I'm calling a radical wholesomeness (progressive, of course, homey, backtotheland hippie-ish without the acid and the Kool-Aid) instead of my typical snark, which, while fun in a dark cynical way, hasn't made me happy. I see this new colorful template with its rounded edges as more exemplifying this newer approach to life. So there it is.

I'm taking a big leap toward faith and hope and hoping those things will take a giant leap toward me. In honor of such things, I'm rereading Anne Lamott's Traveling Mercies. I also want to get out more into nature, where I feel like I can breathe. Of course, it's been snowing lately. I can't believe our local ducks, geese, and swans are still around and haven't flown south. The swans especially seem to flap around in the one bit of our pond that isn't completely frozen over. I have to remember to bring them some bread soon. And contact this local farm about their CSA. I want to be part of those things I think are good, instead of complaining about those things that I think are bad.

And pics of crocheted potholders are forthcoming, but I've really felt physically terrible today, so everything's a bit slow going.

Another Parenting Post: Valentines and Immunizations

2010-02-11T07:32:00.004-05:00

Truth be told, the Valentines were not a huge success as a craft project for Absurdist Tot. But I had a great time, before and after I got the glue stick out of his mouth (cap on, but still). How fun that I'm going to get to go through all of this twice! When I was a kid, I remember so vividly being mad at my hands for not being able to do what I wanted them to do -- color within the lines, cut straight, be as exact and careful as I wanted. Wow, the frustration. As an adult I've collected some of the Dover coloring books because they are just so good -- and some colored pencils. No, not in preparation for having a child, but for me! Though I haven't colored in a long long time.

Anyway, I think that it's just fine that it didn't go particularly well with AT and the Valentines. It's all a process. And as a parent I'm getting used to the idea that the first time of doing anything isn't going to go well, like feeding him almost any food in his high chair. I'm thankful for all the things that do go well, like his not crying at all when we leave him at daycare (so far and knock on wood) and his eating jarred organic baby spinach (also so far). Lots of things get better over time, like, get this, his taking his medicine. Imagine a toddler coming up to you and opening his mouth for the dropper of pink stuff. I think this comes from how little sugar he gets -- except in his organic "o"s, the fabulous organic crackers we all love, and his yogurt. So that when it comes to the high fructose corn syrup they no doubt put in the pink stuff? He loves it. He also loves taking acetaminephin drops. Go figure.

Can I just take this small detour and say how difficult it is to get decent information as a parent? I went in for a meet and greet with a new doctor for me (who seems great actually, supportive of alternative medicine and into making yearly health goals), and we had the immunization conversation. It sounds so reasonable when someone talks about the dangers of globalization and having seen children suffering from polio and how children's immune systems handle vaccines better than adults do. But then there are all these people I trust who are very skeptical of immunizations from all sorts of different angles -- potential brain injury, the dangers of over-stimulating a child's immune system all at once, the old autism debate, lack of sufficient testing of the newer vaccines (and you should see what they say about the Swine flu vaccine!), that vaccines don't work very well. And then there's the report I heard that pharmaceutical companies that make vaccines give tons of money to the AMA -- and while I don't want to say that there's some conspiracy about stifling certain kinds of research, there really doesn't have to be. It's a well understood psychological phenomenon that people tend to find their friends more persuasive -- and then there's the whole issue that Western medicine is not good at understanding or testing for how different systems interact with one another. Not to mention that we live in the country where certain government agencies are so bought by corporate food and farming industries, it's not much of a leap to think that other powerful corporations and industries might have undue influence on certain kinds of policies, even with well-meaning and rigorous people. And what about healthy skeptical conservatism? When I check online to see if I can drink yerba mate or take oil of oregano (which AL swears by) as a nursing mother, the websites say there haven't be sufficient tests to show that they are safe and nonharmful to the nursing baby so don't do it, don't take that chance. But with immunizations we're supposed to go the other way and ask whether they've been proven to be dangerous and/or caused problems. Why is that?

I'm tempted to collect a whole bunch of information from different sources together and hand them to her and say: here's why a reasonable thinking person would question the value of giving immunizations to her child. (For example, our pediatrician said that while he supported immunizations, he would "respect our beliefs," as if it's not a faith-based decision rather than a thinking one. Weird for me to be on that side of things.)

Anyway, today I have to go to work and be a professional academic instead of a confused mom. Can I please get tenure from crochet projects? Please? I'm becoming a whiz at potholders! (Oh and I did look at an early draft of my conference paper yesterday, but who cares about that?)

Please cross your fingers for Absurdist Lover's job search efforts. We live in a terrible place to find a job, but I'm hopeful he'll find something. I just hope with all my heart that he finds something he likes and feels good and useful at, as much as any of us get to.