The Good News and the Bad News, or How My Morning Regimen Means I Get to Be a Lazy Head

I have been up for an hour and a half doing the various morning things I have to do -- and now when I could almost be ready to go and do something or get something wonderfully productive done, I don't want to. The morning regimen is already enough -- like since it's the weekend I should get to relax already. Absurdist Lover is away for the weekend, and I had planned to do many many things that are more difficult to do when he's here and we want to spend time together on the weekends. There are many things I should do, such as work on the article that could contribute positively to me on the job market this year, call my grandfather, and go out and buy a number of little things that would make life around the house easier (including flypaper, which I have been having a hard time finding and which we desperately need because for some reason our apartment is a daily fly convention), not to mention work on another thing that I realize now I should tell y'all about.

So let me explain my good news and my bad news first.

The bad news (let's get it over with) is I had my nutritional consult with my nutritionally-oriented midwife and she was basically appalled at my diet of lattes and ice cream. She said that the amount of sugar in my diet had probably already led me to gestational diabetes and could lead to hypertension, a big baby (which means a more problematic delivery), and all sorts of bad high-risk things. So now I'm on this no-sugar, no-caffeine, low-fat, low natural sugar, low-fun diet. Today is Day 3, and I don't feel as terrible as I did yesterday when I moaned to my co-workers and Maude that I was going to die. (Something to remember about radical diet changes: Day 1 is not so bad because you're still full of juice about how you're going to change your life and "it's going to be great"; Day 2 is frigging awful because your body is in total withdrawal and you think you're going to die and you wish you could spend the day sprawled on your bed with the clicker exactly like those hangover days, which, sadly, you now remember fondly; Day 3, so far, is not so bad.) In fact, the rest of yesterday wasn't so bad; I went to El Pollo Loco after work and ate a huge-but-didn't-break-any-rules meal to make up for the fact that I had not eaten lunch (a big no-no) and managed to feel pretty decent the rest of the night. Basically, the midwife has already put me on the gestational diabetes diet, so if the tests come back next week with gestational diabetes, well, I won't be surprised and there won't be anything to change. But please cross your fingers that I don't have gestational diabetes, because that means that for who knows how long there has been rampant un-insulin-controlled sugars kick-starting the baby's growth hormone, leading to a huge baby, making a vaginal delivery increase in potential ickiness. Since we're at 32 weeks (if you can believe that), this is the time of rapid growth, so maybe, just maybe, I can nip that one in the bud by reducing my sugar to practically zero. We'll see. The one thing about being pregnant that really sucks is how I feel already like I've already ruined this little person I love. It's ridiculous, I know, because my mother ate whatever she wanted (though she doesn't have a sugar-sensitive body either and I do), smoked, drank, etc. I figure the smoking probably kept the birth weight down, evening out the all-fast food diet. Ugh. If this baby has anything wrong with him/her, I know that I'm going to blame myself for all my bad pregnancy behaviors. I have to remember that while some of this is productive and will keep me on my diet, some of this is totally nonproductive too -- and hubristic, as if I have all the answers and am totally in charge of how this baby turns out.

So, along with the new diet, there are tons and tons of supplements. In the morning, there are not one, but two different things I have to mix up and drink, plus so many pills I inevitably have a bad time getting them down. At night, I now also have a bunch of pills and one thing to drink -- and she encouraged me to order this other supplement -- so as of next week, I'll have yet another thing to mix up and drink three times a day. So when I say I'm done with the morning regimen, what I mean is that I've taken all my morning supplements, given the cat his medicine, brushed my teeth, and cleaned out the cat box (with a mask and gloves, of course). I haven't, for example, eaten breakfast. But I don't feel hungry because my stomach is full of Vitamin C drink, Cal Mag, and pills, pills, pills. (Part of the point of eating the low-fat, no-sugar diet is to get all the bad stuff out of the way so that my body can actually process the good stuff, including protein and supplements, that will make the baby and me strong for birth.) On a positive note, I don't feel bad or caffeine-deprived, no matter how much I really want a latte. We all know the caffeine-withdrawal headache. I don't have that. I think the reason why I felt crappy yesterday at work really had to do with my blood sugar being way too low -- and not having any quick way of fixing it. Though it was probably also withdrawal.

So on to the good news! On Thursday, Chair of English Department at New Community College offered me two classes: one that he's pretty sure will run, one that is sketchy right now. So I emailed the coordinator of Pretty-Assured Class and got a bunch of materials. There is even a meeting for the instructors so I may get to lobby there for someone to take over when I give birth and definitely need to be out. As much as starting something new when I'm about to have a baby, a new lifechanging event, is a lot, there are a few reasons why this is totally fabulous news. One, definite pay for 3-4 months at a higher hourly rate than SAT company gives me (though of course they don't pay for prep and we know how it happens that we end up spending way way way more time than they ever pay us for). Two, a college that I can put on my CV for going on the market. No matter how I talk about SAT Company and how I've learned a great deal that will help me be a better college teacher in the future, I figure there is nothing better than having some actual college teaching on my sheet. (I have more than five years already, but still.) I also feel like the community college experience will help me be a better, more well-rounded teacher. I realize that universities often don't care about this, but I do think that teaching the SAT and the writing courses I've done recently, plus community college teaching will make me a better teacher -- and a better, more thoughtful scholar. This way I can see a bigger picture rather than just what we do in our classes or our programs. I can see how students are prepared to get into those classes. I have to remember to talk about this is some sort of smart way in my letter. GAH! I have to rewrite my letter! Oy gevalt! Breathe, breathe deeply. Three, I like college teaching better than SAT teaching. No matter how stifling the set curriculum (and so far, it doesn't seem awful), at least I will feel like I'm doing what I'm best at or at least what I've sunk my higher education into. I just plain feel better about myself when I'm doing something that feels like what I'm meant to do. (One of these days I have to explore why it is that teaching writing to others feels so much more important than writing myself. When I visited my grandmother a couple weeks ago, she told me how well-written she thought my writing was. Why don't I write more? Why, why, why?)

So, of course it would be a great idea for me to look more carefully through all the things that Course Coordinator sent me, figure things out, come up with questions, etc. And yet. I'm not excited enough about the class to actually go and do that. In some ways, I realize it will be very much like the teaching at Adventure U, which totally didn't fit me. But really it's not that I'm in some working mood, and I just don't feel good about this situation. It's that I'm totally NOT in a working mood. Since my last class with Summer Program for SAT Company ended on Thursday, I just want to enjoy not working two jobs -- and today I want to enjoy not working, period. I want to get lost in a book or something. Or watch TV and movies and do cross-stitch. I want to be a big old Lazy Head.

I thought blogging might help me get in the mood, but I see this post is one big rationalization for not working at all -- on the article or the new class. The new class I figure I can work on during the week, when I would've been working that second job. The article? Well, I have no excuse. Maybe later in the day when I've wasted too much time I'll feel more like a wastrel and get into it. (I should at least make myself work long enough for a ten-minute freewrite.) But for now I'm going to think about the things that have to be done today, such as renewing my library books. Tomorrow, I figure I'll wake up, go to the farmer's market (good healthy food for me, plus I also have to bring snacks to Tuesday's birth class), and then go over to my folks, where I can pick up the bathing suit my step-mom bought me, maybe go swimming if the suit fits (which seems highly unlikely since I'm a beached whale), and call my grandfather on their far-superior phones. Which means today, I can lounge about, post-renewal of books.

I hope y'all out in bloggerland are having a more productive time of it out there! I never did understand how people work all week, then get up early on Saturday to run errands. I just want to sleep and do nothing. August as the month of getting down to business, my foot!

Quick-Fire Bullets

I'm in such a hurry this morning, but I really want to write something here because I think it will make me feel better -- more like a person to be in touch with my blogworld. You know what I mean?

• After posting a comment on Ianqui's blog about how my family isn't into my pregnancy, something that has really been bugging me lately, my step-mother offered to throw me a baby shower. Now, I know about six people here in Urban Home City so it will be the tiniest shower ever, but still I feel bad that I characterized my family that way. I know that everyone has other things going on, especially related to bullet number 2. I just wish that I felt like there was going to be this warm happy set of people to surround this baby with. Maybe everyone feels this way.
• My grandfather is still in the hospital, recovering very slowly from abdominal surgery. He has colon cancer that they figure is fully treatable, but we're very concerned that he has already given up no matter what the prognosis.
• I have an interview tomorrow for an adjunct position at a community college that I applied to ages ago back when it was virtually the closest around. Now it's a bit of a hike and there are definitely closer ones, but then they called me for the interview. The HR person was talking about how there was a "topic," which I think means a teaching demo. I haven't received the "topic" yet, so they are going to get the shortest prep time on record, since today I have to go teach the college admissions class, go to the office, then go teach the essay class tonight. It's the last of these crazy days, thank goodness. Of course, this also means less pay for less crazy days. And Absurdist Lover is still not working yet for the new job -- in fact, he's nervous even about the background check, though he's got nothing to worry about. Money is the single greatest stressor here at Chez Absurd. We don't have a toaster, an air conditioner in the bedroom (which is the baby room and where we don't sleep anyway), a new bra for me, nothing. We're basically at the starting point like a couple in their twenties who has nothing. Our bookshelves are broken cast-offs. Meanwhile my family is about to go to Honduras while their upstairs gets remodeled. It's really hard being so broke and watching other people spend so much money just on lunch. Sigh. I hope to soon not be running around so much -- and able to focus on the impending job market. Anyway, I don't know if the community college will want to hire me when I'm due in October and would definitely have to be out for some length of time, but I figure it's worth a try, especially because teaching this essay class has reminded me how much I love teaching writing.
  
• I'm also mad at my SAT prep company. On Friday, the teacher of the other class called me an hour before class and said that he was sick and could I please take his class? Well, of course I want to help out and how could I say no? I totally refigured what I was doing in my class so I could present things the other class hadn't already done when I put the two classes together -- and it was a zoo, I tell you, a zoo! Too much! When I called SAT prep company and asked if I would get additional compensation they said no because I hadn't worked any extra hours and "thanks for teaching a larger class today." These classes are not like the SAT classes, structured and set by the SAT prep company at every step. These are more like regular classes where you have a certain amount of material to cover, but how you do it is going to be different from the person down the hall. I realize I didn't exactly sub a class that wasn't mine -- or work extra hours. But getting nothing is like them telling me that it was nothing for me to have an hour to figure out what on earth to do! I'm really upset about it, but though I intended to deal with it on Friday by asking a trainer I know what to do, then I went and saw my grandfather in the hospital and tried to convince him that life was worthwhile and that frankly sapped all my energy.
  
• I'm also really angry at my doctor's office. I need my records because I'm going to see the midwife on Wednesday. (YAY!) I've never had a doctor's office balk at faxing the records, but they are. They want me to go over there (which is a total shlep into a different area with a lot more traffic and a pain to boot), sign a form, and give them $25. Now, I'm angry at SAT company for not giving me another hour's worth of my salary, which is little more than $25. I'm poor and think $25 to be a lot of money. I wish I didn't. But this feels like extortion. I looked up the statute for the Stupid Overpriced State Health and Safety Code and it does say that doctors can charge up to $.25/page plus reasonable costs in attaining records (I take this to mean charging if people need to go into storage). I've been seeing these numbskulls since May or so -- there is no way that my file is 100 pages long. I'm ready to write a letter to the editor over this one. This really pisses me off because when I had to get a mammogram in a country typically thought of as third world they gave me my own films because, their thinking was, who is going to take better care of your records and be more interested in your health than you? Here in the U.S., we think that people aren't responsible enough to have their own records -- or often be told exactly what their test results are beyond whether there is a "problem" or not -- and then we charge them just for getting them! It's totally ridiculous. That $25 charge is the bra that fits instead of me squishing into an undersized old bra every day! Grrrr. I'm too poor, tired, and pregnant for all this.
• I'm 27 weeks as of last Friday, which means I'm officially in my third trimester. Please, please, please dear G-d and heavenly minions let Absurdist Lover's job start up in a real way so that I can stop working so hard and relax a little before this baby is born -- and not have to put the baby in daycare as of Day 1.
  

RBOC

All I can manage right now is a bullet list. Here goes.

• I'm starting a college admissions and essay writing course in a summer program tomorrow. GAH!
• My grandfather is in the hospital, recovering from major abdominal surgery. The blockage he had in his small intestine looks like it's cancer.
  
• My mother had a seemingly serious g-i tract problem of her own, where she was telling me how alone and isolated she felt. (She lives in a faraway city without family, or, as far as I can tell, many friends.) She was totally going nuts, ending up in the hospital, but then even though there were no tests performed, no answers about her condition, she just decided that she wasn't going to take it very seriously. That is, she's not going to deal with it or get the tests that a few days before she believed were crucial. She had completely whipped me into a frenzy, getting me to rally the other kids into supporting her with phone calls. And then she decides she's just going to wait for her low-income city insurance to kick in rather than ask her mom for the money for a really good specialist. She should be able to have her test in one-four months. After me really taking a lot of time and energy out to support her, I am just not amused. She whips me into her drama, then when she decides that the drama should end, she wonders why I think she's being ditzy and irresponsible about her potentially-serious condition. We are not amused. I want those days back where I tired myself out worrying about her.
• I still don't have the whole birth center/insurance thing worked out. At least I can now ask my grandmother because I know she's not going to be tapped for an expensive specialist and tests by my ditzy mom.
• My intensive SAT class ends tomorrow.
• I have an editing job due Tuesday.
• I'm 26 weeks pregnant and getting big and uncomfortable, especially since I have still not been able to afford a new bra. (I tried to go and get a maternity bra, but apparently dumb stores like A Pea in the Pod think that all women start off as A- and B-cups, so we all have double Ds when our boobs have inflated like balloons. Uh, someone ought to explain that some of us girls have. . .well, big girls to begin with. Even online, the prospect of decent support for these pregnant super-boobs is not good. JC Penney's seems to have bras. But by the time I did all this research, the money ran out.)
• My laptop is screwy, just dying and overheating and turning off in the middle of working. It clearly needs to be fixed. But that requires. . .
• Money that we don't have. The money crunch over here at Absurdist Household continues. Even working two jobs. Even with Absurdist Lover having gotten hired last week -- at a start-up company that hasn't yet really started up. Oy.
• We got library cards. Woohoo!
  

Whoa! An Academic Post? It Must Be Writing Time!

It's Sunday before the weekday of a writing deadline. So of course this is when I start. I have to revise this article for Edited Collection. Revise, as in "to see again," as in gut this puppy and make it into something new. As in, oy, it's way too hot and I'm too sick and pregnant to do this, as in I must blog before I can even get started.

This, assuming that it doesn't totally suck and get pulled from Edited Collection, will be my first academic publication. Not my first publication, because I've published other kinds of things -- encyclopedia entries and creative writing, whatnot for which people didn't seem to think I was a total loser when I was done. I feel now though like a total loser. I think part of it is that I feel so far from the academy, from the university scene, even from anything remotely close to that work, though I did renew my memberships to the big organizations and have even read an article or two in the last month. On the other hand, this fear and loathing of working on this article probably has nothing to do with distance from the academy. This is probably the usual self-hate cycle that allows me to progress from worrying about whether I can actually produce anything mind-blowing and original, destined to blow open the field, to then worrying about writing anything remotely decent -- both of which are a lot of pressure to put on any one piece of writing, especially one that needs to be worked on immediately -- to worrying with mounting anxiety whether I can get something, anything, done so I can get it in on time and not reveal myself to be a total flake. Dude, this is my process. It's not a good process, but it's a process. No matter how much text I generate and even when I work on things on a regular basis (though I can't really remember when the last time that was, except for the dissertation, which was more aberration than pattern), I can't seem to get myself to get down to it to order anything or really take it apart and put it back together until I work up a good self-and-writing loathing.

Okay, I don't know if self loathing process crap is really true. But it feels true.

I am grumpy at everyone today, starting from the moment I began doing things related to this article. Absurdist Lover remarked yesterday that one moment I wasn't working, then I left the room and came back in and I was suddenly "working." I got nothing done, except some class A grousing about the editors' comments. Of course, the comments themselves are probably fine -- I would grouse about them in any case, I'm sure.

But there is this problem I'm having. They want me to put more conversation with the field in my article. Now of course this is a good idea -- and actually I took out much of that conversation when I hacked at a dissertation chapter to get this article. But a problem I'm having is that I find the existing conversation in my field to be really fascinating, but too focused on one particular location or site for analysis and theorizing. (Oooh, this is kind of helping.) I'm totally excited by some of the things my field is doing (or I wouldn't be in my field), but I think we can be greatly informed by 1) looking at what others in the wide world outside of our field are doing to inform our theorizing and studying; and 2) looking at other sites as valid places for us to study and contribute to. (Ooh, helping!) I always have to make the argument that these other sites I'm looking at are even worthwhile -- and show how these ideas contribute to our main site -- rather than affirming that we can and should study these other sites.

At Grad City U, other dissertators also found this to be true -- that if we didn't tie our work back to the main site that people wouldn't recognize our work as within our fields. I know it's not just me. So I think I got really defensive about these claims and had, early on in my dissertation process, really argued the hell out of this, always foregrounding the limitations of the work in my field. But because I work with alternative argumentation (think: the Native American critique that scholars talk about scholarship as "staking a claim" in "uncharted territory" or the way that we can discount all previous scholarship as "primitive" compared to the complexity of our own ideas; also radical feminists talk about the thrust and parry of scholarship as very male) for reasons that absolutely connect to the main thrust (oh dear) of my argument, I don't want to discount all the previous scholarship or go deeply into arguing against it, though I do think it has profound limitations. Now my dissertation committee was made of up of pretty cool scholars, so when I argued for alternative argumentation in light of my main discussion, they seemed convinced. In fact, they advocated my taking out some of my discussions with the field, maybe because they were too defensive. These editors, on the other hand, want more discussion, which seems to mean more argument against what's already been done in the field.

Writing all this out is really helpful actually, because I realize that I can probably talk about what the scholarship in the field does and does not do without calling them deficient. I guess I'm just worried about trying to represent the integrity of what this other work is trying to do in the tiny space allotted. It's easier to say that something sucks. But it doesn't suck -- and even when it does (from my perspective, some of it does in fact have elements of suckage) -- I don't want to portray it that way. So I just won't. I guess. If possible.

The other big problem is that I have to reorganize the thing. They didn't exactly say that -- in fact, I think that their comments do not call for a drastic reorganization of the thing. But they say that the point isn't clear -- and I can see instantly how that's an organizational problem. I think this has something to do with the fact that there isn't a clear methodology to working with data in my field. Perhaps terribly, since I've been working on this material for a long time, I'm still learning from it. It's ethnographic field research. Qualitative. So I continue to re-see the data based on my own brain. Oy! And without a clear method in the field, we are also without a clear way of writing up results. Though I would probably hate a more rigid structure -- and pretty much flout scholarly organizational standards as often as possible, partly because I work in alternative argumentation. Though here I can see that my alternative argumentation/organization makes it very hard to see my point. Hence having to gut the thing and reorganize, one of my least favorite things. Ironic, of course, because when I teach I always tell students to write whatever, then go back and reorganize. And I say it as if it didn't feel pretty awful to tear your own writing up. Maybe I'll actually physically cut and paste it. Sometimes the act of cutting it up feels so kindergarten and fun, it takes some of the seriousness out of it all.

I wish I could just come up with these insights and then someone else could write it. (This from the writer.) Really, I'm just lazy. Or I resist launching in. Or something! It's more fun to blog about writing than to write it. This is probably an audience issue. Writing for these editors, whom I greatly respect and wish to not offend, and for the academic audience in general has a lot to do with whether I'll get a job in the near future, on which much of my life seems to rest. Oy, I wish I had more time. But I chose to work on it at the last minute. Will I ever learn? OY!

Once this is done, I need to write another article, and then likely another, taking out pieces of my dissertation and sending it out before the fall job market hoopla starts, so at least I can say that I've got work out there. I think three articles for someone who's been out of grad school for a year is pretty reasonable. I need to work on academic work regularly, instead of this writing binge I'm engaging in now. It's stupid to do this. I've also got to remember that much academic writing is not so well written. It doesn't have to be brilliant. It has to be clear. It has to make sense. It has to make a clear contribution to the field. Period.

Okay, work management, aka accountability blogging. I need to

1) add the stuff I think needs to be added immediately and make space for things I think probably need to be done that I'm not ready to do immediately

2) see if I can come up with a new outline for what I think would be pretty readable, seeing what's lost and gained

3) go back into the scholarship and draw connections and counter-arguments

4) fill in the gaps and do dumb formatting things

Today, I pretty much need to do 1 and 2. First I'll add the stuff I'm going to add. Then I'll reorganize, cutting and pasting and getting a sense of what is lost and gained. Then I think I have to let it rest. I have a plan! A plan!

***Update 6:30pm***

Wow, did I really start blogging around 12:30 and I'm only done with work now? I do remember how to work!

So I found myself really going over the piece sentence by sentence, mostly taking things out and reordering. I stopped at the point where I got to the pages where all this other scholarship needs to be put in. It's clear to me that I'm not going to be able to add scholarship in each place they've noted it, because the whole piece would become way too long. But I think that I've put a strong new organization in place -- and the scholarship problems are those I think I can research individually, making them bite-sized pieces I might be able to work on piecemeal -- if I can ever really get myself to get up early. Oh! I give a test tomorrow in my SAT class, so I'll have plenty of time to work on this. Wow, I'm good! Solved that problem. I just have to remember to put the books in my bag. Better do that now. I've also got to remember to do the stuff I need to do for the SAT class. Like send my students some emails. Then I'm going to enjoy the rest of my Sunday!

Reverse Psychology

So blogging the sick is not like blogging the lost: my sore throat has blossomed into full-blown ickiness. On the other hand, practically right after I wrote about how sweet Absurdist Lover was, we began to have problems. It's as if writing it down and pressing publish puts an expiration date on whatever's going on. So maybe by saying that we're having problems and I'm sick and feel like crap, everything will get better.

In other news, today I'm not teaching my class but instead am going to a training in another part of town. It's actually kind of funny and kind of sad (yes, a Tears for Fears reference) because I'm going to a training so I can get certified to teach for SAT Company what I've already taught at the college level. That is, I'm going to a three-hour training to specialize in what I have a PhD in. Oy. What a strange world. Of course, techniques for a test are different. And I'm glad to get certified in something else. This way I can teach some specialized courses. Maybe I can also tutor in this field. But oy, I wish I didn't feel like crap nine ways to Sunday today.

The air conditioner people are here, and it sounds like they are ripping things out of the wall. Absurdist Lover is out there taking care of it, and I'm hiding in the back room, surrounded by used tissues. This is not good. I'm living for the weekend -- when I have to work on my article revisions, which, surprise surprise, I have not worked on since Monday. I want to sleep for a week. Or at least get summers off.

The doctor's office called me, I think because I cancelled my genetic counseling appointment. I thought it was the amnio -- in fact I'm still not sure! They also did not even tell me that they'd made an appointment for me specifically for genetic counseling nor did they say anything about why I would want genetic counseling. I hate the medical profession, where they just send you in for stuff without telling you a damn thing about it. Also, this particular office is really disorganized, hence the lovely birth center that I have not been able to fix the money for because I am tired and sick and working basically all the time. Yes, I'm grumbly. I want to just curl up like Mr. Tabby (on my suitcase, if you can believe it -- as if he's saying: you're not going anywhere without me!) and sleep through everything.

Aborted Post with Amendations

Post from Sunday included here by the sheer luck of the blogger save feature:

Get this. I know that Sunday is my only day to get the copious SAT homework done -- I might have to do any one of over fifty, maybe even a hundred, dreadful math problems on the board at the drop of a hat. After all, the students will only choose the ones that are hard or complicated or tricky to review on the board. I know as days pass that Sunday is the fateful day. It is 8:38pm. Have I done the homework? No. Have I even cracked the book? No. The book is in the car. I have not retrieved it. This is bad. This is very bad. This is exactly the same as me having a stack of papers. Luckily, I don't actually teach tomorrow, so I have a little bit more time, but really I should've done it today because I won't have that much time tomorrow, even with staying at my folks' place so I don't have to spend the evening driving back home.

Why didn't I do my homework? Partly because I am a procrastinating fool. Partly because I am catastrophically depressed. I don't know what to tell you, how much to say, especially if AL reads my blog (which I doubt), but basically he and I are not together. Things are bad. Very bad. I'm crying all the time, which is basically what I was doing when I was too busy to be doing my homework. (This has been the first free day since the shit hit the fan when he returned from seeing his kids -- yesterday I had to go to both a bar mitzvah and a play, so I couldn't just mope and cry hysterically as the main event of the day -- though I cried in the shower, which is a very good and inevitable place to cry, by the way.)

I am now staring down being a single mom. Of course, there is nothing wrong with single momhood -- in fact there is a good organization called Single Mothers by Choice that I once looked into -- but the point is that this is not by choice. Had I planned to get pregnant on my own, I would've chosen a time when I was more settled, when I lived in an apartment or, heaven help us, a house, rather than a camper and had a good full-time job, rather than two part-time ones that in blasted Urban Home City are STILL not enough for me to get an apartment closer in (I can almost afford an apartment near here, but the commute would still be the same, if not longer). Have I mentioned that I'm pregnant and bloody tired? The financial aspect of not being able to get out of the camper is driving me nuts ("look, here's all of our stuff, our bed, our outside chairs -- all the stuff that reminds me of ours, ours, ours") and the emotional part -- well, I'm not well. Who's going to rub my back when it hurts? Who am I going to show my growing belly to? Who is going to comfort me and tell me that everything will be all right when I'm scared? No one. Maybe I'm wallowing in self-pity here, but. . .my life has turned into a bloody talk show, and though I feel like I should have some spine, I'm really no longer sure why.

So the SAT class is not going well. I'm considering explaining to the office that the first week of the SAT class happened to coincide with the complete shattering of my present and future life (poor Absurdist Fetus) -- and that's why things are not going so well in class. Like I told the students that the answers to the homework were in the back of the book. They weren't. The students couldn't check their own homework. Of course, there was no outcry or anything, which led me to the inevitable conclusion that few students actually did their homework. We're also totally behind the syllabus. And I suck at teaching the math because I don't know the problems very well. (I'm pretty well prepped on the book I was trained on, but this is a different book. I was supposed to prep the book out before the class started, but there was too much going on and I felt like shit so I didn't, figuring that I'd be able to prep it before each class. Well, my life ended on Monday night, which happened to coincide with the night before the SAT class started. So, I've been a wee bit distracted. I also started the accounting job last Monday. Basically last week was nothing like the week before it -- and I was totally ill prepared for any of its revelations.)

The accounting job is fine. Everything was in a serious mess, but I've got most of the accounts payable under control.


It was at that point that my laptop decided to go black. I burst into tears. Everything's broken, I cried. The laptop hasn't turned on since. (Absurdist Lover -- or perhaps I should call him Absurdist Ex -- agreed to look at it. We're sharing the camper -- he stays there when I'm at my folks' place.) Tonight I did my taxes. Of course, I owe $1,000. Inevitable. Last night I couldn't get the folks' TV to work. It's just been one thing after another. I wonder if I should change my blog name, because the absurdity is getting too high for me to keep a sense of humor about it. (Could the blog title be a lightning rod for all absurdity -- from long lost lovers to electrical shorts? You can tell I'm in trouble when I get this superstitious.)

In more recent news, I found out today that some SAT students had done some of their homework; none had done all of it. If their scores fail to rise, it will not be my fault. I indicated to the SAT office people that I was having a really hard time, that last week didn't go well.

I got back the comments from the chapter I completed in January. They didn't say anything too awful, but I don't think I should think too much about their constructive criticism right now. I just can't take it. Dear readers, if I wrote overly harsh comments on your blog in the last ten days, please know that I've been very depressed -- like I'd-like-Zoloft-but-I'm-pregnant-and-don't-trust-it-despite-FDA-approvals depressed. Like I'd-like-to-curl-up-into-a-ball-and-not-come-out-until-it's-time-for-my-cremation depressed. But I'm okayish now, trying to get through, keep calm, and cultivate useful delusions of competence and love. I'll keep you posted, if I can.

Certified and Certifiable, with a Rant on the Pregnancy Industry

Thank you for all your good wishes. Despite that my teaching demo today was not so hot, I got fully certified, which may be nothing short of a miracle brought on by all y'all's good wishes and crossed fingers, toes, and eyes. So thank you all very very much.

I was so exhausted today. I slept over at the folks' house -- and was so stressed about whether or not I was going to get certified (and probably just hormonal as well) that I was totally unable to deal with them. There was actually a moment when I was getting pregnancy advice when I put my hands over my ears and said I couldn't take anymore pregnancy advice. Not my best moment. Then I came home and Absurdist Lover and I got in a total fight about money -- I'm tempted to say because now that I have a job we can fight about money, but I don't know if that's really true. We're both stressed beyond our limits and in our tiny camper . . . well, who else can we fight with? Have I mentioned that my hormones are raging? Not a great combination, because I end up crying about everything. Oy vey.

So I have a job! Yay! I didn't relearn geometry and other scary things like functions and factoring for nothing! So now I can finally turn my attention to other things -- like the fact that I really need to investigate why the pregnancy industry and their incessant advice (no sushi, second-hand smoke passes through the placenta barrier, pregnancy diets, make sure to work out and eat well or you'll be prone to a list off bad things as long as my arm topped with post-partum depression) pisses me off so much. A friend of mine told me that when she was pregnant, she sought out advice. I find it thrust upon me -- in every book, on every website. Now, of course, if I really didn't want some information, what am I doing looking at the websites and books? Well, of course I want the information, but I'm not a great fan of its presentation. Here I guess I'm talking about rhetoric. Most of the time it's implicit (though I found a shocking website that said this outright) that if you don't follow all the guidelines, eat properly and not too much, stay away from certain foods, stop drinking completely, and work out all the time no matter how shitty you feel in the first trimester, you are a bad mother.

Of course being careful is a good thing. Eating well and working out are good -- if you can manage them. (Hello!!! Some women are throwing up everything in the first trimester -- or even throughout the entire pregnancy! Luckily, I am not one of these poor women, blessed merely with constipation, queasiness, exhaustion, and tummy upset and the occasional bout of insomnia.) But what pisses me off about most of these books/websites is that they make already scared, hormone-addled, exhausted women who can no longer judge what their bodies are capable of feel even more deficient. And that is just plain wrong. Women have been having babies forever -- or else we would've died out long ago. Do we really need the part of the pregnancy industry that thrives on making women feel even more alienated from their bodies, making women feel less confident in themselves, making women feel more like shit? To modify Bridget's statement to Mark Darcy: they really needn't bother. I already feel like shit most of the time anyway. With or without the fireman's pole. (Okay, I just threw that last line in there because it makes me smile.)

Can I just say how many people don't know that you're "advised" not to eat sushi during pregnancy? My dad didn't know! (My stepmother telling me this as if I hadn't heard it a thousand times and have been in mourning since the first time I heard it was the thing that made me put my hands over my ears.) Of course, Dad doesn't have to know. He never has to give up his favorite food in the world for something that feels most of the time like a bad knot in one's middle. (Bastard.) Absurdist Lover quite reasonably says that giving up sushi for nine months is a small price for a baby -- that having my life turned upside down for about a year isn't so bad. Of course, he is being totally reasonable. Blech. It wasn't until he admitted that the world does indeed harangue pregnant women -- everyone thinking they know best and totally disempowering the mother -- that I felt I could even deal with someone so insistent on being obnoxiously reasonable.

What can I say? I'm totally hormonal and crazy most of the time. I know my responses are out of proportion with the stimuli. As you might guess, the knowledge that I'm being unreasonable is not usually enough to get me down from the walls.

Lest you think that I'm just a crazed freak, the hormone pendulum does swing the other way -- and then I marvel at my pooched belly (okay, probably just with the ice cream I now let myself eat) and thickening waist. Since the pregnancy is at ten weeks, Absurdist Fetus is like an inch long. According to those week-by-week websites that I can't stop myself from looking at, AF looks like a baby and has even developed his/her reproductive organs and things. It's pretty amazing. I saw myself in a full-length mirror this morning -- and I kind of thought I looked fecund and beautiful. Beautiful like a very full rose, not a bud. Sort of brimming with hormones. I can't describe it.

Anyway, later on when a young woman in my training class asked me if I were showing, I could've kissed her for just thinking that this pooching tummy could be just the way I was built. (I realize now that I shouldn't be so happy at this thought, but I'll be showing in minutes -- minutes, I tell you! so it was kind of neat to think that when I walk around people still can't tell. I feel so thick. Of course, when they see me going straight to the bathroom in Whole Foods, they can probably tell -- but at least strangers are not putting their hands on my belly like I'm a Buddha statue and they need some luck -- not yet.) Being pregnant makes me feel so different in my body it's not like I often forget about it. And with the glow that family members insist I have (not to mention the annoying whiteheads on my face that I was so happy to grow out of at nineteen), I kind of feel like everyone can just tell. Of course, other times I want to tattoo it on my forehead and on the bumper of my car: I'm pregnant so stop being an asshole and play nice. I'm fragile.

I think that's enough ranting. I swear I will come up with something else to write about soon. Like maybe annoying high school students (exciting!) or how writing a conference paper sucks (woohoo!).

Note to Explain Blog Silence

So what's happening now is that I'm totally caught in the thick of this SAT prep training course. We have our final teaching assessments on Sunday -- basically, how I do on Sunday's teaching will determine if I get hired or not. We (that is, Absurdist Lover, Mr. Tabby, Absurdist Fetus, and yours truly) need for me to get this job, so I'm spending a bunch of time stressing studying math in general and especially the methods this company advocates and sections I have to prepare, which, thank goodness, include other things besides math. Basically they want to feel comfortable with me in one of their classrooms. May I add that applying for a TAship wasn't this thorough?

GULP!

So basically, I'll get back to y'all on Monday, when we will likely go back to our usual fare of kvetching about writing because I have a conference paper to write. But before I can even think about that: SAT. Please cross your fingers, toes, and eyes for me.

Waaaaaa! Math!

I know I totally suck. I have updates galore since my last post, including that it turns out the GCU did give two diss awards this year -- one was in the sciences. So I stand corrected. I've thought about the difference between research and scholarship a zillion times since that post -- about how dissertation scholarship demonstrates mastery of a certain body of scholarship and then builds on that in a way that I don't think creative writing necessarily does and that GCU doesn't require in a scholarly intro or anything, blah, blah, blah. I'm sure I'm just getting in myself deeper with all of you who are offended by this discussion. (For the record, I do think of creative writing as research, just not the painful kind of demonstrating mastery and building on of scholarship that a traditional dissertation necessarily is.) But anyway, I don't care about any of that, because I have math homework! That's right! Math. I'm in this SAT prep training course so I can hopefully get a job -- and I totally have to study my geometry formulas and assorted crapola! Bah!

Did I have all week to do this math homework? Of course I did. Did I do it then? Why no, of course not. This week, I rested (totally necessary after 16 hours of training and 5 hours of taking the damned SAT over the course of three days), went to the store (something I hadn't felt up to for weeks), bought more Agatha Christie's since they are the only reading I can concentrate on, fulfilled my new fruit smoothie fixation (is it too early for cravings?), spent the day with my mom and grandmother (Grandma is doing great after her lumpectomy), obsessed over a totally unbloggable situation that has me reflecting on what friends are and should be, then yesterday I did some depressing internet research (did you know that even though there is a law that says that insurance companies can't consider pregnancy a pre-existing condition, there are so many loopholes that they undeniably do, especially for those who are trying to get individual rather than group insurance?) and just crashed completely, spending most of the day sleeping. So that leaves today for doing homework and reminding myself about stupid things I thought I'd never need again like square roots and factoring. And preparing for my teaching demo, which this time is on reading. Thank goodness.

In good news, I think the training course is good for my mental health. It reminds me that I'm a person with a brain, rather than a gestating lump with tummy upset. I'm a wee bit isolated here from academic intellectual discussions -- and found myself looking longingly at those with community college parking stickers. But now more than ever, I want this job. Cross your fingers.

***Update 1:35pm***

This is terrible. I may want this job, but my attitude toward homework -- especially geometry -- is please no. I have six different items (some of which are fifteen pages long) on my homework sheet in my SAT book. (I think there might be some reading comprehension stuff too on there -- and sentence completion stuff, but I'm afraid of the math only -- and there's a lot of it.) I have done a good chunk of one, yes one, of these six items/assignments. And then there's the teaching prep I need to do, though I don't feel as icky about that. I looked at it already, and I know what to do. All I really need to do is to practice a couple times. Absurdist Lover is gone -- working for his dad and generally running into town -- so I can practice without feeling stupid. (Though I did teach him last week's teaching demo, but I'd rather do it when no one is here.) I really want a fruit smoothie from Whole Foods in the worst way. But it's time (at least a half hour to get there and a half hour back), gas, money. I want to go. I probably shouldn't. And it hardly matters because instead of using my desire for a smoothie as motivation to get my work done, I'm browsing blogs, checking my email, seeing if anyone has commented on my blog, Maude's blog, other people's blogs. Catching up on my blogreading. Very bad. So I think we're back to accountablogging. Here are the things I want to get done today:

• Take shower and wash hair. (I realize that anyone else in the world up at 1:45pm has already done this, but my shower is tiny and I'm increasingly klutzy, so I don't generally do this until I'm awake. Plus it feels like a hassle, and today I may run out of propane/hot water even earlier than usual. So I have to be pretty energized to do this.)
• Do at least most of my six assignments.
• Practice teaching prep a couple times.
• Take a nap. I woke up really early and couldn't go back to sleep and have been up and dragging myself around ever since.
• Read.

Looking at all this, perhaps I'll try half-hour installments. Maybe I'll even just allow myself a half-hour for each assignment -- let's face it, I'm not likely to finish all of it. So I'll start with homework, then I get to do something else for a half-hour. If I had more energy right this second, I'd do the teaching prep first because it's the most important (it's these teaching moments that they base their decisions on who gets certified/hired or not). But I'm tired and think I need a slower transition in. I gotta stop blogging -- my back is killing me.