Playing Catch Up

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.

Back Home: Conference Reflections, Scholarship Concerns, Illness

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.

Too Frigging Much

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.

By the Skin of Our Teeth

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.

A Quick Grumble

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.

Through Sick and Syllabus

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?

Taking a Sick Day from My Life

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?

Inspired to Work, not Travel

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.

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

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.

Moving Forward while Sick

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

1. 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.
   
2. 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?
   
3. 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.
4. Workout? DONE
   
5. 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*

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

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?
  

Sick Again Again

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

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.

Another Parenting Post: Valentines and Immunizations

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.

Sick Again

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

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

That is all.

Venturing Out of the House of Sick

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

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

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

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

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

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

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