I'm 37 weeks pregnant tomorrow and could go at any time now, so I thought I would make a last post here on this side of parenthood. Let's reminisce for a minute about the stuff I used to take for granted.
1. Drinking red wine at night
2. Being able to grocery shop at night, together
3. Being able to leave the house at night, together
4. Going out to eat
5. Going to the movies
6. Going to concerts
7. Wasting time on the internet
8. Going to Zumba and the gym
9. Going out for a run, together
10. Having friends
11. Going to happy hours after work
12. Going to parties at other people's houses
13. Working late if I wanted to or needed to
14. Staying up really late and sleeping late on weekends
15. Eating cereal for dinner sometimes
16. Buying music or clothes whenever I wanted
17. Watching tv at night when I get home after work
18. Not using coupons, ever
19. Spending money on superfluous items at the farmer's market
20. Seeing family once a month, tops
I know my life is going to change big time, everyone seems keen on reminding me of that. But I'm anxious to meet the baby and get the show on the road, already! Even though we are still sleeping in the baby's room as my husband tries to finish up our upstairs sleeping area, even though all of the baby furniture is still in my dining room, even though I've run out of places to put baby clothes and accoutrements, I'm ready! I never thought I would get here, but here I am. I think the hormones are kicking in finally, and I'm feeling maternal and ready to snuggle that baby.
Lately I've been waxing a tad nostalgic, listening to music that I listened to from high school to college years, music that I haven't listened to since, music that still evokes a certain period of my life when I hear it. I think I've been reliving those years through the music, remembering what I was like back then, what my life was like, what I thought my future would be, what I thought was important. I will never be young again, but it's nice to be able to reconnect with the past through music, to know that you are still the same person through the years, albeit changed in many ways.
This pregnancy has gone by in the blink of an eye, but I'm glad I've had some time to reflect and think about what and who I've been before baby comes and steals the spotlight. It's no longer about me and what I want, and that's just fine. I've lived 35 years trapped inside my own head, and I'm ready to have someone else to live for, to be the reason I get excited about things, instead of feeling jaded and worn down all the time by life. I don't know what parenthood holds in store for me, but I am very interested in meeting my baby girl and getting to know her and to watch her unfold and develop into a person. Wish me luck!
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Let's demonize textbooks!
I work in the textbook industry. I see article after article about how students can get free or lower-cost textbooks by renting or reading online, complaining that so-called traditional textbooks cost too much and add too much of a financial burden to students pursuing degrees. You even have sites like 'Textbook Revolt,' founded by two former university students, where students can swap textbooks for free. People definitely seem pissed off that textbooks are so dang expensive, and they're mad as hell and not gonna take it anymore! Or something like that.
How exactly did textbooks become the de facto symbol of the Man in the realm of higher education? While it is true that publishing companies in the past decade have been bought up by conglomerate corporations, only interested in shifting units and increasing the bottom line, what else has changed?
If you ask me, the undue focus on the cost of the textbook is a device designed to keep students from asking questions in the right places, and to keep people from seeing the real problem. Almost no one defends the textbook or extolls its virtues, and the work that goes into creating a textbook is 'invisible' and therefore not valued. That work is devalued not only by the post-secondary academic audience, it is also devalued within the publishing company itself, with workers increasingly being laid off and replaced by offshore vendors. Those workers who remain must now do the job of at least 2 people, thus straining the quality and attention that can be given to any one product at a time. That's right, it's no longer a 'textbook,' it's a product--an abstraction that accounts for numbers in a spreadsheet. Now in publishing we have editors who don't edit, they product manage, and we have production folks who manage vendors in India to copyedit, typeset, and publish these products, work that used to be done here in America. It's easy to be cynical about textbooks these days because the undue attention paid to textbooks in the past 10 years has made the publishing industry into the monster that people claimed it always was: treat textbook publishers like evil incarnate corporate monsters, and over time, they will more and more resemble that monster.
By saying textbooks are too expensive, are people really saying that the knowledge that they contain isn't worth diddley-squat? Most students don't realize that one factor that goes into the cost of the textbook is the cost of producing FREE instructor supplements to help them teach the course, especially at the community college and career levels. These things cost money to develop, and the cost is rolled up into the sticker price of the textbook. You want fancy software with that textbook? That costs money too--someone has to develop that software, it doesn't just appear out of thin air. We have to float the cost of so-called 'free' supplements for instructors just to get them to adopt the textbook. We have to make their transition to our textbook as easy as possible, because if we don't, a competitor certainly will.
All of this aside, it was the well-organized used book market was really responsible for this dramatic shift in the way textbooks are viewed. A company invests capital into producing a textbook, and doesn't see the return on its investment why? Because instead of selling new copies, bookstores are selling ever-increasing amounts of used copies, and not at a significant reduction in price, either. This led directly to increasingly shortened revision cycles, and ever-inventive ways to cheat the used-book market out of a sale--online supplements, tear-out passcodes in textbooks, software in the back, you name it. In his article, Why Are Textbooks so Expensive?, Henry Roediger III expresses it best: "many factors used to "explain" the high prices of books are probably effects, with the cause being the organized used book companies that prey parasitically on the host publishing companies and threaten to destroy them." His article goes on to say that college bookstores have also driven publishers to sell on the net price, allowing the bookstore to set the list price, and they often drive the costs up 30 to 40 percent, not helping the perception that textbooks are outrageously priced, even though publishers don't see a penny of that money. And those free CDs and supplements publishers add to require students to buy a book new rather than used? The bookstores have been known to take those packages apart and charge extra for those as well, thus defeating the publisher's intention. Oh, and instructors contribute to this by selling their complimentary desk copies to organized retailers who then resell them to students as well. In response, publishers are starting to produce a certain amount of books with covers that say 'instructor copy' on them to combat these sales. Publishers have to become ever more creative in order to stay ahead of crafty people trying to make a buck off of their product.
And now there's the HEOA laws which require publishers to slice and dice their textbook offerings even further. If your book comes with a CD, you'd better make a non-CD version available, dammit, or suffer the consequences! Students have a right to purchase just the book or the book with CD for a higher price...funny thing is, we price ours the same either way, it's the bookstores that jack the prices up, but you don't see anyone stopping them or slapping them with legislation. It's those evil textbook publishers at it again!
What about the tuition costs, aren't those astronomically high and getting higher? What about those earnest promises of employment after graduation in this economy? Recently the government took for-profit colleges to task for the rates at which they were graduating students into fields that weren't hiring. Students were amassing huge student loans, then going out into the world, degrees in hand, only to find that they weren't employable in their immediate region, and then defaulting on their federally-backed student loans. But by and large, no one questions that large tuition bill, perhaps because they 'pay' for it with loans anyway, and the cost of higher education just continues to increase.
Saying textbooks should be cheap is like saying that banks should provide their services for free. I mean, consider all of the knowledge and expertise of the author, all of the time and money spent creating supplements like test banks, PowerPoint presentations, online courses, instructor's manuals, student software, websites to accompany the text--these things are 'must-haves' in the current competitive textbook environment. Instructors want cheaper textbooks? Then start creating your own PowerPoints and tests for class, stop demanding a full-color display for your so-called "visual learners," stop demanding that publishers kill themselves in the race to supply you will all of the tools you need just short of a robot to teach the class for you, in order to secure an adoption of their book. Don't wanna do that? Didn't think so.
How exactly did textbooks become the de facto symbol of the Man in the realm of higher education? While it is true that publishing companies in the past decade have been bought up by conglomerate corporations, only interested in shifting units and increasing the bottom line, what else has changed?
If you ask me, the undue focus on the cost of the textbook is a device designed to keep students from asking questions in the right places, and to keep people from seeing the real problem. Almost no one defends the textbook or extolls its virtues, and the work that goes into creating a textbook is 'invisible' and therefore not valued. That work is devalued not only by the post-secondary academic audience, it is also devalued within the publishing company itself, with workers increasingly being laid off and replaced by offshore vendors. Those workers who remain must now do the job of at least 2 people, thus straining the quality and attention that can be given to any one product at a time. That's right, it's no longer a 'textbook,' it's a product--an abstraction that accounts for numbers in a spreadsheet. Now in publishing we have editors who don't edit, they product manage, and we have production folks who manage vendors in India to copyedit, typeset, and publish these products, work that used to be done here in America. It's easy to be cynical about textbooks these days because the undue attention paid to textbooks in the past 10 years has made the publishing industry into the monster that people claimed it always was: treat textbook publishers like evil incarnate corporate monsters, and over time, they will more and more resemble that monster.
By saying textbooks are too expensive, are people really saying that the knowledge that they contain isn't worth diddley-squat? Most students don't realize that one factor that goes into the cost of the textbook is the cost of producing FREE instructor supplements to help them teach the course, especially at the community college and career levels. These things cost money to develop, and the cost is rolled up into the sticker price of the textbook. You want fancy software with that textbook? That costs money too--someone has to develop that software, it doesn't just appear out of thin air. We have to float the cost of so-called 'free' supplements for instructors just to get them to adopt the textbook. We have to make their transition to our textbook as easy as possible, because if we don't, a competitor certainly will.
All of this aside, it was the well-organized used book market was really responsible for this dramatic shift in the way textbooks are viewed. A company invests capital into producing a textbook, and doesn't see the return on its investment why? Because instead of selling new copies, bookstores are selling ever-increasing amounts of used copies, and not at a significant reduction in price, either. This led directly to increasingly shortened revision cycles, and ever-inventive ways to cheat the used-book market out of a sale--online supplements, tear-out passcodes in textbooks, software in the back, you name it. In his article, Why Are Textbooks so Expensive?, Henry Roediger III expresses it best: "many factors used to "explain" the high prices of books are probably effects, with the cause being the organized used book companies that prey parasitically on the host publishing companies and threaten to destroy them." His article goes on to say that college bookstores have also driven publishers to sell on the net price, allowing the bookstore to set the list price, and they often drive the costs up 30 to 40 percent, not helping the perception that textbooks are outrageously priced, even though publishers don't see a penny of that money. And those free CDs and supplements publishers add to require students to buy a book new rather than used? The bookstores have been known to take those packages apart and charge extra for those as well, thus defeating the publisher's intention. Oh, and instructors contribute to this by selling their complimentary desk copies to organized retailers who then resell them to students as well. In response, publishers are starting to produce a certain amount of books with covers that say 'instructor copy' on them to combat these sales. Publishers have to become ever more creative in order to stay ahead of crafty people trying to make a buck off of their product.
And now there's the HEOA laws which require publishers to slice and dice their textbook offerings even further. If your book comes with a CD, you'd better make a non-CD version available, dammit, or suffer the consequences! Students have a right to purchase just the book or the book with CD for a higher price...funny thing is, we price ours the same either way, it's the bookstores that jack the prices up, but you don't see anyone stopping them or slapping them with legislation. It's those evil textbook publishers at it again!
What about the tuition costs, aren't those astronomically high and getting higher? What about those earnest promises of employment after graduation in this economy? Recently the government took for-profit colleges to task for the rates at which they were graduating students into fields that weren't hiring. Students were amassing huge student loans, then going out into the world, degrees in hand, only to find that they weren't employable in their immediate region, and then defaulting on their federally-backed student loans. But by and large, no one questions that large tuition bill, perhaps because they 'pay' for it with loans anyway, and the cost of higher education just continues to increase.
Saying textbooks should be cheap is like saying that banks should provide their services for free. I mean, consider all of the knowledge and expertise of the author, all of the time and money spent creating supplements like test banks, PowerPoint presentations, online courses, instructor's manuals, student software, websites to accompany the text--these things are 'must-haves' in the current competitive textbook environment. Instructors want cheaper textbooks? Then start creating your own PowerPoints and tests for class, stop demanding a full-color display for your so-called "visual learners," stop demanding that publishers kill themselves in the race to supply you will all of the tools you need just short of a robot to teach the class for you, in order to secure an adoption of their book. Don't wanna do that? Didn't think so.
Thursday, September 8, 2011
So what do you think of when you think of the birth?
My husband and I attended our first childbirth/lamaze class this week. The class is full of first-timers who are around our age and younger. The instructor is very upbeat. The first night she asked us all to complete a questionnaire so that she could learn more about us, like our due dates, occupations, etc. There were also a couple of questions that she chooses to share our answers to out loud when introducing us: What are you hoping to learn from this class? and What do you think of when you think of the birth?
We got through most of the couples except two--us and the other couple due in early December. Everyone who went answered the second question with things like 'joy' or 'excitement.' I'm pretty sure my answer wasn't one of those. I can't actually remember my verbatim answer, but it had something to do with stress/fear/nervousness! So next week I can look forward to being introduced and having her read aloud my answer to the question that is the title of this blog. Hey, I'm nothing if not honest I guess. You know those other bitches feel fear as well, they are just afraid to admit it lest someone think them unfit mothers!
People tell me all the time that I must be 'so excited' about the coming baby. Why must I be excited? Because everyone expects me to be? I wouldn't call what I'm feeling excitement, exactly. Excitement is what I feel when I'm going on a trip somewhere, or on vacation, something that promises fun, escapism, and immersion. I can honestly say that I don't feel that way about the coming baby! I am a realist, which to most people makes me a pessimist, so I tend to look at things differently. I realize that my life is going to change irrevocably, thank you very much, and I can only imagine the hard work that will be involved, and the sleepless days, etc. This is not going to be a picnic, and instead of excitement I'm feeling trepidation, concern, fear, worry. And I'm not ashamed to admit it.
Overall I think the class will be good for me because the focus is on trying to make us think positively and feel in control of what will be happening to us by educating us about the process. She said Americans generally fear childbirth, whereas that is not the case in other, more enlightened countries. Why am I not surprised? We seem to operate on fear in so many arenas of life in this country. In my opinion, so tenuous is our hold on the good life that we fear everything and anything that could tear it asunder. Most of us are just a couple of paychecks away from the poor house, and swimming in debt up to our eyeballs, so it's no wonder that we're a nation of worriers.
I am someone who definitely needs coaching in order to think positively and focus on the good aspects of the impending birth, rather than just the scary ones. It's just how I'm wired. All of that other "fun" parenting stuff seems vague and distant to me at this point, so focused am I on the practical, the day-to-day. Maybe other people are focused only on the positive parenting stuff, and that's why they can feel excitement and joy about the birth. I'll get there eventually, in my own time. Maybe.
We got through most of the couples except two--us and the other couple due in early December. Everyone who went answered the second question with things like 'joy' or 'excitement.' I'm pretty sure my answer wasn't one of those. I can't actually remember my verbatim answer, but it had something to do with stress/fear/nervousness! So next week I can look forward to being introduced and having her read aloud my answer to the question that is the title of this blog. Hey, I'm nothing if not honest I guess. You know those other bitches feel fear as well, they are just afraid to admit it lest someone think them unfit mothers!
People tell me all the time that I must be 'so excited' about the coming baby. Why must I be excited? Because everyone expects me to be? I wouldn't call what I'm feeling excitement, exactly. Excitement is what I feel when I'm going on a trip somewhere, or on vacation, something that promises fun, escapism, and immersion. I can honestly say that I don't feel that way about the coming baby! I am a realist, which to most people makes me a pessimist, so I tend to look at things differently. I realize that my life is going to change irrevocably, thank you very much, and I can only imagine the hard work that will be involved, and the sleepless days, etc. This is not going to be a picnic, and instead of excitement I'm feeling trepidation, concern, fear, worry. And I'm not ashamed to admit it.
Overall I think the class will be good for me because the focus is on trying to make us think positively and feel in control of what will be happening to us by educating us about the process. She said Americans generally fear childbirth, whereas that is not the case in other, more enlightened countries. Why am I not surprised? We seem to operate on fear in so many arenas of life in this country. In my opinion, so tenuous is our hold on the good life that we fear everything and anything that could tear it asunder. Most of us are just a couple of paychecks away from the poor house, and swimming in debt up to our eyeballs, so it's no wonder that we're a nation of worriers.
I am someone who definitely needs coaching in order to think positively and focus on the good aspects of the impending birth, rather than just the scary ones. It's just how I'm wired. All of that other "fun" parenting stuff seems vague and distant to me at this point, so focused am I on the practical, the day-to-day. Maybe other people are focused only on the positive parenting stuff, and that's why they can feel excitement and joy about the birth. I'll get there eventually, in my own time. Maybe.
Monday, August 22, 2011
Another public restroom pet peeve
I've made a previous post about bathroom etiquette here, and now I've got another one. I've been traveling a lot for work this summer, and I'm pregnant, which means that I've been in a lot of public bathrooms of late. This has helped me hone my other bathroom pet peeve: women who squat over a seat in a public toilet and pee all over the fucking place.
I don't know who started teaching young women that they need to squat over a public toilet, but that fuckery must be stopped, NOW. If you're a woman who has ever squatted over a public toilet (and I have too), you know that you end up getting pee everywhere, including sometimes on your clothes. This is because it is impossible to aim your pee if you're a woman (you know it's true), so while you think you're being so sanitary and smart, you're really no better than a friggin' animal in the woods when you do this.
When I was a little girl, my mother told me never to sit on a public toilet seat, but to squat over it instead, and this made sense at the time because the very idea of sitting where someone else sat to empty their bowels is repulsive, I admit. "Fifty percent of American women won't sit on a seat without some type of guard or without hovering," said Allison Janse, author of The Germ Freak's Guide to Outwitting Colds and Flu. But if no one sits, that means everyone pees all over the place, making the stall a very unpleasant place to experience.
It is in fact a myth that the toilet seat is the dirtiest surface in a public bathroom. It is fourth behind the floor (dirtiest), sanitary napkin disposal unit, and sink. And, contrary to popular belief, the women's restroom is far dirtier than the men's room. The dirtiest parts of a toilet stall are the toilet handle and the stall handle, because those are the surfaces people touch before washing their hands. (This is why I flush with my foot if there's no automatic flushing mechanism.)
I have burst from the chains of my upbringing and I am no longer a squatter, I am a sitter. I might use one of the sani-wraps or toilet paper as a barrier in a particularly grubby stall, but I sit down. Besides, now that I'm pregnant, squatting has become, well, problematic to say the least, with my new-found weight gain and awkwardness in general. I cannot tell you how many times in my travels this year I found pee spray on the seat from the previous occupant, and had to move on to another stall, or bravely wipe it off before applying a tissue layer. It's disgusting and infuriating because it doesn't have to be this way! We should all be able to walk into a stall and sit down; I shouldn't have to clean up your mess, you filthy cow.
London had some of the cleanest public bathroom stalls I've ever seen. I was continually impressed with the attention paid to privacy and space and the cleanliness I found in those stalls--the doors went all the way down near the floor, there weren't huge crevices between door and stall, and you didn't have to cringe after flushing to avoid backspray from the toilet bowl (another germ-ridden area). Plus, the doors opened outward and the locks worked, and I swear I never found urine on the toilet seat, ever. I don't understand why in American public restrooms, you will often find tiny stalls with doors that open inward, thus crushing you even closer to the dreaded toilet. And privacy? Forget it. There's usually a half-inch clearance on either side of the door frame. If you can sort of see the people milling about outside the stall, guess what, they can sort of see you too.
The Albany International Airport here actually has some of the cleanest public restrooms I've sampled. Everything is automated--the toilet, the sink, the hand soap, the hand dryer--very clean--yet people still pee on the seats. And even New Orleans has something innovative--a plastic sheet that rotates over the toilet seat and 'sanitizes' at the push of a button, making you feel almost invited to sit (and one wonders if peeing on the seat was a problem of epidemic proportions in the South to warrant such an invention). One of the absolute worst public toilets I've seen was at LaGuardia: rickety, inward-closing doors, filthy floors, everything hand-operated and no personal space whatsoever. It was like a torture chamber in there!
This little expose of public restrooms is just another brick in the wall for me of how people just don't give a shit about how they leave things for others. Everyone is out for themselves, and they will pee all over the toilet seat because they can, dammit; they don't take care of the space around them, they don't take responsibility for their bodily functions, and they don't care what they leave behind for others to encounter. Toilet seat etiquette aside, I have seen some pretty disgusting things in public restrooms, things that don't bear repeating, or even remembering. Women of the world, you are freakin' disgusting and appalling. Stop peeing all over the place and sit down!
I don't know who started teaching young women that they need to squat over a public toilet, but that fuckery must be stopped, NOW. If you're a woman who has ever squatted over a public toilet (and I have too), you know that you end up getting pee everywhere, including sometimes on your clothes. This is because it is impossible to aim your pee if you're a woman (you know it's true), so while you think you're being so sanitary and smart, you're really no better than a friggin' animal in the woods when you do this.
When I was a little girl, my mother told me never to sit on a public toilet seat, but to squat over it instead, and this made sense at the time because the very idea of sitting where someone else sat to empty their bowels is repulsive, I admit. "Fifty percent of American women won't sit on a seat without some type of guard or without hovering," said Allison Janse, author of The Germ Freak's Guide to Outwitting Colds and Flu. But if no one sits, that means everyone pees all over the place, making the stall a very unpleasant place to experience.
It is in fact a myth that the toilet seat is the dirtiest surface in a public bathroom. It is fourth behind the floor (dirtiest), sanitary napkin disposal unit, and sink. And, contrary to popular belief, the women's restroom is far dirtier than the men's room. The dirtiest parts of a toilet stall are the toilet handle and the stall handle, because those are the surfaces people touch before washing their hands. (This is why I flush with my foot if there's no automatic flushing mechanism.)
I have burst from the chains of my upbringing and I am no longer a squatter, I am a sitter. I might use one of the sani-wraps or toilet paper as a barrier in a particularly grubby stall, but I sit down. Besides, now that I'm pregnant, squatting has become, well, problematic to say the least, with my new-found weight gain and awkwardness in general. I cannot tell you how many times in my travels this year I found pee spray on the seat from the previous occupant, and had to move on to another stall, or bravely wipe it off before applying a tissue layer. It's disgusting and infuriating because it doesn't have to be this way! We should all be able to walk into a stall and sit down; I shouldn't have to clean up your mess, you filthy cow.
London had some of the cleanest public bathroom stalls I've ever seen. I was continually impressed with the attention paid to privacy and space and the cleanliness I found in those stalls--the doors went all the way down near the floor, there weren't huge crevices between door and stall, and you didn't have to cringe after flushing to avoid backspray from the toilet bowl (another germ-ridden area). Plus, the doors opened outward and the locks worked, and I swear I never found urine on the toilet seat, ever. I don't understand why in American public restrooms, you will often find tiny stalls with doors that open inward, thus crushing you even closer to the dreaded toilet. And privacy? Forget it. There's usually a half-inch clearance on either side of the door frame. If you can sort of see the people milling about outside the stall, guess what, they can sort of see you too.
The Albany International Airport here actually has some of the cleanest public restrooms I've sampled. Everything is automated--the toilet, the sink, the hand soap, the hand dryer--very clean--yet people still pee on the seats. And even New Orleans has something innovative--a plastic sheet that rotates over the toilet seat and 'sanitizes' at the push of a button, making you feel almost invited to sit (and one wonders if peeing on the seat was a problem of epidemic proportions in the South to warrant such an invention). One of the absolute worst public toilets I've seen was at LaGuardia: rickety, inward-closing doors, filthy floors, everything hand-operated and no personal space whatsoever. It was like a torture chamber in there!
This little expose of public restrooms is just another brick in the wall for me of how people just don't give a shit about how they leave things for others. Everyone is out for themselves, and they will pee all over the toilet seat because they can, dammit; they don't take care of the space around them, they don't take responsibility for their bodily functions, and they don't care what they leave behind for others to encounter. Toilet seat etiquette aside, I have seen some pretty disgusting things in public restrooms, things that don't bear repeating, or even remembering. Women of the world, you are freakin' disgusting and appalling. Stop peeing all over the place and sit down!
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Change my name, change my name
So today I downloaded the forms necessary to bring with me to court in order to have my name changed, officially, by the state supreme court. Eight years ago when I married my husband, whose last name has 9 letters in it, I hyphenated my own 5-letter last name to his. I didn't want to be so radical as to not take my husband's name at all, but I also didn't want to 'give up' my maiden name--so I compromised and did the hyphen thing. Plus, I was attached to the symmetry of my name--first name has five letters, last name has five letters, both end in 'in'--it was a symmetrical name, and that explains my desire to hold onto it.
Well, it turns out that a 14-character last name (15 with the hyphen) is more of a burden than it's worth. I'm always having to spell it, it doesn't fit on my driver's license, and I can never remember whether I'm listed as the hyphen or just my husband's last name. The driver's license thing really drove the point home--by keeping my maiden name as a hyphen, I lost my entire first name, which is represented on my license by only the first letter. But after 8 years of this kind of torture, it was recent events that moved me to make the change.
People must change their names for all kinds of reasons, but primarily to escape child support, liens, jail time, abusers, and the like. I say this because the program I used asked me if I was changing my name because my life was in danger, if I was responsible for paying child support, and if I had been convicted of a crime. In addition to paying the court $210 to grant my name change, I will have to take out a public announcement in the newspaper announcing my name change to the world.
I've had it with the hyphen, it must go, and go it shall before this baby is born. I don't want to be alphabetized away from my husband and baby--we need to be under the same umbrella, the same name, a family in name as well as in fact. My maiden name will supplant my middle name, which I never cared for anyway, and I can finally start using the 9-letter name that I gladly took from my husband years ago. It's a strong Irish name, and I have absolutely no problem with it.
Well, it turns out that a 14-character last name (15 with the hyphen) is more of a burden than it's worth. I'm always having to spell it, it doesn't fit on my driver's license, and I can never remember whether I'm listed as the hyphen or just my husband's last name. The driver's license thing really drove the point home--by keeping my maiden name as a hyphen, I lost my entire first name, which is represented on my license by only the first letter. But after 8 years of this kind of torture, it was recent events that moved me to make the change.
People must change their names for all kinds of reasons, but primarily to escape child support, liens, jail time, abusers, and the like. I say this because the program I used asked me if I was changing my name because my life was in danger, if I was responsible for paying child support, and if I had been convicted of a crime. In addition to paying the court $210 to grant my name change, I will have to take out a public announcement in the newspaper announcing my name change to the world.
I've had it with the hyphen, it must go, and go it shall before this baby is born. I don't want to be alphabetized away from my husband and baby--we need to be under the same umbrella, the same name, a family in name as well as in fact. My maiden name will supplant my middle name, which I never cared for anyway, and I can finally start using the 9-letter name that I gladly took from my husband years ago. It's a strong Irish name, and I have absolutely no problem with it.
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Let the Baby Brainwashing Begin!
I read somewhere, I think in one of the baby books that I have, that one of the side effects of the hormone surge you experience during pregnancy is that it helps to make you a better mother, and in fact prepares you for motherhood, by making you more empathetic to babies, and eventually to your own child, ensuring that you handle the entire experience better and bond with your baby. Ever since I read that, it has disturbed me, making me view being pregnant as a somewhat hostile takeover, a kind of invasion of the body snatchers. I'm not overly sentimental by nature, and where most women coo over cute baby things, I mostly cringe and run away. In fact, I didn't care much for babies or toddlers, I prefer to interact with much older, more rational children. I just did not get enamored of babies. At all. I have never been one of those women who knew all their lives that they wanted to be a mother--in fact, to be honest, I viewed baby-crazy women with suspicion. It was just so other to me, so foreign, I had no conception of how they could feel that way. That is, until I held a friend's baby last year, and I felt something, and I thought, 'I want one of those,' for the first time in my life, ever. Maybe it was just the right time, but that set me down the path I'm currently on. It's like some secret program, long dormant in my brain, got switched on and started running a babymaking app in my head!
Now that I'm in the middle of my own pregnancy, I find myself studying myself and my reactions to things with a cautious eye. Little by little, millimeter by millimeter, I'm softening towards babies. I certainly notice them more now than I ever did. I'm more empathetic to women with children in public, and I smile at cute babies and children where I used to scowl or look away. Yes, it seems the hormonal brainwashing is upon me, and by degrees I find myself changing my reactions to babies in general. I find this disturbing. I realize that it is a part of what happens to you, but for me it raises all sorts of ontological questions. I mean, who are we really? Are we just the product of chemicals in our brains? How can I go from children leaving me cold to where I am now? But on the other hand, another part of me is grateful that this is happening to me, because I always wondered how people become mothers, and this has to be part of the secret. I mean, at times I simply cannot imagine myself as a mother, and I have fears that I will be a terrible, cold and distant mother, because I can't imagine caring for this baby, it's just not real to me still. So I'm thankful that something--mother nature, hormones, whatever--is taking over and making me a part of this process mentally and emotionally as well as physically.
I am still incredulous at the idea that I will be a mother in the next 6 months or so, and I find the idea almost hilarious--ME, a MOTHER? What?? I know I will get there, eventually. And I will have to make peace with the fact that I will probably become something altogether new, no longer the person I was, but not entirely different, either. I just wish other mothers could be more honest about their experiences--I feel like mothers who act like it's the greatest thing and spout platitudes like 'it will change your life for the better' and use phrases like 'the miracle of birth' do the rest of us newbies a disservice by ill-preparing us for the ups and downs of the ride before us. I see these women on the baby forums, going on about how their one life's aim is to have a baby, talking endlessly about the details of their pregnancies and their children, and I feel alienated.
No one likes to talk about the realities, the hard stuff, the trials and tribulations; no one talks about the loss of self that women must undergo to some degree, the changes that will happen in your marriage, good and bad--the picture that they paint is of a picture-perfect family life where women all love babies and want only more babies to make them happy. I still cringe at this kind of thinking--I mean, really people? Is that all there is? This baby is not my end-all, be-all, though I will certainly love it and will do all I can to make it feel loved and secure. But I am a person, I have thoughts and feelings, and I don't anticipate those being entirely subsumed by the baby; I don't think it's fair to the child either. I also don't think my marriage will get easier with a baby--I know things will get harder, and that some things will not be improved by the introduction of a new set of responsibilities in our lives. Babies aren't some kind of magical plaster that, when applied, make everything glowy and precious. Heck, babyhood itself doesn't last very long in the grand scheme of things--eventually that baby will turn into a child and an angry teenager, but no one talks about that.
Maybe I just don't 'get' motherhood yet. Maybe it's the kind of thing you never really get initiated into until it happens to you, and it hasn't happened to me yet, it's in process of happening. I know that babies are magical creatures, almost mythical in the hold they can have over people's imaginations. But I feel it is my duty to myself to be honest with what I'm feeling and going through, if for no other reason than to maintain my own sense of self throughout this process, and to document what happens to me along the way. It's going to be quite a ride.
Now that I'm in the middle of my own pregnancy, I find myself studying myself and my reactions to things with a cautious eye. Little by little, millimeter by millimeter, I'm softening towards babies. I certainly notice them more now than I ever did. I'm more empathetic to women with children in public, and I smile at cute babies and children where I used to scowl or look away. Yes, it seems the hormonal brainwashing is upon me, and by degrees I find myself changing my reactions to babies in general. I find this disturbing. I realize that it is a part of what happens to you, but for me it raises all sorts of ontological questions. I mean, who are we really? Are we just the product of chemicals in our brains? How can I go from children leaving me cold to where I am now? But on the other hand, another part of me is grateful that this is happening to me, because I always wondered how people become mothers, and this has to be part of the secret. I mean, at times I simply cannot imagine myself as a mother, and I have fears that I will be a terrible, cold and distant mother, because I can't imagine caring for this baby, it's just not real to me still. So I'm thankful that something--mother nature, hormones, whatever--is taking over and making me a part of this process mentally and emotionally as well as physically.
I am still incredulous at the idea that I will be a mother in the next 6 months or so, and I find the idea almost hilarious--ME, a MOTHER? What?? I know I will get there, eventually. And I will have to make peace with the fact that I will probably become something altogether new, no longer the person I was, but not entirely different, either. I just wish other mothers could be more honest about their experiences--I feel like mothers who act like it's the greatest thing and spout platitudes like 'it will change your life for the better' and use phrases like 'the miracle of birth' do the rest of us newbies a disservice by ill-preparing us for the ups and downs of the ride before us. I see these women on the baby forums, going on about how their one life's aim is to have a baby, talking endlessly about the details of their pregnancies and their children, and I feel alienated.
No one likes to talk about the realities, the hard stuff, the trials and tribulations; no one talks about the loss of self that women must undergo to some degree, the changes that will happen in your marriage, good and bad--the picture that they paint is of a picture-perfect family life where women all love babies and want only more babies to make them happy. I still cringe at this kind of thinking--I mean, really people? Is that all there is? This baby is not my end-all, be-all, though I will certainly love it and will do all I can to make it feel loved and secure. But I am a person, I have thoughts and feelings, and I don't anticipate those being entirely subsumed by the baby; I don't think it's fair to the child either. I also don't think my marriage will get easier with a baby--I know things will get harder, and that some things will not be improved by the introduction of a new set of responsibilities in our lives. Babies aren't some kind of magical plaster that, when applied, make everything glowy and precious. Heck, babyhood itself doesn't last very long in the grand scheme of things--eventually that baby will turn into a child and an angry teenager, but no one talks about that.
Maybe I just don't 'get' motherhood yet. Maybe it's the kind of thing you never really get initiated into until it happens to you, and it hasn't happened to me yet, it's in process of happening. I know that babies are magical creatures, almost mythical in the hold they can have over people's imaginations. But I feel it is my duty to myself to be honest with what I'm feeling and going through, if for no other reason than to maintain my own sense of self throughout this process, and to document what happens to me along the way. It's going to be quite a ride.
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
This is horrible news.
I just found out today from my sister-in-law down south some really harrowing, horrifying news about my sperm-donor (some people call them fathers, but this one does not deserve the title). He has three sons with different women, my younger half brothers, and unlike with me, he actually had visitation with them when they were growing up. Well apparently in addition to being a wife-beating, dog-throwing cretin, he also emotionally, physically, and sexually abused my three brothers. This was shocking news, and yet not so shocking at the same time. I would like to feel hatred for him, but I think someone actually has to mean something to you in order to feel true hatred for them--and I've never felt anything for this man other than a general sense of disgust and relief that he wasn't a part of my life growing up. What I feel is a sadness for my brothers, and an amazement that four reasonably well-adjusted adults now exist, no thanks to that asshole, but thanks to their mothers and their own inner strength.
Now I see that my mother was absolutely right to cut him out of my life like a cancer when they split up. I was the reason they married, and I was 6 months old when they finally split--and he did have brief visitation with me, because, as the story goes, I would cry so much when he would come and get me that finally he just gave it up. There is also a part of the story that involves him trying to come and pick me up from my grandparents' house one last time (where my mother was living with me after the divorce), and my grandfather threatening sperm-donor with a shotgun if he ever came around me again. Now with this new information I wonder if there's a piece of the story that I don't know...harrowing thought, that. But I have always been grateful to my grandfather for doing that, way back when, and now that gratefulness is increased ten thousand fold.
Somehow the story that sperm-donor beat my mother left me still curious about this strange man who was my father, since I went through an abusive stepfather situation when I was fairly young. When I turned 18, I sought out sperm-donor out on my own, to take for myself the measure of the man. Well I took his measure pretty quickly after only a couple of visits. First I went to him and visited at his shack in Gonzales, LA--actually stayed there--he had a third wife and all three sons with him that weekend. I remember they were very sweet boys and loved me immediately. Then there was another weekend where he came and stayed with me in New Orleans, and got me drunk on purpose (I didn't drink back then and had no experience with alcohol), and laughed about it. He also made creepy comments about my body that made me uncomfortable, and smoked pot on my back porch--so I shut him out after that visit. He tried to stop by after that, left notes in my mailbox--but I did not respond. I simply let the waters close over that again.
All my life I've missed out on getting to know my grandparents, his two sisters, their children, all because the break was complete. Now, I am grateful for that, because knowing them would not have been worth it because it would have meant I would have to have seen him along the way. Now that I am older, I have made contact with the family again on my own, circumventing him completely, and I'm the better for it. I was encouraged when I found out that my sister-in-law (married to the oldest brother) felt the same way about sperm-donor, and cited evidence for keeping her children safely out of his reach. The rest of the family is still in denial about sperm-donor's behavior--they still invite him to family functions, and sweep everything under the rug. In fact, I saw him again for the first time in 17 years (an my husband met him for the first time) this past Christmas, where all four of us actually took a picture with the bastard. Little do they know that sperm-donor's oldest son (7 years my junior) has had nervous breakdowns because of memories that have been surfacing for him about what was done to him. He is seeing a shrink and is on medication to help him come to terms with the abuse he suffered at the hands of his father, and the anger he should have been turning on his father, he was instead turning inward, causing him to have clinical depression. His PTSD was so bad recently that my sister-in-law's milk dried up from the stress of having to check him into a mental hospital again, so she had to bottle feed her newborn baby instead. Can you imagine?? I cannot.
Maybe once the aunts hear about this, they will realize that it is time to finally expunge sperm-donor from family functions. One would hope so anyway. But his mother, the 77-year old Japanese woman who lost her husband in the last couple of years, will likely not be able to handle this news about her only son, so they will keep it from her. It makes me wonder about my grandfather now too--did sperm-donor learn this behavior from his father, or from someone else? Jesus I hope not.
Like it or not, this man's genetic code runs in my veins. That thought disturbs the fuck out of me, now more than ever. People like him shouldn't get to propagate the next generation! He should have been put away as a sex offended years ago, if only one of his sons had spoken out (there was an incident with the second son but no charges were filed). Yet he has propagated four people, with three different women, and he's still out there, a danger and yet somehow still a magnet to women everywhere. At Christmas he joked that he thought he was going to be a father for a fifth time...and I just stared back. 'Things have come easy to me my whole life,' he said to me, out of the blue, apropos of nothing, 'women, work, children--these things just come easy to me.' And that was the end. He never asked how I was doing, or said anything whatsoever about me, even though he's seen me now at exactly two times in my life--at 18 and again at 34. Not that I expected anything, mind you--please don't think that, never think that. There are no words that can explain someone like him, there is no pity, there is just no feeling at all. The fact that the four of us are well-adjusted, strong individuals does not make up for the fact that sperm-donor is an absolute waste of carbon. He does not get credit for that.
Now I see that my mother was absolutely right to cut him out of my life like a cancer when they split up. I was the reason they married, and I was 6 months old when they finally split--and he did have brief visitation with me, because, as the story goes, I would cry so much when he would come and get me that finally he just gave it up. There is also a part of the story that involves him trying to come and pick me up from my grandparents' house one last time (where my mother was living with me after the divorce), and my grandfather threatening sperm-donor with a shotgun if he ever came around me again. Now with this new information I wonder if there's a piece of the story that I don't know...harrowing thought, that. But I have always been grateful to my grandfather for doing that, way back when, and now that gratefulness is increased ten thousand fold.
Somehow the story that sperm-donor beat my mother left me still curious about this strange man who was my father, since I went through an abusive stepfather situation when I was fairly young. When I turned 18, I sought out sperm-donor out on my own, to take for myself the measure of the man. Well I took his measure pretty quickly after only a couple of visits. First I went to him and visited at his shack in Gonzales, LA--actually stayed there--he had a third wife and all three sons with him that weekend. I remember they were very sweet boys and loved me immediately. Then there was another weekend where he came and stayed with me in New Orleans, and got me drunk on purpose (I didn't drink back then and had no experience with alcohol), and laughed about it. He also made creepy comments about my body that made me uncomfortable, and smoked pot on my back porch--so I shut him out after that visit. He tried to stop by after that, left notes in my mailbox--but I did not respond. I simply let the waters close over that again.
All my life I've missed out on getting to know my grandparents, his two sisters, their children, all because the break was complete. Now, I am grateful for that, because knowing them would not have been worth it because it would have meant I would have to have seen him along the way. Now that I am older, I have made contact with the family again on my own, circumventing him completely, and I'm the better for it. I was encouraged when I found out that my sister-in-law (married to the oldest brother) felt the same way about sperm-donor, and cited evidence for keeping her children safely out of his reach. The rest of the family is still in denial about sperm-donor's behavior--they still invite him to family functions, and sweep everything under the rug. In fact, I saw him again for the first time in 17 years (an my husband met him for the first time) this past Christmas, where all four of us actually took a picture with the bastard. Little do they know that sperm-donor's oldest son (7 years my junior) has had nervous breakdowns because of memories that have been surfacing for him about what was done to him. He is seeing a shrink and is on medication to help him come to terms with the abuse he suffered at the hands of his father, and the anger he should have been turning on his father, he was instead turning inward, causing him to have clinical depression. His PTSD was so bad recently that my sister-in-law's milk dried up from the stress of having to check him into a mental hospital again, so she had to bottle feed her newborn baby instead. Can you imagine?? I cannot.
Maybe once the aunts hear about this, they will realize that it is time to finally expunge sperm-donor from family functions. One would hope so anyway. But his mother, the 77-year old Japanese woman who lost her husband in the last couple of years, will likely not be able to handle this news about her only son, so they will keep it from her. It makes me wonder about my grandfather now too--did sperm-donor learn this behavior from his father, or from someone else? Jesus I hope not.
Like it or not, this man's genetic code runs in my veins. That thought disturbs the fuck out of me, now more than ever. People like him shouldn't get to propagate the next generation! He should have been put away as a sex offended years ago, if only one of his sons had spoken out (there was an incident with the second son but no charges were filed). Yet he has propagated four people, with three different women, and he's still out there, a danger and yet somehow still a magnet to women everywhere. At Christmas he joked that he thought he was going to be a father for a fifth time...and I just stared back. 'Things have come easy to me my whole life,' he said to me, out of the blue, apropos of nothing, 'women, work, children--these things just come easy to me.' And that was the end. He never asked how I was doing, or said anything whatsoever about me, even though he's seen me now at exactly two times in my life--at 18 and again at 34. Not that I expected anything, mind you--please don't think that, never think that. There are no words that can explain someone like him, there is no pity, there is just no feeling at all. The fact that the four of us are well-adjusted, strong individuals does not make up for the fact that sperm-donor is an absolute waste of carbon. He does not get credit for that.
Thursday, May 26, 2011
If you've seen one hamster, you've seen them all.
I just found this saved but empty blog entry in my blogspot pages file. I see the original save date was 3/13, but as I'm typing this it is actually 5/26/11. Apparently back on 3/13/11, I got inspired with the above title, logged into Blogspot, created a new blog entry, typed in the title, hit save, and went about my business. No doubt with the intention of returning later to fill it in with some observation or other about society and human nature and whatnot.
3/13/11...this was the week before I found out I was pregnant, the week before my 35th birthday, the week before I found out that I'd gotten the promotion. I wonder what my pre-pregnant, pre-successful, younger self was thinking all those weeks ago!
"If you've seen one hamster, you've seen them all," indeed. I guess the world will never know the strange wisdom I had in mind for these words.
3/13/11...this was the week before I found out I was pregnant, the week before my 35th birthday, the week before I found out that I'd gotten the promotion. I wonder what my pre-pregnant, pre-successful, younger self was thinking all those weeks ago!
"If you've seen one hamster, you've seen them all," indeed. I guess the world will never know the strange wisdom I had in mind for these words.
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Find out who your real friends are: get pregnant!
We went to a wedding last night, and it wasn't exactly fun. Maybe it was because I wasn't drinking, or because I've been very introspective lately, but the things that used to be fun to me, just didn't seem as fun. And is it really true that your childless friends start separating from you once you have a baby? I'm afraid it is beginning to seem that way to me. What do people ask me now at parties? Well it's not, 'so what's new?' or 'have you seen this movie'; instead I get the solemnly whispered, "so how are you feeling?" followed almost immediately by "how far along are you?" and "so are you going to find out the sex?" And then their set of questions for a pregnant woman are exhausted, and they casually excuse themselves to talk to someone else.
I am sick to death of these questions. I am still a person here, people! Maybe people who have children become children-centric robots because people start treating them as such very early on, before the baby is even born! I mean COME ON! I used to be considered fun, people used to want to talk to me and include me in conversations, but now? Last night we were seated at a rectangular table, and we were unfortunately seated at the wrong end, and the person next to me sat forward with elbows on the table and head turned away from me the entire time, so enthralled were they with the conversation at the other end. When I suggested finally that we all stand up outside so that we could be part of the group conversation, one of my 'friends' down at the other end jokingly said, 'maybe nobody WANTS to talk to you.' Even though it was a harmless joke, that comment hurt, not just because I'm overly sensitive and hormonal just now, but because it is a newly deep-seated fear of mine.
Maybe people DON'T want to talk to a pregnant lady! I think people assume that being physically pregnant means that all of your waking thoughts are CONSUMED by your pregnancy, which is absolutely not true. But I must have been asked the same three questions a dozen times last night. I tried to steer the conversation to other things, but met with mixed results. Is it the lack of alcohol, or are people just afraid of pregnant women? It's not like I've suddenly become a saint or something just because life is growing inside me. I mean, the rapture happened and I didn't get taken, isn't that proof enough?
I can still curse and make jokes and gossip like I used to, but I feel like this pregnancy thing is slowly killing off my social life. I know the saying, if people stop hanging out with you, that's their loss, you know who your friends are, etc--but what if I have no real friends left after this baby is born? Will our only friends be other people who have kids? Is that an unfortunate reality of parenthood? And do you lose these childless friends because you are too tired and don't have the energy to maintain relationships with those self-centered friends of yours, or is it because your well-meaning friends are too busy treating you with kid gloves, inadvertently making you into a fun-sucking planet that they will eventually no longer invite to parties? I know, chicken or egg; it's probably a little bit of both.
Well I don't want to become one of those fun-sucking planets just yet. Admittedly, this was my first real social outing since being openly pregnant, and there were numerous challenges that I simply wasn't prepared for because I couldn't have anticipated them; the books don't discuss this new social awkwardness that people feel around you, or that you feel around them. But it's safe to say that I learned a few painful lessons, and I will not lose heart, and hopefully at the next gathering (next weekend, in fact) I will turn my tribulations into schtick and all will be well, at least for now. I have to find a way to continue to be myself but also to embrace my new circumstances, without losing my sense of humor.
I am sick to death of these questions. I am still a person here, people! Maybe people who have children become children-centric robots because people start treating them as such very early on, before the baby is even born! I mean COME ON! I used to be considered fun, people used to want to talk to me and include me in conversations, but now? Last night we were seated at a rectangular table, and we were unfortunately seated at the wrong end, and the person next to me sat forward with elbows on the table and head turned away from me the entire time, so enthralled were they with the conversation at the other end. When I suggested finally that we all stand up outside so that we could be part of the group conversation, one of my 'friends' down at the other end jokingly said, 'maybe nobody WANTS to talk to you.' Even though it was a harmless joke, that comment hurt, not just because I'm overly sensitive and hormonal just now, but because it is a newly deep-seated fear of mine.
Maybe people DON'T want to talk to a pregnant lady! I think people assume that being physically pregnant means that all of your waking thoughts are CONSUMED by your pregnancy, which is absolutely not true. But I must have been asked the same three questions a dozen times last night. I tried to steer the conversation to other things, but met with mixed results. Is it the lack of alcohol, or are people just afraid of pregnant women? It's not like I've suddenly become a saint or something just because life is growing inside me. I mean, the rapture happened and I didn't get taken, isn't that proof enough?
I can still curse and make jokes and gossip like I used to, but I feel like this pregnancy thing is slowly killing off my social life. I know the saying, if people stop hanging out with you, that's their loss, you know who your friends are, etc--but what if I have no real friends left after this baby is born? Will our only friends be other people who have kids? Is that an unfortunate reality of parenthood? And do you lose these childless friends because you are too tired and don't have the energy to maintain relationships with those self-centered friends of yours, or is it because your well-meaning friends are too busy treating you with kid gloves, inadvertently making you into a fun-sucking planet that they will eventually no longer invite to parties? I know, chicken or egg; it's probably a little bit of both.
Well I don't want to become one of those fun-sucking planets just yet. Admittedly, this was my first real social outing since being openly pregnant, and there were numerous challenges that I simply wasn't prepared for because I couldn't have anticipated them; the books don't discuss this new social awkwardness that people feel around you, or that you feel around them. But it's safe to say that I learned a few painful lessons, and I will not lose heart, and hopefully at the next gathering (next weekend, in fact) I will turn my tribulations into schtick and all will be well, at least for now. I have to find a way to continue to be myself but also to embrace my new circumstances, without losing my sense of humor.
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Crumbs from Chilly California
Don't ask me what the title of this blog means, it just came to me. I'm sitting in my hotel room answering emails and feeling very full of myself at the moment. I just sent the last batch of the 'hey I got promoted so I will no longer be working with you' emails, and it felt great. Also, emails from reps have been trickling in with ideas for future signings, and revisions--I'm feeling giddy with the prospect of owning all of these things and bringing things into being that weren't there before (including the baby that's silently taking over my insides). Most of the time I feel overwhelmed, so I like to treasure these moments of excitement and mastery, because they show me that I made the right decision in taking the leap from my old, safe job to this new, scary one. Sure, it will take time for me to get my sea legs, but I am eager to make an impact!
I know this about myself: I like to listen and observe for a certain time period before I start talking and doing on my own, and I'm lucky that I've been afforded the opportunity to do so. I learn so much just from listening to my boss talk to customers, or to marketing, and seeing her interact with people via email. Part of me is impatient to do something, right away, but I have to keep reminding myself that it's ok to be where I'm at right now, to be learning and observing and planning.
I know this about myself: I like to listen and observe for a certain time period before I start talking and doing on my own, and I'm lucky that I've been afforded the opportunity to do so. I learn so much just from listening to my boss talk to customers, or to marketing, and seeing her interact with people via email. Part of me is impatient to do something, right away, but I have to keep reminding myself that it's ok to be where I'm at right now, to be learning and observing and planning.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Holycrapamoly!
What a week this has been! I have to take a moment to write it all down, it's been such a crazy ride.
Ok, so last week I was told that I got the promotion I'd been trying for, but with the caveat that I couldn't tell anyone, except a few close friends. So this week, they finally announced my promotion publicly on Tuesday, my birthday was Wednesday, and then Thursday morning I took a pregnancy test and it was positive (and then a blood test Friday confirmed it). Wham! Bang! Welcome to the rest of your life! Could the universe have been any less subtle about what it thinks I can handle?
I started embarking down the pregnancy path last fall, but the job thing only just happened in February, when they posted the positions. I expected one of them to 'take' so to speak, but both! At the same time! This is craziness, and a tad overwhelming--I have a lot of new responsibilities and new things to learn in my new job (which starts tomorrow, officially), and now some of my focus has been shifted away from that towards this baby thing. But I vow to give the same effort at the new job that I would have if a baby had not been interposed.
Still, it's exciting--I'm not really having any symptoms yet (I'm only in my 5th week), and I've told a handful of close friends so that I have people to talk to and commiserate with--but we have decided not to tell our nuclear families until right before we leave for London, and I will also be turning off commenting on my Facebook wall while we are gone to avoid random baby postings, and will probably send out a preemptive Facebook email to family members to keep them quiet! It's sad that I have to consider the FB element in something like this, but it's how we live today, and blurring the lines between work and family on FB is something to be cognizant of. The last thing I need is some distant cousin blabbing their fat mouth on FB about this for my co-workers to see!
I still can't decide when to tell my boss--I was going to tell her the first week of April when we're in California for work, but now I'm thinking I should wait until we return from London to be sure that this is really happening (that is, that we're out of the miscarriage window). Because once I tell her, it will be open season at work, and I'm not sure I'm comfortable with this being public knowledge too prematurely, as it could seriously backfire on me should something go wrong. So if she questions why I'm not drinking, I think I will just muster up some excuse about 'trying' and taking weeks off of drinking. That should hold for the time being. Let's hope she doesn't tell me something nasty to discourage me from trying right now given my promotion--that would be awful! I don't think she will though--she loves babies! Still, you never know how people will react, especially when they have a stake in your professional career.
Despite my usual tendency to look on the downside and expect the worst, I'm really trying to focus on the positive, and am taking it day by day. This is good news and anyone who tries to make me feel bad about it, isn't my friend. I can handle both jobs, and it's not like I'm delivering tomorrow! I have until Thanksgiving week to get adjusted to my new career and prove myself before I have to take a 3-month leave, and I will still get to travel to the sales meeting this summer.
Let the adventure begin!
Ok, so last week I was told that I got the promotion I'd been trying for, but with the caveat that I couldn't tell anyone, except a few close friends. So this week, they finally announced my promotion publicly on Tuesday, my birthday was Wednesday, and then Thursday morning I took a pregnancy test and it was positive (and then a blood test Friday confirmed it). Wham! Bang! Welcome to the rest of your life! Could the universe have been any less subtle about what it thinks I can handle?
I started embarking down the pregnancy path last fall, but the job thing only just happened in February, when they posted the positions. I expected one of them to 'take' so to speak, but both! At the same time! This is craziness, and a tad overwhelming--I have a lot of new responsibilities and new things to learn in my new job (which starts tomorrow, officially), and now some of my focus has been shifted away from that towards this baby thing. But I vow to give the same effort at the new job that I would have if a baby had not been interposed.
Still, it's exciting--I'm not really having any symptoms yet (I'm only in my 5th week), and I've told a handful of close friends so that I have people to talk to and commiserate with--but we have decided not to tell our nuclear families until right before we leave for London, and I will also be turning off commenting on my Facebook wall while we are gone to avoid random baby postings, and will probably send out a preemptive Facebook email to family members to keep them quiet! It's sad that I have to consider the FB element in something like this, but it's how we live today, and blurring the lines between work and family on FB is something to be cognizant of. The last thing I need is some distant cousin blabbing their fat mouth on FB about this for my co-workers to see!
I still can't decide when to tell my boss--I was going to tell her the first week of April when we're in California for work, but now I'm thinking I should wait until we return from London to be sure that this is really happening (that is, that we're out of the miscarriage window). Because once I tell her, it will be open season at work, and I'm not sure I'm comfortable with this being public knowledge too prematurely, as it could seriously backfire on me should something go wrong. So if she questions why I'm not drinking, I think I will just muster up some excuse about 'trying' and taking weeks off of drinking. That should hold for the time being. Let's hope she doesn't tell me something nasty to discourage me from trying right now given my promotion--that would be awful! I don't think she will though--she loves babies! Still, you never know how people will react, especially when they have a stake in your professional career.
Despite my usual tendency to look on the downside and expect the worst, I'm really trying to focus on the positive, and am taking it day by day. This is good news and anyone who tries to make me feel bad about it, isn't my friend. I can handle both jobs, and it's not like I'm delivering tomorrow! I have until Thanksgiving week to get adjusted to my new career and prove myself before I have to take a 3-month leave, and I will still get to travel to the sales meeting this summer.
Let the adventure begin!
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Last post at 34
It's a quarter to midnight on the eve of my birthday, so I thought I would drop a few thoughts into the universe before I go to bed.
Today was the official announcement of my promotion--a week to the day after I was informed of it. Needless to say, it feels much different now that it is public knowledge! I am relieved to have that over with. I got tons of 'congrats' emails from random and various people throughout the company, some I don't even know, but who I'm sure I will be working with at some point in the future.
It's been weird, it kind of feels like I'm watching this happen to someone else, it doesn't feel quite real. But I'm sure it will feel all too real next week when I officially start. I already know what my first tasks will be right out of the gate, some daunting, some not so daunting. All in all, it's good, but weird.
Things are always weird at moments of transition, I realize this, but I welcome it. I am ready for it.
So on the eve of my 35th birthday, I get a promotion, and am able to fit into a dress that I couldn't fit into 6 months ago, because now I'm in the best shape of my life. How did I spend this night? Eating pizza, drinking wine, and watching episodes of Doctor Who. Yes, underwhelming, but isn't that life? At the end of the day, life goes on as before, on some levels, because it must.
Today was the official announcement of my promotion--a week to the day after I was informed of it. Needless to say, it feels much different now that it is public knowledge! I am relieved to have that over with. I got tons of 'congrats' emails from random and various people throughout the company, some I don't even know, but who I'm sure I will be working with at some point in the future.
It's been weird, it kind of feels like I'm watching this happen to someone else, it doesn't feel quite real. But I'm sure it will feel all too real next week when I officially start. I already know what my first tasks will be right out of the gate, some daunting, some not so daunting. All in all, it's good, but weird.
Things are always weird at moments of transition, I realize this, but I welcome it. I am ready for it.
So on the eve of my 35th birthday, I get a promotion, and am able to fit into a dress that I couldn't fit into 6 months ago, because now I'm in the best shape of my life. How did I spend this night? Eating pizza, drinking wine, and watching episodes of Doctor Who. Yes, underwhelming, but isn't that life? At the end of the day, life goes on as before, on some levels, because it must.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Tired but Thankful Thursday
I stupidly went to two high-impact cardio classes tonight, and now everything is blurry, I'm so tired. Good news is I was able to complete the second one--sure it may have felt a tad like torture towards the end there, but I DID IT.
Now there's a bowl of mini-eggs and a glass of red wine within reach of my hand, and my feet up next to two sweetly sleeping pugs. Last night I finished booking our London excursions, and just tonight I found the $100 that my father-in-law hid inside a fold-out map in one of the London guides they got us for Christmas.
Oh yeah, and on Tuesday I found out that I got the promotion I've been seeking for a couple of years now. And today the sun was out for the first time in weeks and it got up to 50 degrees.
Awesome weeks like this don't happen often, so I'm trying to enjoy it while it lasts.. Tomorrow the announcement about my promotion is supposed to go out to everyone, so I can stop keeping the secret.
This weekend kicks off my week-long birthday celebration. My husband is taking me to dinner on Saturday and then out dancing, then we are going to his parents the next day for strawberry-rhubarb pie (my request) and gifts. Wednesday (my birthday) I took the day off, and plan to sleep in, go shopping, and hit two exercises classes in the afternoon (again). And then next weekend, I'm having a few friends over for a party.
I couldn't think of a better way to ring out my 35th year.
Now there's a bowl of mini-eggs and a glass of red wine within reach of my hand, and my feet up next to two sweetly sleeping pugs. Last night I finished booking our London excursions, and just tonight I found the $100 that my father-in-law hid inside a fold-out map in one of the London guides they got us for Christmas.
Oh yeah, and on Tuesday I found out that I got the promotion I've been seeking for a couple of years now. And today the sun was out for the first time in weeks and it got up to 50 degrees.
Awesome weeks like this don't happen often, so I'm trying to enjoy it while it lasts.. Tomorrow the announcement about my promotion is supposed to go out to everyone, so I can stop keeping the secret.
This weekend kicks off my week-long birthday celebration. My husband is taking me to dinner on Saturday and then out dancing, then we are going to his parents the next day for strawberry-rhubarb pie (my request) and gifts. Wednesday (my birthday) I took the day off, and plan to sleep in, go shopping, and hit two exercises classes in the afternoon (again). And then next weekend, I'm having a few friends over for a party.
I couldn't think of a better way to ring out my 35th year.
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Stress Dreams
In the past week I have been subconsciously stressed while waiting to hear the verdict on a job I applied for nearly 6 weeks ago, and this has led to me having stressful dreams.
As if I weren't stressed enough when awake, my subconscious mind is now taking delight in placing me in nightmarish scenarios that don't resolve, and only end when I wake up.
The first dream I was back in high school but as an adult, wandering around labyrinthine hallways, searching for my locker, then finding it, only to discover that I didn't know the combination, and then searching endlessly for my classroom, feeling the entire time that I was going to be late to class. It was like experiencing first-day-of-school jitters all over again, except that I had a full-time day job, and was additionally stressed because I couldn't make the daytime classes. The whole dream I kept saying to myself, 'this is ridiculous, I should be able to find these things, I'm not giving up' but in the end I did give up after wasting hours (in the dream) trying to find the locker and then my classroom and not having any luck. I remember saying something in the dream like, 'I don't need school anyway because I have a job!'
Then this morning I had a work dream--my actual office was in the dream, as well as the people I work with--just the thing I want to dream about on a Sunday morning. In this dream I was suddenly laid off, and wasn't told why. I spent the entire dream trying to find out the reason, texting friends and colleagues to let them know I was fired, but no one would get back to me or even respond. I was shut out cold and left to guess the reason for my dismissal on my own, which was maddening. Was I was late too much? Did they track the amount of time I was on Facebook this week? Did they find someone better to take my place? Are they laying me off because they are about to promote me to another position? Crazy stuff.
I also bite my nails when I'm really stressed. I was a nail-biter as a child, but as an adult I can control it most of the time, but when I'm stressed, I bite the nails and the skin around the nails, until my fingers are sore. When it's really bad I draw blood because I bite the same area repeatedly. It's pretty awful about now.
I think the way my company handles the interview process is pretty inconsiderate; I mean six weeks wtf?? And I already know I will have to wait another week at least, because some people are still interviewing this coming week, which means nothing will be communicated until the following week at the earliest. That week is also my birthday week. Let's hope it's good news, and that my party turns into a double celebration. In the meantime, I'm going to have to exercise a lot to keep my stress levels in check, and do my best to lose myself in mindless entertainment.
As if I weren't stressed enough when awake, my subconscious mind is now taking delight in placing me in nightmarish scenarios that don't resolve, and only end when I wake up.
The first dream I was back in high school but as an adult, wandering around labyrinthine hallways, searching for my locker, then finding it, only to discover that I didn't know the combination, and then searching endlessly for my classroom, feeling the entire time that I was going to be late to class. It was like experiencing first-day-of-school jitters all over again, except that I had a full-time day job, and was additionally stressed because I couldn't make the daytime classes. The whole dream I kept saying to myself, 'this is ridiculous, I should be able to find these things, I'm not giving up' but in the end I did give up after wasting hours (in the dream) trying to find the locker and then my classroom and not having any luck. I remember saying something in the dream like, 'I don't need school anyway because I have a job!'
Then this morning I had a work dream--my actual office was in the dream, as well as the people I work with--just the thing I want to dream about on a Sunday morning. In this dream I was suddenly laid off, and wasn't told why. I spent the entire dream trying to find out the reason, texting friends and colleagues to let them know I was fired, but no one would get back to me or even respond. I was shut out cold and left to guess the reason for my dismissal on my own, which was maddening. Was I was late too much? Did they track the amount of time I was on Facebook this week? Did they find someone better to take my place? Are they laying me off because they are about to promote me to another position? Crazy stuff.
I also bite my nails when I'm really stressed. I was a nail-biter as a child, but as an adult I can control it most of the time, but when I'm stressed, I bite the nails and the skin around the nails, until my fingers are sore. When it's really bad I draw blood because I bite the same area repeatedly. It's pretty awful about now.
I think the way my company handles the interview process is pretty inconsiderate; I mean six weeks wtf?? And I already know I will have to wait another week at least, because some people are still interviewing this coming week, which means nothing will be communicated until the following week at the earliest. That week is also my birthday week. Let's hope it's good news, and that my party turns into a double celebration. In the meantime, I'm going to have to exercise a lot to keep my stress levels in check, and do my best to lose myself in mindless entertainment.
Monday, February 28, 2011
Something's afoot at the Circle K.
I have a strong premonition that I will end this year in a very different place than where I began it, and that my relations to the people in my life will shift and change. Nothing stays the same, change is the only constant, yadda yadda--we all know these platitudes well. But just when you think your life has stagnated, there you are, thrown into a new situation you couldn't have anticipated.
I am filled with a nameless dread of late, a blank anticipation of changes that are sure to come in the near future. I'm going to list them here in an effort to dispel some of my anxiety.
Friendships
I came to the realization last month that I have no real close female friends anymore. When did I become this person without close female friends? I have always considered myself a good friend, and I've always had a handful of tight friendships--but some of those have dissipated with distance, some are currently morphing into something else due to circumstance, and some I no longer find as immediate as they once were. After having a string of intense female friendships for most of my life, I find I have none, and I am strangely relieved. Most of my friendships with women have, more often than not, have been immediate and intense, until one of us disappoints or insults the other, choice words are exchanged, and the friendship ends with no contact whatsoever. I now have regular friendships (mostly with guys) that largely center around hanging out, talking, and going to lunch, and I'm ok with that. Still, it bothers me not to have a close female friend, because I've always had them, and I feel it's something missing from my life at the moment. More on that later.
Work
My job has recently become more stressful and demanding on my time than ever before, and I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because I'm doing too much, or because certain projects are taking up too much of my time. Authors who were once tractable and somewhat reliable have recently become stark raving mad morons who withhold manuscripts out of spite, not for me, but for my company. Because of an upswing in queries from customer service and reps, and from micromanaging a software vendor, I am no longer able to keep my inbox in check, and I feel like things are spiraling out of my control, and that stresses me out.
Family
Even though I'm over a thousand miles away, my family stresses me the fuck out. My sister embroils herself ever deeper with a guy who had a nervous breakdown a few months ago. He's on meds now to control his episodes of extreme paranoia and depression. He will be moving into her new house with her, and she will probably run away and marry him at some point. I worry about my sister and her choices, but hey, she's an adult now, no one can tell her boo. The young think they have it all figured out, don't they? If they marry, I foresee a messy divorce once she finally comes to her senses.
I feel like my grandfather will probably die this year, finally realizing his lifetime goal. It is all he has talked about for at least the past 10 years--his death, his eulogy, his funeral. He asked me to start on his eulogy early so he could read it (I refused)--I think he fancies that I will write a eulogy for him that will make him sound like a saint, convinced that my words will somehow absolve him of all of the sins of his life, which include adultery, lying, and stealing money from my grandma; he is mistaken.
Speaking of grandma (or 'Maw-Maw' as I actually call her, for I am southern), I haven't spoken to her since she misdirected her anger at me instead of the right people at Christmas, and I can't bring myself to call her, and she hasn't called me either. I feel horrible about it, yet I refuse to call her. I think she owes me an apology, but I know I will never get one. Her small, frustrated, subjugated life depresses the hell out of me, and haunts me. I don't feel sorry for her anymore, because people make choices in life, and she chose poorly. How is that my problem?
It's a good thing I've been exercising so much, I think that is really helping with my stress levels. Tonight, for instance, I came home so completely demoralized after today's shenanigans that all I wanted to do was have a drink and go to bed--but I'm realizing that when I'm at my lowest is exactly when I need to exercise. I came back from class feeling much, much calmer. This nameless feeling of dread isn't going anywhere anytime soon, but between the exercise and the occasional drink, I keep it managed. I just hope that none of what I augur is as bad as I anticipate.
I am filled with a nameless dread of late, a blank anticipation of changes that are sure to come in the near future. I'm going to list them here in an effort to dispel some of my anxiety.
Friendships
I came to the realization last month that I have no real close female friends anymore. When did I become this person without close female friends? I have always considered myself a good friend, and I've always had a handful of tight friendships--but some of those have dissipated with distance, some are currently morphing into something else due to circumstance, and some I no longer find as immediate as they once were. After having a string of intense female friendships for most of my life, I find I have none, and I am strangely relieved. Most of my friendships with women have, more often than not, have been immediate and intense, until one of us disappoints or insults the other, choice words are exchanged, and the friendship ends with no contact whatsoever. I now have regular friendships (mostly with guys) that largely center around hanging out, talking, and going to lunch, and I'm ok with that. Still, it bothers me not to have a close female friend, because I've always had them, and I feel it's something missing from my life at the moment. More on that later.
Work
My job has recently become more stressful and demanding on my time than ever before, and I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because I'm doing too much, or because certain projects are taking up too much of my time. Authors who were once tractable and somewhat reliable have recently become stark raving mad morons who withhold manuscripts out of spite, not for me, but for my company. Because of an upswing in queries from customer service and reps, and from micromanaging a software vendor, I am no longer able to keep my inbox in check, and I feel like things are spiraling out of my control, and that stresses me out.
Family
Even though I'm over a thousand miles away, my family stresses me the fuck out. My sister embroils herself ever deeper with a guy who had a nervous breakdown a few months ago. He's on meds now to control his episodes of extreme paranoia and depression. He will be moving into her new house with her, and she will probably run away and marry him at some point. I worry about my sister and her choices, but hey, she's an adult now, no one can tell her boo. The young think they have it all figured out, don't they? If they marry, I foresee a messy divorce once she finally comes to her senses.
I feel like my grandfather will probably die this year, finally realizing his lifetime goal. It is all he has talked about for at least the past 10 years--his death, his eulogy, his funeral. He asked me to start on his eulogy early so he could read it (I refused)--I think he fancies that I will write a eulogy for him that will make him sound like a saint, convinced that my words will somehow absolve him of all of the sins of his life, which include adultery, lying, and stealing money from my grandma; he is mistaken.
Speaking of grandma (or 'Maw-Maw' as I actually call her, for I am southern), I haven't spoken to her since she misdirected her anger at me instead of the right people at Christmas, and I can't bring myself to call her, and she hasn't called me either. I feel horrible about it, yet I refuse to call her. I think she owes me an apology, but I know I will never get one. Her small, frustrated, subjugated life depresses the hell out of me, and haunts me. I don't feel sorry for her anymore, because people make choices in life, and she chose poorly. How is that my problem?
It's a good thing I've been exercising so much, I think that is really helping with my stress levels. Tonight, for instance, I came home so completely demoralized after today's shenanigans that all I wanted to do was have a drink and go to bed--but I'm realizing that when I'm at my lowest is exactly when I need to exercise. I came back from class feeling much, much calmer. This nameless feeling of dread isn't going anywhere anytime soon, but between the exercise and the occasional drink, I keep it managed. I just hope that none of what I augur is as bad as I anticipate.
Monday, February 21, 2011
Livin' la vida housewife
Today is President's day, and I have the day off work, but my husband doesn't, so I've turned this day into a glorious, do-what-I-want day off for myself. I cleaned the house and pugs yesterday, so I can afford to be lazy today. I started off by sleeping in till 8:30, then went to an exercise class at 9:30 this morning, did a little sweaty grocery shopping for the meal I will prepare later (salmon, rice, veggies), shoveled a little show, took a hot shower, then snuggled up on the couch with the pugs to finish up season 6 of 'Desperate Housewives' on Netflix. Soon, I will prepare a snack, watch a little Oprah, start dinner. My husband will come home, and we'll eat and chat, and then I'll go off to my second exercise class at 7:30, then home for a hot bath, and to bed.
Is this how housewives live? I cannot imagine having all of this time to myself! I don't even have kids, yet I feel guilty somehow, it's an embarrassment of riches. The least I can do is prepare a nice dinner for my poor husband, who had to work today. I feel very lucky and happy that I have a nice warm house, clean pugs in my lap, and the internet to bring me shows to waste my time with. Oh, and a job that gave me today off with pay.
Maybe those housewives on that popular tv show would have been a bit less desperate if they had stayed in and watched tv more, instead of getting involved in each other's business all the time. That show is beyond ridiculous, and I know that the housewives who do the things they do and look the way they look while doing them are few and far between. Laziness is the key to staying out of trouble! In fact, I may go and take a little nap soon...feeling sleepy from my busy morning.
Is this how housewives live? I cannot imagine having all of this time to myself! I don't even have kids, yet I feel guilty somehow, it's an embarrassment of riches. The least I can do is prepare a nice dinner for my poor husband, who had to work today. I feel very lucky and happy that I have a nice warm house, clean pugs in my lap, and the internet to bring me shows to waste my time with. Oh, and a job that gave me today off with pay.
Maybe those housewives on that popular tv show would have been a bit less desperate if they had stayed in and watched tv more, instead of getting involved in each other's business all the time. That show is beyond ridiculous, and I know that the housewives who do the things they do and look the way they look while doing them are few and far between. Laziness is the key to staying out of trouble! In fact, I may go and take a little nap soon...feeling sleepy from my busy morning.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Long-time indie rock and pop fan discovers the joys of rap music. Film at 11.
So in the past few weeks, I have 'discovered' rap. That's right, rap. A friend gave me a copy of the newest Kanye West album, and ever since, I have found myself increasingly interested, not only in his music, but in his persona.
I confess I have always dismissed rap out-of-hand as 'not for me' until listening to this album. It is completely different from any music I have listened to, ever, and I think that's part of the appeal. It doesn't hurt that Kanye's style is a bit more accessible than other rappers I've heard bits and pieces of. He has a keen sense of melody and storytelling, which I always appreciate.
I've been consuming music at an alarmingly jaded rate these past few years, and my enjoyment of indie rock and the like has waned because of it. Lately, I have been more into pop music, especially dance music, ever since I started going to Zumba (I know how it sounds, but my sister-in-law teaches it, and it ain't your grandma's Zumba). The dance music is definitely linked to the escape I get when I dance in my hip-hop Zumba class, but the rap, well, the rap is providing a very different form of escape for me.
Oh, I know how it looks, and I'm a little self-conscious about it. I am a mid-30s, middle class white girl from the South who works a white-collar job, who drives around downtown Schenectady in her Elantra with the doors locked (locking my doors upon entry is a habit I picked up when living in New Orleans), with rap beats emanating from my car. I know, it's completely absurd. What could I possibly get from listening to a music that was not intended for me in any shape or form, that doesn't speak to my reality or my race or my here and now? I think I just answered that in formulating the question, but I'll attempt to explain further.
I am fascinated by this music because it is so brazenly honest and in your face, and I suspect that is what draws many so-called white people to rap music. There is no pretense, no protocol, no curse words to shy away from, no Ps and Qs to mind, no feelings to worry about hurting. Kanye appears to say exactly what is on his mind, but does so in a way that can be goofy, charming, brilliant, and downright nasty by turns. It is fresh and intriguing to my old ears that have listened to years upon years of structured, guitar-driven, thoughtful, melodic, witty, depressing, esoteric rock and pop music in their lifetime. When I turn on Kanye and that attitude starts flowing, it's a welcome relief after putting up with other people's bullshit all day long.
I'm still fairly new, but so far his early albums seem to revolve around black-centric issues, it's true, but the subjects are very relatable no matter what your race--heartbreak, loving your mother, other people's expectations (or lack thereof), working shit jobs for no money, escapism, and the like. His new one--well, the misogyny and prevalent mentions of pussy I at times find off-putting (I can't listen to that song 'Blame Game, ever), but musically it is very complex and interesting.
We will see how far my new interest in rap extends. This might be a fixation on Kanye West specifically, or it could expand to other rappers. Only time will tell, and I can be a fickle bitch.
I confess I have always dismissed rap out-of-hand as 'not for me' until listening to this album. It is completely different from any music I have listened to, ever, and I think that's part of the appeal. It doesn't hurt that Kanye's style is a bit more accessible than other rappers I've heard bits and pieces of. He has a keen sense of melody and storytelling, which I always appreciate.
I've been consuming music at an alarmingly jaded rate these past few years, and my enjoyment of indie rock and the like has waned because of it. Lately, I have been more into pop music, especially dance music, ever since I started going to Zumba (I know how it sounds, but my sister-in-law teaches it, and it ain't your grandma's Zumba). The dance music is definitely linked to the escape I get when I dance in my hip-hop Zumba class, but the rap, well, the rap is providing a very different form of escape for me.
Oh, I know how it looks, and I'm a little self-conscious about it. I am a mid-30s, middle class white girl from the South who works a white-collar job, who drives around downtown Schenectady in her Elantra with the doors locked (locking my doors upon entry is a habit I picked up when living in New Orleans), with rap beats emanating from my car. I know, it's completely absurd. What could I possibly get from listening to a music that was not intended for me in any shape or form, that doesn't speak to my reality or my race or my here and now? I think I just answered that in formulating the question, but I'll attempt to explain further.
I am fascinated by this music because it is so brazenly honest and in your face, and I suspect that is what draws many so-called white people to rap music. There is no pretense, no protocol, no curse words to shy away from, no Ps and Qs to mind, no feelings to worry about hurting. Kanye appears to say exactly what is on his mind, but does so in a way that can be goofy, charming, brilliant, and downright nasty by turns. It is fresh and intriguing to my old ears that have listened to years upon years of structured, guitar-driven, thoughtful, melodic, witty, depressing, esoteric rock and pop music in their lifetime. When I turn on Kanye and that attitude starts flowing, it's a welcome relief after putting up with other people's bullshit all day long.
I'm still fairly new, but so far his early albums seem to revolve around black-centric issues, it's true, but the subjects are very relatable no matter what your race--heartbreak, loving your mother, other people's expectations (or lack thereof), working shit jobs for no money, escapism, and the like. His new one--well, the misogyny and prevalent mentions of pussy I at times find off-putting (I can't listen to that song 'Blame Game, ever), but musically it is very complex and interesting.
We will see how far my new interest in rap extends. This might be a fixation on Kanye West specifically, or it could expand to other rappers. Only time will tell, and I can be a fickle bitch.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
I just finished Middlemarch, or What Happens to a Dream Declined
This is a momentous occasion, which I must underscore with a blog entry. I have just finished Middlemarch, one of the giant, imposing, touching, and admirable tomes written by Mary Ann Evans, known as George Eliot to the uninitiated. I started this book several years ago, and never finished. Well I have finished it, to the snoring of two pugs at my feet, and the ominous sounds of Lustmorde currently emanating from my husband's studio.
We go to London in a few short months, and finally finishing this novel was part of pre-London resolve. I started reading it before Christmas, my nightly hot bubble baths being the usual locale for revisiting this book. Since I left grad school and my love of Greek and Victorian lit behind me nearly 10 years ago, it has been difficult for me to pick up a Victorian novel since. But in the past year or two, I have read nonfiction Victorian lit and it has gradually reawakened my old obsession. The Other Victorians was a deliciously debauched and excellent expose on the (sur)real state of supposedly repressed Victorian sexuality, and Parallel Lives: Five Victorian Marriages another an interesting imagining on the differently-married lives of five notable Victorian figures, including such stellar figures as John Stuart Mill, Charles Dickens, and Thomas Carlyle.
The introduction to this, the Oxford UP World's Classics edition of Middlemarch, was written by a professor I had the brief honor of knowing nearly 10 years ago at CUNY, when I attended their Comparative Lit PhD program. Professor Felicia Bonaparte was a singular person who will always live in my memory: she must have been in her late 50s or perhaps 60s, with jet-black hair, a decidedly distinguished nose, possessed of a tiny but wonderful NYC apartment (of which at least 1% was taken up by a copy of the OED), and a penchant for veganism and George Eliot. For a year, I was her research assistant, and it was my job to search through digitized manuscripts of 19th century literature, great and small, for any 'ominous or telling' reference to any number of innocent-seeming words or phrases. I can't recall them exactly now (there were too many items on it), but the nature of them may be reflected by this short, randomly-recalled list: light, diamond, dream, chisel, suffused, invention, book, etc. I still wonder to what purpose she put my findings, if any.
I am happy to discover that my love of literature written in England during the 19th century has not died altogether. My year spent at CUNY is not something I talk about regularly; it is a period of my life that, until recently, I would frankly rather not talk about. Looking back, it was a happy period to discover that I had been accepted into the realms of academia, such as they were, in my humble state as office manager and state-school graduate of English (with honors) from Louisiana, incidentally the first person in her family to attend college. Let me not forget that my future husband and I moved to New York state and to NYC from New Orleans solely so that I could attend this school under the auspices that I wanted to become a PhD professor who studied Ancient Greek and Victorian literature who taught at the college level. Mind you, this was never a dream of mine; it was more like the inevitable result from the unassailable facts that I was really, really good at writing theses, and was drawn to literature and philosophy courses in undergraduate school.
I am now not ashamed to 'own' my former life; indeed I look back upon it with a kind of fond sadness. I'm sorry that no one ever told me then that such a life would end only in teaching, and that if I didn't want to teach, I had better get out of the game altogether. But I am not sorry that I wasted my youth writing papers and treatises on various subjects, when I might have been drinking and living it up; the world of academia seemed vast and inconquerable to me then, but now, looking back, I am amazed that I got on as familiar terms with it as I did.
It is safe to say that my ability to cogitate and string arguments together sentence by sentence hasn't hindered me from being the low-level corporate drone that I am today. Being good at "literature" is not something everyone can claim; it takes a certain application and ability to see beyond the literal into the possible, and a certain amount of bullshit and self-confidence to be really, truly good at it, and to earn the respect of people who have managed to make it their lives. The time period from about age 16 to 26 that I was utterly devoted to literature and thinking I will always look back on as one of the best of my life. For a time, I had the respect of people I admired, Professor Bonaparte being among them, and it's good to be able to look back and know that, if I had really wanted to, I could have been a real contender.
We go to London in a few short months, and finally finishing this novel was part of pre-London resolve. I started reading it before Christmas, my nightly hot bubble baths being the usual locale for revisiting this book. Since I left grad school and my love of Greek and Victorian lit behind me nearly 10 years ago, it has been difficult for me to pick up a Victorian novel since. But in the past year or two, I have read nonfiction Victorian lit and it has gradually reawakened my old obsession. The Other Victorians was a deliciously debauched and excellent expose on the (sur)real state of supposedly repressed Victorian sexuality, and Parallel Lives: Five Victorian Marriages another an interesting imagining on the differently-married lives of five notable Victorian figures, including such stellar figures as John Stuart Mill, Charles Dickens, and Thomas Carlyle.
The introduction to this, the Oxford UP World's Classics edition of Middlemarch, was written by a professor I had the brief honor of knowing nearly 10 years ago at CUNY, when I attended their Comparative Lit PhD program. Professor Felicia Bonaparte was a singular person who will always live in my memory: she must have been in her late 50s or perhaps 60s, with jet-black hair, a decidedly distinguished nose, possessed of a tiny but wonderful NYC apartment (of which at least 1% was taken up by a copy of the OED), and a penchant for veganism and George Eliot. For a year, I was her research assistant, and it was my job to search through digitized manuscripts of 19th century literature, great and small, for any 'ominous or telling' reference to any number of innocent-seeming words or phrases. I can't recall them exactly now (there were too many items on it), but the nature of them may be reflected by this short, randomly-recalled list: light, diamond, dream, chisel, suffused, invention, book, etc. I still wonder to what purpose she put my findings, if any.
I am happy to discover that my love of literature written in England during the 19th century has not died altogether. My year spent at CUNY is not something I talk about regularly; it is a period of my life that, until recently, I would frankly rather not talk about. Looking back, it was a happy period to discover that I had been accepted into the realms of academia, such as they were, in my humble state as office manager and state-school graduate of English (with honors) from Louisiana, incidentally the first person in her family to attend college. Let me not forget that my future husband and I moved to New York state and to NYC from New Orleans solely so that I could attend this school under the auspices that I wanted to become a PhD professor who studied Ancient Greek and Victorian literature who taught at the college level. Mind you, this was never a dream of mine; it was more like the inevitable result from the unassailable facts that I was really, really good at writing theses, and was drawn to literature and philosophy courses in undergraduate school.
I am now not ashamed to 'own' my former life; indeed I look back upon it with a kind of fond sadness. I'm sorry that no one ever told me then that such a life would end only in teaching, and that if I didn't want to teach, I had better get out of the game altogether. But I am not sorry that I wasted my youth writing papers and treatises on various subjects, when I might have been drinking and living it up; the world of academia seemed vast and inconquerable to me then, but now, looking back, I am amazed that I got on as familiar terms with it as I did.
It is safe to say that my ability to cogitate and string arguments together sentence by sentence hasn't hindered me from being the low-level corporate drone that I am today. Being good at "literature" is not something everyone can claim; it takes a certain application and ability to see beyond the literal into the possible, and a certain amount of bullshit and self-confidence to be really, truly good at it, and to earn the respect of people who have managed to make it their lives. The time period from about age 16 to 26 that I was utterly devoted to literature and thinking I will always look back on as one of the best of my life. For a time, I had the respect of people I admired, Professor Bonaparte being among them, and it's good to be able to look back and know that, if I had really wanted to, I could have been a real contender.
Monday, January 10, 2011
Boy, was I ever in a foul mood today!
This was the worst Monday, ever. First, I awoke out of a dream and into a stupor from the fourth 10-minute snooze. I sleepwalked through my morning routine, ate Cheerios in front of the tv, lingered too long, and somehow the old pug pooped on the floor when I wasn't looking. I didn't leave the house until quarter to nine, which is at least 15 minutes later than it takes to be punctual.
Then I get to work and of course I'm feeling the usual disgruntled hatred for all I survey. Then I open my computer, and it's slow going. I had trouble typing simple sentences, the letters kept getting all mixed up. I felt like I was moving through molasses until lunchtime, which gratefully saved me. I came back from lunch fortified and caffeined-up, my mood and work ethic much improved. I'm not one given to workaday cliches, but thank god for caffeine.
I managed to get some work done, but I called it quits on time today in order to put this awful day to rest, the day I should have called in sick, but didn't. Then my stomach starts hurting on the way home. I go to Zumba anyway, and turn white as a sheet by the end, feeling so queasy I thought I might vomit. My sister-in-law (and Zumba instructor) tells me it's probably from going too hard, too often--and then I realize she's right--I just did a high-intensity, one-hour Zumba class no less than four times in the last seven days, when previously I went once maybe twice a week, tops. Bingo.
Then I get to work and of course I'm feeling the usual disgruntled hatred for all I survey. Then I open my computer, and it's slow going. I had trouble typing simple sentences, the letters kept getting all mixed up. I felt like I was moving through molasses until lunchtime, which gratefully saved me. I came back from lunch fortified and caffeined-up, my mood and work ethic much improved. I'm not one given to workaday cliches, but thank god for caffeine.
I managed to get some work done, but I called it quits on time today in order to put this awful day to rest, the day I should have called in sick, but didn't. Then my stomach starts hurting on the way home. I go to Zumba anyway, and turn white as a sheet by the end, feeling so queasy I thought I might vomit. My sister-in-law (and Zumba instructor) tells me it's probably from going too hard, too often--and then I realize she's right--I just did a high-intensity, one-hour Zumba class no less than four times in the last seven days, when previously I went once maybe twice a week, tops. Bingo.
Also, I need to get my haircut, badly. It’s gotten a little leggy since my last cut in October, and even though I’m trying to grow it out, it has gotten lifeless and thick, and when my hair is out of sorts, it tends to bring me down because it makes me think I’m sliding into the abyss and turning into a fat, ugly lesbian. Irrational, I know.
I basically felt like a fat, ugly lesbian, bereft of joy and all that is good in the world. Nuff said? I think so.
Tonight I will get more sleep and tomorrow, I will make a hair appointment, and then I will feel back on top of my game. Right??
It's time to slide under the covers and hope for a new beginning.
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