please excuse this moment of sappy clicheness

(Yeah, 'clicheness' is so not a word, but there it is.)

I don't recommend watching the video because the sound is all off, but you can listen while browsing elsewhere. Oh, and it suddenly cuts off. A bit obnoxious, but the other videos I found are...not what I want either. Anyhow, you'll get the point.



-- John Denver: Leaving on a Jet Plane

My bags are packed, one stuffed full and one with only two pairs of shoes and my black coat. Um, yeah, who knows what I'll be forgetting. I'll be back at some point and I hope by then I'll have it all figured out. Suddenly, in this moment, this whole prospect seems so unreal.

I'll check in when I can. Please continue to send along your good thoughts. (Hey, with those and a bit of pixie dust, I can just skip the plane in my flight, right?)

ugh...

Yes, that was the best title I could come up with. Today has been less than stellar.

I went to sleep too late (I fell asleep on my books, my glasses on, the light on) and woke up too early. Cardo, Pic and I briefly stopped at House of Bread and then we went to Virginia City to pick up some bookcases we bought from a Craigslister. Actually, we bought yet another one while we were at the person's house. (We now have ten bookcases of various sizes in our home and I'm pretty sure that's still not enough for all of the books to fit without stuffing more in the cracks.)

We stopped at the Summit on the way home because I have decided I'd like a new dress if I will be attending graduation (yeah, yeah, I'll be wearing a (borrowed) gown over it, but only for two hours). I found only one I liked but Cardo said it looked too big (the smallest size they had left was one size too big) and I really wanted something with some color and the dress was black, white and grey. I tried on a $160 dress at one store, but only because I didn't look at the price before the clerk ushered me back to the fitting room. I figured I had to try it on then. It looked dreadful (really, it was full of dread). We tried a few more stores, but no dice. (By the way, the dresses at Old Navy make me look either like I'm pregnant (I'm not, but I'll get to that in a bit) or like I'm trying to disguise myself as a giant, colorful beetle. UGH.)

I started to feel like crap, so we came home. Cardo went to work and I took a nap for an hour-and-a-half. I felt so badly that I thought I was dying. (Okay, so this was my dream, but it took me a bit to realize that I was dreaming that I thought I was dying.) I woke up and realized I had a headache from lack of proper nutrition and hydration and cramps from my period that FINALLY decided to make a freaking appearance. I was wondering how long I'd be able to hold old before I broke out that extra pregnancy test we have in the cupboard. At the same time I'm over-freaking-joyed that my period has come, I'm cursing it for being here. Yeah, I make tons of logical sense. It's what I do.

So, now, I'm taking a break from writing. I have 100 lines left to compose. I should have been finished days ago so I could be in the revision stage, but revision has been happening all throughout and I'm sure that what will result will be something like an ugly patchwork quilt made by someone who doesn't know how to sew. I just came in to save my paper to the computer and also e-mail it to myself so I now have four saved copies. I've been doing this for the last few days. Yes, I'm paranoid.

I'm also washing some laundry. I still have to sweep the Other Bathroom (this is how I think of it in my head...we don't really use it, because why would we use a spacious bathroom when we can all cram into the much smaller one in our room?), wash the dishes and clean the bathtub in our bathroom. I hadn't been planning on sleeping tonight anyhow, but just thinking of all this makes me want to lay my head down on this desk and weep quietly until I fall asleep in a small pool of my cooling tears. (Yes, I know, I need more sleep.)

So, I'll leave y'all with one more image. I am going through my paper from top to bottom (it's on the computer screen -- I'm scrolling from top to bottom...it's not just another worn-out cliche, I promise) and filling in the places that need more explication. I was thinking it's like the paper right now is like a cake with little mounds of frosting splotched all over it and I'm going through the process of smoothing it all out, filling in the gaps, making it look tasty (or something). I can only hope I'm successful, but I have a feeling that if my paper were a cake it might be a contender on Cake Wrecks.

Okay, back to work...

and it's on

So, Cardo finally called my parents today to tell them I didn't want to go to graduation (yes, I made him do it). And...we're going to graduation.

As the wise Ms A and Ms J said to me on Monday, my parents were going to want to go. Cardo finally told me that he also wants to go, but I had to ask him directly. He didn't want me to go just because he wanted me to go.

So, I'll be bringing a book. I'm told the graduation ceremony will be short. Then...? (That's actually kind of a scary question mark, but I really meant it in the context of the rest of the night, not the rest of my life.)

Graduation is on Friday at 4:50p. I'm not inviting anyone, I'm just telling you when. I can't very well invite anyone else to something I don't want to attend.

I'm not trying to be harsh or unfeeling here. I have a lot of feelings about graduation and about what I just did with the last three-and-a-half years (yeah, I know) of my life. I just don't want to discuss them or even really let them out of their tidy little box right now.

I'm thrilled that my parents are coming to visit. We've been counting down for the last week. (This is how I learned Pic can subtract.) We're making plans for what to do while they're here, where to take them. We don't see them very often so this'll be great.

I'm also grateful and happy that I have a partner who is so supportive of me. I can only hope he feels the same way about me.

I just am, for my own reasons, dreading the actual graduation. So, now I'll just think of it as a two-hour commitment I have to get through and it'll be done. Okay.

bullets of mundanity

Okay, so 'mundanity' probably isn't a word, but it's four-thirty in the morning, so I get to use it. Here's what I'd like to accomplish today:

- sleep...ha!
- read article for this afternoon (where did I put it?)
- write six pages for final paper
- exercise (after Thursday last week, that enterprise was kind of a bust)

That's it. I'm not all that ambitious, but I might not even get all of this finished. Ugh and ah well. Only five more days.

G'night.

it's the sun, it's the sun...

...it's the beautiful sun, shining high in the sky, smiling on everyone. (Okay, so out of my almost-handful of readers, probably only Coach J is going to know that song. You're welcome.)

While spending all morning and early afternoon festering in my unwashed, pajama-clad state, I finished my history paper. I showered and dressed, broke a staple trying to staple my tree-murdering seminar paper and then dragged Cardo and Pic to campus with me to turn it in. I also returned half of the library books I had checked out from the school library.

Then we ate a wholly unhealthy early dinner and spent some time outside, in the sunshine, the beautiful, glorious, fan-freaking-tastic sunshine. Now? I get to spend the rest of the hours between now and the final tomorrow morning responding to student projects so I can be finished with the penultimate major project on my list for the semester. I was so glad to be out in the sun (slathered in sunscreen, of course) but now I'm a little sad to be back inside and in for yet another long, long night of work. Ah, well. Only eight more days until Nana and Papa get here.

still writing

I printed out what I have and I'm trying to make sure it's arranged in a somewhat coherent and meaningful fashion. That's fun. I still need to add some explication of the quotes I have included and I need to add a few more annotations.

Anyhow, I wasn't going to share just now, but I just learned it's Karl Marx's birthday (or, y'know, it would be were he still alive). All I have to say to you right now, Karl, is 'Thanks, buddy, thanks a whole big, fat, bunch. There's no way I can avoid you (because, y'know, everyone who's written about culture after you is in some way responding to you, or so I hear) but I also don't quite understand all of what you're doing. Yeah, I get it, there's the base and there's the superstructure and something about modes of production and your relation to the market is determines your existence and all. I so need to hold a seance, grab a translator and look you up.'

Okay, back to work, g'night.

mixed blessing

One of my profs just e-mailed to say that we can have an extra day on our papers. I have plans to finish that paper today (I'm very slowly working my way through the paper and the annotated bibliography), so I don't know that the extra time is a good thing. I want to be finished with the paper. I don't really want extra time, although I could always use it to clean up my writing (with industrial-strength white vinegar and water, of course).

Okay, I still plan to finish that paper today, because I really need to get into gear on the other one. I may, may, hold onto the paper for an extra day, though, but I kind of hope not. (I would want to hold onto it, though, because I really don't want him to read mine first...or last. How about right in the middle when he's already worked through eighty pages of writing and has another hundred or so to go?)

sweet!*

Okay, so not a phrase I use to display mirthful delight, but if I did use it, I would have used it today. Why?, you wonder...

I'm not quite as crazy as I thought I was. Yea, me!

The local library has a great many magazine subscriptions. This is not, of course, unusual. I have been told, however, that it is somewhat unusual to be able to check out back issues of the magazines. I love this option because I still haven't quite settled on a new magazine to love and hold (behold?) forever and ever.

Anyhow, about a million weeks ago, I checked out a back issue of Time. I read through it and then returned it...or so I thought. However, when I checked my library account, the issue was still listed as being checked out. I looked everywhere I could in our apartment but couldn't find it. I rechecked the magazine in hopes that I'd find it before it was due, but no luck. When it was really, really late, I talked to one of the librarians who was nice enough to recheck it again for me so my late fees would stop piling up.

My child probably believes I'm really insane now, because I recently spend several hours tearing apart oh-so-much crap in our apartment trying to find said missing magazine. Still, no luck. I was pretty sure that I had returned it, but it stubbornly stayed on my 'checked out' list on my library account. Recently, I flipped through some of the back issues at the library in hopes of finding it there, returned but not checked in. Again, no luck. Today, Pic and I went to the library again and I flipped through the back issues in one of the boxes under the shelf. About five issues in...I FOUND IT! That totally deserves all caps because I had been somewhat freaking out about this. I hate the thought of losing the library's materials and I'm overjoyed to know that I didn't.

I brought the magazine up to the front and the librarian working the desk erased all of my late fees and apologized to me for the mix up.

So, yea! The magazine is not lost. It's just a skinny little Time that got slipped in with the rest of them, trying to hide out and make me lose my mind. I was able to put the book I had had on hold back on hold and now by the time I get it, I'll actually have time to read it. (It came to the library during the phase of the missing-Time and I wasn't about to check out more materials when I was already misplacing (or, so I thought) the library's other materials.

So, I'm off to write about four or five more pages of what is feeling very much like a research report to me. I have to get this finished by Tuesday, at the very latest, so that I can delve into my final paper on Wednesday so I don't sound like a complete rambling BS-er when we have our final meeting Wednesday evening. Then, it's a full day of responding to student projects, holding a final, finishing up that final paper and meeting for one more class one more time. (That probably would have made more sense in a bulled list or on a nice little calendar page or something, but there you have it.)

Then...? I have oh-so-many plans, but I'm trying not to get ahead of myself here.



'Marian the Librarian'
[This so doesn't represent the library staff at my local library -- a staff I love -- but I love to sing this song, and I thought I'd share.]

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* May's NaBloPoMo theme is sweet and, really, I have nothing, so I'm stretching here.

midnight phone calls

My older sister has a rule (okay, a few, I'm sure, but I'm only focusing on one): no phone calls between 9p and 9a. At some point in my life, I have internalized this rule. Whenever I call someone within those hours, anxiety boils up in me. Whenever someone else calls me during these hours, my first reaction is always, with varying degrees of panic, 'Oh god, what's wrong?'*

Anyhow, there've been plenty of nights when I feel like I just want to call someone. To call and say something so pointless as, 'I'm meeting with Dr Chair today and I'm afraid that all intelligent thought will seep from my head into the the nether-regions of the universe not to be retrieved EVER.' Or, to call and say nothing at all, but just to connect with someone, like some non-physical handholding. Or, to call and say, 'I quit. The end.'

And, although I've been assured by many (and I'll probably be reassured here soon) that you are out there for me when I'm ready to call on you, I can still never quite make that phone call. Every freaking time, I hesitate and think, 'I'll just be wasting her time. He has his own stuff to deal with and doesn't need my whining. And, that's what it is anyway: whining.' This doesn't even begin to get at the mental screwiness whilring through my head, but you're getting an idea here.

So, tonight, it's the Dr Chair variety of anxiety (actually, it's the exact anxiety typed out above). I'll just send this off into the ether and hope that calms me. And, I'll remind myself that in twenty-one days, this semester will officially be over, but that really, I hope to have it wrapped up in fourteen.

I can do this.



Carole King and James Taylor "You've Got a Friend" [I've been somewhat in love with Carole King for most of my life now. Just thought I'd share.]

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* Let's set aside my own neuroses. Please, if you need, feel free to call me whenever. We all know that my sleep pattern is so non-patterny that I'm more likely to be asleep at two o'clock in the afternoon than two o'clock in the morning anyway.

glimpses

Okay, just a little bit of a list for now:

* I just walked outside because I'm losing my mind...and my books. I had to fetch a book from my car and when I opened my front door? Crap, snow. (No, not any actual crap, that's just a toned-down version of the thought that went through my head on seeing the snow.)

* I'm planning on being very open to hanging out il quest'estate (this summer). Anyone up for keeping me entertained? It's not difficult. Mainly, I like to walk places, take Pic to the park, that kind of thing. (And, hey, you might be able to sign up now for a lifetime membership as I have no plans for my life after the morning of May 18th when grades are due.)

* There are only about eighty-three more hours until my head implodes. (I'll try for imploding and not exploding...less mess for others later.) Then, it'll have to reinflate (it'll be something like Judge Doom in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?) because about a month later, I'll have to go through the process all over again (times three). Yippi-chi.

involuntary self-reflection*

[again, typed elsewhere, transported here]

is it horrible of me that i cannot wait until pic is in school full-time? is it so awfully bad that i am so selfish that i am craving this time because then i will be able to focus so much more on my own work? on my own studies? on my own self?

yes? i decided to have a kid when i did and now i need to deal with (suffer?) the consequences?

you’re entirely right (she said to the voice in her head). however, i just don’t care. if i had all this to do over again, i’d cry and cry. i’m not a person who wishes she had things to do over again, and this doesn’t mean that i think that every little bit of my life is generically perfect, but i’m where i want to be. when i finished crying, i’d do this all the same again. (so, powers that be, if you’re thinking to give someone another chance at things and you’re thinking to get into the tricky, tricky business of time travel, give that chance to someone else, please.)

the decision to have a kid when we did was largely mine. okay, so i would have liked to possibly have waited until i had actually graduated with my ba, but, hey, we didn’t and it worked out. i love being young enough to not be as worn out as i imagine i will be fifteen years from now (geez, if i’m tired now, i can’t even imagine my level of exhaustion fifteen years from now). cardo is somewhat older than me (more than a year, less than a decade) and this is something that i constantly take into account. i wanted him to also be able to be a young parent and he seemed to want this too. (i have no idea if this is in any way better than being an older parent. i can imagine the benefits of both, but i, obviously can’t argue for both having only experienced the one.) also, i’m still (and forever) a grad student. this has been both freaking fantastic and freaking sucktastic. i have so much more time to be with pic than i would have if i had a forty-plus-hour-a-week job to go to (as cardo does). at the same time, i have so much more time with pic than i would have if i had a forty-plus-hour-a-week job to go to.

i have seen so much of her growth in the last four years and that has been great. i’ve been able to take her to the library almost every week, at least once a week, for the past several years. when the weather’s nice enough, i’m able to take her to the park almost every day. i have the time to read her multiple books a day (on top of doing all of my own reading, much of it aloud…this child has been exposed to literacy in a major way). i can lay down on the floor and play ‘ladies’ with pic. i have spent more time with pic than anyone else has.

i have spent more time with pic than anyone else has. yes, i understand that i have this repetition thing going on here. that’s intentional. stick with me. when i have twenty-some or forty-some student papers to respond to, 200 pages of a book to read, four scholarly articles to read, a course to design, laundry to get done, dishes to wash (and on and on, for all time), i have a four-year-old who wants me to read several books to her, who wants me to take her to the library/park/thrift store, who wants me to stop and play ‘ladies’ with her. this child has learned to spend a lot of time playing alone. she’s awesome at entertaining herself. she reads, draws, plays with magnets, completely unpacks her toy bins, tries on several different outfits, ecc. when i’m trying to work at home, though, are the times when i most feel that i’m sucking at everything. the apartment is never quite clean. my mind is never quite wholly focused on either pic or my work. my ‘work’ even consists both of being a teacher and being a student. i’m not able to compartmentalize my identities, bringing one out to be in control when i need her. should i even be concerned about that? i think so. i’m not all ‘yea for multitasking!’ although i’ve been doing it for most of my life. i'd love to me more in-the-moment. bring on the zen.

cardo doesn’t quite understand how this is tearing me apart and that is partly my very own fault. i don’t ask him (or anyone) for help often enough. i have occasionally tried to explain just how different our situations are. he gets to go to work fifty-some hours a week (isn’t he the lucky-duck) and get his work done there without someone constantly demanding that he turn his focus away from work. he goes to work and doesn’t have to worry that the apartment must still be cleaned, ecc. this does not mean that he doesn’t bring his work home but it is a very different thing to go to work, to leave the home and get oh-so-much of your work done elsewhere than to have to juggle work at home and a home and a preschooler.

so, because i’m needing to read many articles on/by foucault and i’m needing to revise several of my own papers and i’m needing to create discussion notes for a variety of texts and i’m needing to implode, i’ll wrap up rather quickly here: i cannot wait until pic is in school full-time so that i can go somewhere that isn’t home for several hours five days a week, many weeks of the year and get my own work done.

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* the title is from class discussion and, no, i don't remember how exactly it came up. it just seemed funny to me.

she's going the distance

At least, that's the plan. I had a minor freak-out this weekend (one I'm sure I'll have many more weekends and weekdays): What if my parents come up here in May for no reason? What if not everything goes as planned?

It's funny, because at the same time that my brain won't turn off (as I'd like it to do when it turns to the above topics), it also wouldn't seem to turn on this weekend. I have been so useless since right after I taught on Friday. Cardo and I ran a few errands and, after that, I don't remember much of this weekend. I know that I got almost all of the laundry finished (there are still a few items in the dryer and they'll have to stay there until after school). I washed the dishes today and I actually made dinner for me and Pic (oatmeal, but I still think it counts). Mostly, though, I remember sleeping. I took a four-hour-long nap on Friday (which might not count as a nap considering I had only gotten about three hours of sleep before I faced Friday). I slept late on both Saturday and yesterday mornings. I've barely been able to stay awake, it seems. I've gotten not much at all accomplished, which is so incredibly not good at this point. I think I ate like crap, but I can barely remember what I ate (except, I know that I ate a ridiculous amount of cookies one of the days). I didn't exercise at all on Friday or Saturday, which exacerbated my lethargy and my overall feeling of funkiness.

I'm burnt out. But, wait! I can't be burnt out. We aren't even half-way through this semester. This has to be temporary.

So, I got off my lazy rear and did some pilates in the living room (I'm sure the people across the way love watching this) while Pic chased one of the covert cats around with a balloon from Trader Joe's. I also later did some arm work, and let me tell you, I should have much better arm muscles, I think, after carrying around either fifty pounds worth of school crap or a thirty-pound child all of the time. Why are my arms so weak? Hmm. I got all of the reading for two of my classes finished (one I'm taking and one I'm teaching). I've done most of my planning for most of the week. I'm still behind, but I am confident that I'll catch up (at least enough). I'm so very much needing next week and spring break (and I'd really like my 'spring' ahead hour back, please). I foresee long, long days of reading and playing catch-up (not to be confused with either catsup or ketchup).

So, I think I might have kicked my ennui back to the recesses of my mind, for now. I'm looking forward to the Ides of May like a feend.

genius

Okay, so last night I proved the stunningness of my genius. I showed up for class a bit before four, thinking, 'I'll be early and then I can review my reading notes before class.' Thinking, 'Class starts at four-thirty, right?' The small bit of a room filled up pretty quickly and I had to ask, 'Doesn't class start at four-thirty?'

No.

So, while I'm not a newbie at this, not at all, I still play one in real life sometimes. Thanks be that I had planned on being so early.

Anyhow, it's resting time in La Casa B. This basically means that Pic will go into her room and then further off into her little (or big?) world of make believe for about an hour while I read as much as possible of As You Like It and The Alchemist as I can during that hour.

I promise that I'll try to stop whining about my lack of sleep and my gargantuan magnitude of reading here, but I might not be so successful. I'll try to keep it light, people, I promise. However, did I mention how far behind I am in my reading? Can I get through one-and-a-half plays and 154 sonnets before tomorrow? YES, I CAN! (It's apparently catching, isn't it?)

Oh, one more note: just four more days until my child is four! Holy criminy.

as moving day approaches

I'm trying to decide, "Which things can we live without for the next five or more days?" I mean, do we really need the canisters of flour, sugar, coffee and baking soda (yes, baking soda...hi non-toxic cleaning supplies)? Probably not. Do we need paper towels or nine-tenths of our dishes. Nyeh. Do we need our underwear? Okay, so maybe I'm going a bit too far there.

So, I'm off to pack our "fancy dishes" (we got a set of four dinner plates, mugs, saucers and dessert plates at Goodwill for just under $20). Fun, fun stuff.


And, just for 'scuz. I like this song and I'm listening to Celtic Woman on PBS right now.

this is ground control to major tom

Okay, two countdowns right now.


Five days until Election Day! I'm anxious and nervous about this. I cast my vote yesterday. I was going to vote the day before, but I was sick and lazy that morning. I'm only a bit sad that I didn't bring Pic with me to vote. She's come with me the last two times I've voted (okay, so once she was in utero and neither of us had much choice, but she was there). Next time, though.

Two days until National Blog Posting Month! I'm on the November blogroll. I was afraid Mrs Kennedy (and Co?) was going to be too innundated with us last minute additions to get mine up in time, but she rocks. So, steel yourselves to read even more pointless ramblings from me (or avoid it, I suppose, but that's not much fun for me). I know that Ms B, whose most awesome derby name is The Furie Queene, is participating...who else will be joining in next month?