Look into My Head

Another day older

2010-05-15T22:28:00.000-04:00

Alliteratively, I finally finished finals. This strange year is over, and in my hazy memory it is blanketed in darkness, colors of fear and anxiety, with startling splashes of vibrancy and hope. I don't know if it's age or wisdom finally accumulating or simple exhaustion, but I feel that I am learning to focus on the present and let the future take care of itself. I don't want to miss the joys of today any more, don't want to keep borrowing trouble.

My beautiful children - I've spent the last few weeks balancing on the knife's edge of self and school and kids, and they have been so surprising, the bright points in my busy days. I can almost smell the sunscreen and chlorine of impending summer, and I can't wait to see them, skin darkening and hair lightening, running around the pool filled with joy. It is hard to hold on to regrets when I think about any alternate life that wouldn't have included my wonderful strange small people.

Tranquil

2010-03-14T20:39:00.000-04:00

The days of peacefulness extend both forward and back from this unexpected oasis of time. Anxiety has called a recess, depression has rejected the too-obvious calling of bad weather, irritation has gone to find someone else to bother and itch. Circumstances remain but seem surmountable, strangely, and less urgent.

Grey

2010-02-25T00:49:00.000-05:00

Today was a good day, better than maybe any day I've had this dismal, grey, snowy, eternal winter of a year. Good news, good self-control, good feelings about the present and future, good feelings about maybe some day putting away the past. I'm grateful to have had the break, I really am. The high didn't last all that long, though - it's almost 1am and I've slid back down from rosy pink through neutral beige and into the imminent-danger grey zone. Grey is the worst color, I think. Black is at least absolute, white is hopeful and bright (even if all-too-present in the form of snow). Grey just makes my eyes hungry, and its emotional equivalent makes the rest of me feel like one big yearning. Not even sure what I'm yearning for. Something with meaning? Seems so trite. Someone else's color to mix with this desolation? Not really, not now, I don't have the energy. I feel so flat, it's almost worse than feeling outright awful, or maybe it's just like the eternal debate over whether itching or pain is worse. Better to feel terrible or nothing at all? Terrible is terrible but nothing has the potential to go on and on and on....

Time Flies, etc

2010-02-21T00:57:00.000-05:00

Impending birthdays don't usually faze me much - mostly I just look forward to cake and attention (or, more likely, nothing much at all). This year, though, it strikes me that I've been a real live grownup for over a decade, and that decade went so startlingly fast. I haven't quite caught up. I don't feel any different than the girl I was ten years ago, not way down deep where who I really am lives. I have accumulated people and responsibilities and experiences in these years but not wisdom, I fear, or the foresight to tell bad choices from good up front. My brain and my heart are just as disconnected as they ever were; my brain does okay with a little prodding in the motivation department, my heart has no sense at all. I decided today that the fleeting nature of time sort of makes sense in terms of the seasons of families. I had my kids in my 20s, and their baby years were tedious to the point of desperation but always busy, always filled with small urgencies. As they get older and more self-sufficient (thank god), I have a moment to breathe and reflect on how little of my life has gone as I'd have hoped and imagined. How unfortunate. I'm guessing that my 30s will be filled with a lot of this discontent, this second-adolescent angst, this raging against pointlessness, and that my 40s will end the angst with new urgencies related to raising teenagers. I have too little imagination to figure out 50s and beyond, but I know when I get there I'll say the same thing, that I don't know where the time went, and then feel another pang of mediocrity at my lack of originality.

Aches and Pains

2010-02-20T01:55:00.000-05:00

It's hard to keep an even keel when it feels like there's no break between storms, both literal and figurative. I make new month's resolutions, then new week's, and finally I'm playing it minute by minute, resolving to be positive, to appreciate the good things that seem so fleeting and just endure the bad things that seem to go on and on and on. I try to remember to let go of the things I can not change, or however that goes, but it seems like just about everything is outside my control, so it's a lot to let go of. I can't find a groove. I'm an aging, scratchy record.

I should sleep, but I want to write. I should write, but I can only think of words for these feelings when I'm not at the keyboard. In class, in the car, playing with the kids - at those times, I have to wrench myself back to the present, away from the thoughts that are so hard to channel into words now that I have the opportunity to try. I feel like everything should be easier, that I'm missing a key somewhere. Does everyone struggle like this, or am I really just doing it all wrong?

Oh, snow.

2010-02-10T20:41:00.000-05:00

I've let the blog lapse yet again, but if I were to post it would be one big blank sheet of white - the whole world's been erased by snow and it feels like normalcy may never be restored. It's hard not to see it as a metaphor for my life, but it's probably a little too egocentric to believe that this apocalyptic weather is all about me. I have so many more questions than answers, way too much time on my hands and not enough motivation to follow through on even the easiest of the steps toward a way out of the formlessness. I hate to just let things happen, hate not having a hand in my own fate, but I'm so tired, so snowed-in, it's so easy to believe nothing I do matters anyway.

Holding Time

2010-01-26T12:34:00.000-05:00

Another month is ending, not quite soon enough, another month I wouldn't choose to relive if given the choice. Not horrible, but a struggle almost every day, just to get through. I remember from Laura Ingalls Wilder's The Long Winter that her father strung a rope from the house to the barn and used it to guide him through blizzards, so he wouldn't get blown off course and freeze to death feet from his house, walking in circles. I string myself a similar rope of small happinesses to guide me back to a place where living is, if not a constant joy, at least not a constant effort.

My rope is made up, in large part, of the fresh smell and soft cheeks of my children, of their sweet small hands around my neck and their squeaky small voices in my ear. Of my pride in the big boy for always pursuing justice and trying so hard to do the right thing. The smaller boy fighting his own emotional roller coaster but trying hard, so hard, not to lose his temper. The twins' enviable love for each other, their long periods of play divided by small bursts of ridiculous fighting. My guiderope is also made of friends and family and even the structure of school, helping me put one foot in front of the other when it is all too tempting to just stand in the blizzard and let it have me. It is the promise of the future, in small things as well as large - a trip, a graduation, a change in weather. It's not a bad rope, actually. I think it will do.

And when I reach the end of this rope (not the end of MY rope, that's an entirely different thing), I know life will still have challenges. I know I will still have days that are hard to wade through. But, hopefully, there will again be times that I would capture if I could, times sweet enough that I will wish I could relive them again and again. Times I want to hold in my hands and keep safe.

American highway

2010-01-21T02:36:00.000-05:00

I drive home late, so very tired, and the sound and fury of tires on pavement lull me into a peaceful reverie. Time out of time, time and place suspended as I listen to bad pop music and have four full lanes all to myself. This freeway, ubiquitous product of American rushing and sprawling, could be anywhere. I imagine myself on I-10 in LA, on I-5 in Seattle, on I-40 in Tennesee. I am anywhere and everywhere, and for these moments I am alone in the best sense of the word. I can imagine my mistakes yet unmade, my challenges far in the future, and feel only the love and the goodness that surrounds me, often hard to find under the competing noise of my life's current upheaval. The motion of the car soothes me, and although I yearn for home and bed and rest, I don't really want to take my exit. I want to wrap myself up in this moment and this feeling for just a little longer.

House of Cards

2010-01-13T00:04:00.000-05:00

One bad day makes everything feel so untenable. I feel like a big mistake I made a while back may color everything forever. I do feel remorse, but I don't know if or how to express it. I can't think of any way to make amends. I try to live right, to be good now, to not make more mistakes. I know that doesn't repair anything, but I can't think what else to do. I'm afraid, I'm so angry with myself, and I don't know what to do with any of it. It gets harder and harder to hold everything up.

Balancing act, redux

2010-01-07T02:22:00.000-05:00

I live a dual life, forgoing sleep to be mom by day and me by night. It seems untenable and yet I am happy, happier than I have been in a long long while. At home, I play with the kids and listen to songs that wrench my heart. When out, I let my hair down, play the fool without guilt or fear, and it feels good to be myself. Home again, home again, and still alone, I don't feel lonely but instead revel in the freedom of doing what I want, when I want. Is it so awful? I know there's something broken, something I'm not sure I care to fix. I don't understand, literally can not relate to people caring about each other in the way I'm supposed to want to, the way I once did. But I don't feel the lack, I don't yearn any more. I don't miss it. I don't want it.

Absence Really Does Make the Heart Grow Fonder

2010-01-04T17:45:00.000-05:00

I have never been happier to say goodbye to my kids than I was this morning when I dropped them off at school. It's been 17 days of snow and sniffles and too much sugar and not enough listening and way way too much fighting. I came home and lazed decadently around the house. Paid some bills, took a nap, curled up with several blankets since my ancient house lets in more air than a tent. It was slightly-boring heaven. The big surprise was that when the kids came home, only a few hours later, I was absolutely delighted to see them. It was straight out of an airport scene from Love, Actually. I felt like it had been years. They really are amazing little people. I guess I just haven't had enough distance to see it clearly for a while.

The Eye of the Storm

2009-12-30T23:07:00.000-05:00

The boy has taken up screaming at bedtime again. I'm sure it's related to the many recent upheavals in his life, but I had so hoped this was behind us. Tonight, he screamed for two and a half hours before finally collapsing into sleep, and the silence he left behind is deafening me with recrimination. There must be something wrong with him, but even so it's my fault - I made him, and I haven't been able to figure out WHY he is like this, despite many a doctor's trip over the years. How can anything ever feel like a success when this child so often feels like my worst failure. I feel out of ideas and out of hope, and yet I was already so close to the bone, hopewise, that I can't feel the pain quite as much as usual. Maybe hopelessness is the answer and not the question, something to be dealt with, not solved.

Shut up already

2009-12-21T15:00:00.000-05:00

Why can't I just BE unhappy and shut up about it? It doesn't make it better to blab, just gives temporary not-quite-relief that ends up being more shame, more humiliation, and a deep desire to have not spoken. It hurts too much to stay quiet, but just like crying about physical pain, the pain isn't really affected by the noise. I'm afraid if I'm quiet I'll slip slide surrender to the deeper quiet and get lost for good. So I make a string of pointless words and hopeless queries and hold myself up on it like the magic feather or the emperor's clothes, trying not to look hard enough to see that nothing is holding me up at all, that I'm already falling.

Finding joy in the slow lane

2009-12-19T13:42:00.000-05:00

We're snowed in, the house insulated and muzzled inside a snowglobe. My daughter is fighting a cold and passed out on the couch. I hear her snoring on one side and the little boys playing nicely for once on the other. It is peaceful, quiet, Christmassy. I have good friends, good kids, a good life. The enforced slowness of the storm makes me realize that I need to slow down myself, need to not borrow trouble, need to not give so much attention to the ache in my chest that says I will always be alone, that I will never be understood. The ache is real but it isn't everything, and it doesn't deserve the space it takes up in my head. I will wrap it in cotton and shove it into a corner and take the good in what comes my way, even if it doesn't always come in the shape I think I want.

Floating

2009-12-17T18:56:00.000-05:00

Things got worse but may be getting better, at least in some ways. The semester is over, my mother's out of the hospital, other big bads seem to be taking at least a hiatus. I feel like I've taken off too-tight pants, like I can breathe a little easier. I'm trying to cultivate positive thinking, to hoarde a pile of reasons this struggle is worth it like nuts against the possibility of a long winter. Perversely, I've found something new and utterly unnecessary to also fret about, but I'm trying to zen-think it out of the mainstream of negative thought. I need to feng shui my brain, clear the clutter and let in the light. I practice letting go and feel like I may be floating, however briefly, instead of exhaustingly treading water.

Realism

2009-12-08T09:10:00.000-05:00

I feel the inexorable tug of depression, the dark promise it holds to wrap me up in warm darkness. I fight it by inches, never gaining on it but keeping it from swallowing me whole. The hardest times are when I can't remember why the fight is worth it, when it seems that depression is not the pathology it has become but another word for realism. This is my life. There's no reason to expect it to get better, and it could certainly be worse. Maybe the idea that happiness is achievable, even an entitlement, is the real pathology. Why should I get happiness? The biggest mistakes I've made were things I did in an effort to push back the bleakness and grab my piece of joy. I think the better option may be to strive for acceptance rather than happiness. This is it, this is all there is; and yet, I watch the people around me live their lives with passion and energy. In my lighter moments, I look for hope in their example, but right now their efforts seem futile, their hopes sad in light of their inevitable frustration.

Bitch, bitch, bitch

2009-12-01T21:16:00.000-05:00

I am so over myself. All I do is complain, and when I get tired of hearing myself whine out loud and bite my tongue, I still hear the litany in my head. I don't even know what I want, what I expect to be different, what end I want to have in sight. I need a lobotomy, or a week in a hotel with bad pay per view, or a winning lottery ticket, or a padded soundproof room. I think I need a hiatus, but really? That couldn't end well. The last thing I need is the company of my own thoughts.

Gratitude

2009-11-26T19:04:00.002-05:00

It's easier to walk the line today, when my only responsibility is to cook and eat ridiculous amounts of food. Even so, the trap in my brain has its hair trigger, ready to snap shut at every argument between the kids, every misplaced shoe or coat. I napped after dinner and dreamed of horror, of fear and malignancy and dark things hunting, and woke up sweating and scared.

I cast my net for a stable support, someone or something to prop me up and make the charade easier to maintain. That kind of weakness is dangerous, though; I know I should be trying to strengthen my own legs instead of damsel-in-distressing.

Of course, I am lucky, I do know that. Today is a day for gratitude, and there is much to be thankful for. My children, most of all - so much tougher and more resilient than I am, thank goodness, and so creative and spirited and beautiful. My mother, who makes it possible for me to move toward that so-far-away light at the end of this tunnel. Even the lessons, so painfully learned, that I should have known by instinct or common sense - even those are worth gratitude. Better late than never and all that. And so I will finish my day with my thanks in mind, for these things and for so much more. I will try to remember my luck and let go of my worries and hopes, at least when they become too heavy to hold.

Hollow

2009-11-24T23:32:00.004-05:00

I spend every day on a tightrope, desperately seeking balance. When it comes, in brief pulses, it is such a relief that the euphoria sets me back off-kilter, flailing around with my balancing bar and scanning the horizon for the rope's end.

How many mistakes is too many? I dream of clean slates, yearn for fresh starts. I try to be all good things, hoping that living well will pave a firmer path. But trying to be good at everything, I fail at it all. I end each day with regrets, new on top of old, and a need to talk, to talk and talk and talk, as if it would help. As if anyone would listen. As if I would know what to say. The words are in my chest, weighing me down, pressing out my breath.

I am annoyed. A pencil falls, is replaced on the table, falls again, and I can hardly keep from screaming my frustration. It never stops raining, it drizzles and mists and damps all over splat squish squeak. I am contradictions - bored but too busy, sad but giddy, lonely but craving solitude. I am procrastination. I am lack of motivation. I am remorse.

Words can't express the depths of my loathing

2008-12-08T16:02:00.003-05:00

I am 10 days away from my physics final, after which I will never have to take another physics class, ever. You'd think that having the end in sight would alleviate some of my chronic hatred for this class/professor/subject, but sadly such is not the case. I have never worked so hard for so little - no sense of satisfaction, no idea what my grade is (because this teacher, among his many other crimes against education, lost all of our homework grades, hasn't graded any labs, and added a few random quizzes that aren't represented in the grade formula in the syllabus). Hate hate hate. I have a test tomorrow, on chapters were were supposed to cover the last week of October but just completed last Tuesday, and which I still don't begin to understand. We will not be covering anything at all about optics, and while god knows I don't want to be responsible for even more information in this awful class, I need to know optics for the MCAT, so it would have been nice to at least see something about it.

I signed up for the MCAT last night - $225 for a sure-to-be miserable experience. It's like spending money on a root canal, or a new tire (oh, yeah, just did that too - stupid flat tire last week). I guess I'd better start putting together my study plan for that. As for now, I have to get back to studying for my craptastic test tomorrow, or there won't be much point in the MCAT.

Did you know I'm from Forks, Washington?

2008-11-18T19:56:00.008-05:00

That ought to bring in the page-hits, too bad I don't have google ads. It's so beyond weird that my crappy small hopeless poor dying hometown is now world famous. For those of you who don't have preteens (or don't admit to reading preteen literature even though I know you totally do), the hit book series (and upcoming movie) Twilight takes place in Forks, Washington. For those of you who have never been there, and I'm guessing that's just about everyone in the whole world, statistically speaking, it's a really really REALLY small logging town in the middle of nowhere in Washington state, about 4 hours west of Seattle (no, Seattle is not on the ocean, I swear easterners never look at a map west of the Mississippi).

When I graduated from high school (oh, about 58 years ago), there were only about 2500 residents in town. Logging had pretty much dried up and even liquor had stopped being profitable, to the point that the last solvent bar literally burned to the ground a couple years ago (the rumor is that the owners burned it up for the insurance money, but I can't confirm). The town is about 5 miles from a Native American reservation, and although I spent my whole painfully long high school tenure in town, I couldn't tell you anything about the rez, because PC or not, the twain just ain't meetin'. Don't buy everything you read in novels written by a woman who's never been there.

Our sports teams had to be bused up to 12 hours (no exaggeration) for meets, our homecoming dances and proms were held in not just a gym but the old gym, there is no fast food or movie theater within 60 miles, and (this is coming from a 1st generation Forks resident) the gene pool isn't all that deep, if you know what I mean. My close friends and I spent nearly every day that I remember dreaming of the day we could leave town without looking back. There's really nothing to do in Forks, and that is also not an exaggeration.

So it's something of a surprise to hear that people are choosing Forks as a vacation hotspot based on the Twilight books. Don't get me wrong, I love the books, but most of the excitement in them is caused by the proximity to vampires, not the proximity to mind-numbingly dull nothingness and constant rain. I guess it's just sour grapes - I wish I'd bought real estate when it was still about $2.50/acre.

A weird holiday feeling

2008-11-04T19:31:00.002-05:00

My emotions don't seem to know where to settle. I'm tired, after a long day, but it was good to keep busy while my nerves were fraying. I took my oldest boy with me to vote, and I hope he remembers this when he's older, the way our parents remember Kennedy (though hopefully with less death and horror). I start to get excited and hopeful, then dampen my enthusiasm with anxious watching, as if my own optimism could jinx the election. In short, I'm all over the damn place. I don't like that the first states to close polls are almost all too close to call - I want this to be decisive. I love that the voter turnout was huge. I want more sugar but I am already down to like 2 pairs of pants because of all the nervous eating I've been doing this week between school and the election.

PleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasewinOBAMA!

Ooo, champagne.

Toddler Talk

2008-11-03T07:56:00.003-05:00

I'm supposed to be studying for a test in, oh crap, 2 hours, and I'm sure no one's even checking this sad excuse for a blog any more, but hi! The inmates currently in the asylum are being ever so amusing and distracting me from memorizing one more boring-ass fact about cellular respiration.

I love this stage of talking, where you can mostly understand their babbling but can choose not to at will, and where every somewhat intelligent sentence seems like a huge and surprising accomplishment, not so much different than if one of the dogs sat up and asked for his dinner in English. It's even more fun with twins, because they've started to supplement their just-us-two crazy twinspeak with real words, so we can follow along for the first time. The dialog tends to go something like this:

Thing 1: Heah go, Bean! (offering some partly chewed cracker or a toy she does not want)
Thing 2: Go a-WAY! (haughtily turning face away)
Thing 1: HEAH GO, BEAN! (now shoving offering in her face)
Thing 2: Fank oo. (resigned, accepting unwanted object and immediately chucking it)
Thing 1: Weccome.
Thing 2: Let's go, Sibee!!!!! (jumping up, inspired by alien baby forces, and launching into a full-out run around the house)
Both: TEEHEEHEEHEEHEE (until they collide, trip, or otherwise harm themselves or others)

So you can see why I can not, CAN NOT, focus for one more second on the stupid Krebs cycle or photosystems I and II or the phases of mitosis. I much prefer the multicellular activity right here at home.

Here I am!

2008-10-22T08:27:00.002-04:00

I know, I know, it's been a really long time. The thing is, once more than a week or so has passed, I feel like whatever I post next has to be really good, either funny or meaningful or at least newsworthy, but of course I have nothing funny or meaningful or newsworthy to share, and so the time continues to pass unannotated and the pressure mounts until finally, I break it with just such a boring update post as this. And so on to the updates!

Kids - except for the cold that we've all been passing around for the past 2-3 weeks (we should have bought stock in Kleenex, that's got to be recession-proof), all the kids are doing well. Twins are chattering up a storm and thinking they're actual people. Big boys are both doing really well in school, better than I'd hoped. Biggest kids are, I think, also well, although I haven't seen much of them since school started.

School - if you'd asked me yesterday morning, I'd have said school was going well. Unfortunately, I got back my first physics test yesterday, so that appraisal is no longer exactly valid. Words just can't express how bad this teacher is, or the depths of my frustration at the very real possibility that his incompetence is going to keep me out of med school. It gives me a headache just thinking of it, so I'll move on.

Not much else to move on to, actually, my life mostly consists of kids and school. Speaking of which - the twins are trying to slam each other in a door and I have to get ready for school. And this is why I never finish a coherent sentence, much less a post.

Crazy neighbors

2008-09-18T18:18:00.002-04:00

I (mostly) like my house, I even like my city, and the neighborhood is much better than it used to be, but my immediate neighbors are almost all completely fucking insane. Today I will focus on the next-door neighbors, who resemble George and Barbara Bush in relative ages if not in politics (I don't know their politics or care to). When I brought my now-5-year-old home from the hospital, the husband saw us in the yard with the baby and said "I don't like kids." They both work from home and must have their groceries delivered, because I don't think I've ever seen them leave.

They must get bored living Boo-Radley-style, because they seem to spend most of their time looking out their windows and into my yard. We have a pretty big yard, and so do they, and our yards are separated by a fence, so they really could just choose to ignore us. God knows I try to ignore them. They collect feral cats by leaving food out on their porch, then complain when my dogs go eat it (the city rats, apparently, are welcome to the buffet). They collected OUR cat one day, after he had gotten out of the house, and kept him for a month without our knowledge, having him neutered and his ear notched before my mother rescued him. Ever since, they have insisted on returning the cat to us every time he gets outside, even though he rarely leaves our yard - they actually come into our yard to get the cat and bring him back. All. The. Time.

I just got involved in a pointless political debate (is there any other kind) with a friend from school and now dinner is cold and I've had more beer than I meant to and I have no time/energy to wrap this up gracefully. So, as my son would say, the end.

Shameless Substitution of Pictures for Actual Posting

2008-09-11T21:31:00.010-04:00

I'd like to say I haven't been posting because school is keeping me busy, but let's be honest - I'm always a slacker. So here, in lieu of really dull updates about my school, the kids' school, my recent alarming weight gain, my exhaustion, the increasingly shrill and incredulous voice in my head every time I see or think of either McCain or (especially) Palin, are two brief stories told in pictures.

Story 1 - Seven-year-old gets glasses (poor kid needs not only glasses but bifocals, but mercifully is too young to feel the dorkiness):

He wanted these:

But fortunately, the bifocal lenses didn't fit those frames, so he got these instead:

Isn't he cute?

Story 2 - A day at the zoo with the twins

Twins brushing a goat:

Pretending to be baby birds:

Girly in awe of swimming polar bear (it really was kind of awesome, was playing and swimming and by the way absolutely freaking enormous and also isn't this just a great pic? Can't believe I got a picture of her face and the bear, I suck at photography):

Boy twin was also fascinated - although the bear was off-camera at this point, can't you just feel the enthusiasm?

That is all, I'm sure I'll post again sometime in 2008.

Pinecone is my favorite Palin

2008-09-03T22:59:00.002-04:00

Don't ask me why I feel compelled to watch any part of the RNC, it just pisses me off. WHO is buying this? Okay, I'm not going to go into all the things this fascist crazy-assed bitch is saying that are just wrong wrong wrong wrong, or how lily-fucking-white this crowd is, or how Palin was part of the party that wants Alaska to SECEDE FROM THE COUNTRY, I'm just going to focus on the cute Palin, the one I actually DO like. The youngest daughter, whose name I heard as "Pinecone," but who is actually named Piper, just licked her hand and then rubbed it on the head of her unfortunate political pawn of a disabled baby brother. I think my husband is blogging more details of the incident, so I'll just focus on how deliciously cute this little girl is. Apparently there is no evil without a silver lining.

Just a side note - I just realized that every single person who actually benefits from the Republican tax cuts is in that auditorium. Why can't people actually vote their self-interest? Why do they insist on "no new taxes," when the new taxes would only apply to really really really rich people (read: not you, rednecks).

Yet another side note - Republicans seem to have a really low threshold for humor. These people have clearly not laughed enough in their lives. I will admit that she's a pretty good speaker, but these jokes are just not that funny. You people make me sad.

All politics, all the time

2008-08-29T23:47:00.002-04:00

I bet the 7 of you who read this blog are really looking forward to the election being over, if only so I'll stop talking about it. Too bad for you all, I have 2.5 months left!

So, how's about that scary bitch of a VP candidate??? I think it says a lot about this country that the GOP chose someone with no experience, who is a right-wing psycho fascist, JUST because she's a woman and may steal some of the Hilary vote. I think it says even more about this country that they may actually be right, that Obama could lose just because some Hilary supporters are still so pissed off that their girl didn't win that they'll actually vote against their beliefs or stay home altogether. I hope hope hope Obama wins, but if he doesn't, the democrats will have screwed themselves again, by letting that primary go on to the point where the party is so divided it may sink its own candidate. I'm so proud to be part of this fucking moronic organization. And yet it's the better of the two choices.

Just wait, more commentary to come during next week's Karl Rove convention. Anyone else see the irony of a hurricane hitting New Orleans on the anniversary of Katrina, just as the republicans gather to promote a walking fossil and his affirmative action VP pick?

Can I just say...

2008-08-28T21:29:00.002-04:00

...where the fuck was this Al Gore 8 years ago??? If he'd spoken like this then, with this passion and articulation, maybe we wouldn't have the last 2 terms of crap to recover from. Stupid man. I mean, lovely speech, but why such a late bloomer, Al?

Why yes, we are still watching the convention here, thanks for asking.

If I were a religious person, I would be fearing for my family's souls

2008-08-25T22:32:00.003-04:00

We are suffering through hour 6 of the Democratic National Convention, and we're all getting a little punchy. My mother has a 44 year history of watching the whole convention every 4 years, and this is the first one since she moved in with us, so it's a big week for all of us. She's actually Tivo-ing the whole thing, just in case we miss any of Wolf Blitzer or Anderson Cooper's scintillating commentary. I'm really starting to understand why the Democrats keep losing. This couldn't be more soporific. I'm as enthusiastic about Obama as anyone, but I can't see this lineup of dullness, set to dull music, as inspiring anybody.

Oh, but my family's souls. We're watching the introductory video on Michelle Obama (who I really like but kind of fear), and her brother says, "we lost our father in 1991." Simultaneously, my husband says "we found him in 1995" and my mother says "and we've been looking for him ever since." I live with funny, but kind of wicked, people.

Shame

2008-08-22T02:42:00.002-04:00

Shame is almost a pretty sounding word, like serendipity or quintessential, but it's an ugly feeling, and I don't think I really knew its meaning until this year. Shame, I now know (try to write that, while marginally drunk, at 2:45am, by the way, it really wants to come out 'I know now'), is having to answer questions like "have you recently turned to drugs or alcohol" and "what kinds of feelings are negative feelings" from a marriage counselor. Me? Turn to alcohol? And please, who doesn't think anger, sadness, and anxiety are negative feelings? But that gave the Steve Martin therapist with the child molester mustache much fodder for note-taking, at $2 a minute. Clearly, thinking some feelings are negative is a big red flag. And so, I have renamed our therapy as "wife failure class," and hereby resolve to do better, although I'm still a little unclear about what that entails, exactly. Probably, to be honest, not going out drinking and dancing until after 2am the night before the kids meet their teachers.

An excellent character trait in a spouse

2008-08-18T19:58:00.002-04:00

Not to be too personal, but things have been a little roller-coastery around here, marriage-wise, and I'm happy to say they seem to be on an upswing. When discussing the possibility of marriage counseling, we talked about not wanting to disappoint each other. My lovely husband said - as the children ran dirty and grouchy through the filthy house, as he put away dishes from the meal he bought and prepared after working all day to support us, as I sat with my 3rd beer in an hour and surfed the internet with my fat roll hanging over the waistband of my too-tight shorts - that I never disappoint him. And so I have determined that the single most important character trait in a spouse, at least in my spouse, is low expectations. It certainly helps to be the second wife, compared always to a woman who seems to actively seek slovenliness, poor parenting, insanely bad money management, and unkindess. I'm just not ambitious enough to beat her.

Peace and Quiet

2008-08-14T00:22:00.002-04:00

Next up in my list of weird things - peace and quiet. I'm visiting friends in Minneapolis, and have had a long lovely day, full of books and movies and way too much junk food. I feel like my brain has been full of buzzing and bitten off words and sharp pointy things for months now. Being here, away from children and schoolwork and chores and obligations, I can feel an almost tangible stilling of the hectic mess in my mind. I'm not sure yet if that's a good thing. It's a little scary to think that I may finally see what's been lurking under all the noise.

Things That Are Weird

2008-08-11T19:32:00.004-04:00

This is the first in a series - okay, who am I kidding, I have nothing like the perserverence to write an actual series, but let's play make-believe, shall we? - about things I find weird. I find a lot of things weird. Life is strange. One of the strangest things about being an atheist is that I don't see reason in anything, no overall pattern to tie all the weirdness together, and so things that seem normal at first glance, just because you're used to them, seem really bizarre and unlikely upon further inspection.

So, my first weird thing - beer. Not that I don't like beer, as you all know, so you can see from the beginning that weird does not necessarily equal bad. It's just strange, how we pay money and seek out this sort of foul-tasting, off-smelling liquid (when soda is so much more socially acceptable and more slowly damaging, biologically), when all we do with it in the best case scenario is convert it almost immediately into urine and in the worst case into vomit and urine. And yet, when you have had a day like mine, when your 7 year old has tried your patience for the 9,000th time and your patience has failed, no contest, you need the beer or you will run away screaming, will seek out hard drugs, will enter a life of crime or whatever it takes to get. the. fuck. away, you damn near worship the beer for its temporary reprieve, its dulling of life's sharp edges, its postponement of real life and real problems. Like I said, beer is weird.

My face is blurry

2008-08-05T18:37:00.002-04:00

My friend's daughter spent a lot of time with her eyes open underwater yesterday, and emerged from the pool with the pink eyes of an easter bunny. She rubbed them and said, "my face is blurry," which I thought was the best description ever of that used-up raw itchy feeling. I felt that way myself on Saturday night, after powering through the new Twilight book. I love immersing myself so completely in a book that I feel like I'm waking up from someone else's dream when it's over, when my eyes are grainy and red from being submerged so long in a fictional universe. A lot of my 32-year-long writer's block is fear of trying, and failing, to bring my own imagination so tangibly and accessibly to life. It's too bad I can't just read fiction for a living, I'm one hell of a reader.

August and Everything After

2008-08-02T11:15:00.003-04:00

Isn't that a Counting Crows album? I love Counting Crows.

This summer has been long and strange, and I was looking forward to the turn of the calendar, but August 1st started off a bit rocky. On my way to a chemistry test for which I was grieviously underprepared, my car abruptly clonked out of commission in the middle of an intersection. Four strangers stopped, during rush hour, to offer assistance, and my friend came with his Volvo to push me out of harm's way, so the actual breakdown ended up being sort of uplifting, in an all-people-don't-suck sort of way. Unfortunately, the estimate on the repair is about half of the car's actual value, which does suck, no matter how I look for silver linings. I made it to class only a few minutes late, while the professor was still reviewing. The test itself was insanely hard, causing one girl to leave the classroom in hysterics and one unfortunate 20 year old boy to weep quietly at his desk. I am perverse and kind of enjoyed the challenge of it, although my classmates didn't appreciate my enthusiasm during the postmortem. I hate having to wait until Monday for the grade.

After all that, the day improved dramatically. I had a nap, one of my favorite food groups, and then took the little monsters to the pool and saw a lot of friends. Then I got to dress up like a fancy girl and go out for a fancy dinner with some old and some new friends, and it was great fun. Then, best of all, we went dancing, which always makes me happy, even though I'm not a good dancer and it was like dancing in a sauna and my legs were already sore from a way-too-ambitious workout on Monday.

The new Twilight book is out today, and my mother is at the store getting it right now. That's my whole plan for the day, which is just fanfuckingtastic. Well, that and a nap, of course.

A riddle, from the mind of my nutty nuthead

2008-07-20T20:17:00.004-04:00

"I feel hungry for somefin. Somefin delicious. They have black covers and white fings. You know what shape they are? A circle. They're not Swedish Fish that you don't want me to have. I had two of dem. You know what I mean?"

Hint:

Love

2008-07-19T01:02:00.003-04:00

I never have a camera when I really need one - this picture was taken with my phone, and it's fuzzy and incomplete. Tonight, my quirky 4 year old was a star. He is that critical one degree off from center, just enough different that people think he fits in but he doesn't, quite. Tonight, though, he was the main event, and I've never seen such joy. He decided to try jumping off the diving board, and as he dithered and fretted like any nervous 4 year old but more so, everyone at the pool gathered around and supported him. Instead of yelling at him to hurry up or get off the board, as I'm sure I would at their age, the other kids in line started chanting and clapping their encouragement. By the time I got on the board myself and tossed him in to put us all out of our...not misery, but anticipation, people were placing bets on what he would do. I later heard that a child we don't even know was being herded from the pool at this time and protested to his father, "please, wait, I want to see what happens." I grew up in a small town, and even so I've never seen such a thing, where one child's fear and excitement transports a community. I don't think it was just the ever-present alcohol that brought tears to my eyes. My children are so lucky, to have this love in their lives.

Love is the strangest thing. Everyone feels it, and who can define it? Of course I love the boy - I "grew him out of me," as he says - but what motivated all these friends and strangers to see past his obstreperousness to the momentous occasion it was for him? What, for that matter, makes all the lovely people in my life tolerate my recently near-constant drunkenness and frequent weepiness? It feels like sheer ingratitude to be anything other than radiant with joy in the face of such an unasked for, undeserved outpouring of kindness and acceptance.

I still often wish for the imagination and courage to write, and feel like something of a failure for falling back on medicine. If I had the courage, and the perseverance, I would begin my writing career with some kind of testimonial to friendship, some kind of homage to the friends who hold me up with their laughter and love. The ones who kiss me and say they love me, even when I let them down. The people who know everything about me and those one step removed who offer their support on faith alone. The kind strangers who love my children on my behalf, or me on theirs, and cheer on my strange son at a moment that could have been mundane but which these beautiful rare people rendered transcendent.

This is me, writing up my lab report

2008-07-16T18:51:00.002-04:00

My summer class has improved somewhat, mostly because I ditch at the break most days, bring my laptop (to play spider solitaire) every day, and have made some...well, not friends really, but acquaintances at least, to amuse me. AND I got 104% on the first test, because I rawk at Chemistry. Except for writing up lab reports, which I do not want to do, since I just did one two days ago and my whole self is rebelling against the idea of doing another. Suck.

Randomness floating through my head as I cultivate ADHD as an alternative to schoolwork: Angelina Jolie just wants to be me - now she has 6 kids and her last two are boy/girl twins, just like me. Take away her money and her looks (and, to be fair, her energy - just that travel schedule would kill me) and we'd be twins ourselves. Facebook - it's finally growing on me, after having an account for ages and seldom checking it. Now I feel like a private detective, hunting down people from my past. Plus it's something else to do during class. Shoot, the nagging voice in the back of my head that says I'm going to be up all night writing this godforsaken report has shoved all the detritus aside. Guess I'll go back to staring blankly at my lab notebook.

Anyone have some paint I can watch dry? Or sniff?

2008-07-07T21:09:00.003-04:00

I started my summer class today - I'm taking the second semester of general chemistry because it's a prerequisite for everything I have to take next year. The thrill of being back in school had already worn off a bit after one semester back, but now the thrill is gone baby gone. I have never in, let's see, 15.5 years of school ever ever been as bored as I was this morning. My professor is quite literally the dullest person I have ever encountered. He spent a solid hour reading the syllabus aloud, then another hour and a half reading slides slowly and repetitiously, then writing out on the overhead exactly what he had just read. And this was, so far, all review material. The class runs from 9-1 every. day. for 5 weeks, but I only made it until 11:30. I packed up my things and walked out while he was lecturing. I do realize how rude that is, but my only alternative was to start yelling and throwing things. I can not believe I have to go back in the morning, but at least this time I know to bring entertainment for myself. Like heroin.

In other news, my two oldest boys are at sleep-away football camp this week. The house is very quiet, and the 7-year-old is having quite the run of mood swings. He reportedly has a great time every minute of the camp until he lays eyes on me, and then he bursts into tears and collapses in a heap. I believe I'll restrict future visits to ones from a distance, using binoculars.

My nutty 4-year-old had a very frightening incident on the 4th, in which he vomited blood (boy do I never want any of the kids to ever do that again), but he bounced back more than completely and has been a reassuringly holy terror for the past couple days. Just now, my husband told the boy, as he tucked him in to bed, that our 9-year-old was going to give him his old Woody doll, from Toy Story. The boy's reply? "I don't want a soft Woody, it will just break and we will have to throw it away! I want a hard Woody!" How can you not love him.

You are what you eat

2008-07-06T21:46:00.003-04:00

Last night, before the stomach flu my children have been passing around finally laid me low, I was imagining how model-thin I would be if I had never eaten a chip in my life. I think, actually, that I'd probably be dead of malnutrition, as chips have made up the bulk of my entire food intake (see graph for detail). Clearly, I have a problem, and there are no chips anonymous groups to help me.

Beer brings my voice back

2008-06-28T20:59:00.002-04:00

I do understand, on an intellectual level, that drinking is not a viable alternative to a normal life, but it makes me feel so much better. Is that so wrong? This was a good day, the first good day in a while, really, and for no real reason. I'm so tired of thinking about myself and what I want, what's important, it's nice to take a break and revel in the fact that there were random Busch Lights hiding in the fridge, that my stomach is rising in that pre-nausea roller-coaster thrill way because I'm staring at the laptop screen, that I had a moment of prescience with my husband earlier that makes me feel hopeful about the future. That maybe I'm not an aberration, that I can be satisfied in life, that I'm not an unfit mother and wife. It's a rush, and beer just helps.

Silence

2008-06-25T11:34:00.003-04:00

I've got a bad case of the mean reds today. I feel words drifting away from me, feel myself becoming still and quiet. I want to be a flower, to sit harmless and innocent under the sun and rain, but I am more like a weed, unloved and unlovable, drying up and blowing away.

My So-Called Life

2008-06-23T11:18:00.004-04:00

I have a mental picture of myself, as I'm sure we all do. I think I know who I am, what's important to me, which way my internal compass is pointing. I think I'm a good person, that I think about others, that I know right from wrong and pretty reliably do the right thing. I'm starting to wonder, though, if my mental self-portrait is as inaccurate as the physical one - I'm always surprised when I look in a mirror and see my sagging post-baby body instead of the pretty young thing I somehow still feel like.

I moved to this city 11 years ago, and for ages it felt really foreign to me. Everything is different from what used to be home - the pace is different, the accent is different, the people are different, the climate is different. For several years, I lived with the assumption that I'd work myself back home eventually, but then I married a man with children who live here and the roots began to grow. After I had children of my own and stopped working full time, I began meeting wonderful people, mostly women, who were thoughtful and kind and funny and supportive and I gradually found myself enmeshed in a real community for the first time in my adult life. I can't describe the deep feeling of happiness it has given me to be a part of this group without sounding trite or hyperbolic.

Now I'm afraid that I have lost the love and trust of one of my closest friends in this tribe of mothers, someone who has been such a part of my life that my memories of my own children are tied up with her face. I have been talking to her in my head, trying to explain, trying to find the words to excuse myself, but everything ends up sounding like just that - excuses. I find myself engaged in an orgy of misplaced apology, begging forgiveness from cut-off strangers at intersections and bumped-into shoppers at grocery stores with an excess of fervor that must take them aback. I'm just full of remorse and regret. The good intentions I thought were a foundation aren't holding up to scrutiny - they turn out to be empty air and count for nothing.

Hey, Jealousy

2008-06-18T17:12:00.002-04:00

Every once in a while, I toy with the idea of titling each post with a song title, but then I remember that I know nothing about music and never really have, so that would probably lead to even more protracted silences than usual. I do love the song Hey, Jealousy by the Gin Blossoms, though. It was popular during my brief foray into popular music during college, and it still reminds me of that time whenever I hear it.

Lately, I've found myself consumed with jealousy, and it really is a consuming and pointless emotion. Not relationship jealousy, but ugly middle-aged jealousy of youth. I see pretty teenagers in pretty summer dresses, thin and glowing, chattering like mindless birds, and I feel my eyes turn green. Of course I'd like to be thin, and not need makeup to remove the night-of-the-living-dead undereye circles, and wear mere suggestions of clothes without looking ridiculous, but what churns my stomach is the blank-slateness of their existence. I remember being that age myself and can't quite figure out the path that took me from there to here. I really missed the point of that whole Thoreau thing about living deliberately until it was far too late, and most of my choices had been made for me by chance or impulse or the path of least resistance. Is this the appeal of religion, the idea that you might get some celestial do-over? I want to be a different person, I want to have a different life, but the mirror is very clear on this subject - I'm calcified into who and what and where I am.

I'm so domestic

2008-06-16T14:19:00.002-04:00

Every once in a blue moon, usually when the house has just crossed into the qualifying-for-federal-disaster-relief territory, I get a short-lived but strong impulse to act domesticated. This morning, I showered before my husband even left for work, then got all four of my monkeys dressed and out the door before 9am. To go grocery shopping, as I am a hero. They were so well-behaved that a kind woman commented at the checkout on their loveliness. I took big boy to the doctor to get an official asthma diagnosis, came home and made lunch, then put the twins down and cleaned for 1.5 hours straight. Which is probably 1.25 hours more than I've put in total in the past 2 months. It's still not CLEAN, exactly, but you can walk through every downstairs room and could actually eat at our dining room table. Oh, which reminds me, I also started dinner. AND, most miraculous of all, I'm in a calm peaceful happy mood (knock on wood) after all of that. If only being Barbara Billingsley was fun on a day-by-day basis and not just every once in a while.

I have a blog?

2008-06-14T21:23:00.002-04:00

Oh, right. Hmm. Things have been a little off-kilter around here lately, nothing I can/should/will write much about, just the all-too-ordinary trials and tribulations of a boringly average wife and mother. I started my new job and it's very interesting, but my heart's not in it, or much of anything lately. The kids are done with school, the pool is open, my mother is away visiting my sister. My husband's ex is being the poster child for bad parenting and there's nothing I can do except watch with my chest hurting. My family is lovely, my friends are lovely, my life is just what I wanted. I'm sure this flatness will pass, and I'll be back here to dazzle you all with my wit and wisdom again.

I am officially lactose free, and other news

2008-05-20T08:07:00.004-04:00

While talking to my husband last night, I realized that I've had quite a few personal milestones this past week. I knew I'd been busy, but it's nice to look back and see that all that busyness actually led to some accomplishments. In bullet form, because I'm too lazy to really write:

I weaned the twins. This is huge. It went pretty smoothly, and they don't seem to miss it too much, other than a little extra whining in the morning, and I feel unchained. Yay to not being a dairy! I can't believe I made it almost two years.
I ran 20 minutes, in a row. I don't think I've ever even come close to that, even when I was a kid. I am just amazed by the couch-to-5k-program - I just finished week 5 (of 9), and I've gone from almost stroking out during 1 minute intervals to not struggling that hard at 20 minutes. Who knew I had it in me? Now, if I just stopped eating constantly, maybe I'd see some results...
I finished teaching, forever. This semester was a bit of a struggle, and it's a huge weight off to be done. Done done done!
I finished my first semester back in school. I got an A in chemistry, and I have my fingers crossed that I'll have an A in physics, too, if my professor ever posts my grade. In the meantime, I'll just keep checking every half hour. Somehow, the dream of med school seems much more attainable now that I've finished the first step, however small.
I got a summer job, just like a real college kid - I'm going to be doing research with my physics professor, poking fungi w/sharp sticks and looking at their individual atoms under a super-cool space age atomic force microscope. AND I'll get to publish about it. AND I get paid. It's awesome.

Best of all, I have this week almost entirely free of responsibility. I'm done with school and not yet starting work. The weather is a bit dreary, but who wants to be outside anyway? I'm wallowing in lazy mornings and late showers and trips to Target with my husband.

Nutty nuthead day

2008-05-13T21:59:00.002-04:00

Today I found out that my little boy got into the free, full-day, excellent pre-kindergarten program at my big boy's school for this fall. I am so very excited. His birthday is only two weeks after the cutoff for kindergarten, and while I'm happy about him waiting the year because of his autism issues, I think this is the perfect interim step. Plus, free, can't beat that. And it means my mom won't have to run all over with the twins to get him to and from some half-day program while I'm at school full time. Anyway, this is probably not all that exciting to anyone but me, but I'm very relieved and happy.

And in honor of my silly child, a story from the grocery store today - we were walking down the cereal aisle, browsing, and he said "why is everything we can't have delicious?" Wise words from weird wee bits.

Wow, did I speak too soon

2008-05-11T19:05:00.002-04:00

I firmly resolve to never admit in writing to being even momentarily pleased with my children. Two of them have spent this afternoon being the biggest assholes they can possibly be. I have left my cool so far behind, I barely remember feeling anything other than rage and despair about this whole motherhood thing.

I hardly ever comment on the trauma of step-parenting on this blog, but this time I simply must. I believe that putting a child on psychotropic medications for no other reason than that a parent can not or will not handle said child is nothing short of child abuse. Take a perfectly happy kid, put her on an SSRI because she doesn't listen (I've looked at the specs of the SSRI, by the way, and nowhere does it say that it makes children behave - on the contrary, the specs explicitly say this medication is not for use by children), and then be totally fucking amazed when that child becomes a jittery, orally-fixated basketcase. Her mother actually gave her a rubber thong to wear around her neck and chew on like a portable petri dish to try to stop her from eating her hair - obviously a better solution than not drugging the shit out of her as an alternative to actual parenting. There is nothing as consistently frustrating in my life as loving these children and seeing so clearly when they are being mistreated and being able to do exactly nothing about it.

Oh, and girly's cough is back with a vengeance, boy twin has a fever, and my husband and I are both starting to feel a little under the weather. I was thinking earlier, after girly threw up from the phlegm, that the best thing about having only one child must be the knowledge that the vector of illness doesn't have all that far to go - in our house, it can take literally weeks for an infection to burn its way all the way out - but listening to my children pick and fight and torture each other all. goddamned. afternoon makes me think that maybe there are other downsides to this large family thing, also. Happy fucking mother's day.

Mother's Day

2008-05-11T12:33:00.002-04:00

Sometimes I feel like the most unsuitable unfit mother. I always love them perfectly, but rarely show it perfectly. I am far too selfish and impatient to be the mother my children deserve, the mother I wish I could be. Since I started back to school and the twins finally started sleeping, I've felt my lack even more acutely - am I hurting my kids by pursuing my own dreams? Am I taking too much time away from them for classes and homework and friends and my own life in general?

Thank goodness for Mother's Day. For this morning at least, I feel like I must be muddling through okay. To quote Sally Field - they like me, they really like me. All of my big ones have drawn me pictures and brought me treats of their own creation. My stepson drew a picture of our family in which I was labeled "Mom," which may be the best Mother's Day present ever. My four year old is singing "Happy Mother's Best Day to You," to the tune of "Happy Birthday." My girl twin is finally over the worst of her mystery fever, which may not be for me but makes her a much more pleasant member of the family. Everyone is being cheerful and kind to each other and only regularly destructive, and we're going Go-Karting in a while and life feels at least temporarily in balance.

I am so fortunate, and so are my children, that there are so many wonderful mothers in my life. My own mother has always been a model of patience and selflessness, and I try to live up to her example while my family and I benefit from her steadying presence every day. My grandmother was the kindest person I've ever known. I still miss her and I wish my children could have known her. My mother-friends save my life and sanity every day. When I had my first child, I didn't have many close friends who were mothers, and I felt so alone with my inadequacy and panic. Now, seven years later, I feel part of a network of incredible women, incredible mothers, and I don't know how I could go on without them.

Why is it so much harder to write what's real and important? I am not "only" a mother, there is more to my ever-shifting sense of self, but if I suck at this the rest seems pretty pointless. It's nice to have days like this, with or without the holiday label, that make me feel like I'm at least generally on the right track.

I may write my next post from prison...

2008-05-08T20:56:00.002-04:00

...as I may be committing child abuse tomorrow. Surprisingly, not against one of my own children. This did start, as most of my parenting problems do, with my now-7-year old. He came home from school extra-surly today, and progressed through all of the negative emotions as the evening wore on until he peaked at near-hysteria just before bedtime. While I tucked him in, I finally got him to tell me why he was acting like he was possessed by evil spirits, and it turns out some little bastard in his class is bullying him. I got in over my head with the boy-raising fairly quickly and brought my husband into the conversation. Together, I hope/think we bolstered his weenie little spirits enough to survive another day.

Also, my girly has an inexplicable fever of 102. I am sooooo done having children, in case anyone was wondering.

Birthdays and Bodies and Bitchiness, oh my

2008-05-04T18:58:00.000-04:00

I know, I know, I suck at blogging. I think about it, but I think I'm developing some sort of adult-onset ADD, compounded by a serious case of PMS. It's actually been a lovely few days, with gorgeous weather and happy children and fun with friends, but I have two tests in the morning and my children are being even more than usually obstreperous and my heart is actually beating funny in time with my general irritation. I did not miss this part of being a girl while I was pregnant all those times. It makes me mad every month. I'm done with babies! No more fertility for me, thanks.

So, in the interest of not being all-bitch, all-the-time, and to further delay the inevitable panicky last minute studying I've already postponed repeatedly (oh crap! hurray! I JUST as I was typing this sentence found my chem book. That's got to be a good omen), I have to comment on the BodyWorlds exhibit my friend and I went to at the Maryland Science Center today. It was so amazing, although I was surprised that it made me a little woozy at first. Nothing awful, not as bad as the first time I watched someone get his jaw wired at the hospital, but more than I expected. The bodies are all sliced up to reveal different aspects of their anatomy, and in many cases certain external features like eyebrows and earlobes and belly-buttons were reattached to the outside, which somehow made them seem both more and less life-like. There was also one whole section on fetal development, which was one of my favorites, although I did wonder how they managed to sneak all the dead fetuses past the right-to-lifers who won't even allow embryonic stem cell research.

It was so pretty out that we went paddle-boating in the harbor after the museum. I've always wanted to do that, but somehow I never get around to doing touristy things in my own city. I also got my very favorite peanut butter ice cream from Lee's, served by a nearly-comatose young man named Duane (he really seemed to be worse at consciousness than customer service, like just breathing in and out was taking most of his limited capacity for thought and action). See how I have absolutely no room for complaint? Stupid hormones, making me grumpy. It's even more frustrating to realize that my big girl's hormones are probably responsible for her insanity, too, and that we're just feeding off each other and into some awful stereotype. Thank goodness I'm hiding in my room, purportedly studying. Better get on that.

Stolen quiz, stupidly double-spaced (why can't I figure this out?)

2008-04-26T12:01:00.003-04:00

TECHNOLOGY
Q. What is your wallpaper on your computer? I had to look - my husband just changed it to some weird Matrix-y city scene.

Q. How many televisions you have in your house? 1 in the living room, 1 in our room, 1 in mom's room. That's all that function, although we also have a warehouse of broken electronic crap that surely includes several obsolete televisions.

BIOLOGY
Q. Are you right-handed or left-handed? right

Q. Have you ever had anything removed from your body? Just children and teeth.

Q. What is the last heavy item you lifted? Um, groceries? I don't know, I'm not much with the heavy lifting. The twins, I guess.

Q. Have you ever been knocked out? Not yet!

BULLSHITOLOGY
Q. If it were possible, would you want to know the day you were going to die? No, I'm neurotic enough.

Q. If you could change your name, what would you change it to? Kate? That's a tough one. I hate my name, I guess I should have alternatives planned. Laura? Um, Corrine? I'll have to think about it.

Q. What colour do you think looks best on you? blue, maybe

Q. Have you ever swallowed a non-food item? yep

DAREOLOGY
Q. Would you kiss a member of the same sex for $100? Sure

Q. Would you allow one of your little fingers to be cut off for $200,000? Probably.

Q. Would you never blog again for $50,000? Sure, I hardly blog now!

Q. Would you pose naked in a magazine for $250,000? Probably

Q. Would you drink an entire bottle of hot sauce for $1,000? I don't think so

Q. Would you, without fear of punishment, take a human life for $1,000,000? If I got to pick the person. :)

DUMBOLOGY
Q: What is in your left pocket? nothing

Q: Is Napoleon Dynamite actually a good film? I actually do like it. I like anything that I watched with my husband that put him into hysterics - his reflected amusement is hilarious

Q: Do you have hardwood or carpet in your house? hardwood

Q: Do you sit or stand in the shower? stand. That's a weird question.

Q: How many pairs of flip flops do you own? 1

LASTOLOGY
Q: Last person who texted you? Friend's husband, wanting to go to the gay bar with us

Q: Last person who called you? Heidi

Q: Person you hugged? Husband

FAVOURITOLOGY
Q: Number? 14

Q: Season? Spring because of flowers

Q: Colour? yellow

CURRENTOLOGY
Q: Missing someone? Yvette

Q: Mood? Lazy, happy

Q: Listening to? Backyardigans

Q: Watching? Also Backyardigans

Q: Worrying about? Sewage and dead mice in my basement. You'd worry too.

Q: Wearing? New tank top and capris. I always swore I'd never wear capris, but that was before cellulite made shorts inadvisable.

RANDOMOLOGY
Q: First place you went this morning? Running, can you believe it?

Q: What can you not wait to do? Finish the semester

Q: Do you smile often? all the time

Q: Are you a friendly person? usually

Mmm, sewage

2008-04-21T14:24:00.003-04:00

You know what I don't like? My house. There are things about it that I do like, of course, but in general, it is a pain in my ass. There are holes in ceilings, broken windows, rampant weeds, hideous ancient paneling, weensy closets, and now the latest - some drain thing in the basement is full of, well, worse than crap apparently, and worse than crap is now backing up all over the basement floor. The good news is that the plumber was here really really fast. The bad news is that he is nowhere near free. Also, there is sewage IN MY HOUSE. That is definitely also bad news. Yuck.

I'm vomiting truth

2008-04-20T02:43:00.002-04:00

That's a Tivoli quote from this evening. I'm too drunk to do justice to the evening, but too many funny things have happened not to post. First of all, the drive to the bar involved me, sadly sober, listening to no fewer than 5 backseat drivers yelling RIGHT! LEFT! even though I knew where I was going. And my mother went too. Yes, to the gay dance club. It's been a strange evening. I made Sarah cry and now Tivoli is in the fetal position and nachos are the only option. Surely this will make no sense in the morning, but such is 2:30am revelation. And now Sarah is life-coaching Tiv, and I'm trying to listen and transcribe while eating and drunk-spinning, and I love my friends and life seems good despite itself.

Happy birthday, baby

2008-04-16T06:53:00.002-04:00

Happy birthday to my sweetheart. You're the best husband and father I can imagine and I'm lucky every day to be with you. I love you!

No twins were drowned in the writing of this post

2008-04-07T19:34:00.002-04:00

My mother is back doing her clinical trial, and her 36-hour absence is palpable. My daughter is wearing the pjs she wore to bed Saturday night (it's Monday evening), a raincoat (her choice), and purple sparkly shoes (again, her choice). My four year old is in the same clothes he wore Saturday as well. Only because he continuously shits through his clothes is boy twin in clothes not old enough to walk by themselves. The laundry pile is starting to groan ominously. We're eating take out and leftovers whenever hunger occurs to someone, and there's no apple juice. The living room looks like Legoland in California meets Jackson Pollack, but with more dirt. My car has such unspeakably foul and ancient crusted takeout containers on the passenger side floor that I'm afraid to even tackle it.

Okay, I got the twins in the tub and relocated the laundry heap down a floor. I am sitting outside the bathroom, where my rotten daughter is deliberately and with malice aforethought throwing water onto the floor and yelling NO when I tell her to stop. Defiant pig. I have a classmate babysitting in the morning, and more classmates coming for a study group in the afternoon, so I have to put a veneer of clean on this pit of disorderliness. But first, I have to listen to the 6 year old read his homework, which always feels like doing penance for some unremembered but obviously very serious sin.

What a glorious day

2008-04-05T18:42:00.003-04:00

I should give up the doctor idea and become a meteorologist. At least here in Baltimore, they get to wear hilariously ridiculous clothes and just make shit up for a living. Today, for example, was supposed to be rainy and wretched, and it is just beautiful. Not that I'm complaining. It just seems like a good gig, where no one cares that you're wrong all the time.

I spent most of my afternoon at the library at my college. Anyone who knows me well knows that libraries and I do not, as a rule, get along, but I needed a book on integrals (god help me) and the library is part of the college and not a larger library system, so I'm not yet banned from it. The library itself seemed to be on to me and my poor borrowing habits, though, and it took me a ludicrously long time to:

a) find the building itself
b) find the front door (really, how hard is that?)
c) goggle at the warehouse-sized room full of 4000 computers and about 17 books
d) use one of said 4000 computers to find a suitable-looking book
e) go up and down the elevator, hitting several floors more than once, in search of "Stacks," which is where the computer directed me but which is not, anywhere near an elevator, labeled
f) find a book that looked both useful and not hideously painful to read (like this post! ha!)
g) stand in a line longer than the one at Target this morning (who are these dorky undergrads, clogging the college library on a gorgeous Saturday afternoon?).
h) actually study, a little. Anyone have any questions about friction? No?

Wow, that was boring. Boring to live, boring to write, boring to read. But I'm committed to the blog entry now, despite my crazy 4 year old yelling "SIMON FOOTBALL" in the background on a permanent loop, so I'll keep plodding on.

Despite my battle with the library, it's been a good day - I got to go to Target (whee, I love Target) and get a curling iron, among other things (although I think I should have gotten a smaller one, now that I've played with this one), and the guys did yard work while I studied (it's really for the best that I not be around while the boy uses the riding mower, it makes my heart stop). I finished my friend's vampire book, which was hilarious, and I think we're going to the movies tonight, like real live popular culture consumers. My poor girly just fell and bit through her top lip, complete with way too much blood and no small degree of hyperventilation by me, but she seems okay and my own blood pressure should return to normal any time now. I can handle strangers' blood (and even my own, actually), but not my kids'.

Oh, and I had a caramel macchiato and cookie dough for dinner. Life is lovely.

Drunken ramble

2008-04-02T20:14:00.002-04:00

Depending on who you talk to and your frame of mind, alcohol is supposed to either relax you or depress/enrage you. I think it takes a special kind of moodiness to have both reactions in one evening. I was trying to be tidy and clean up leftover beer from this weekend's birthday celebration for my husband (FORTY, can you believe it!), so I had a couple (3?) Coronas and was feeling jus' fahn, until the boy. Always the goddamned boy. Lost his fucking backpack. How do you lose a BACKPACK. He used it 25 minutes ago, it's large, the house isn't that big a mess. And it's not just the losing it, it's the atrocious magnified mosquito whine he emits when feeling guilty/angry/frustrated. Of course someone else took it, we all covet the backpack. It couldn't possibly be his complete inability to follow through with one goddamned task or find his ass with both hands and a map.

Whew, I feel better now. As I'm sure you all do. Now is bedtime, that most wonderful time of the day, and my mother is coming back tomorrow from her leisurely retreat being a lab rat for a clinical trial. I already appreciated her, honestly, but now I REALLY do. And now it is spring, almost in earnest, and the green grass always reminds me of when I was pregnant to bursting with this same wretched child, and the season seemed to move so much faster than my own arrested progress toward motherhood. Every time I left the house, I would gape childlike at the tree buds and burgeoning flora, much to my now-husband's amusement. Thinking back to that time and right after, when I held that bewildering new person in my arms, I resolve again to be more patient. I think it would help to lose my hearing.

E is for Easter. And Early. And Ear infection.

2008-03-23T13:16:00.004-04:00

The plague continues apace and respects no holidays. The four year old is still wheezing, even after steroids, and is now complaining of ear pain. My husband is terribly congested and being quite stoic about it, which makes me feel both sympathetic and guilty, since I have NOT been all that stoic the past few days. I am feeling much better myself after the removal of the giant tumor-like nastiness from my tonsil, but we are all suffering from one degree or another of sleep deprivation. Last night, my husband had to go to work to fix something at 11:30. I went with him to keep him company, thinking it would be a quick trip. We got home at 3:30am. I fell asleep right at 4 and was awakened by excited Easter children at 4:22. In the course of trying to convince the children to go the fuck back to bed for a bare minimum of three hours, I rendered one shrill and shrieky with the injustice of not being allowed to sleep in my bed if he could. not. be. quiet. and the other began grabbing his ear and writhing in pain, requiring that I go downstairs, navigate the 30 pieces of poo the dogs left in the kitchen, and get him medicine and drink. I got back to sleep at 6:15 and we restarted the day as a family at the much more reasonable hour of 7:45. The big kids searched for Easter candy, the twins shook Easter eggs and ate candy off the floor like dogs, and I resembled the cryptkeeper with my sunken orbits. Happy Easter!

Want to see something really nasty?

2008-03-22T17:57:00.003-04:00

I'm gaining new medical knowledge already, and I haven't even applied for med school yet! This beautiful picture is of a tonsil stone, also called a tonsillolith. Sadly, this is just an internet image and not a picture of the actual stone I removed from my tonsil today, but it gives you an idea of the nastiness (mine was much more impressive but shriveled a bit after extraction and is no longer all that photogenic). For those of you who, like me, had never heard of tonsilloliths, they are calcified ick (I believe that's the technical term) that grows in the "crypts" of your tonsil (no part of a body should be called a crypt, in my opinion, seems sort of morbid) and forms a pearl-like stone. Like an ice berg, mine was more subterranean than terranean and left a sizable hole in my tonsil after I extracted it with a QTip. I can't overstate the relief I feel now that it's not rubbing against the inside of my mouth and throat every time I swallow or breathe or eat. Don't say I never taught you anything!

The Easter Pig

2008-03-21T22:09:00.008-04:00

We're not religious folk, but I like Easter. I like that it is a high holy Christian day but follows the most pagan and bizarre of calendars (how does the crucifixion have anything at all to do with the lunar cycle or the equinox)? Besides, what's not to like about unlimited candy, fancy dresses, and messy coloring of eggs? We've all been ill and it's starting to look a bit like The Shining around here, so today we dyed Easter eggs, in part to compensate for missing yet another outing due to wheezing and aching and general pestilence. Boy twin was mostly interested in picking up completed egg artworks and talking to them in his own sibilant crazy language, but girly got very involved in the dyeing process. I love this picture - besides showing her joy at the strange thing I was letting her do, her personality just shows through here:

Of course, her personality is also pretty plain here, where her pouty little pissy face clearly objects to having had her picture taken the first time:

Lastly, for your viewing picture, I present my piglet's imitation of an egg. I can only guess that this is based on the dragon egg in the critically acclaimed Backyardigans film Tale of the Mighty Knights, which quacks throughout the movie:

Spring Break

2008-03-18T12:28:00.002-04:00

Wow, has it been almost 2 weeks? I sure do slack. Let's see, what's been doin'.

I had midterms in both classes last Wednesday (still no grades back, but I think I did well). Today, I gave the midterm in the hideous atrociousness that is the class I'm teaching - enough said about that. I have off from taking classes this week, off from teaching next week, and the kids are off next week too. A friend is in town for 2 months (or longer! she could stay longer!) and we have grand ambitions for projects while she's here. Today would be a good time to start on those ambitions, probably, but I don't see getting out from under this blanket on the couch any time soon. The 3 little kids are all varying degrees of ill, with the 4 year old in the lead with what he calls "group" but really seems to be regular but asthma-inducing virus. He hasn't wheezed in so long, I'd hoped he'd given it up. That boy, always has surprises up his sleeve.

In other news, I'm older now, and had a lovely birthday weekend with friends and the zoo and parties and cake. Lots and lots of cake. I am straining to put on pants that were loose not long ago. I am sadly having to contemplate cutting back to 1 or 2 desserts a day and maybe even exercising. How wretched.

This is dull, but life is pretty routine right now - a good routine, but nothing too noteworthy or exciting. Aren't you all glad I wrote?

He really IS an alien

2008-03-05T23:05:00.001-05:00

I took the 4 year old with me to pick up the big boy from school today. Big boy read his reading homework on the drive home, while 4 year old quietly listened from the back. All of a sudden, and apropos of nothing at all (not what big boy was reading, not any previous discussion, not a TV show, nothing), the 4 year old yelled out in evident frustration:

"When am I ever going to get my tail????"

Opportunity Cost

2008-03-04T21:16:00.003-05:00

All this high-falutin' book-learning is going to my head. Although I am studying physics and not economics, all the random never-used trivia I picked up somehow during my first try at college (how, I'm not sure, as I rarely went to class or read a textbook) is coming back to me at odd moments. Just now, for example, I was weighing (get it, weighing?) my desire for potato chips against my desire not to be fat to the point of resembling a marine mammal, and I realized that the opportunity cost of NOT eating the chips is just too high. I want the chips more than I want to fit through doorways, apparently. Surely self-knowledge is a good thing.

So little to say, so little time

2008-03-02T22:31:00.003-05:00

My thoughts are fleeting at best, and mostly interrupted with fragments of physics equations that I can never quite follow to the answer. I often marvel at the fact that I managed a bachelor's degree at all the first time around, with the atrocious study skills and lazy ass class avoidance habits I had - I haven't missed a class this semester and I do my homework days in advance and STILL I find physics to be as close to incomprehensible as I'd imagine arabic or hungarian or russian to be.

My lovely husband tivo'd Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves for me, and we're watching it now. It's a bit of a disillusionment to see how god-awful it is - I was 15 when it came out and thought it the height of romance and good story-telling. I remember riding around with my friends and listening to my cassette single of the awful theme song by Bryan Adams, and just hoping one day I'd find love as true as Robin and Marion's. I suppose my husband will have to do.

What else is happening? February has flown and March always feels like the real start of the new year to me. The zoo is reopened, and the four year old is looking forward to seeing real tortoises in action ("I'm a little nervous," he confessed, but he still can't wait). We have birthdays and spring breaks and Easter upcoming, longer days and shorter nights (the nights seem plenty short already, I'm beginning to look forward to the twins' departure for college as the next sure time I can sleep through the night).

I also have a new theory about why women live longer, on average, than men. If the last years of a full lifespan are spent gradually losing your context, then men have at least a decade's head start. My husband (and sons, too, actually) couldn't find the couch he's sitting on without a map, for example. My mother, who is not old but aspires to be, is getting to be almost as bad. She opened the freezer yesterday to check our stockpile of butter and grumbled as she closed the door that she can't find anything in there - I opened the door myself and was immediately confronted with a bright yellow box reading "BUTTER" in big letters on the side. Crazy old bat (I say that with love).

Things are all so comfortable and pleasant, I half-fear that the other shoe will somehow drop, but it's hard to sustain paranoia when life feels so good. It does leave less to complain about, though - I'll try to find more to write about despite the absence of grievances.

Little boys are weird

2008-02-23T18:29:00.002-05:00

I always knew I wanted kids, but somehow I imagined myself with a large family of mostly girls. I am still sometimes surprised by the reality of life with four boys, and the huge differences between the boys and girls. I can't believe there was a whole generation back in the 70s and 80s that asserted that there are no innate differences between the sexes. And people say the drugs now are strong.

The kids had two days off from school this week - Monday for that trumped-up commercial joke of a holiday, Presidents' Day, and yesterday for...rain. Cold rain. Whatever. It's meant a lot of togetherness with public enemy number one, aka my 6 year old. Monday was possibly my worst day ever with him, which is certainly saying something. Yesterday was surprisingly not awful, leading me to hope that things were improving in the me-envying-mother-cats-who-can-eat-their-young area. Today, he has reverted to type, being mean as a snake to his brother, having extremely selective hearing, and throwing shit all over the house how hard is this goddamned rule DO NOT THROW SHIT IN THE HOUSE. We still have a broken window from 2 years ago - when home repairs are undertaken at this glacial speed, it's just good sense not to encourage projectiles in the house, right?

Against all logic, I let the 6 year old have two friends over for a sleepover tonight. Also against all logic, so far it's going really well. Sometimes adding kids really does make things easier (something I often tell people who seem surprised by our herd, but sometimes I wonder if it's true). Favorite moments so far include three half naked heathens streaking through the kitchen and into the bathroom, led by 6 year old yelling "follow me! into the shower!" A few minutes later, I heard the 4 year old tell his little brother, "push my nipple and see what happens." As of this typing, there is screaming and thumping coming from upstairs, but it seems to be of the happy variety. So far, anyway.

My life in bullets

2008-02-12T12:29:00.000-05:00

I've had good intentions and poor follow-through on my blog this month. Topics I've meant to write about and haven't (and almost certainly won't get around to at this point):

Taking classes (I'm awesome! All 100%s so far!)
Teaching a class (big suck, hate it this semester, not doing it again)
The primary election (I just voted, after changing my mind about who to vote for at least 37 times in the past week)
Tae Kwon Do (enrolled 2 of the boys, and it seems to be making them lovely, who knew, crazy 4 year old even wore clothes with a face on them, unprecedented)
Bingo ("Balls!" I went on Saturday and am totally hooked, must go again soon, totally worth the money just to see the bizarre subculture even when you don't win)
Volunteering (still awesome, excellent motivation not to do drugs/go insane/drive into things/walk drunk down dark streets in front of traffic)
The twins (trying to wean, still not sleeping, cute but speechless, girl peed on the potty twice but then lost interest)

See how much I talk to you all in my head? Isn't it faster to just get the Clif's Notes like this?

Me and Percy

2008-02-01T17:24:00.000-05:00

I finally named the cat. We got him in September, and never settled on a name. My friend and her kids call him Cookie, because of the way I obtained him (from a stranger in a car at the park, just as we warn children not to take things). A couple of my children call him Panther, which is actually a pretty good name for him, as he is large and black and half-wild. Most of us just call him Kitty, but as he seems to double in size each week, that's starting to seem silly. This week, as the stupid cat tried over and over to get into my water glass, it occurred to me that his most distinctive character trait is persistence - maddening, insane persistence. Thus he has become Percy, at least to me. Percy, the cat of a thousand names.

It dawned on me this morning that I have a narrow but distinctive persistent streak myself (persistent sounds so much nicer than stubborn). I've always thought of myself as fairly wishy-washy, but on the few occasions that I actually commit myself to a goal, I don't let much deter me. Including common sense. I seem to have set myself just such a goal with this medical school madness. This morning, after being up almost literally all night with a stomach virus that left everyone else after 24 hours but really really likes me and does not want to leave, I drove to school at 7am in ice and rain, only to discover that the college had a one hour delay. I made good use of the delay in the bathroom in the student union (I'd better be thinner after this), and then proceeded to my 2 hour physics class, where I had to engage way more actively than my tired, dehydrated, ill body wanted me to in an experiment involving a bowling ball. I made it through without any horrifying incontinence-related emergencies, then returned to my car, only to discover that I had forgotten to hang my parking pass and had therefore received a ticket. And despite this, I fully intend to go back for more on Monday. Although hopefully without being a host for 8 zillion nasty stomach viruses.

My summary of the State of the Union farce

2008-01-28T21:33:00.000-05:00

"Lean to the right, Lean to the...right, stand up, robots, FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT!"

Scene: the US Capitol building
Bush: blah blah blah
Republicans: leap to their feet and clap
(Repeat, ad nauseum)

Who's still thinking it's a good idea to hitch their cart to this jackass in an election year?

--------------------------------------------------
This just in: Dumbhole Dubya just said "our foreign policy is based on a clear premise"

I stopped listening to type this, so I don't know what his actual premise summary was, but I think the truth lies somewhere between the guesses in our living room:

My guess: "We're the boss of you"
My husband's guess: "We don't like brown people."

I'm officially old

2008-01-22T22:58:00.000-05:00

I'm officially starting in-class pre-requisites next week (my organic chemistry class was online), so I went to the college today to pay tuition, buy books, get my ID, etc. My first indicator that I wasn't in Kansas (aka, the real live gwown-up world) anymore was the mile long line of prepubescent-looking fellow students at the bursar's office. To add insult to the injury of the long, young line, I appeared to be the only person actually giving money to the college. Everyone else was getting some kind of rebate. Lame. Do kids still say lame?

While I was in the only-old-people-pay line, I talked briefly with a life-sized Barbie doll, done up in full makeup and very fancy clothes to get her mystery rebate. The conversation went like this:

Barbie: Are you a transfer student?
Me: (incredulously) No, I'm old.
Barbie: Yeah, I know, but you could still be a transfer.

Yeah, I know? Biyotch.

And then, the final blow. After paying my tuition, I walked the 6 miles uphill in the snow (it was literally snowing, and uphill, but probably only felt like 6 miles) to the building where one gets one's student ID (because why put all adminstrative functions in one building?). I filled out my application form and stood in yet another line, then gave my form to the clerk. Her first question? "Have you been to HR yet?" It took me a minute, but then I realized what she meant and answered, "no, I'm not faculty, I'm a student."

Next week should be interesting.

My husband thinks I'm insane

2008-01-19T22:24:00.000-05:00

In my ongoing quest for ways to make myself a more appealing med school candidate, despite my sub-par undergrad GPA (what I'd really like to do is a Jedi-mind-trick-style wave of the hand and say, these are the grades you're looking for), I have been researching international volunteer opportunities. Not only would it be supercool to travel to unlikely places (Mongolia! Moldova! other random places starting with the letter M!), but I could learn interesting things, possibly actually help people, look good on my med school applications, and join the movement toward volunteer tourism (the Today Show said there is such a movement, so it must be true).

My favorite international volunteerism website so far is Projects Abroad - in addition to volunteer opportunities in healthcare, teaching, etc, you can choose to do immersion language in a foreign country. Now THAT would be awesome. I really want to actually speak Spanish, especially because I'm always called upon at the hospital to talk to the Spanish-speaking patients, even though my Spanish is so poor that the patients and staff alike mock my efforts (and yet I'm the best speaker we have, scary). So, now the idea has evolved into me and my husband taking a two week vacation to some lovely remote location to learn a valuable skill together. Romantic, right? Sadly, my husband isn't feeling the love. A few of his choicer comments, made after I mentioned Senegal as a possible destination (I'm afraid these may reveal some unfortunate cultural biases on the part of my husband, which is a little funny considering I had to tell him where Senegal is):

"Just what i wanted - a starving vacation where I don't understand anyone and I fear for my life."
"Where is your internet connection? 'Here, put your letter in this camel's hump.'"
"Hello, I am Keith. 'Hi, I'm Al, Al Queda.'"

He also tried to talk me out of my plan by asking if this was all in reaction to my aborted attempt, earlier in the day, to purchase some pretty clothes for my daughter on sale from Gymboree, home of strangely addicting and yet ridiculously priced children's clothing. He interrupted my discussion of the appeal of India to say, "would buying some red patent-leather shoes make this better?" I'm afraid we've passed the point where small red shoes can deter me. Although they are really cute, and I may have to get them also.

Other highlights of my day included a nap, a change from old pajamas to new pajamas (the hallmark of a truly decadent day), an abysmal failure in culinary adventure (don't ever try this recipe, it was putrescent), and a moment of agony in which I brilliantly poured boiling water not into the sink but rather onto my feet. Quite painful.

Off to peruse more volunteer websites. Can you hear my husband groaning?

I'm feeling underwhelmed

2008-01-18T20:51:00.000-05:00

In a good way. I have lots of things going on - I'm a dabbler - but I feel happier and more free than I can remember ever being. It's entirely due to the enviable amount of support I get. I could never follow my bliss like this without a sugar daddy (my husband) to pay the bills and a free servant (my mother) to watch my kids and house.

I spent six hours at the hospital today. I know this is the right road for me, because I'm always disappointed when it's time to go, even when my back is breaking and my feet are aching and I've seen more horrific things that I never want to happen to me in one afternoon than I even imagined in my first 31 years of life. I'm looking forward to learning the art and science of medicine, but so far my hospital exposure has taught me more about myself than anything else. I've learned that I have a strong stomach and more curiosity than I thought. Most surprisingly, I've learned that I'm fairly patient and good with people, at least in small doses and short bursts. When I'm volunteering, I often end up "babysitting" patients who need a little extra care - because of excessive pain, or mental illness, or general neediness. I wouldn't have pegged myself as all that kind, but it's rewarding to see people chill out just because I'm holding their hands. It would be even nicer if such simple tricks worked on my kids.

I have to cut back my volunteering after next week, because school is starting up again. I'm retaking Chemistry I and Physics I, because my advanced age has resulted in my original grades being too old for med school consideration. Maybe this time I'll actually understand something in physics! I'm also teaching another computing class at a local community college. I hope I get as good a group of students this time as I did last time. I should probably start preparing for class. And pay my tuition. And change my volunteer schedule. And get groceries and make doctors' appointments and write a note to the boy's teacher and email the other boy's occupational therapist and clean my house.

No wonder I'm not overwhelmed, I'm not really doing very much after all.

I'm freakin' awesome

2008-01-11T17:28:00.000-05:00

I got an A- in Organic Chemistry! I was so excited when I got my grade, I did a little dance including jazz hands that greatly entertained my friends at the hospital (I was volunteering when I got my grade). I feel like now I'm really and truly going to be a doctor, because I survived the first hurdle. Physics I and Chemistry I ought to be nothing after this, right? Right?

God, I hate Physics.

But yay me!!!!

My weekly update

2008-01-10T22:17:00.000-05:00

I'm sure I'll be glad for the writer's strike once school starts back up and I don't have the distraction of new shows, but I'm missing good TV during my month-long hiatus. Of course, I could opt to use this time for personal enrichment or cleaning the house or going through the absolute avalanche of clothes in the children's rooms (only about 5% of which actually fit the children currently and, in the case of a certain insane 4 year old, do not have any designs on them), but naturally I'm choosing to just watch stupid reality shows and reruns and whine.

I'm also continuing my obsessive reading about all things med-school related. It's fun and new to me to be so interested in something for so long that is not a man or a child. I write practice personal statements in the shower, review calculus from library books in preparation for physics (god help me, I hate physics). I was beginning to get pretty seriously discouraged this week, when it became apparent that the final exam I took for my distance learning organic chemistry class on December 20 was just not making it to its final destination. The prospect of possibly having to retake the 4 hour exam was not pleasant. I spoke with people at both the proctoring service and the distance learning university several times, and finally lost my cool with one of them this morning - miraculously, 5 minutes later she called to say that the exam was sitting in their mail room and had never been sent. It does seem to me that if the job of a proctoring service is just to watch you take a test and then mail it, they ought to actually DO the mailing, but I'm so relieved that it isn't forever eaten by the postal system I guess I'll get over it. Of course, now I have to begin waiting in earnest for my grade - I hope I don't regret hounding them to find the test.

My new toy

2008-01-03T20:54:00.000-05:00

I am typing this post from what is probably my favorite thing I have ever owned - my supercute crazy tiny PINK laptop. Now I HAVE to get straight As, right?

Have I mentioned lately how much I love my husband? It's not enough that he supports my crazy doctor dream, he also buys me little pink electronics. Woohoo!

Update: I realized after I posted that this picture makes the laptop look really big. It's like 8"x6". It's MINI. It's like a big iPod. I love it!

Parenting lessons

2008-01-03T14:47:00.000-05:00

I am being unusually lazy today, even for me. It's freezing, and I have a headache, and there's nothing I have to do, so I'm opting to do nothing. I love doing nothing sometimes. I'll be busy enough in a month, when school starts back up for me (both teaching and taking classes), so I can rationalize soaking up the sloth now. Not that I can't always justify it, it's just easier right now.

Sadly, my 4 year old did not get the Mommy-gets-to-do-nothing-today memo. He wants me to play inane autistic games involving wood block armies and tinkertoy ship building - all well and good for brief periods of time, but unsustainable as all-day activity to a fully functioning brain. Hush, my brain is TOO fully functioning. So, I resorted to sort of just ignoring him (muttering "uh-huh" at intervals) and hoping he'd find an imaginary friend to play with instead. When this strategy backfired (he just got closer and closer to my face, asking questions like "you don't want to mess wif a fairy, right?"), I reached for that old parenting-excellence mainstay, the remote control.

Alas, I could not find it. Rather than channel (get it, channel?) my irritated energy into interacting with the boy, I spent the next 10 minutes tearing up the living room, finally emerging triumphant with my prize from under the couch. So now, there is peace in our time. I love the Backyardigans.

And there's today's parenting lesson, from me to you: never lose the remote.

Big girl, big dreams

2008-01-01T21:36:00.000-05:00

I have been completely unmotivated regarding weight loss this past year, due to a combination of extreme sleep deprivation and unintentional weight loss through breastfeeding. The weight loss has tapered off now, though (and actually reversed some over the holidays), and I'm temporarily food-averse because of this lingering nasty stomach bug, and it's New Year's, and The Biggest Loser is on (although I'm fairly certain I'm the biggest loser for watching it). So, now I'm thinking thin, or at least less thick. I'm even considering trying to start running, using one of those couch-to-5K programs. I know, it's madness.

While I'm being semi-resolute, here are some other self-improvement plans I've been mulling over from my invalid state on the couch this week:

Better parenting - I started the effort on this one tonight with new house rules and a clearly laid-out daily routine for ~~Spazzy McGee~~ my 6 year old.
Better organization - I bought a purse calendar and everything! I'm finally conceding that six kids plus no memory requires a written schedule.
Staying in touch - I need to make a better effort to let all of my friends know how much and how often I think of them, especially the ones I don't talk to often.
Scholastic perfection - This year kicks off my real push toward medical school, and I need to be as close to perfect as possible to make up for a rough undergraduate record.

I swear there were more - I guess I'm not really all that motivated to pursue them if I can't remember them, though. Can you believe it's 2008? I LOVE 2008!

Goodbye, 2007

2007-12-31T18:34:00.000-05:00

2007 is ending with a whine for me, instead of a bang or a whimper. Well, there may be a little whimpering. I have seamlessly (though not soundlessly) transitioned from fever and mucus to fever and stomach cramps (with some residual mucus), all compounded by a hellish visit from, how shall I put this, (cover your eyes, father-in-law) my monthly visitor. God help everyone who comes in contact with me, I am a whiny bitchy nightmare.

I'm very much looking forward to 2008, though, and not just because my stomach has to settle down at some point in the next 365 days. This will be the first year of my life that I've entered with a firm sense of purpose regarding career direction. My children are all well and mostly happy, my husband is lovely, my mother enables me in a wonderful way, I have amazing friends, and I have freedom of choice in just about everything I do, which I recognize as a very rare gift. Combine being able to do just about whatever I want and actually knowing what that is, and I'm a very lucky girl.

And, since I'm silver-lining-mining, this stomach bug is launching my annual effort to stop resembling a marine mammal nicely. I ought to shed those 5 holiday pounds in no time.

Sure is quiet around here

2007-12-28T20:51:00.001-05:00

And I'm not even just talking about the deafening silence of my blog. My love and nemesis, the six year old, is off on a 4 day jaunt to the beach with his stepsiblings and their family. It is simply amazing how much easier my little three are to watch without the human noise egging them on to shrieks and stupidity, and how much less is the ringing in my ears without his incessant tonsil-less drone. What really is surprising, though, is how much I miss the little bugger. The vacancy he leaves is as large as you'd imagine, but more poignant than I predicted. I hope he's doing okay. Brave little toaster.

In other news, our Christmas was good. I remember how pointless and brief Christmas seemed to me during the years between childhood and childbearing. Christmas with my herd of monkeys is joy and chaos, the constant frenetic effort of weeks paying off in 30 minutes of flying paper and shrill happy voices. I caught my husband's cold just as I finished the last absolutely necessary task of holiday preparation and collapsed happily enough into my fever and mucus, grateful even through my whining that it hadn't hit me even a day earlier.

I leave you all with the Christmas picture I never got around to making into cards this year. Better late than never, right?

A meme from Cole

2007-12-14T21:13:00.000-05:00

01. Bought everyone in the bar a drink
02. Swam with wild dolphins
03. Climbed a mountain
04. Taken a Ferrari for a test drive
05. Been inside the Great Pyramid
06. Held a tarantula
07. Taken a candlelit bath with someone
08. Said “I love you” and meant it
09. Hugged a tree
10. Bungee jumped
11. Visited Paris
12. Watched a lightning storm at sea
13. Stayed up all night long and saw the sun rise
14. Seen the Northern Lights
15. Gone to a huge sports game
16. Walked the stairs to the top of the leaning Tower of Pisa
17. Grown and eaten your own vegetables
18. Touched an iceberg
19. Slept under the stars
20. Changed a baby’s diaper
21. Taken a trip in a hot air balloon
22. Watched a meteor shower (in a pond at night)
23. Gotten drunk on champagne
24. Given more than you can afford to charity
25. Looked up at the night sky through a telescope
26. Had an uncontrollable giggling fit at the worst possible moment
27. Had a food fight
28. Bet on a winning horse
29. Asked out a stranger
30. Had a snowball fight
31. Screamed as loudly as you possibly can
32. Held a lamb
33. Seen a total eclipse
34. Ridden a roller coaster
35. Hit a home run
36. Danced like a fool and didn’t care who was looking
37. Adopted an accent for an entire day
38. Actually felt happy about your life, even for just a moment
39. Had two hard drives for your computer
40. Visited all 50 states
41. Taken care of someone who was drunk
42. Had amazing friends
43. Danced with a stranger in a foreign country
44. Watched whales
45. Stolen a sign
46. Backpacked in Europe
47. Taken a road-trip
48. gone rock climbing
49. Midnight walk on the beach
50. Gone sky diving
51. Visited Holland
52. Been heartbroken longer than you were actually in love
53. In a restaurant, sat at a stranger’s table and had a meal with them
54. Visited Culebra
55. Milked a cow
56. Alphabetized your CDs
57. Pretended to be a superhero
58. Sung karaoke
59. Lounged around in bed all day
60. Played touch football
61. Gone scuba diving
62. Kissed in the rain
63. Played in the mud
64. Played in the rain
65. Gone to a drive-in theater
66. Visited the Great Wall of China
67. Started a business
68. Fallen in love and not had your heart broken
69. Toured ancient sites
70. Taken a martial arts class
71. Played D&D for more than 6 hours straight
72. Gotten married
73. Been in a movie
74. Crashed a party
75. Gotten divorced
76. Gone without food for 5 days
77. Made cookies from scratch
78. Won first prize in a costume contest
79. Ridden a gondola in Venice
80. Gotten a tattoo
81. Rafted the Snake River
82. Been on television news programs as an “expert”
83. Gotten flowers for no reason
84. Performed on stage
85. Been to Las Vegas
86. Recorded music
87. Eaten shark
88. Kissed on the first date
89. Gone to Thailand
90. Bought a house
91. Been in a combat zone
92. Buried one/both of your parents
93. Been on a cruise ship
94. Spoken more than one language fluently
95. Performed in Rocky Horror
96. Raised children (in the process)
97. Followed your favorite band/singer on tour
98. Passed out cold
99. Taken an exotic bicycle tour in a foreign country
100. Picked up and moved to another city to just start over
101. Walked the Golden Gate Bridge
102. Sang loudly in the car, and didn’t stop when you knew someone was looking
103. Had plastic surgery
104. Survived an accident that you shouldn’t have survived
105. Wrote articles for a large publication
106. Lost over 100 pounds
107. Held someone while they were having a flashback
108. Piloted an airplane
109. Touched a stingray
110. Broken someone’s heart
111. Helped an animal give birth
112. Won money on a T.V. game show
113. Broken a bone
114. Gone on an African photo safari
115. Had a facial part pierced other than your ears
116. Fired a rifle, shotgun, or pistol
117. Eaten mushrooms that were gathered in the wild
118. Ridden a horse
119. Had major surgery
120. Had a snake as a pet
121. Hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon
122. Slept for more than 30 hours over the course of 48 hours
123. Visited more foreign countries than U.S. states
124. Visited all 7 continents
125. Taken a canoe trip that lasted more than 2 days
126. Eaten kangaroo meat
127. Eaten sushi
128. Had your picture in the newspaper
129. Changed someone’s mind about something you care deeply about
130. Gone back to school
131. Parasailed
132. Touched a cockroach
133. Eaten fried green tomatoes
134. Read The Iliad - and the Odyssey
135. Selected one “important” author who you missed in school, and read
136. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
137. Skipped all your school reunions
138. Communicated with someone without sharing a common spoken language
139. Been elected to public office
140. Written your own computer language
141. Thought to yourself that you’re living your dream
142. Had to put someone you love into hospice care
143. Built your own PC from parts
144. Sold your own artwork to someone who didn’t know you
145. Had a booth at a street fair
146. Dyed your hair
147. Been a DJ
148. Shaved your head
149. Caused a car accident
150. Saved someone’s life

That was really fun, you all should do it! I'm too lazy to elaborate on all/any of them, so post questions in the comments if you simply must know more.

A Long December

2007-12-07T23:38:00.000-05:00

The holidays are taking their time reaching my grinchy heart this year, and I keep thinking sad and kind of hopeless thoughts. I've started listening to NPR in the car, which is not helping - whether the topic is this criminal administration or the too-long-ignored crisis of global warming, just driving around town is starting to affect my blood pressure. I am thinking too long and hard about big things I can't fix, can't even touch, and I'm starting to shrink in my own view. And then here at home, with my children to ground me and make me feel present and necessary, I am fretful and ineffectively concerned about someone I love. Her sadness is as big and far from my reach as anything on NPR.

For Christmas this year, I have more wishes to give than gifts. My wishes for my friend: That your sentence of grief is not long, and that time blunts the edge of pain soon, so you can visit your sweeter memories without getting hurt. That the world surprises you with moments of grace and beauty, now while you're doubting its capacity for goodness. That the friends and family you nurture so lovingly are able to reach you through your sorrow, so you know you're never alone.

Shark Puppies: The unspoken global warming threat

2007-12-05T18:52:00.000-05:00

I am experiencing a return of the mysterious North American Sleeping Sickness I contracted last month, so I took a coma-like 3 hour nap this afternoon. During my blissful escape into unconsciousness, I had a very vivid dream. Global warming had proceeded apace, and I was walking along an icy shoreline with a leading scientist-of-the-future, who explained to me that climate change had resulted in a drastic evolutionary leap in sharks. The sharks, who were swimming conveniently right at the edge of the land so we could observe them, were now all having live birth, and their young lived on land and looked like puppies. While we spoke, one of the sharks had some of the aforementioned shark puppies, which were cute and round and black and brown, and the puppies started frolicking on the beach. My children, who appeared at this point as if from nowhere, were naturally drawn to the cute baby creatures, which then turned and bared their horrifying shark teeth, scaring the holy bejesus out of me and the kids. I really wish I had any artistic ability, because the vision of the gnashed-teeth shark puppies is really haunting me. Maybe I'll give it a shot later, I don't want to deprive anyone else of the horror.

Thoughts on a tragedy

2007-12-02T18:48:00.000-05:00

I had four majors in four years as an undergraduate, which should come as no surprise to people who know me well - I'm not terribly decisive. My sophomore year major was Political Science. In typical young-liberal fashion, I was determined to change the world, and I thought the best way to do so was from inside the system with which I found so much fault. I wasn't sure if I wanted to go to law school or run for office or start a grass-roots change organization, but my enthusiasm waned quickly as I saw more and more seemingly insurmountable problems and felt my own smallness.

I still feel that uncomfortable mix of cowardice and helplessness when confronted with social issues that move my soul and turn my stomach. In this, the most powerful country in the world, there is so much simple human unkindness, so many things that would be different if only we could all agree to look out for each other. So many laws that try to be one-size-fits-all and end up suiting no one well. So many stupid rulings from stupid old men who choose convention and ingrained misogyny over compassion and common sense.

One such topic that has touched close to home recently in horrific fashion is domestic violence. In a nation that often seems to adopt "every man for himself" as its motto, women and children are far too often left with no place left to turn, trapped in lives of fear and secrecy. When a woman does muster up strength I can only imagine and leaves her abuser to save herself and her kids, she is almost entirely on her own. The few laws that are set up to protect her are weak and ineffectively enforced. If she tries to get child support (often desperately needed) and/or gets a restraining order (because the abuse and threats almost always escalate when she leaves), the abuser all too often uses her temerity as an excuse to snap entirely, and front-page tragedies ensue that leave pundits shaking their hands and wondering, dumbly, how this happened.

Isn't it obvious how this happened, how this keeps happening? If a man assaulted someone to whom he was not related, he would likely serve jail time. If he threatened a politician, he'd be locked up just for the threat and charged with terrorism. If he stalked a movie star, the star would get private security to supplement the extra police protection. But if he hurts his wife, his children, our society still turns a blind eye. If he threatens them, the woman has to choose whether to disappear (in defiance of laws protecting the man's rights to visitation, regardless of the heinousness of his crimes) or to try to live as normally as possible, hoping reason finds the unreasonable. If he kills them, some sick people will say the woman drove him to it with her unreasonable demands for support and security.

I don't have the answer. I hope smarter people do. This Christmas, in lieu of gifts to many of my nearest and dearest, I will be donating money to The Heartly House. I encourage everyone to consider donating to a group doing similarly critical work to protect mothers and children, either locally or at a national level. This Christmas, I'll be even more thankful for the serenity of my home and the safety of my children.

A Weird Week

2007-11-27T19:25:00.000-05:00

We had a lovely, relaxing Thanksgiving with friends, but tragedy struck just once-removed the next day and I've felt useless and sad ever since. It's not my tragedy, but I love my friend and I hate how sad she is and how helpless I am to do anything to make her feel better.

And (much less importantly), my husband is out of town on business tonight and I hate that. He should always be within fetching distance (as in, please fetch me ice cream, please fetch me a blanket, please fetch me a valium). My children have been shockingly unloathesome while he's been gone, so that's one bright spot. And here's another...

Today, I was doing a phone interview with some people who used my 4 year old son in a research study recently (I have a lot of kids, might as well loan them out as lab rats, right?). The woman asked if my boy knew what to do in case of an emergency.

Me: I don't know, let me ask him. Buddy, what do you do if there's an emergency?
Boy: Call the police.
Me: Yes, but how do you call the police?
Boy (emphatically): You dial SIX SIX SIX.

If ever I needed proof that my children are more than usually wicked, here it is.

I'm officially lazy. Also, I still hate George Bush.

2007-11-21T21:20:00.000-05:00

My bloodwork from last week finally came back (and I only had to call the office three times - anyone have a primary care physician recommendation for me?), and everything was completely fine. I still feel like the victim of a slow-motion underwater mugging, but apparently I'm just really really lazy. I can live with that, I guess. This whole adventure has reminded me just how much I can't stand doctors, by and large. Kind of masochistic to want to be one, huh?

My big boy had a political discussion with two of his friends during carpool today - they were comparing notes on why George Bush is a bad guy. It's a little sad that the 6 year old set has it more together than the 30% of Americans still giving this yahoo an approval rating, isn't it? The latest in my personal loathing has to do with the opening of military airspace to facilitate holiday travel. It offends me that the White House doesn't even pretend to hide their own hypocrisy. We're in constant and imminent danger from terrorism, to a degree that requires us to suspend the Geneva convention, wage preemptive war, and invade citizens' privacy, but Thanksgiving travel transcends our need for secure airspace? It's like the last vestige of an actual defensive military has now been removed - our military is now officially only for offense. As long as no one's late for dinner tomorrow, I guess our security doesn't matter that much after all. And of course, we have to advertise the opening of the airspace. I sometimes get the feeling that the whole crowd running the country right now are thumbing their collective nose at the rest of the world, including and maybe especially American citizens.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Sappy

2007-11-16T22:53:00.000-05:00

I can always think of a lot to say when things are going wrong. When life is good, though, how many ways can you say that? The twins still don't sleep, but I think I've given up on it - I actually can't imagine sleeping through the night any more. I'm still crazy tired, but I should get the lab results back next week, and in the meantime I'm eating a lot of meat in case of anemia and giving myself more than the usual license for laziness. Except for those two chronic items (which may just be two sides of the same coin - I suppose not sleeping for years could lead to fatigue), my life feels really comfortable right now. Bad things happen all the time, across the world and right in the neighborhood, but I have family and friends, everything I need and most of what I really want. Everywhere I look I feel lucky.

More about my so-called life

2007-11-13T19:15:00.000-05:00

I loved that show. Still love Claire Danes. Dumbest network cancellation ever. But, as usual, I digress.

When I'm driving around or working at the hospital or sitting in class, I think of general interest topics to blog about, but when I have a few minutes to type, all I can think of is my own daily crap. I should rename my blog that - my daily crap. Although that sounds more scatalogical than I intended.

On the school front, I have yet another new master plan. I really like this one, actually. I figured out that since I have to do all the pre-requisites again anyway, I'll only be 6 classes from a second bachelor's degree (in chemistry), so I'm going to go ahead and enroll as a degree-seeking student and follow that track. The advantages are preferential registration and the appearance (I hope) to medical school admissions staff that I have goal-seeking abilities. Or something. Plus, more degrees! It's a little weird, because I started out college a million years ago wanting to major in chemistry, and now I've come back around to it. In one sense, it feels like completion or some circle of life crap, and on the other hand it feels like I kind of just wasted 15 years. I guess I'll try to focus on the former.

Unfortunately for the new master plan or any activity at all, I've been feeling really horribly run down the last few weeks, even for me. Yes, I'm busy, and no, I don't sleep, but this is ridiculous. I'm tired while I'm sleeping. It's bad enough that I actually went to the doctor today (for someone who wants to be a doctor, I'm very doctor-averse). I have a raft of bloodwork to do tomorrow (have to do it fasting). Hopefully it's just anemia or my thyroid gone wonky or mono and not something hideous.

So, that's the update. I'm full of ambition and exhaustion. Weird combination, not exactly designed for success.

Discouraged and cranky

2007-11-06T20:50:00.000-05:00

I'm having a very grumpy day, kick-started by a very long night of screaming by wretched boy twin, who is implementing his own brand of daylight savings in the form of staying up all night. In addition, big boy was off school today because of the election and was on my very. last. nerve. all day. PMS may also be a factor in the mood extravaganza. The biggest piece of the grumpy-ass pie, though, has to be the information I got today from the med school where I want to go, which indicates that I need to retake 3 classes I was told a few months ago I do NOT need to retake, due to their (and my) advanced age. Crappity crap crap crap. So now I have to revise my whole plan again, and my dream is starting to feel more like a hallucination (an hallucination?), like a fading mirage.

To paraphrase Forrest Gump, sometimes there just isn't enough chocolate.

A much better week

2007-11-02T20:44:00.000-04:00

I'm feeling much better, the kids are almost entirely well, my good friend's birthday is Sunday (woohoo, the big 30!), and I got to observe a surgery today. I love love love working at the hospital, and the tech I report to said Wednesday that I should look into getting on the payroll. How cool is that? As excited as I am about the whole doctoring thing, though, I've decided to go back to my original plan of applying for entrance in 2010 - yeek, that sounds far away. It's for the best, though, will allow me to take prereqs more gradually (and hopefully do better at them), prepare more for the MCAT, volunteer more, teach more, oh, and spend more time with my kids. I like them a lot lately. Weird, huh? Oh, and the clincher - if I take an extra year with the prereqs, I'll graduate from med school in 2014 instead of 2013. So clearly it's meant to be.

Halloween was a lot of fun, courtesy of friends who rise to the occasion of holidays and don't just act stunned when the holidays appear as if with no warning like I do. Now to figure out Thanksgiving. You'd think after 31 years, I wouldn't be so shocked by the regular progression of time.

I've had all these bloggy thoughts lately but haven't been on the computer much. Mostly I've been studying organic chemistry, to the point that I'm dreaming of molecular formulas and thinking of human relationships in terms of parallel hydrocarbons. That can't be healthy, right? I actually like the class, though. I swear I can feel synapses firing in parts of my brain that were atrophied from disuse.

Candy

2007-10-25T21:50:00.001-04:00

I was just struck by the contrast between my youthful dreams and my current, middle-agey ones. I found myself wishing, with real fervency, that I could eat limitless numbers of Reese's cups without becoming ill or obese. I think if a genie came to me right now, I'd be torn between using my one wish for world peace and using it for a Reese's cup free-for-all.

It's been a weird, kind of awful week. Yesterday I ended up in an ambulance with girl twin after her croup caused respiratory distress. That was probably the single worst moment of my whole life. Tonight, I spent three hours at the doctor's office myself to find out I have pneumonia. No wonder I feel like death. At least now I have the justification I needed to sit on the couch and eat junk food for the next couple days. Mmmm, Reese's cups.

I may already be dead

2007-10-22T23:17:00.001-04:00

It's funny that when my kids have runny noses, I get annoyed by the constant drip and ick and whine and think they should just suck it up it's just a damn cold get over it already, but when I have a cold, it really does seem like a fairly serious matter capable of moderate to severe life-disruption. I'm not sure if this is a cold or the flu, but the symptoms include severe headache, inability to breathe, joints hurting, feeling of extreme heat, and incessant bitching about the aforementioned everything.

Oh, and that feeling of extreme heat? My regular body temperature is pretty low (around 97), and I almost never get fevers, but I feel like such complete crap that I was sure THIS time I'd broken triple digits. Took my temp, and it's 96.6. If I were a cadaver, they'd estimate my time of death as hours ago.

Xenophobia

2007-10-18T19:16:00.000-04:00

I almost never watch the news, because...well, partially because I almost never control the remote, and partially because my attention span is really short. Tonight was an exception, and two of the stories during the half hour broadcast were about people freaking about about the dilution of their culture by immigration and tourism. One story focused on Switzerland and one on Tibet. In both cases, the representative xenophobes waxed on, in English, about how all the foreigners were marginalizing their culture (which, if I am not mistaken, does not include English primarily in its purest form in either case), and worrying that their way of life would be lost forever.

It seems to me that a static culture is doomed as surely as a static language - if you don't want your country to be the national equivalent of Latin, you may want to start embracing change. What is the obsession with preserving the status quo? Is this time and place so complete and perfect that keeping it immutable is of more value than honoring the rights of others? Literacy seems to be the answer here - if you love the here and now, preserve its memory in writing and pictures, but don't try to fix it in time.

When I do watch the news, I frequently find myself saying what I all too often resort to saying the boys - "don't be a jerk." How many of the world's problems would be resolved if people could just pull the sticks from their asses and mind their own business?

They like me, they really like me

2007-10-18T19:08:00.000-04:00

I have this vague feeling I've used this title before, but I'm always up for some positive reinforcement, so I'll let it stand. I'm halfway through my first semester teaching an Intro to Computing class at a local community college, and I feel like I've finally hit my stride. I really enjoy my students, and today one of them told me that mine is his favorite class. He said it in a very non-Eddie Haskell way, too. I'm pitifully easy to please - I've been replaying it all day. Yay me, I don't suck!

Should have known better

2007-10-14T22:30:00.000-04:00

I've been doing well with my stupid organic chemistry class, but chapter 5 wasn't making any sense to me. Since I'm a logical person (ha!), I made the considered choice to just take the chapter quiz even though I had no idea what the fuck the insane incoherent asshole who wrote the textbook was even talking about. Because at least if the quiz was over, I could move on to something else, something that just could. not. suck as much as alkene/alkyne reactions and transition states and rate-determining bullshit. Predictably, I did not do very well on the quiz, and now my mood has shifted from post-good-weekend happy to maybe-I-can't-do-this-after-all despair. Lame, lame, lame.

It was a good weekend, though. When I'm over this bitterness, I'll tell you more about it.

Wow, time flies

2007-10-11T22:18:00.000-04:00

I've been a little preoccupied lately. Boy twin had a double-ear infection followed by a new molar and girly got FOUR teeth and the number of pained bits mentioned there (um, 2+1+4?) is more than the hours of sleep I've had during the same time period. I actually dozed off a little during the masterful crafting of that gem of a sentence. What was I saying? Oh, right. My father-in-law sent me this email, which prompted me to realize that the date of my last post, 10/3, was 8 days ago and not, like, half an hour ago, like I thought it was:

When one begins a blog, doesn't that come with an implied contract that one will keep that blog (somewhat) up to date?

Twice daily is probably unrealistic to expect – but – daily updates are/or should be the norm.
Going three days without updating your personal blog is akin to a child not brushing his/her teeth for three days. Going a week without posting something is just beyond most people's ability to comprehend. What kind of example are you putting forth for your kids? Has anyone thought about contacting child protective services?

Is there a Blog Master to whom this complaint should be directed? Can one get their blogging privileges revoked? Is there a penalty associated with blog-lacking-updates? Does one hear from the Blog Master that they must go back and retroactively update all days for a rolling month period that were missed?

Things I wonder about when I am so busy at work that my head is spinning.

So, since my poor, clearly-overworked father-in-law has put so much thought into it, and since it's his birthday, I will try to step up my game. Step up to the plate. Step...oh, I don't know. Thought I had more stepping cliches in my bag o' tricks. Thought I had a bag o' tricks. May really need some sleep.

So, here's a super-fast, very tired, distracted-by-The-Office update. I should rename this blog "random disjointed updates on my exhausted life." That may be redundant, though, as if you looked into my head, that's about what you'd see. Me trying to even remember what has happened recently. Here it is:

-I love love love volunteering at the hospital. I think I may finally, at the age of 31, have figured out what I really want to do when I grow up.
-I really like teaching my computing class, too. I am a little concerned, though, that I'm either a really bad teacher or my students are really dumb, because I gave the midterm today and they did not do well. Hmm.
-I'm really loving my kids these days. Think there's some correlation between me spending less time at home and liking them more? Another hmm.
-Organic chemistry is hard. When the twins let me doze off for more than ten minutes, I dream of hydrocarbon stereoisomers. I suspect this is not the key to good mental health.
-I've seen two hilarious comedies this week. I almost never see a comedy I like, or any movie all the way through for that matter, so this is a high point for me. The first is Stuck on You, which looked absolutely awful (the premise is that Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear are conjoined twins), but turned out to be not only funny but really sweet. And the other was Knocked Up, which I think we were the last people in America to see but which lived up to its hype.

We've moved on to My Name is Earl now, so I'll end this travesty of a post. I should be studying chemistry, but all the carbons are starting to swim together in front of my eyes.

This war has been brought to you by...

2007-10-03T21:03:00.001-04:00

I registered for an online organic chemistry class last week (from the University of New England, randomly enough, as they were the only ones I found who offered it online), and I got my materials in the mail today and can't wait to get started. My husband is being very supportive. He got the kids to bed and is watching a really boring Ken Burns show so I won't be distracted (sleepy, maybe, but not distracted). The show did catch my attention for a moment, though, when the intro began with this line:

"Corporate funding for The War..."

I seriously thought for a moment that it was a news story and that the Iraq debacle was now being sponsored by AT&T or something, like all of the stupid renamed baseball and football stadiums. I mean, in a world where Candlestick Park is replaced as a name by 3M field, what isn't possible?

Back to my studying. And beating the big boy into submission - he's back in school and resuming his nightly refusal to go. to. bed.

Maybe not a mistake

2007-09-30T15:27:00.000-04:00

Summer's pollution gauze has lifted and the clear blue of fall is far far above us as we sit outside without bitching about heat or bugs. The neighbor uses heavy machinery and yells in Spanish to his friends as they cut down leaves, branches, trunks high above the roofs. My mother watches earnestly, purporting an interest in botany and calling us often to watch as the men leap from branch to cherry-picker and wood crashes past them to the ground.

The babies lurch more quickly and talk to each other in guttural growls only they understand, punctuated more and more often with actual human language. The girl plays with shoes, the boy complains eloquently enough without many words. The little boy fills the vacuum of noise left by his brother's post-operative silence and loves the kitten until it says "me." The big boy is healed by his brother and sister's weekend visit and makes pizza from foam and titans from pixels. The biggest boy is quiet, enigmatic. The big girl is resilient and innocent, still cheerful despite bullying and uncertain supervision.

I read other mothers' blogs and the love shines from them, and I wonder what I'm missing, why my children so often seem like something to survive. This weekend, though, I see it. Sometimes they almost glow.

The tonsils have left the building

2007-09-26T19:16:00.000-04:00

Big boy had his tonsils and adenoids out this morning, and he did better than I could have hoped. Thank goodness. He was brave as anything, and I tried for a brave face too, but I'm glad it's over. It's been less than 12 hours, and he's up and getting himself obscene amounts of ice cream, with much less whining than I feared.

Boy twin, on the other hand, who had no part of his body surgically altered today and who was cleared by the pediatrician just 2 days ago when I took him in because of his excessive freaking bitching and moaning has spent the day, predictably, bitching and moaning. I really do love him, I swear, but he is NOT a pleasant baby most of the time. I keep hoping it's something he'll outgrow, but I feel for his future teachers/spouses/children if this persists. At least I only have 16.5 years left of it, max. Because his butt's going to bounce when I throw him to the curb on his 18th birthday.

I am procrastinating - I need to plan for my class tomorrow (I've been planning a week in advance like Donna recommended, but I fell off the wagon). I'm loving the teaching thing. And my boss said I could have more sections next semester, so yay! I'm going to try to start taking my last four pre-med pre-requisites soon, too, if local colleges would get their butts in gear and post their winter schedules already. I love love love volunteering at the hospital. It's seriously addictive, I never want to leave when I'm there. Hmm, what else can I talk about that doesn't involve grading quizzes? Oh, i just read Water for Elephants, which was really really good. Between it and an elderly patient I worked with the other day, I keep thinking about novel ideas involving old men. Because I'm original like that.

Sigh. Fine, I'll work.