Please stop calling it a “baby bump”. Really, please stop. Stop obsessing about pregnant celebrities and stop, in the name of all that is holy, calling it a baby bump. It makes me want to claw my eyes out.
So I went ahead and checked the list of things I would like to get up at 6 a.m. to do, and I’m pretty sure “drink a fuck-ton of water and then not pee” is not on it.
I’ve been having a weird pain in my ovary so I have to get a pelvic ultrasound. I would just like to ask where I can donate money to a foundation for creating a method of looking at female reproductive organs that doesn’t require women to do the potty dance for a couple hours. Can you hook me up with those guys? Because I want to write them a check.
It’s 2008. I want hover cars, Air McFly’s and an ultrasound that doesn’t require inflating the bladder with water.
Today I participated in the most ridiculously chaotic civic process I have ever encountered. A caucus. Where I grew up, people voted on paper in little booths, like civilized human beings. In Washington, however, the Democratic primary doesn’t actually count, though the state spends millions of dollars on ballots for one anyway.
So today I met at a tiny Episcopalian elementary school kitchen with almost 150 of my neighbors to elect delegates to our county convention. Our precinct had a heavy swing toward Senator Obama, with 9 of our 11 delegates going to Barack. And I am one of them.
I chose to volunteer myself as a delegate for Obama because, for the first time since I have been old enough to vote, a candidate I believe in has a real chance at being president.
I am not going to go into all the reasons why I want Barack Obama to be president. I don’t really want to get into a political discussion. I just want to say that, of the candidates in this race, only Barack Obama could make me sit in a tiny kitchen with 150 people for two hours to convince undecided voters that he should be our president, and I am proud to have the position to stand up for him on April 5th at my county convention with my fellow Obama supporters and say, “yes we can.”
I am beginning to feel I’ve switched lives with some sickly Victorian ingenue. You know the type, perpetually ill with some ambiguous malady like “exhaustion” and given to fainting spells. I am sick for the third time in a month. I literally swooned today, even.
But circumstances would not permit me to stay home from work, because it would have left my department of four down to just my replacement, who still has to ask me questions every 15 minutes. With our manager out with the same flu I have and our buyer out on a personal day, I had to become what I have always hated: the fucking noble asshole who comes to work even though they’re gravely ill and undoubtedly ends up getting everyone else sick.
When my fever hit 102, I gave up all nobility and told New Girl to call me if she had any questions. She never called, so it either all worked out, or she quit. Whatever.
On Monday there is a meeting between two departments to fight over my time. I don’t really want to be a part of it, so here’s hoping this flu outlasts the weekend. No, srsly, please go away, flu. I didn’t mean it.
My husband complained that I don’t blog anymore. The truth is, I hardly have the time, between school and work, and I apparently have to get strep throat to find the time.
Today I had a scare that had me thinking I was about to have a lot more extra time. I was called to the office of the VP of HR. While I was told I wasn’t “in trouble” that certainly doesn’t mean I’m not being laid off. I’m part time, and I’ve techinically been replaced, though volume in our department has swelled over the last year and there has been no hurry to get rid of me.
I ran upstairs, ready to have the bandage peeled off quickly, only to discover I didn’t have my badge to get through the security door. When I came back to get it, I whispered to my boss, “Am I being let go? Because I’d rather hear it from you.”
It turns out I am a dork and they want to offer me a new position.
I don’t know why I always expect the worst, but having been let go in the past, I no longer feel invincible or irreplaceable anywhere, and being a part-timer with a full courseload makes me a good candidate for lay-offs. Last week, an entire repair facility in our company was shut down, so the fear of a lay-off is by no means unwarranted.
A minor heart attack is good for the spirit, right?
After battling a persistent sore throat, body aches and on again off again fever for four days, I dragged myself to the doctor this morning, who had to look at my throat for about five seconds before announcing, “Oh, that’s strep. I don’t even have to do a test. I mean, I can if you want, but that’s textbook strep.”
I was oddly proud that my pharynx looked like a textbook picture for strep throat. Is that weird? Anyway, he did the test, and now I have a handy bottle of amoxicillin, some Ben and Jerry’s sorbet and an intense case of the boredom. I went home sick yesterday after trucking through three hours of work, so this is day two. I actually feel better today than I did yesterday, which I feel speaks volumes about how good my immune system is without penicillins, and I am so over sitting at home already. Work actually sounds fun after two days of daytime television and trashy celebrity “news” rags. Hey, did you know that Brittney Spears is crazy now?
Frankly, the only reason I didn’t go to work today is because, you know, what kind of asshole goes to work after the doctor says, “Strep”? Hi coworkers, I love you so much, so here’s a nasty throat infection!
The only time I realize I’m sick is when I try to accomplish a simple task like lunch and discover that my faculties are extremely dampened, as I end up covering every inch of my kitchen in coffee grounds—including the skillet where I was preparing my grilled cheese and on the sandwich itself— and follow up with a triumphant encore wherein I ignite a paper towel on the stove as I attempt to clean up my mess. I can now, however, declare with 100% certainty that grilled cheese and coarse-ground Kenyan coffee is not the scintillating taste sensation it sounds like it should be, so no need to try that one out if you’re curious.
This morning, I had my admissions interview with Fairhaven College, the school for interdisciplinary studies at WWU. I decided to not dress like a slob like I usually do on Fridays, and wore a skirt, heels and took the time to apply makeup. My interviewer, however, had bedhead and wore an oversized mens dress shirt over a T-shirt, jeans and sneakers so I felt severely overdressed.
Every time I wear makeup, which is rougly 4 times a year, everyone seems to think it’s a marked improvement on my usual appearance, and it makes me feel like shit. “Wow, you look pretty today!” Meh. Am I such a hideous chud without makeup? I’m not even sure why I felt compelled to wear it, frankly.
They let me know there are only 15 open spots for the spring quarter, which wasn’t fantastic news, but the good news is that I can attend WWU and take classes that will apply to my “degree program” (not that I, like, have one yet) with Fairhaven, and then apply to Fairhaven again in the fall or summer, which is apparently a lot more open for new students.
I think I’m getting sick again and I can’t help but wonder if it has anything to do with the bacteria we worked with in my lab last night. I might just be a horrible hypochondriac.
The holidays are over. I had a nice visit with my sister, almost ruined Christmas with my shitty mood and had a stupid fight with Andrew after my family left. Christmas simply doesn’t agree with me, and the sooner I let go of the notion that I should like Christmas, the sooner I’ll probably actually enjoy it because I’m not trying to turn it into more than just another day. What ruins it for me is this stupid expectation that it has to be something special. Next year I just hope to see it as a nice chance to hang out with my family, nothing more, nothing less.
The new quarter has begun and I’m already overwhelmed. I have cut back my hours at work, but I still feel I’m stretched a little thin. It might have something to do with being in class for three hours, four nights a week.
You’d think that what I’m about to say would be the last thing that would ever come to mind with all the work and school related stuff going on. But something happened in a moment of drunkenness last weekend that I can’t shake. It was the realization that I might be wrong about a core belief about myself.
I have pretty much always thought I didn’t want kids, and Andrew had felt the same, so without reservations, he scheduled an appointment for a vasectomy on the 11th. But last week, while getting drunk with some friends, something changed. I thought of how permanent it could be, how much I’ve changed in the last seven years and what might happen in the next seven, and I realized that I have no idea how I’ll feel about kids then. I kept having this premonition that around 35 I was going to be really bummed that we eliminated the possibility of making a little us.
We talked and I realized that I’m not ready to decide I don’t want kids. It was so weird to let go of something I thought I was so sure of, but as much as we know what a sacrifice kids are, in the sense of a loss of freedom to just get in the car and drive who knows where, or spend our money on whatever we feel like, I also feel like…I dunno. I like us so much that a kid made out of us would be the coolest person ever. That kid would be the coolest, smartest, funniest, most adorable person ever, and that realization kind of gave me a sharp kick in the self-perception.
I don’t want to meet that kid right now. At all. We don’t have the time, patience, money, or even really the desire for him. Right now I am happy being a two-person us, and I think I will be for a long time, maybe forever, just as I’ve always thought. All I’m saying is that I might be really sad in a few years that we literally severed our chances to meet that kid simply because we had a static idea of who we are. Who I was at 20 is almost a different species from 27-year old me. Who knows what another seven years will do.
I have had absolutely no Christmas joy this year, and I hate to admit it, but it’s because I have not gone shopping. I can’t really afford to. While I will spend time with my family, which is the most important part, I feel a little guilty that I haven’t bought tokens of my affection for my husband, sister and parents. I know that I have good reasons—things like tuition and car repairs come first, and everyone is very understanding—but that doesn’t stop me from being pretty bummed about the whole thing.
Andrew did buy me a CD yesterday, the soundtrack to I’m Not There, which I am currently enjoying with coffee at the coffee shop down the street. I have developed a Sunday ritual since the middle of the quarter, where I go to a coffee shop other than the one I always hang out in and where everyone knows me, and enjoy some time alone, listening to music and either working (during the school term) or reading. I have read three books since the quarter ended, and have three more waiting for me on the nightstand. I forgot how wonderful it feels to read for pleasure, and I hope to make time for it during the next quarter, though that’s probably a futile thing to hope for. I’m taking 12 credits, working somewhere between 20-30 hours and probably volunteering for DVSAS (Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Services) of Whatcom County.
This break isn’t actually much of a period of rest, either. I am working full time during the school break, and brushing up on pre-calculus so I can pass the math assessment test and prove my mediocre grasp of college-level algebra, or else I will be sentenced to the purgatory of Math 99 before I get my transfer degree, which would be tragedy. Also, I still have three essays to write for my application to WWU and my supplementary application to the school’s interdisciplinary studies college, Fairhaven College. On top of it, there are the holidays and my sister’s visit. Spending this Sunday lazing in solitude feels all the more necessary in light of all that, yet I can’t help feeling I should maybe work on a couple math lessons or an essay.
I think maybe my New Years Resolution will be to drop the guilt complex thing. It’s pretty tired.
Frankly, my brain completely shut down after Friday afternoon of last week, so all you might have seen in this space is unintelligible drivel, anyway.
I am like Loverboy over here, totally working for the weekend, especially since it’s four days long this time around. My little sis is driving in from Utah and should be here Friday. I am still not sure when I am entertaining her, but I know she wants to stay at my place a few days to visit with my Playstation. I mean, to spend quality sister time. Playing Guitar Hero.
Whatever, we have our own way of bonding.
We have had a horrible run in with Murphy’s law or maybe Mercury retrograde or whatever during the last week. I dented my pristine car pretty badly (seconds after Andrew remarked, “Wow, this car is in really nice shape for its age”) while leaving my office Christmas party. I wasn’t drunk, just, you know, being a bad driver. I normally wouldn’t have been driving in the first place, only Andrew’s car needs a new alternator, and the repair quote was so obscene we were left wondering whether the alternator on a VW is made, not from metal, but rather from unicorn horns and fairy dust. In addition to being down to one car while we can’t afford to fix the other at the moment, what with my tuition being due, our car insurance went up without my knowing. All these expenses keep rearing their ugly heads, and so Christmas, as far as I’m concerned, is pretty much postponed for some time after I graduate from grad school.
Thankfully, our string of bad luck did not affect my GPA: 4.0 again, bitches. I am proudest of my A in Advanced Composition. I have never worked so hard for an A in my life.
