Update

I haven't had much to say lately, but I thought I'd check in with the new surgery update. My second lobectomy was last week, and it went just fine until I went into a calcium deficiency-caused whole body cramp. I thought I would have to go back to the hospital, until I learned that I could just take a few calcium pills and it would go away. It was terrible, let me tell you! Anyway, the surgeon cut out the old scar on my neck and gave me permission to see a plastic surgeon for the new one, since the old one had keloided.

The good news is that the pathology report came back with no malignancy in the right lobe. Hooray for me.

The bad news is that I will have to begin a low iodine diet AND go off my synthroid in July, to prepare for the radioactive iodine treatment at the end of the month. This doesn't sound fun AT ALL.

On other matters, the girls turn two on Wednesday!

Jeff and I have had the last two days baby-free, and took advantage of it to spend an afternoon and evening with Tim and Valerie, up in Calistoga. I did something I haven't done in months: lie in the sun like a big fat hippopotamus.

Don't Hate Me Because I'm Beautiful

It's the first day of my summer break, and boy am I happy. As if a harbinger to this glory, I stopped by the local Goodwill this morning and found, right when I walked in, two old predecessors to the pinball machine. They kind of look like pachinko games, but are smaller. One is wood-framed, probably from the 50s, and the other is plastic. Both are in ok shape. Five bucks apiece!!! And then a pristine pair of Rocket Dog shoes, my favorite brand. Another five smackers. Dang, man.

Anyway, here I am at work, where I've rediscovered one very cool aspect of my job: interlibrary loan. If I send in a little form via email, I get, within a day or two, ANY BOOK I WANT. As many as I want. Boy do I have those librarians working. I do feel a little guilty ordering The History of Bathing or my latest request, Sperm Wars....

So I'm sitting here at my desk, which has an ocean view if I get on top of the desk and crane my head out the window, with a cup of free Starbucks coffee from the mess deck (cafeteria). I was able to score an Aeron chair from my tech support pal downstairs, who was too tall for it, so I'm sitting in real comfort, listening to Pandora (R. Crumb and the Cheap Suit Serenaders), with my 18" screen and super fast T-1 connection.

And the paycheck meter is ticking, though I have no real work commitments. I'm presenting a paper in Bloomington, IN in a few weeks, so that's the order of the day/week/month.

If any of you is feeling like putting an axe through my head, remember that I just finished grading 400 essays, I probably make 10-40k less than you, and for nine months out of the year I'm so overworked I'm surprised not to drool. Next week at this time I'll probably be crawling the walls....

No. That last part is not true. It will take about a month before that happens.

Yesterday we spent the whole day outside, with many large plastic toys and a lot of water. I rigged up my staghorn fern basket with some moss and wire, planted some lavender, and pulled weeds. I'm revving up the nerve to focus on the girls' room and get it decorated by their second birthday (June 2).

And I will start posting pictures here, soon. The yard is looking lovely. I particularly enjoy the way plants puff up when they get lots of water.

Juice Suck

Many consumption problems would be lessened if one just pulled the plug. If, for example, you decided to live in a solar-powered house, you would probably not have a large tv or computer monitor, or be able to leave your stuff plugged in all day long (I'm thinking, for example, of two power strips currently sucking juice for no good reason at home: Ipod dock, printer, dvd player, two computers, etc.). You would probably not run the laundry at night. You would most likely become more in sync with circadian rhythms, and go to bed earlier. Your kids would not be able to zone out with video games (so easily). I kind of like these rules. They appeal to the Scottish puritan in me.

I'm of course locating this idea in a rural context. We will be living in the woods someday, where there is no easy broadband, or cable, and some neighbors are easier to get to on foot than by car. It is very quiet there, except when the chainsaws are running.

Our neighbors down the road in Santa Cruz built a totally solar house. He's an acupuncturist/Chinese medicine guy who's called (really) "Doc Mitchell." He's about ten years older than us, no kids. I like him and his wife a lot, and look forward to being their neighbors in a few years. Their house is large, airy, and extremely quiet. It's more like a temple than a place where people store the things they can't keep from buying.

And then there are the people across the road from us, who live in a series of connected...domes.

This is Northern California, after all.

On another note, I made my new sanity guide today.

On yet another, the day after I noticed that our young olive tree seems to be thinking about producing fruit for the first time, I found an old 2-gallon pickle jar at a thrift store. Check back in October, when I hope to cure my first batch in a direct imitation of the picholines at Whole Foods. I will have to consult my friend Lauren, the culinary sage, beforehand.

A friend of the family gave my mother two young staghorn ferns, which she then gave to me. One didn't look like it would make it, so I sent it across the street for rehab at Mary's. The other I attached with the requisite moss, to the outside of a wire basket. After placing a few banana peels (internet tip) over the corms, it perked way up. Now I have to deal with a very one-side-heavy wire basket which is right now upside down on my porch. Hmm.

This is the kind of problem I don't mind having. Happy deep spring!

More Evidence of My OCD

I used to keep a calendar titled "Sanity Guide," which consisted of one long, horizontal line. On this line I recorded major events/accomplishments. I began the line in 2003, when I had come to a kind of career crossroads: the line was meant to track my attempt to cross back into academia after settling into a lucrative administrative job at a university writing center. Over time, the line grew, and the events piled up: the lectureship in California, the first article published, the first grant, etc. At some point, life-outside-work events were added: the wedding, the fertility battles, the birth of our daughters....

Somewhere along the line, I misplaced my sanity guide...this sounds funny to write! At one glance, I used to be able to see what can only be described as the big picture. Not only did this calendar let me see how far I/we have come, it also helped me weigh new decisions in a "past-is-prologue" way. I liked it when events of similar weight happened with some consistency, if that makes any sense. Building our house in Santa Cruz will definitely happen sooner, I truly believe, if I keep track of its progress.

I realize today that I need to dig that important piece of history out of wherever I put it, and staple another page to it. Life must go on!

Pre-Grading Procrastination

If I had a week to live:

Would I shirk work?
Would I intoxicate myself?
Would I reduce or increase my consumption?
Would I disrupt anyone else's life?
Would I avoid the written word?
Would I move my body?
How much would I sleep?
Would I go somewhere else?
What would I leave behind?

All in the Name of Due Diligence

A colleague of mine is going through an 11th-hour tenure decision reversal (we think), and it's making the rest of us on the probationary track uneasy. Believe me, you don't want to go through six years of hard work--during a major recession, no less--only to find that what seemed like a sure thing has crumbled.

My poor colleague has started going to the school shrink for help. He has three kids and a stay at home wife, and is underwater in his mortgage. It is awful witnessing this. It can destroy your soul.

I'm starting to build my armor, as almost everyone gets hazed as they go through the final probationary years, whether they are worthy or not. For some reason, the committees can't seem to resist poking any bruise, no matter how small. I know I'm going to get whacked for abandoning some projects that seemed futile or boring to me, but hopefully, the committees will acknowledge that overall, I've done a hell of a lot of work for the school on a lot of different fronts. And I've done most of it pretty well.

Hopefully, things will hold for the next four semesters!

Sprezza-What?!

I feel muddled. Addled. Cloudy. Opaque. Usually, things settle by the time I get to work, and when they're shaken up again at the end of the day, I can collect myself in the car on the way home. But not today. I'm floating through my day, thanking god left and right that some context cue reminds me that I have a meeting in five minutes, or a class.

Scratch the surface, and it's chaos.

The Italians call the ability to pretend like everything's cool in the face of insanity "sprezzatura." I used to have this act nailed; today, with children and less $$$, it just isn't happening.

Perhaps it's a matter of upping the Paxil? Perhaps it's a matter of not caring so much.

Jeff had to stay home with Sophie today, who has a cold or flu. He fell asleep with her, then woke up in a panic because he'd left the bedroom door open. She was just sitting there, playing, but for all he knew, she was down the block hitching a ride to Rite-Aid. These are the little merciful moments that go our way. Luck.

I'm just going to keep repeating "Luck" until everything gets easier.

Surf Colorado

Jeff and I spent two days sleeping, eating leisurely at restaurants, and talking. We didn't get any work done whatsoever. It reminded me of the time (seems like ancient history now) when we spent an entire summer watching every episode of "Six Feet Under" in order. We'd eat french bread and butter, and jam and coffee with the blinds drawn, in the summer heat, with the fan on and the volume on loud. At the end of every hour, we would turn to each other and say, "Ok, just one more." This would go on for five or six episodes at a time. Then, maybe if there were light left, we would walk down Lakeshore Avenue and play tennis at the community park.

It came back with a pang. We are so far from that now!

Meanwhile, the girls and my mom got on famously up in Santa Cruz. And during one three-hour conversation in bed in midafternoon, Jeff and I decided to cut our little vacation short and zoom down there. Ostensibly, it was to try to talk some sense into my mom about money matters, but I think it was really because we missed the girls.

And very quickly, that life absorbed us again, the one where we get little sleep and are constantly redirecting little babies. Of course, they were extra adorable at the table on Easter Sunday. They almost but not quite understood the whole egg thing. And too soon we returned to Napa, to a clean house thanks to Adrienne, and got ready to dive into the work week.

Jeff and I were both up at 5:30 this morning: me because I had procrastinated until REALLY the last possible minute and was up making a presentation handout, and Jeff because Sophie decided to get up when she did. He made some coffee and put on some old Sesame Street video, and we sat in the living room while S. ate her Cheerios. For once, I was not totally exhausted, and Jeff seemed not too tired himself. I wondered if it were possible to ever become a morning person because the atmosphere seemed almost holy, and then quickly came to the conclusion: no.

Thank God for Syd

Barrett, you know, the one who went crazy? The Pink Floyd guy? If there could be a soundtrack for our marriage...nothing else goes near it, even our favorites.

The girls go to grandma's tomorrow, for three days, while Jeff and I work on the house, and on being together, alone. Yes, they are amazing, and yes, I thank god for them, but I can't wait until they are off on their adventure and I can spread out on the bed and drink coffee with my man. We can do intricate things for hours without being interrupted. We can sleep and eat on our own schedule. We can play music, loud, at 2 a.m.

I will call her soon and tell her this, but I read my good friend Miah's novel (ok, I'm 2/3 of the way through it) after a long hiatus, and it's really good. It's the kind of good where you wouldn't understand why they would be anything other than a writer. Can you imagine having that kind of talent? I sort of can and can't.

I just want to write one good book before I die.

I'm happy for Miah, for more than two reasons.

And our good friends Joni and David had a healthy little girl named Caroline. They had the emotional space to send me a children's book called Uranus, as a joke, before (or after?!) she went into labor. It is on my mantel, next to a vase of lilacs from the yard, behind the old train cars.

I still spend a lot of time wondering how I'm going to spend about 50k I don't have.

Oh Sunday.

--The front yard, over the past three weekend weedings, is looking much better. Almost good, in fact. The shasta daisies have returned. The oregano is looking mighty fine.

--Jeff and I have three shared days off in a week. My mom will take the girls for those days, and he and I can have some time together. There are all sorts of things we can do around the house that we don't find space for during the normal week. Just finding a nail and hammer, in order to hang a picture that we know would look really good in a certain place, can be overwhelming sometimes.

--Sophie and Lucy are really beginning to communicate with us. It is amazing. They will look in your eyes and you can see the love and trust. They can kiss. They stroke my face. When they smile, it makes all bad go.

--I've been taking short walks with one of the girls around the street and we are getting to know our neighbors. The people on the corner pulled some baby carrots out of their garden and gave them to me today. We have a good street.

--I'm hella depressed tonight. I read a memoir by Richard Brautigan's daughter Ianthe, and it felt less lonely having his spirit, through her, and her, with me.

Parallel Universe

Today, while I was waiting for some software to load, I looked for an old blog I used to follow when we were suffering from infertility (a three-year ordeal). If you have a minute, you might want to check it out: http://www.kurvy.com/badplumbing/. I read her when she was only 41 and still married. I was her, three years ago, living in the same area, with the same failed IVFs, and was considering going to the same specialists. This woman inspired me to do my own immunological intervention when my doctors pooh-poohed it.

This woman is who I would be today if we hadn't--finally--conceived Sophie and Lucy.

Her marriage fell apart, she admits, partly because she wouldn't stop believing that she would someday have a child. She has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to conceive. And she hasn't given up.

I wish her the best, and thank god for what I've got.

Kairos & Surge (Fish Curtains)

I am eligible for a sabbatical, I think, the year after I get (knock wood) tenure. That means one semester off, with pay, where you are supposed to produce something related to scholarship or teaching. Sounds like a great opportunity to work on a poetry manuscript.

This is all assuming that my job and school survive the recession. No one had the guts to apply for a sabbatical this year; if they had, they would have been turned down due to lack of $$$. I do have a colleague, though, who chose this year to file an official grievance against the school for paying him so little. I would have waited a little longer, personally.

One time, my dad and I were scuba diving in a little spot in Hanalei Bay he calls the Moi cave. This lava tube is shaped like a "C," and you can go in one end and out the other. The approach to the cave is really surge-y, and if the tide is high, you can actually get slammed against the cave's roof on your way in, if you're not careful. Anyway, my pa and I had been puttering around outside the Moi cave for awhile, and then we decided to head inside. I couldn't believe the surge. If you stayed still, it would literally move you ten feet forward, then ten feet backward, within seconds. So my dad was making an impressive path toward the cave, and I began to struggle in trying to keep up. I thought it was maybe his Superior Strength, or that he was wearing three-foot-long fins. By the time I caught up, I was almost hyperventilating. Anyway, we went into the cave and did our thing (looked at the shimmering curtains of silver fish/grabbed at the lobsters wedged into cracks).

When we came up, I mentioned how exhausted I had become in the surge. My dad laughed. "I saw you struggling there, Julie," he said. "You know, you're only supposed to kick when the current is with you. Then, you don't get tired, and you go a lot farther."

That was a Wa-wa-wa moment. Timing is so important. In ancient, dusty, Greece, the philosophers called it "kairos." A person who had a good sense of kairos knew when to jump into a controversy, or even a debate, and when to wait. Like jump rope, right? Like knowing when to ask for a raise. Like surge.

Speaking of the Moi cave, it looks like Jeff and I will be going to Hawaii for a month this summer, most expenses paid, to teach at a fancy Catholic prep school! It isn't quite in the bag, but it's looking more and more likely to happen. If so, we will be able to redo our kitchen, out of pocket!

Cross your fingers for us.

When You Reach the Top of the Mountain, Keep Climbing/When You Find Yourself in a Hole, Stop Digging

Tonight, I'm nostalgically looking forward to our move to the Santa Cruz Mountains. Is that possible? A. Possible to be nostalgic about the future; B. possible to actually build your own house at the end of a 1000-foot driveway (which needs to be built first)?

This move has been in the works since 2002. We are $8k away from owning the land free and clear. Joy! Joy! If I get denied tenure, we can buy an old Spartan Imperial Mansion (Google image that) and live like the filthy hippies we are underneath our skin-suits.

It's been so long since we last ripped pictures out of Dwell mag. (I know, so 2004), got baked and imagined the secret Moroccan room at the back of a double-sided fireplace. I could go into ecstasies just thinking about the mudroom off of the foyer (with separate entrance so I can shed my dirty forest-maintenance clothes right into the washer, then step into a shower, grab a robe and proceed like a queen into my lair.

For a long time, while we were super poor and infertile, the clock wasn't even ticking towards this goal. We'd decided that the day we had our last child, we would set the timer for five years forward.

Um. The girls are going to be two in June, and I'm just tonight waking up like an old bear in the springtime...Santa Cruz? Heh?

OH YEAH!

I guess this means that things are getting more manageable here in La Casa de Los Bernard?

Perhaps. Perhaps I'm just giddy because our tax refund is here.




(And screw thyroid cancer, by the way.)

Sort of...[insert hamburger]

Experiment: tired blogging. My day: Up/shower/dress girl/dress girl/drive/eat/prep/teach/throw student out of class while using the "s" word/conference/conference/conference/teach/get hit by hail/teach/meeting/email students/email staff/email faculty/make flyer/post flyers while counseling a student about new girlfriend/drive/eat/talk to Jeff/write union minutes/write BLOG@! Holy crap!

I'm thinking about a friend who is splitting with her husband during this Great Recession, and remembering splitting with mine, transcontinentally, in 1998. Neil Young's "Birds" playing over and over. I didn't shed a tear until I went to an on-campus counselor and said, "I think I'm getting a [SOB!] divorce!!" It was awful, even though I was newly in school and had all-new Ikea furniture in my new apartment.

And I keep thinking about her. And how fucked it is.

Stuff I'm grateful for this week:

New/old cabinets Jeff saw while running, for free, which we miraculously got to first, and even more miraculously, go perfectly in our kitchen. They need some love, and will probably cost us more in the long run, but they are solid oak heavy duty old school lab cabinets.

I finished putting the aluminum can shingles on the birdhouse I bought from Ruben Godinez, a 25-year-old newish Napa friend, who died of meningitis two weeks after my money went into his hand. I didn't know him very well, but he was a special customer. RIP, Ruben. We launched the birdhouse by putting it (carefully--it weighs about 20 pounds) on the carport roof. Jeff wants me to put a teeny weenie satellite dish on it, and I want an equally teeny neon vacancy sign. I will post a picture as soon as I a. find the camera, b. charge it, and c. remember to.

I took a thyroid hormone test last week and my thyroid levels are HIGHER than they were before I had half of the damn thing out. I'm not sure if this is a good thing or not. I mean, if I didn't have cancer, it would be terrific: no hormone replacement would be needed. However, more thyroid hormone means more fuel for thyroid cancer...though I doubt that in the three months I'm still semi-thyroidal, anything bad could happen. Anyway, and in spite of all irrationality, it's kinda nice to know my body rallied like that. Go, little half-a-gland!

There is a small possibility that Jeff and I will be paid good money to work in Honolulu for two weeks this summer. Though it may be too good to be true, it may not be. I should know in the next week. I'm trying not to think about it.

Sophie can count to ten, and recite parts of her ABCs; for example, at random (like when her head is in the bottom cupboard), "Wai-zee-now-eye-no...." Lucy seems to know her numbers, but isn't as interested in saying them. Everything to her is "Na."

"Say toe, Lucy."
Lucy points to toe: "Na."
But she looks at you like she just said "toe."

Ok, my most profound comment of the day (directed to the dominatrix interviewed on NPR today): peppering your sentences with "sort of" (i.e. "It was just one of those...sort of...Proustian moments..." is so grad school pretentious/precocious. Like it's meant to prepare the listeners for...sort of...[watch me reach for] the arrival of a Big Word/Concept. Yes, we know you went to Sarah Lawrence. Unfortunately, though, your heroin habit, whether present or past, is not going to be a big help in getting you an academic job, even if Knopf...sort of...validated/sanctified it.

Sorry. I don't usually flame like this, but this habit is, as they say in Spain, muy pesada.

Ok, nighty night, forks.

Soft, Damp Dirt

We had a little rendezvous with some friends on Friday night...it was a bunch of 40ish-year-olds having a sleepover. I showed up in my pajamas. Tim is one of my oldest friends (from college), and my comfort level when I'm around him is old and layered. Why not reflect that in dress? Jeans are great, but jammies are even better. I heartily recommend the practice.

We had a great time. Tim sent me one of the nicest emails I've ever received, after I got my diagnosis. I am truly lucky to know such a curmudgeon...he's the gooiest curmudgeon I know. The girls, who came along, were supposed to sleep, but of course, they didn't--until midnight!--but it was ok. Tim and his wife Val have two cute little demons of their own, so they fully understood. They have perfected the art of insisting on fun, parenthood be damned.

And then Maria showed up in the morning! Another old friend, who, via her own connection with Tim, makes for multi-faceted, often irreverent fun. We ate french toast and talked. On the way home, we stopped at Whole Foods so Jeff could jump out and get some lunch for us. When he came back, I had been circling the parking lot with the girls in the back....and he was laughing at how ridiculous I looked, driving with my bathrobed elbow sticking out the window.

Yesterday I worked in the yard again, promising myself to remember forever the wisdom of waiting to pull weeds until after it rains. Our neighbor Albert seemed to psychically know that we needed a mower, because he brought over an old manual one and said we could have it. The girls came out and I put some water in buckets for them to play with. Sophie went straight to work, slopping water all over herself and poor Lu, getting EVERYTHING wet within a six-foot radius. Then she went over to Lucy and dumped a pitcher of water on her head.

It was a good weekend, in spite of everyone getting little sleep.

Toss Up

I need a pick-me-up.

Tomorrow is a very rare day-off-with-daycare. I am conflicted. I could go across the street and crash on Mary's couch while her daughter Adrienne watches the girls. I could spend the whole day thrift-shopping (with restraint...we're down to very little in the bank). I could go to San Francisco and jell in the hot tubs at Kabuki Hot Springs for $20. I could hide in the attic and clean it out.

I could hoe the park strip in the front and start hauling rocks from the back to fill it in.

I could curl up somewhere, unwashed and feeling fat, and eventually grow depressed.

What do you do when you need a pick-me-up? How much money is required, if any?

What is your ideal soul-regeneration day?

Turning a Giant Ship

Do you ever feel like you have emotional or spiritual ADD? That is me this week. Here I am, eating the Taco Bell, chugging the coffee, staying up way too late for no good reason: pooping in the temple, as it were.

That seems to be the tragic flaw of our species. That tree is not only good for that owl, but for that stream, and this air...with the added benefit of being nice to look at, but I'd much rather think about the credit card it will pay off if I cut it down and sell it to that salivating businessman. He will even grind the stump for me so I can pretend like it hasn't been there for the last 300 years.

Poop poop poop.

You can tell I'm in a good mood. Actually, I am. I just finished my fourth-year review, and I can say that my tenure prospects are now the devil I know, rather than the much scarier one I don't. To add yet another cliche to the pile, I can now see the dots I need to connect between year four and year six....

Which maybe giving away the plot a little: I don't think I will be successful in going up a year early. However, I have modified the goal a bit: I will instead return to--gasp!--the job market this fall.

Why would I do such an absurd thing: the academic culture is dying as we speak. It's because I've located the roots of my discontent in my current job: I've been too busy to monitor my marketability over the last few years (gee, twins, new house, cancer...), and I'm beginning to worry, like some of my more intelligent colleagues, that if I HAD to go back on the academic job market, I simply wouldn't be able to compete.

Well, hogwash. What better way to feel righteous about a tenure bid than feeling some love from outside institutions? After all, my job offer from U. of Alaska helped me negociate a much higher salary than my dean wanted to give me.

Now that I've straightened that out, I can return to the temple for a moment.

We're in the process of organizing the girls' room (the master bedroom). We just painted two large bookshelves "life preserver orange," and filled them with the children's books and videos I've been collecting for the last 20 years. The room looks like a clown suit gone bad at the moment, but sometimes you just need to throw something--anything--together and then let time help you edit. Time + maturity = slow movements toward wisdom. Every little progression is wondrous. Just the way the shelves look against the wall, with their incredible offerings in art and literature...it makes me long to be a kid again. My own kid, I guess. Isn't raising children partly an exercise in reliving your own youth, the way you would have wanted it?

We are overdoing it on the Sesame Street, though. Good lord.

Bacon & Pancakes

It's amazing how much better I feel when my house is clean.

That's all I have to say tonight.

Drum Fill, Please!

I was in line at the Kaiser pharmacy in Napa yesterday, waiting for my Paxil refil. Sandwiched between a big gray guy with an oxygen tank and a big normal-colored guy with a germ mask, and behind about twenty others, I decided to call the psychiatry department and make a new appointment with the therapist who had canceled on me last week. This was the phone conversation (which was overheard by everyone):

Operator: Psychiatry department.
Me: Hi, I'd like to reschedule an appointment with Dr. X, who had to cancel last week.
Operator: Ok, let me check. [pause] Sorry, there are no appointments. Um, what were you going to see him for?
Me [noting ironically that my Paxil-withdrawal symptoms were in full effect]: Ah, well, depression, anxiety.
Operator: Are you going to harm yourself?
Me: No.
Operator: So, um, what is the reason for the depression?
Me: Well, I was recently diagnosed with cancer.
Operator [stunned]: Oh! Oh, I'm sorry.
Me: Thank you.
Operator [back to her list]: So, what is it about the cancer diagnosis that has caused you to seek psychiatric help?
Me [pausing incredulously]: Well, let's see.... How about having to confront my mortality?
Operator: ...
Me: I mean, it was kind of a shock?
Operator: Ok, I see. Are you taking any medication?
Me: Yes. Paxil.
Operator: For what?
Me (sighing): Anxiety.
Operator: Is it helping?
Me: Yes.
Operator: So let me recap: you have been recently diagnosed with cancer, you aren't going to harm yourself, and your anti-anxiety medication is working. And you want to see a psychiatrist.
Me: Strangely enough, yes.

I couldn't help laughing afterward (after I had taken my 40mgs). Poor girl.

Just a Few Things

I had the chance to go outside and prune everything that died back during the last hard frost today. I don't quite know how to communicate this without sounding sappy (ha), but the sight of the baby sage and oregano leaves underneath the old dead growth was better than any antidepressant. I can say this with extra credibility, since I've been off my meds for almost a week (forgot to order a refill), and have been dealing with the cold-turkey-Paxil head zings and general bottom-drop-out feelings here and there. So. I got my hands dirty. My house is a falling-apart disaster next to a slumbag apartment complex, but boy did I feel good today!

On that last note, you wouldn't believe the one-two punch of having twin infants and a fixer-upper house (oh wait, I forgot the evil crotch shot of being perpetually broke--see above). You just wouldn't believe. it. I have some new gray hairs at my temples because of the sleeplessness, early rising, relentless child-minding, fast-food pounding, everywhere you look needs help-ness, oh-yeah-surprise-bill/tax/late fee, moving five times in five years stupidity...I could add to this list ad infinitum, but I think you get the idea. HOWEVER, just when we thought we were going to start having affairs at work because of having no private time at home, the girls...are becoming little girls. (One of my colleagues who has a 20-month-old is getting ready to have another child, and all I could think of was to cry for him and make a mental note to call the infertility clinic and have them torture our remaining frozen embryos before they incinerate them. It's so over for us!)

The girls can almost play in the driveway while we rake or pull weeds. They can almost run long distances without falling over their feet. I ask, "Do you want some milk?" and they nod or shake their heads. One of them (Sophie) will sit still and color at a restaurant while we eat (Lucy, not so much). Yesterday, on the bed, I asked Lucy, "Can you take Mommy's shoes off and put them on the floor?" and she did it! Now, Jeff is working on getting them to fetch him a beer.

So I'm getting a distinct lightening up feeling. Just in time for spring.

I was talking to my mom the other day about how tenure (currently two years off) will really signal a major shift in my life. Not just because of the job security, but also because I'll get a 7.2% raise, and the girls will be four...definitely big enough to fetch the beer. I can ratchet back the relentless overcommitment my coworkers have come to expect from me. Etc. There will be a piano. A little boat. Poetry.

And my mom asked, "Why don't you go up a year early?"

Like next fall.

I had just been telling her about my stellar evals, and how maybe I'd gotten them because in the classroom, I try not to be either insane or mean (unlike some of my colleagues)...and I had probably been bitching about my idiotic decision to be secretary for both our union and academic senate this year...and gee, if I just had two more publications, I'd probably go up early...

OMG DUH!

In spite of everything I wrote above about being stretched unimaginably thin, the idea that I could be through with the prep work for tenure by this time next year--you have to submit your dossier by the end of November--gave me a real charge. Why the heck not? I would just have to get one or two more pubs by next November, and I have a good draft of one essay already done....

You see, even if they denied me, I would still be able to go up again a year later...and the dossier work (it's a huge pain) would already be done. Either way, I could coast after next fall.

I am sharing my little secret with you. I'm going to go for it.

Jeff has his own goal: he needs to pass an exam so he can be a Licensed Clinical Social Worker instead of just a plain old one. He will get a raise, too, when he passes his exam.

In June, after the surgery to take out the other half of my thyroid, I have to swallow a pill full of radioactive iodine. Thyroid cells LOVE iodine, and thyroid cancer only grows in thyroid cells. So this toxic iodine will go wherever there are thyroid cells in my body, and kill them. (This is one of the reasons why thyroid cancer has such high recovery rates.) Unfortunately, the downside is that for about eight days, I will be a carcinogen. No one can be near me for very long, especially the girls. I won't lose my hair or get sick, but I have to be in near isolation. What a perfect time to work on a paper!

I love secret plans.

Grace in Small Things #1

I'm copying this idea from a blogger I follow. She makes a point to note several positive events from her day.

*Probably the best good work news I've had in a long time came today. My teaching evaluations from last semester (when I taught five courses) came back, and they were the highest they've been since my first year here. My second-to-last tenure review is next fall, and my scholarship isn't going to be as good as it was in my third-year review, so these marks really matter, timing-wise. The best part of it, though, was that last semester, I got brave and made all 125 of my students evaluate me, not just the best sections of the five.

*I'm heartened by your good wishes, both on and off this blog. Even though most of you are far away, I've felt you close in my heart in these last few weeks. Thanks. Love matters.

*Rosa mentioned in a comment that Jeff and I should get a boat. She putts around the Dutch canals in hers and says it's great for her soul. Funny, we do live about ten blocks away from the Napa River, and I busied myself the other night imagining what kind of contraption you would need to portage a small dinghy or sailboat or canoe down to the little launch pad. We could put the girls inside and just roll down the street. Imagine that!

I Can't Wait Until Spring

I went to my Harvard-trained endocrinologist this morning, who, in spite of her almost autistic bedside manner, managed to make me feel more at ease. As a rhetoric teacher, I should have anticipated that an authority figure saying, "You'll be fine," over and over again might have that effect.

This isn't really about cancer. I mean, this blog. I drove my car two blocks last night without a seat belt on, and a woman almost t-boned me in the La Playita parking lot. I laughed out loud, because thoughts of death have been hanging in my mind for the last few months, but not thoughts-of-death-by-car-last-night-at-La-Playita.

I realized that the last thing I want to feel when I die is any kind of irony.

I am 40. So far, 40 has not been so hot; however, if my cancer acts like it should, I can return to feeling like the second half of my life is just beginning. In a revised sort of way. I can't get life insurance, but that may be one of just a few minor inconveniences I endure.

Is there an upside to having a very treatable form of cancer?

A student of mine told me a story last semester: he was eating a burrito outside a shop in downtown Vallejo (not a very safe place), when a guy walked up and pointed a gun at him. My student had just enough time enough to reflect, "I didn't think I'd die on the streets of V-Town," before the guy pulled the trigger...but he gun jammed. My student wet his pants in fear. Then, the guy pulled the trigger again, and the student felt something hit him hard in the chest. It took his breath away, but strangely, didn't hurt. When he looked down, he saw a blast of blue paint all over his CMA jacket.

The guy pointed at him, laughed maniacally, and ran away.

I can relate!

Muzak for Samurai

I've been staying up late like a slacker version of the poet William Stafford, who would get up well before dawn and go to his study to write, then merge into family and work life as the sun came up. It makes me wish I had insomnia. I love being up when the rest of the world is not. Unfortunately, I am a bum whom Jeff said would medal in sleeping if sleeping were an Olympic sport. Anyway, at about ten last night I went foraging on the internet for meditation music, with multiple windows open, search words: "guru," "swami," "sri," "mantra," "chakra," "shakuhachi [Japanese flute]," listening to samples on Amazon ("kundalini," "relaxation," "namaste,") and entering names I liked into Limewire ("raga," "tibetan," "monk,"), then downloading them to iTunes. And I burned incense. And I felt cheesy.

Then I stopped and pondered the paradox of not being one of those people who automatically lights candles and incense, and settles down with green tea, but feels jealous of those whom, if they were action figures, would come with a zabuton and sage bundle. I have a friend, Martine, an artist from Copenhagen, who when you walk into her home, you are seduced by a multi-sensory onslaught of spirit: smells, sounds, mood. Rosa, from Holland, has this talent, as well. (My sister, too, though she doesn't really nurture it as much.) For me, these instantly comforting places require too much work (I can't even find the matches most of the time) and involve some unease...what if I set this all up and I still feel crappy?

So I've been trying to swallow all of this and just get on with it, because when I listened to a guided meditation the other night, after staying up really late, I fell asleep within ten minutes, which is kind of a miracle. Usually, I get all revved up in whatever I'm doing, and then it takes hours for me to fall asleep. In fact, sometimes I stay up extra late because I know I'm just going to be bored in bed, not sleeping. Add having a restless toddler on either side of me....

I fell asleep after imagining myself walking down a path and discovering a boat on a river. I lay in the boat and let it drift...with my lump-like daughters next to me. Cut to ZZZZZZZZs.

Anyway, Jeff is mad because I'm using his running iPod, but cancer trumps entertainment in the New World Order. And I Must Relax. Mommy must relax. Mommy, who was compared to Little Nell the Tapdancing Maniac by her college roommate. Mommy, who is medicated for anxiety, but still needs to chillax, apparently. Can you see how hilarious this is?

But it is good to have a reason to actively pursue relaxation. So here is what I found, in case you get cancer and say, ok, stress really can kill you; now what?

If you're like me, you wince when you see the new age stuff. That is a problem, because some of the new age stuff is sincere and doesn't rely on a synthesized wall of sound that sounds like it came out of either Tron or Miami Vice, with some self-satisfied white guy thinking he can "conquer" stress for you. For me, a good rule of thumb is to go acoustic. Tibetan singing bowls are unbelievably relaxing. Tibetan singing bowls accompanied by Tibetan monks chanting takes it somewhere else, but it's still good. The Japanese flute, if you find the right artist, is sublime. The wrong artist, however, and it's muzak for samurai. The oud, which is a Middle Eastern lute, is a very contemplative, beautiful instrument. And then there's old Ravi Shankar, with or without chanting. I happily downloaded yards and yards of these instrumental pieces.

But I wanted to hear somebody telling me to relax. In English. Assertively. Get in the boat. Imagine yourself slowly being filled with a warm orange liquid. Once I get through that, then bring on the oud, the sitar, the shakuhachi. The funny thing is, like yoga teachers, the voice has to be convincing. This is a hard thing to accomplish, I know now, after downloading and deleting dozens of tracks. I'm still working on this...like some people work on needlepoint.

If anyone wants a CD of the fruits of my pursuits, email me. I plan to become an expert.

I moved our computers into the bedroom that will someday be our master bedroom (right now, we're sleeping in the girls' room, in a big giant bed), to get them out of the living room, which I've declared a No Technology Zone (except for the stereo), and which I'm imagining will be where I vegetate/meditate/try not to ruminate. Jeff is mildly pleased about the separation of church and state, so to speak. I think he likes that I'm forcing myself to turn more inward...probably because he's in there too.

Fragmentation

Things I'm grateful for today:

Ok, yes, I have cancer, but it's treatable and has a high success rate. If you want to look it up, it's called papillary carcinoma of the thyroid. I'm trying to see this as a grand leveller of priorities...a get-your-spiritual-act-together message from god. I haven't stopped eating fast food yet, but I'm working on it.

I am a little over two months off of all alcohol. This transition has not been difficult, as the only partying I was doing was at home, with Jeff. Since going off, I've lost about five pounds. I don't miss it very much; in this, I am lucky. One of my colleagues quit around the same time, and he craves it daily.

Teaching is going well, in spite of my post-surgery, scratchy, fade-in/fade-out voice. I love my job. I was so lucky to get this job. I feel liked and respected at work. The coffee is free.

I have an incredible partner in Jeff. We're not at our best right now, as we've sacrificed almost every spare moment for the girls, but I'm working on that. We've been through a lot of hard events: being poor for years, infertility, double-whammy parenthood, moving a lot, and now cancer...and we've done none of it gracefully, but I think we both realize that we couldn't have done half of it with anyone else.

Sophie and Lucy. I am sometimes terrified at the thought of the responsibility, and a lot of times I feel I have no perspective on motherhood, but there they are in their perfect Sophie and Lucy-ness. Today I am wishing they would not climb up on boxes to reach things that were previously safely out of reach. Yesterday one of them crapped in the tub, but it made me laugh because I'm sure it was Sophie. She's that kind of kid.

So today is a low day. I had a breakdown in 1999 over a semi-similar health issue, and this is the closest I've come to feeling like that again. I don't mean to sound scary, but I have been taking some solace in the thought that if I die of this cancer, in some ways it would be a relief from the plateloads of plot I've forced into my life over the last few years. Check, please! How maudlin of me. I also feel that if I weren't taking Paxil right now, I would have to be scraped off the floor, emotionally speaking. So the pill gives me the strength to feel ambivalent about death? Yay.

But I didn't start this blog to kvetch. I would like it to be more like a blues song, you know, the one that helps you transcend blue.

Hope looks to me like:

a rake in the forest
a wooden hot tub (I would rather have this than kitchen counters)
a relaxation cd on my bitty pod (please don't laugh)
a smelly candle
an Edwardian couch
a nice old parlor piano on which I can play maudlin ragtime
a regular revolving door of old friends and new friends who will become old friends

Some people have to force themselves to balance their checkbook or whatever. I have no problem sitting in my Inner Station with my imaginary mega screens broadcasting my net worth, calculating the next move like life is a Chinese puzzle, or like your soul can be metaphorized into a chess game. I have a sick knack for that, like I do for fixing people's resumes or timing the market. What I'm not so good at is enjoying the fruits of my labors. Or just sitting around dreaming. Or creating something unusual, on purpose. Fiddling with no real purpose. Slowing down to do simple things. I have an estranged relationship with food.

Don't confuse this with hedonism. I just want to be more wise.

I would like there to be less electricity in my house, but if I lose my job I will probably become an electrician.

Other good news: I am where I belong (or at least nearly there). I'm close enough to smell the conifers.

Lucy has been carrying a pine cone around for the last few days, which I think is healthy.

The girls woke up at 4 a.m. and the giant moon was setting in the west window like a public service announcement from god. Good thing we'd been working on "moon" all week. You should have seen L's face. Yeah, kid, aren't you glad to be alive?