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.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Sunday, March 21, 2010
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.
--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.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
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.
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.
Monday, March 15, 2010
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.
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.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
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.)
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.
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.
Monday, March 1, 2010
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.
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.
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