Ramble On!

Yesterday was hard. It's hard when you know things are bad, and that there are a few proven things that can help, but you can't get yourself to do them: take your meds, get off the couch, clean up, etc. I don't have too many days like that now that I'm on Paxil, but for some reason, yesterday hit me like a fist. The only good news is that I can recognize that it's a neurosis: there isn't really anything wrong. The bad news is that the good news doesn't help.

So let's not talk about this anymore. Let's talk about art.

Even though I'm still untenured, prospects look good for next year. Having said this, I do know the rules about counting chickens. Having said THAT, my soul is really jumping the gun to get back into writing poetry. But writing it in a more informed way. Reading more poetry. Thinking about craft. I've been gravitating toward formal verse for a while, as I've hit a dead end with my voice. Patterns and rhythms of speech need to be changed up, and the work needs to actively converse with that of others. I'm interested right now in longer iambic lines: teDUM teDUM teDUM teDUM teDUM teDUM, for example. Robert Frost does these beautifully. I'll probably start there.

I feel like such an amateur, starting completely over with writing. I do think, however, that I needed to get graduate school out of my system. Like all my creative cells needed to die off and regenerate. I'd completely lost track of the whys behind my writing.

Jeff has a book-length manuscript that I'm going to help him edit over the summer. I know it will be published...maybe it will help get me back in shape.

Materialistic Swooning

Home with the babes today. We are watching "Dumbo" (best line: "Have I got a trunk full of dirt for you!") and reading. I am drinking coffee.

While the girls were at grandma's this weekend, Jeff and I went to a Habitat for Humanity Re-Sale store and bought some doors for the front bedroom. One is an old swinging door that will separate the bedroom from the kitchen. We sanded, primed and painted them before the girls came back from Santa Cruz.

And the further good news is that Mary across the street is going to loan me her piano! It's electric, so you can practice with headphones on and no one will hear you. I figure that I can see how much I really commit to it before committing to buying one of my own.

Now I just need a hot tub and a boat and my Napa life will be complete.

Tell you what, SMC folk: I will have a hot tub here for you in July. This will be my goal.

Professor Booty

I went to an estate sale yesterday where an old pianist who went from luxury to squalor had died. Included in her estate were three (three!) gold Rolexes, two grand pianos, a pair of carved ivory tusks, African spears, and about two thousand books. The old Victorian where she died had saggy floors, none of the cabinets had knobs, and I could not for the life of me find a bathroom. There was a freestanding bathtub with no pipes connected to it...in a bedroom. ???
When I die, I hope I leave behind such mystery.

I'm going back this morning to see if I can pick up some tiny Tibetan bells. Anyway, I want to dedicate this blog column today to the wonders of public services. Yesterday, Jeff and I took the girls in the stroller down to the Napa library, where they made a mess of the extensive children's section (and where I discovered I had almost $40 in fines--woops! forgot the wallet), and an old grandpa sat like a king next to a sign saying "I will read to you." After the girls exhausted us, we took them to lunch, then to Fuller Park, where they exhausted themselves in the sand. Minus the food, the entire day cost us exactly $0. We got our exercise and vitamin D. Days like this remind me that I am a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat.

And then, Jessica came over with her dog, Pixie.

I'm on the hiring committee for our new library dean, and the candidate who interviewed the other day made an interesting comment. He said that if libraries had to completely start over today, they wouldn't be able to recreate their current paper collections...the money isn't there, and many of the books are out of print forever. The trend of moving collections online is a one-way street, it seems. When books are discarded, they won't be coming back.

Well, they will go straight to my house. I'm going to have the biggest used-book library in Northern California. Besides the obvious intellectual benefit, books are also great home insulation.

Speaking of useless endeavors, I'm going to be published in Writing on the Edge, a cool journal out of UC Davis. Picture me exhaling in relief, as I needed another pub for tenure.

And I'm going back to therapy. In spite of my assigned shrink canceling on my first appt., and then not having any openings when I tried to reschedule, I will persist/prevail/be prescribed. It is time.

Well, I'm off to Miss Havisham's. I'll let you know about the booty.

Back on Th' Horse

I'm reading Flannery O'Connor's letters at the moment; it's making me chuckle.

Here's a partial list of songs for my reunion: 20 songs for 20 years:

1991: The Stallion, or Pork Roll Egg & Cheese, Ween
1992: Professor Booty, or What'cha Want, Beastie Boys
1993: ???
1994: Big Dipper, Built to Spill
1995: Don't Look Back in Anger, Oasis
1996: Break Me, The Lemonheads
1997: Late in the Day, Supergrass
1998: King of Carrot Flowers, Neutral Milk Hotel
1999: ???
2000: ???

New Year--Thank God

Hi you all. There has been a great lapse in my blog blasts because, largely, the last six months have sucked. Let me be clear: I am cancer-free, according to the dr. This is the good news. The bad news is that my body has lost its ability to absorb calcium, due to my parathyroid glands being nicked, or removed, during my last surgery. What does this mean? It means that I must take 2000 mg of calcium every day for the rest of my life. Hey, no problem, right? Most people don't get enough anyway. Well, ok. Each 500 mg pill is about 3/4 inch long. Ok, not a big deal. The big deal is that you can't take it with your thyroid supp. or with any dairy, because it cancels its effects out. And you can't take it on an empty stomach, or you'll puke (which I did, right outside a sushi restaurant last month). And you can't take it all at the same time, or you'll just poop the excess out. What this means is that for the next 40 years, I will be on a regimented pill schedule: morning, before any food/dairy consumption (meaning no cheerios) = synthroid, calcitriol (not quite calcium), Paxil. Lunch=1000 mg calcium. Dinner=1000 mg calcium. If I miss any pills, I will know it, because my hands and feet will start falling asleep if I cross them, or sit on them.... If I'm without calcium for a day or two, my lips and face will start going numb. If I get stuck on a desert island without any pills, after about a week, my body will being to seize, and odds are, I will die...long before my I miss having my thyroid hormone. Fuckin great!
Ok, I was just getting over this ("You have a chronic condition," said the dr.), when phase #2 kicked in. I started getting a pain in my jaw: not the bone, but the space in front of the hinge that opens your mouth. Like I'd been hit hard. It came and went, on both sides. Whatever. And then, my mouth went dry. Profoundly. I was gulping water when I woke up, and throughout the day. I couldn't eat toast, or anything dryish, without water. WTF? I finally looked it up, and learned, guess what, that the salivary glands located in front of my jaws have been irreversibly (?) damaged by the radioactive iodine treatment. Scar tissue is now blocking them. Great. So not only do I feel like I am dehydrated all of the time, but I've learned that when this happens, your teeth start to rot from the roots.
O fucking hell! It's like be plagued by a bunch of little mosquitoes.
So I've been depressed. I'd been doing really well at work, and really enjoying my work, but I would home and just want to hide. Motherhood was getting in the way of that, as you can imagine. Figuring out how to order all of my prescriptions on time has been difficult. I haven't been super good at taking care of myself ever. So it's been challenging.
Anyway, it's a new year now, and I'm feeling better enough to write this blog. I'm sorry if it's a downer, but I'm hoping it will be the last one. The girls are becoming really amazing, the house is shaping up, and I'm slowly losing weight. This summer is my 20th college reunion, and I'm looking forward to seeing old friends and speculating about the second half of our lives. Looks like in spite of it all, I may be there to witness it, pills and all.

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.