Monthly Archives: January 2008

See, now, THIS is the stuff that makes me want to vote for her

Posted on January 31, 2008 | Comments Off on See, now, THIS is the stuff that makes me want to vote for her

I admit it: I’m already getting election fatigue. I honestly DO NOT CARE which of the top two democratic candidates gets the nod. Really! I will be all too happy to vote for either one of them! I’m just so tired of the campaigning and trying to keep track of who’s gone more stupidly negative this week. I really don’t know what I’ll do come Tuesday. Flip a coin? Eeeny-meeny-miny-mo?

But I’ll tell you what, I’m just enough of a contrarian that reading stuff like this makes me want to vote for Hillary JUST TO SHOW THEM. A sampling of some of the slogans available on everything from bumper stickers to tee-shirts:

“Just vote for the bitch”
“Monica Lewinsky’s ex-boyfriend’s wife for president,”
“No Penis, No Problems”
“H08!”
“This Woman Scares Me”
“Anyone But Her ’08”
“Even Bill Doesn’t Want Me,”
“Stop Mad Cow,”
“Stop the Beast”
“Two fat thighs, two small breasts and a bunch of left wings.”
“Wanna See Hillary Run? Throw Rocks at Her!”
“I Wish Hillary Had Married O.J.”

Kind of makes you feel sick, doesn’t it?

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Posted in outrage, politics

Warning: Self-Indulgent Rant below

Posted on January 30, 2008 | Comments Off on Warning: Self-Indulgent Rant below

So I just called my doctor about getting back on Zoloft for a while. Specifically, until I’m done with my damn degree. Because, y’all: I have been FREAKING OUT about this whole thing. My three primary emotions about my dissertation are fear, anger, and resentment. Fear that I can’t do it, can’t complete it after all this time, fear that it will take too much out of me and I’ll be an empty shell, fear that I just suck too much or don’t care enough or lack the necessary skills/gumption/wherewithal to get the fucker done. And I’m not talking casual kind of “oh, dear” fear: I’m talking TERRIFIED. Like, sitting in front of my computer with my pulse racing, hoping and praying for ANYTHING to come up that I have to attend to so I don’t have to try and write. And forget about calls or emails with my advisor – those both send me practically into myocardial-infarction land.

That is not a functional state of mind, y’all.

And the anger, the anger is so consuming. Why didn’t I wait for a while between my MA and PhD to make sure this was the degree I wanted? Why didn’t I finish the dissertation during the YEAR back in 2000 when I had an extremely light teaching load and specific release time to write? (I went on Prozac that year, because of the stress.) Why didn’t I finish it before I got pregnant? Or before I had a kid? OR AT ANY OF THE MULTIPLE TIMES WHEN IT WOULD HAVE BEEN SO MUCH EASIER??!!

Or there’s the resentment: I resent the time and energy this takes away from my family, I resent that I’m making all this effort for a degree that won’t actually prepare me for the kind of job I ultimately want to get, I resent that I *knowingly* chose an advisor with an extremely hands-off style, because I’m macho like that, and couldn’t admit to myself back then that I need a much more interventionist kind of advising. I resent being in a position where I have to accept all these huge favors from friends and family to help me get it done – not that there’s any doubt the offers are made sincerely and unconditionally, but I HATE being in a position where I need those offers! I resent that this whole process stresses me out to the point that I have to go on prescription anti-crazy meds, simply to function at an every-day level. And wear a mouth-guard when I sleep at night so I don’t grind my teeth down to splintered stubbs. I RESENT.

It’s funny how sitting in front of one’s computer and mentally chanting “I HATE this” over and over again doesn’t exactly produce a flowing literary style. Or much of anything, really, except the occasional fantasy of throwing said computer out one’s second-story window. So, you know, enough already. I mean, at some point it doesn’t matter that I picked the wrong degree or had multiple chances to finish earlier or that my advisor hasn’t been as supportive as I might have hoped. None of that is important. What’s important is, am I going to fish or cut bait? Shit or get off the pot? And I’ve decided that I’m going to fish. Or shit, whichever. (Hopefully the former is a more apt metaphor for the final product.) So, yeah, OK, it’s not on the top ten list of things I’d like to be doing this year. But fuck it. I decided to do it; I’m doing it. There is no “try,” motherfuckers.

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Posted in outrage, trials and tribulations, updates, writing

Local Alert

Posted on January 29, 2008 | Comments Off on Local Alert

For those of you who are interested in such things, and live in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area, John Edwards is in town tonight:

Event with John Edwards
Jan 29, 2008
7:00 p.m.
Carpenters Union Hall
710 Olive St.
St. Paul, Minn.
http://www.johnedwards.com/events/rsvp/20080129-stpaul

If we didn’t have ECFE tonight, I’d probably go. I’m still waffling on whom to caucus for come Tuesday, and Edwards has long been my favorite. If any of my readers go, post a review in comments, will ya? Anyone seen Edwards live before?

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Posted in current events, MN, politics

As requested

Posted on January 28, 2008 | Comments Off on As requested

Rhinestone Toes!

It’s good, right? Now y’all excuse me as I go breathe into a paper bag for a few minutes, as I just saw an email from my advisor in my inbox.

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Posted in random tidbits

Now on with the show

Posted on January 27, 2008 | Comments Off on Now on with the show

Just got back from dropping my mom off at the airport, after having spent a satisfying afternoon getting pedicures and having lunch out on the town while Mr. Squab watched the Hatchling (and played video games while she was napping). I had my first ever straight-male pedicurist, and he totally put rhinestones on my toes for free. RHINESTONES, BITCHES.

So my week of glorious full-time nannydom has come to a close, and now I have to figure out how to squeeze regular writing time into my normal schedule. Also exercise of some kind, because a) it was one of my new year’s resolutions, 2) it will be a good stress reliever, and third, it should give me additional energy, which I could sorely use. Anyone who has any tips on extending the day beyond its traditional 24-hour boundaries, please contact me.

Oh, and one last thing – thanks to everyone who’s commented or emailed me with support and love. It helps a LOT, and is just one more reason why I heart the interwebz in general and my readers in particular. You guys rock.

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Posted in updates, writing

It’s a good thing I’m hard-headed

Posted on January 24, 2008 | Comments Off on It’s a good thing I’m hard-headed

You know how sometimes, when your mom has taken a whole week off from her extremely busy career to watch your kid just so you can have some dedicated writing time and jumpstart the massive revisions you need to do on your dissertation and you aren’t sleeping well because that’s how your stupid, self-defeating brain handles stress and when you sit down in front of your computer you have one of those sessions where you write four sentences and then delete them because they’re crap and then write four different sentences and then delete them because they’re also crap and that’s kind of the pattern of your day?

Yeah. That was yesterday. Kind of like beating your head against a brick wall. Today is going a little better.

Other things that might make you feel like you’re beating your head against a brick wall:

1. Harry Reid – who is, let’s remember, a Democrat – who’s been giving Repubbbs a total pass on anything they say they’re going to filibuster, has decided that his fellow Democrats don’t deserve the same treatment. WTF, Harry?

2. Did you know that Hillary Clinton is a CUNT? Isn’t that, like, the most hilarious observation you’ve ever heard, like, in your ENTIRE LIFE? Also brilliant? Christ. As Shakes says, personally, I’d consider it a compliment (if I didn’t know the source).

3. You know what’s even funnier than calling Clinton a cunt? Making fun of Heath Ledger for dying! Especially if you can do it while gay-bashing! Whoo, that’s hilarious.

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Posted in current events, outrage, politics, writing

Maturations

Posted on January 23, 2008 | Comments Off on Maturations

The Hatchling is now officially word-crazy, having added such words and phrases as “Go, Car, Go!” (a favorite book), “feet” (sounds like ‘phweet!’), shoe, nose, Oma, down, outside, all done and cookie to her ever-burgeoning vocabulary. Two cute things about that: one, she’s developed a pattern of asking what a thing is, and then once you tell her, she waves at it and says “hi.” It goes like this:

Hatchling: ‘Sat? ‘sat? ‘sat? (what’s that?)
Squab: That’s your baby-doll.
Hatchling (face lighting up): Hiiiiiiii, beee! (“Bee” is how she says “baby.”)

Two, she’s lately started calling Mr. Squab “D.” She’s perfectly capable of saying “Daddy” – it’s one of her few two syllable words – but apparently she’s now too hip and cool for that. So when Mr. Squab gets home, she’s all, “Hiiiiiii, D! Hiiiiiii, D! Hiiiiiii, D!” Which is, you know. Pretty cute.

But. Proud as we are of her increasing linguistic abilities, she’s recently manifested a skill that eclipses even speech in her father’s eyes. To wit: yesterday, her cousin, E, was spending the day with her and my mom. E, like Mr. Squab, likey the video games, and usually when he comes over he spends a good chunk of time on the Wii or the PS3. In the afternoon he took a break for lunch or something and after a while he and Oma heard odd noises from the TV in the living room. The TV itself was off, but the Hatchling had gotten hold of the PS3 controller, turned on the game system, and – blind – started “playing” a race-car game that Mr. Squab recently downloaded. “When we turned the TV on, she was on level 4,” reported E. “I haven’t even hit level 4 yet!”

I admit that I’m not quite sure whether to be impressed or slightly horrified by this, but Mr. Squab has no such dilemma. “That’s my girl,” he responded when we came home last evening from ECFE and the Hatchling plopped herself down in her toddler-sized chair, demanded the controller, and turned on the PS3 again.

“That’s my girl.”

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Posted in Funny Stuff, milestones

Tagged

Conspiring against me

Posted on January 22, 2008 | Comments Off on Conspiring against me

Loud-macking barista-girlfriend is gone today. However, the free wi-fi is extremely spotty. How am I supposed to waste time surfing the internet when I should be writing if the damn internet keeps going down? EXPLAIN THAT.

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Posted in trials and tribulations, writing

OK, seriously.

Posted on January 21, 2008 | Comments Off on OK, seriously.

If the chick sitting kitty-corner from me does not stop loudly macking on her barista boyfriend I AM GOING TO VOMIT.

I’m sure they’re perfectly nice people, I’m happy they’re so in love, it’s fabulous that they can spend the day together, but for christ’s sake GET A ROOM OR SOMETHING. PEOPLE ARE TRYING TO CONCENTRATE OVER HERE.

That is all.

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Posted in updates, writing

Semolina Pilchard

Posted on January 21, 2008 | Comments Off on Semolina Pilchard

It’s day one of Revisions Week in squab country. Mamasquab has come all the way from Michigan to watch the Hatchling during the day so I can have extended writing/revising time on Ye Olde Dissertatione. I’m back in regular contact with my dissertation director after a long break. Things are progressing, and it looks like it might actually be possible for me to have this damn thing finished and off my back by June. At long, long, long fucking last. So I should be feeling good, right? I mean, these are positive developments that have been a long time – far TOO long a time – coming.

Instead, however, I find myself in the grip of a deep blue depressive panic session. I’ve got a jukebox of writer’s block greatest hits running through my head. The Top Ten numbers include:
1. I hate this; I’m no good at revisions and never have been.
2. I would much rather be at home playing with my daughter.
3. I don’t even want this stupid degree in the first place; if I had it to do over again I’d never go in this direction.
4. It’s not like I’m even going to get a decent JOB out of all this.
5. What the hell am I even trying to SAY? Who cares what I think about stupid Joan of Arc in the stupid 19th century?
6. I can’t even believe I’ve wasted so much time and money on this crap. What am I, crazy?
7. Of course, with all these student loans to pay off, I damn well BETTER have a degree to show for it, whether I want it or not.
8. God, it’s hard to write. Why is it so HARD? God, I’m lazy.
9. What if I do all these revisions and it’s still not enough? What if my committee wants two or three more sets of revisions? How much longer am I willing to work on this thing before I just say, fuck it?
10. But how could I live with myself if I got this close and didn’t finish?

Ain’t that a great selection? Boy, just gets your toes tapping and makes you wanna WRITE, don’t it?

Fuck. Fortunately for me, I have very intelligent and downright decent blog-friends, like Jordan, who posted this today. It was just what I needed to read. Not that I’m feeling insanely optimistic now or anything, but her post at least gave me the gumption to tell myself to SHUT UP already and just get to it and do something. So I’m going to go do that now. I’ll let you know how it goes.

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Posted in trials and tribulations, writing