Mundanely better

Another bout of last-minute kid-watching today. "We'll make it up to you," my mother-in-law said, looking down at my burgeoning belly. "Won't we?" (I've swelled up in just the last couple of weeks or so to suddenly looking distinctly pregnant. It's weird, but I think it's better than when I just looked overweight. More overweight, anyway.) Despite that, I'm feeling quite a bit better. I talked to Eric about my resentment and worry, and I took my glucose test, and I've finally got the tomatoes out into the garden, and I'm working on the thank-you letters. The desk is still more crowded than I like--messy workspace means messy mind to me, so it makes me all scatterbrained and irritable--but I'm getting it under control.

I made bread today, plain wheat sandwich bread, but it was nice to do. And tomorrow I'm going to make sourdough onion-rye bread, which totally excites me. I might have to actually bake it Saturday, as Eric wants us to go to opening night of the Star Trek movie, but that's all right too. We're going up to see some friends Saturday, but not until the afternoon, and in the morning I planned to go to the farmer's market for salad fixings and strawberry plants anyhow, so it all works out. Now the only thing really wrong is that I've got a slight headache from eating too many Nerds.

Bedtime countdown

It is 11:17 (though that will have changed by the time I get done writing--there, it already has) and I am contemplating working on Shoelace in the 13 (now 12) minutes left before bed. Not that we always go to bed at 11:30. In fact, rarely. But last week we were mostly in bed at around midnight, and I was tired as heck--tireder than Eric, in fact, since (a) he got Monday off because his back was spasming and got several hours more sleep and (b) he gets off earlier and naps before I come home. Which is not to say I couldn't nap when I get home...but it hardly ever seems like the right time of day to do so.

Anyway, sleep in 11 minutes now. If I just keep writing there will be no time for Shoelace. Which is okay, despite my not having gotten quite to 50k yet. I've been doing a paid blogging gig, which excites me no end, and I should have had a post up today, but inspiration has not come. It doesn't help that we spent most of the day over at the mothers' for Mother's Day. The mothers seemed pleased with the day, despite rain and gloom destroying their plans for a cookout and an outdoor meal (or at least the outdoor meal; they still used the grill under a huge umbrella). Eric's sister was unhappy with her husband, we think because he didn't get her anything for Mother's Day (or rather their daughter didn't--but since she's fourteen months old, the onus falls on her father) and I was a bit withdrawn overall. But the time passed reasonably pleasantly, and I got some silicone baking sheets for my birthday (which was April 5. My brother-in-law also got the same sheets in a different color. His birthday was in March. The mothers have had these since March, they say, but didn't give them to us because the projected birthday dinner never materialized), and our ice cream (strawberry, vanilla, and chocolate brownie) was a hit.

Now I'm home and I feel like I didn't get enough weekend. Yesterday we spent making ice cream, buying groceries and Mother's Day gifts and jalapeño pepper plants since mine didn't come up (we wanted poblanos too, but every poblano plant we looked at was infested with aphids, so we didn't buy any and informed customer service before we left), and going to the symphony. This week should be relatively slow; Eric's student teaching is coming to an end, and aside from a dentist appointment we should have time to do things we didn't, like clean the house. I want more time. But that's hardly unusual.

And now it is bedtime. Good night!

Ironically, resenting one's mother-in-law is extremely conventional.

When I'm at work--or generally with people who are not my close friends--I tend to pretend that I'm more conventional than I am: that I care about cars, makeup, celebrity gossip (I do care about work gossip). I smile, I make small talk, I laugh at dumb jokes, I stay quiet about my true thoughts and interests. I was thinking last week that perhaps that time had come to stop doing that, and start being more fearlessly myself.

But perhaps I was wrong. Yesterday Eric and I went over to his mom's so that we could visit and he could work on a video he has to do for school which isn't working on anybody's computer but his mom's. When we arrived, she was complaining about something that was wrong with her computer, so Eric naturally said he would take a look at it before starting on his work. Time went on, and his mom said something about it; he said, "I don't want to be working on this, I want to be doing my homework!" and went back to trying to figure it out. She went away. Not long after, she came back and said, "I didn't ask you to work on my problem. You shouldn't have offered if you were going to be that way about it. I didn't like your tone, and I'm tired of your rudeness."

He was surprised, since he hadn't directed it at her specifically, just meant to vent some irritation at the problem itself. He apologized, and she said again that he had been rude. Eventually she wandered away and fell asleep on the couch; he sat at the computer, upset and unable to work, and we decided to go home.

At home, he threw himself on the bed and I tried to talk to him about this, telling him that he shouldn't take it personally, that his mom had been having frustrations all day (she'd told us about them) and she was just blowing off steam. In the middle of the conversation, she called him. She started out asking why he had gone home, and whether he had finished his video. When he answered, she started a long monologue. I couldn't hear most of her words, just her tone; but in the middle she got louder and Eric sat up, and I could hear her say, "You know what it is? It's your haughty, arrogant, holier-than-thou attitude. The two of you think that you're perfect and the rest of us are constantly wrong. You criticize how Addie's being brought up, you criticize me for watching TV and getting text messaging, nobody can do anything right except for you two. It's not just me who thinks so, but I'm the only one who will say anything about it, and I'm sick of it."

She went on and on, Eric trying to interrupt, trying to say "I'm sorry," and being overriden. Finally she told him he should come over and finish his homework, and hung up.

"I guess it wasn't just her letting off steam," Eric said, and started crying.

He didn't know what she meant by most of the things she said, and neither did I--except that I know that we both (Eric especially) certainly do have opinions on things the mothers do, as well as everything else in the world, and we talk about them. So do the mothers. Essentially, Eric said, the rest of the conversation was saying that he was an arrogant, worthless human being, and the time had come for her to tell him so.

He sank into a depressive stupor. He's been clinically depressed before, and we've been thinking it's probably coming on again, especially with the stress of the past several months. Some things he said, then and later, confirmed it: that while in this catatonia he was thinking of different ways to kill himself, that if he were going to kill himself for being worthless--and since his own mother had told him he was, it must be true--he would have to hurt me too ("Sure," I said, "Otherwise, I wouldn't let you go through with it," but he said that wasn't it, it was:) just in case I happened to be carrying his child because he wouldn't want his genes passed on. That he would never actually do it because whenever he was low enough to think of it he never had the energy to carry it out.* One of my tasks today is to find a psychiatrist on our insurance plan. Eventually I got him to sleep.

*(This is why suicidal people first taking antidepressants have to be watched. The drugs give them energy before they lighten the depression itself. Finally, my psych degree comes in handy.)

Two hours later he woke, still wildly unhappy but at least able to move and talk; we had dinner and talked about what we were going to do about his mother. We toyed with the idea of never talking to her again (which had its appeal), of pretending it never happened (which didn't), of asking Edith for any suggestions, since we didn't know how serious Brenda was about what she had said or what she wanted us to do. Finally we decided we would stay away for the next couple of days, then ask Edith what she thought would be best.

(My God, this has gotten long. It's going to be much longer. Well, this is what happens when I no longer use my notebook as a regular journal.)

Not long after, of course, Brenda called. She wanted to come over. Eric agreed. She sobbed in the entryway that she didn't want to fight, though Eric hadn't been fighting and I hadn't entered the issue at all except as accused by her; then she complained that she wanted to sit but didn't want to take her shoes off (as is our rule in the house), so I told her just to walk into the living room in her shoes. "Yeah, but I just walked over in the mud," she said as she crossed the carpeted floor.

She said she knew she was overly sensitive sometimes, but we were so arrogant and cynical, and she was bothered by it. I asked what she wanted us to do differently, and she said she didn't. She and Eric discussed it, and went on a great number of tangents, and it emerged that she didn't exactly want us to change our behavior, she just wanted to tell us that she didn't like it. She couldn't explain what made us so arrogant except that we didn’t seem to like the same things she did, that most people do: that whenever we say we do things differently, that means we think we're better than her. The Addie thing was completely made up, as was the "it's not just me but I'm the only one who will say anything" bit.

"What can we do to prevent this from happening again in another six months?" I asked her, when she asked what I thought and why I was being so quiet.

"Nothing," she said.

She dragged me over for a hug, and joked at me, and asked why I gave her an inscrutable look sometimes and complained that it unnerved her. The inscrutable look is what I wear when I'm annoyed by her (or whomever) but don't want to say so. I will continue to use it. I will try not to spend much time with her. As a friend of mine (to whom I ranted about this this morning) said, I wouldn't want to be arrogant and critical. I will try to be less myself around her.

And until Eric gets sufficient help, I will try to get him to be less himself around her, too. She knows he's had problems with depression before and that he's under a lot of stress now. She doesn't believe in psychiatrists, though he's seen one in the past with excellent results; he mentioned I was going to find one for him, and she didn't actually tell him it would be useless but expounded on how there was no such thing as a good psychiatrist. (She knows I was a psych major too.)

He's feeling much better, now that they've talked. He says that when it happens next, Edith and I are to simply force them into a room together until they talk. We both know it will probably happen again. If she felt justified in attacking him this time, she'll surely feel justified in doing it some other time. He's going over today to work on his video, but I think this soon after this incident they'll be safe.

Now that he's feeling better, I'm free to feel worse, and I am. The I'd-have-to-hurt-you-too thing didn't faze me at the time, but I'm disturbed by it now. (Not that I don't think I could take him. As he frequently points out, I've taken kickboxing and fencing and I stretch daily and exercise semi-regularly, and his exercise consists of pacing in front of a blackboard all day.) I don't want to go through this again. I probably will, sometime in our lives; but I'd prefer it be for a different reason. And I still don't know how much truth there was to her accusations. Maybe I do need to continue keeping myself to myself.

I'm tired. Eric had a bit of an emotional breakdown last night, which taxed both of us. But I think he's feeling a bit better now. I shall still keep an eye out for a psychiatrist referral though--I had called the local hospital to inquire a few days ago, because he's been having problems with sleep and depression and was thinking about seeing someone, and the woman who answered asked first "Why isn't he calling?" I didn't get that response when I called to schedule him a dentist appointment. Then she wanted to know his symptoms; then she told me the attending psychiatrists aren't taking new patients and his only option would be a resident's clinic from 9-10:30 Tuesday mornings.

James is home; they put a stent in his pancreatic duct (?) and didn't find anything specific, but the doctor suspects the general trauma and inflammation there were caused by his motorcycle accident a couple of years ago. I'll have to ask my dad whether I should send James some books or not.

I'm watching Michelle tonight, supposedly helping her spin, but after I agreed the mothers started talking about how they would be able to use the free time so I suspect they just wanted a childless evening. I was also asked to watch her tomorrow. To be honest I'm a little irritated by the mothers' assumption that we're constantly available for free babysitting. (Maybe they'll get Eric his expensive widescreen computer monitor and I'll forgive them.)

We're finally, finally, at last getting the driveway fixed, in two weeks. I have to move plants and reconcile myself to parking on the street. I will be so extremely happy to have a real driveway to park on this winter, though; for that I'd move ten times as many plants (or leave them to die, either way).

I do not think I will be posting here any more frequently than I have been. It may be time to give up a general-topic blog; I don't know. Or maybe it's just that I'm tired. I will be giving up crafts as a major hobby after the holiday work is done; I'll keep a project or two going, but nothing with a real deadline, so that I can concentrate on other things: writing and gardening and career and that sort of thing. Sorting myself out. You'd think there wouldn't be much to sort, and there isn't--maybe that's the problem. But clearing both my schedule and my head of the additional clutter can only help, right?

Tomorrow's cucumbers will eat us all

Tomorrow we go to Jungle Jim's! And the KitchenAid sale. And maybe to see Phoebe's baby, if she's up for it and isn't annoyed that I wrote at the last minute. It's going to be a lot of driving…with rising gas prices, possibly the closest we'll get to a road trip until we move.

Eric went to the doctor and talked about the problems he's having, and has a new prescription and some advice that sounds good to me, including, "Exercise more." So now we both have a reason to get out and walk in the evenings. And in nine days we'll be flying somewhere that will have lots of opportunity for exercise in the form of swimming.

The mothers asked for a list of what they should do at our house while we're gone. "Take in the mail," Eric said.

"Water the plants?" Edith said.

"Nah, I'll water before we go," I said, and I think shocked her. When they were gone I was instructed to water every other day. But I've only got four plants indoors, two desert plants and two shade plants, and the outdoors ones have mostly been trained not to expect me to water them. I admit the papyrus will need to be good and soaked.

I will need them to pick produce in the garden. Yesterday I got a good number of Taxi tomatoes and cherries and one Brandywine, plus four enormous cucumbers that I'd missed because I let them run free through the garden. "They're baseball bats!" Eric said. "They're enormous!" We dropped off most of my harvest with the mothers. We have a ridiculous number of cucumbers in the fridge already, so I'm going to try to be more creative with cucumber salads and such. I'm sure Edith knows to hunt for vegetables, but I'll ask her to be careful anyway, or I'll come home to find the cucumbers have taken over my garden and are holding the tomatoes hostage.

Speaking of plants, I have a polkadot plant on my desk at work with red and white and pink shoots. The white and pink haven't changed much since I bought it but the red has shot upward, doubling its height. I don't know if that means it's grown or if it needs more light than the others. I don't sit near a window, so I was figuring this to be a gamble anyway. Maybe I should bring in a hosta.

I have done pretty much nothing in the crafting and writing areas. I do have an appointment today to meet a friend at Joann to buy fabric so that I can teach her to make a tree skirt. Since I only ever made one before, and it was a quick-and-dirty affair, this might be overweening, but I'm pretty sure it will turn out fine. She says "I want to be you when I grow up," and that's quite the incentive to do things right. Which I guess means I need to stop writing this so I can finish one last work task so that I can sketch out designs and figure out how much fabric we'll actually need.