Snapshots

Click:

I've just left the government center, having been told that their website is totally misleading and what I want is in another castle, and decide to try walking to the Board of Elections building where I can vote early. Four blocks later I realize this isn't going to work, and I start heading back. As I'm walking, a brown car pulls alongside me, then climbs halfway up the sidewalk and paces me.

I think I see a female passenger (Eric asked me later why this was important) and it's plain daylight and there are people around, so I'm not terribly concerned; I just move out of easy reach and keep walking. The brown car gets stuck behind another car, and the light turns red, and I cross and start walking back towards my car.

I stop to read the Constitutional Amendments statue-type thing by the sidewalk. Someone hollers behind me, "I love you!!" I'm not sure whether he's talking to me or not, because I don't look back, but I turn the wrong way up a one-way street and the brown car doesn't follow.

Click:

"I want to know if the cystic fibrosis test covers a particular mutation," I tell the woman who answered the hospital's telephone.

"Okay, well, I can see if the system will tell me," she says dubiously. She looks. She finds nothing. "Sorry. But I can give you the number of the lab that does it, MLabs. --Wait. Where are you calling from?"

"My cell phone," I say, cautiously.

"I mean, are you a patient or what?"

I explain my situation. She says, "Okay. Because I'm not supposed to give you medical information if you're not a physician. Like, I can't give you this information because I'm not a physician either. There's a law that says I can't give this to you."

"But I'm not asking for advice," I say. "I just want to know a detail about the procedure."

"I'm sorry, but I can't tell you that. I can't even give you the number. It's my job, I have to obey this law."

I realize there's no use arguing, so I get her to repeat the name of the lab and tell me the city they're located in. I say sweetly, "Then I'll call them myself. Thanks for your help." I call the lab and they're perfectly helpful. I hope that the woman worries all night about whether or not she should have given me the lab's name and city.

Suddenly I'm more interested in the details of Obama's healthcare plan.

Now it's even more important that I straighten things out with the insurance company regarding my HSG. To wit: the $535 was just for my doctor to show up. The hospital's bill is $3,087. However I got no notice from Anthem about it, which suggests that the hospital didn't even try sending it to insurance. So I'm talking to them about that first. And if there's nothing I can do on that front, I'm going to talk to them about financing, because we don't have that much money. (Unless we take it out of our stocks, but that's a really bad idea right now. Putting it on a credit card would honestly be better. Yuck.)

I had my first interview today, for a real estate profile I'm doing for a local paper. I'd answered a Craigslist ad looking for local freelance writers, and this is my trial assignment. It went okay, though I did not feel polished or penetrating or anything particularly good, and the interviewee treated me like I knew something, which is the important bit, I think.

Tonight I'm writing up the article because this weekend is to be very busy with other freelance work (for the company that Jade introduced me to). This weekend Eric has no plans, so I'm hiring him to design a business card for me, because I felt foolish when my interviewee handed me his card and I had nothing to give him. I think it's time to go get a DBA. I don't know that it will help me or make me look more professional, but it'll be a nice shiny new toy for fairly cheap, and that would be a nice thing.

Close encounters

Thursday or Friday of last week, I was driving home in crawling traffic, listening to NPR, as has been my wont ever since Eric accused me of knowing too little about current events. (He was not entirely wrong.) Crawl, crawl, crawl, thunk. The car behind me had hit me. We got out; the driver, a woman a little younger than me, apologized profusely. She noticed the dent in my bumper and gasped, "Did I do that?"

"No, that was already there," I said. There was no damage to my car, just a license-plate-shaped smudge in the dirt, so I shrugged, she apologized once more, and we got back in our cars.

Today I was driving home, listening to NPR, thinking about whether we should buy stocks since everyone else was probably going to. I stopped at a light and fished out some trail mix from the Eric Hypoglycemia Emergency Stash. Chew, chew, chew, thunk. This one was a little harder. I got out and the driver, male this time, said, "Are you all right? I'm so sorry! I saw cars moving in the other lane and just started going." He looked at the dent in my bumper and said, "Did I do that?"

"No, that was from before," I said, and we examined the bumper. There were a couple of slight scratches this time, but not enough to be noticeable under the dirt or worry me, so after another apology and another "Are you sure you're all right?" we got back in our cars. It vaguely amuses me that both people thought they could be responsible for a dent in the side of the bumper when they hit me straight on. Could I have said "Yes" and gotten a free bumper repair out of it? Probably their insurance companies would be smarter than that. However, I feel sure that either I will myself get into an accident before long and be forgiven, or have a third person hit me even harder than the second one, and this third person will buy me a new bumper.

Status check

Current status: Furious at the insurance company. When I called to check whether they would cover the HSG, they said they would. Now they say they don't touch anything with the word 'infertility' on it. Dad suggests filing a complaint with the company and the insurance general (never heard of this, but I'll go find out). It was $535, so I think it's worth it to spend the time--I already submitted an informal complaint through their "Contact Us" page, but I'll check my paperwork and see what I need to do for a formal one.

Also, they don't do CF carrier testing unless a relative actually has CF, not just results indicating he's a carrier. Even though that's effectively the same situation minus the tragedy. Also, we need an official letter from Eric's new insurance company before my company will take him off of mine. $%!@*&$ bureaucracy.

Michelle was over last night while the mothers were at a seminar. She did a little spinning while I worked on my quilt templates; then she said, "I’m bored. I'd rather talk," and proceeded to tell me all about her tumultous relationship with her erstwhile best friend. I don't think she realizes that they're not best friends anymore, even though she sounded like she was describing a failing marriage, but she was doing at least a little metacognition: "I'm sorry to spill all this. But if you don't mind--it's nice to be able to talk about it."

I finished one sock of the pair intended for Mom yesterday. It's going in the wash this weekend to see if it shrinks--if not, I may have to redo it. I also need some good instructions for left-handed Kitchener stitch. Maybe I'll sit down with some easier-to-use yarn and figure it out myself.

We looked at our Ameritrade account yesterday. We really shouldn't have. We've lost almost six thousand dollars. Luckily we don't need the money; but we're definitely going to build up some savings in the bank before we do any serious investing. Though I do keep talking about upping our 401k contributions and buying some stock, since it's nice and cheap now. Eric wonders how much cheaper it will get. When the stock market starts going back up will there be a sudden upswing as everyone realizes now is the time to buy, or will most people be skittish and wary?

Slightly relatedly, I'm waiting on a small freelancing check from the company I'm scheduled to do a crazy amount of work with in two weekends. No check, no work. I'm sure my contact knows this; she's talking to the accounting person herself to make sure it gets to me. I'm also waiting on three potential nibbles on other gigs, but not very hopeful about any of them.

Status: life as usual. I want a vacation.

Turnover rate

I made apple butter and apple turnovers yesterday. The turnovers were something I'd never tried before, but I've been looking for something to replace the Fudgy Rounds Eric loves to take to work with him and I had lots of apples, so I gave them a shot. They're good. Eric loved them. "We should take some to the mothers," I said. "We could take them the recipe," he said.

Today, I made more. The original recipe only made eight, and we gave three to the mothers and sampled three more throughout the day. Eric brought one to work for after his faculty meeting and told me he was daydreaming about it halfway through the meeting. Who knew that handheld apple pies would be such a hit?

I tried out a cooked filling this time, because if it works well we're going to can a bunch of filling for later use. The first batch also had quite a few split seams and runny spots, so I took more care shaping the turnovers this time, pressing the crust together and crimping it carefully with a fork, then carefully trimming the edges away. I couldn't shake the feeling that I get once in a while since I got married, that this is something I'm going to be doing a lot in the coming years, that what I'm doing now is the foundation of a family tradition in the future. It's a strange feeling. But I like it.

Saturday, Saturday

Maybe I don't have a quilt design for James's quilt. I mean, I do, but the dragon-woven-into-the-design thing didn't work out the way I thought it would. I thought to do a test patch, for once, to test this out, and I'm glad I did. But it still means I'm not sure what I want to do. Switch entirely? Remove the dragon and keep the quilt simple? Find another way to weave the dragon in?

In other news, I met with an editor of a local business paper today to discuss doing freelance assignments. I think it mostly went well; he gave me some sample papers to read and asked me to send an e-mail with my interest in doing a trial assignment. I've got my fingers crossed.

I bought a half-bushel of apples at the farmer's market today ($10; at Andersons there were pecks for sale for $6) that I'm going to use tomorrow for apple butter, apple turnovers, and possibly apple cake. We also bought about three hundred dollars' worth of clothes for the two of us. Yikes. But we needed it (Eric especially), and we can afford it now, which I think actually makes me happier than the actual buying of things does.

Complicated

"I'm not sure what I'm planting in the garden next year," I said last night. "But I should probably act like we're going to be here an extra year."

"Yeah?"

"Well, maybe it would be a selling point--but then, if things are bad enough that a vegetable garden is a big selling point, we're probably not going to be able to sell the house."

"My mom asked me about that earlier," Eric said. "She wanted to know if we'd considered the economy regarding our plans to move. I said of course we had, we're not idiots. Only not in those words. I said yes, we've discussed it. That we've been discussing it off and on for months."

"Did she bring up her contention that we'll never move? Or that we won't come back?"

"That was the other mother," he said. "But no, she didn't mention that. She was just asking if we'd thought about it. Especially if we're going to be spending all this money to try to make sure we have a kid soon."

"Moving with a newborn would not be fun," I said. "Neither would moving while eight months pregnant."

"Right. So next year is going to be complicated."

"I think..." I said. "I think we're probably going to end up staying an extra year. But I'm not willing to give up yet."

"That's fine," Eric said. "We'll wait and see. We could always put the house on the market and see what happens. And maybe things will get better after the election."

James's Christmas quilt, launched.

James's Christmas quilt is designed. (I also have another design on tap now--I drew it first and I like it so much I think it's too nice to waste on James. Is that terrible?) It's going to be a sort of a graduated plaid design in his chosen colors, brown and purple and gold, with one-fourth of the plaid being not a color but an appliqued dragon. Did that make sense? Probably not. I'll put up pictures. First I've got to buy fabric, and draw a full-sized template for this dragon (and maybe learn how to draw), and decide whether I can cut out single patches for the applique or if I'll have to piece it and how to do the applique since it's just going to be cut up anyway.

I think it's interesting that my response to any quilting challenge is "I can do that; I just have to figure out how." I don't have that with my other skills. In knitting and cooking/baking I have faith in my ability to follow directions and perform a certain amount of improvisation, but I wouldn't try to figure out something truly unusual on my own. In writing I have faith I could do it eventually, but not necessarily now. In quilting, I have faith I can do it now, even if I don't immediately know how. I think I can call that master-level skill, even if my seams and color theory need a little work. Strange that it's this one that's come the farthest.

Now that I have a design, I need a name. I do not have master-level skill in naming things.

Muses and musings

I have finally finished that scene in Shoelace that has been blocking me for (ugh) two months now. The solution lay in doing other things to give the protagonist the motivation she needed to make an effort that would have otherwise made no sense. Temporary victory is mine!

I am eagerly looking forward to tonight's presidential debate, mainly to see whether McCain shows up. We don't even need to vote in the circuses, they come to us.

I had a fit of economy-induced anxiety last night. It's not looking good for our plan to move next summer, though I suppose you never know. But if credit gets that bad, we may not be able to buy a house out there even if we sell ours here. (We could always rent my parents' old house. James is living in it now but I've got a better history of on-time payments, so they say they'd be happy to kick him out and rent to us instead. We wouldn't really kick him out...I think...but we might sublet it to him.) And leaving a perfectly good job might be a really bad idea, unless I've got the freelance/telecommute plan going by then. (Luckily, teachers will probably always be in demand in some form or another.)

But we'll see. Chances are that the worst that will happen is we'll have to stay here an extra year...or two. I don't want to end my twenties in Ohio, but that's the way it goes sometimes.

Next you'll tell me books don't have search functions.

I never watched West Wing but I still thought this was totally awesome. I was disconcerted, though, when I wanted to post a comment or e-mail the author and couldn't. Isn't this the Internet?

Adventures in infertility: passing the buck

I was told to call the doctor's office when I started my period to get a scrip for Clomid. So yesterday I called and explained my request to the woman I spoke with--Ann--and added that I had questions about whether I was supposed to do an IUI as well and how that would work. She paused, said, "Hold on," and connected me to someone else, unnamed. The unnamed person heard my story, said, "Hold on," and connected me with Elaine. Elaine heard my story and said, "The only one who can answer your question is really the doctor. Let me have her call you back."

So I left my number and went off to phone training (not entirely useless because the icons on our new phones are not intuitive and they only have the icons on them, not, you know, labels) and of course got the call in the middle. After the session I found that the call had been from a Terry, not the doctor. Terry said to call her back, so I did. "You need to make an appointment with the doctor to discuss this," Terry said.

So I did, for Monday, which is too late for Clomid to work this month. Today I'm wondering if I should have insisted on the scrip anyway, and if I should call again today. Yesterday, since I was in the last throes of PMS, I quietly made the appointment and got off the phone quickly so that I wouldn't sound upset. But I was; I was disappointed, and they've switched stories on me without provocation. And this is not the best thing to do to a patient when you know perfectly well she has PMS because that's when you asked her to call.

Family concerns

I'm currently reading Anne Lamott's Blue Shoe. I picked this up at a thrift store in Ann Arbor while shopping for dyeing equipment. I've been meaning to read Anne Lamott's fiction since I read Bird by Bird, but hadn't until now. I'm not normally much of a mainstream fiction reader...or at least that's not what I gravitate towards, though I do have a few mainstream novels that are some of my favorites to reread. I realized this evening that I rarely read new stuff anymore. Generally I just reread what I have. I wonder if this is why when I do read something new, I tend to gulp it down.

At any rate, this kind of mainstream fiction is definitely not what I would think of as my sort of thing. It's very senses-oriented, descriptive, symbolic, where the events don't matter in and of themselves so much as in their effects on the main character. I have to slow down to read this properly. I remember doing that with the one Charles de Lint book I read, too. Unlike that book, this one is more direct in its message: acceptance, family, duty, love, that flaws are okay and the point is to be a good person, not a perfect one. I feel like I've been very close in my own mind lately, that I need to expand and breathe and relax into my own life a bit. It's an interesting phenomenon. I'm glad I'm reading this book right now.

Dad called me today to discuss James's genetic testing results. James called Monday to tell me about it, disrupting the night's plan of work. I've just now caught up to what I was planning to do then. If I understand him correctly (and he understood the doctor correctly), he's a cystic fibrosis carrier. The doctor says this may or may not be the cause of his pancreatitis; some mutations in the CF gene are codominant (most are recessive, meaning that one mutated gene is okay, but codominant means that one mutated gene will produce some effects, though not as many as having two mutated genes) and CF does involve the pancreas but he almost certainly got the gene from Dad, and Dad's family, and nobody has had James's sort of internal troubles that we know of.

"I don't really know what CF is," he said, so I told him a little about it--bodily defects, lung problems, diabetes, malnutrition, sterility, and constant pneumonia and bronchitis symptoms are what it amounts to, though I didn't go into all that--and that I planned to get myself tested. "James said his doctor said it was mostly passed down on the male side," he said, which is contrary to what I know--cystic fibrosis is an autosomal disease--so I said either he was mistaken or I had misunderstood what the results actually were.

"When is CF diagnosed?" he said, and I said usually at infancy. "Then Abby (James's daughter) probably doesn't have it," he said, in relief. Two of my cousins were already tested when a cousin on their dad's side died of CF, so it's just the last two cousins who need to know--based on current information they have a 25% chance of being carriers. James didn't specifically say to disseminate the information, but he didn't say not to, and it's a family concern.

He's going to tell Mom about it when he's there to explain it--he's on a business trip currently--and I'm going to call when he's home to tell Mom about my test results, that I have a blocked oviduct and I'll be taking medication, so that he can help explain that. I'm not that bad at explaining things but she does seem to understand quickest when Dad tells her things; the habit of thirty years of listening to him, I expect.

I was feeling very anxious and cranky about all this yesterday, which is why I didn't catch up on any work. I'm still out of sorts today, in an odd way I haven't experienced before. It's not quite like PMS (though I'm due for it), and it's not quite like the depression I had in 2004. It's more ephemeral, more trivial, more flat-affect than bad-affect, but it's still been preventing me from doing things. However, I'm hoping that's at an end starting tomorrow.

Adult 2.0

We talked this past weekend, Eric and I, about Adult 2.0. It started out talking about money: now that he's got a paycheck again (yay!) we're figuring out what to do with money. Our plan is to pay off his student loans over the next year, which leaves us approximately $400 a month for savings and $400 a month for fun, based on the premise that my salary will continue to pay all our regular bills and his is therefore available for semidisposable items. "Fun" includes travel, gifts, and clothing, so it's not the riches we first felt it was, but it's much better than our budget over the past eight months of $0. (Not that we didn’t exceed that.)

We're also discussing what to do with the savings, and whether we should buy stock since it's low right now. And then there's the planned move: where are we going? When do we start job-hunting? When do we put the house up for sale? And then there's the hope of kids: what if I get pregnant such that we move halfway through? What about medical insurance? What kind of life insurance can Eric get? When do we need wills drawn? What about household management and the chores we neglect as it is?

Adult 1.0 was when I was in grad school and (more) when I was living in Dayton: I was an adult, I had an income and monthly bills, and I managed my own household. But it was a household of one, and decisions I made affected me and only me. Money was easy: when I spent less than I made, the extra went into a savings account. A growing savings account meant I was doing well.

I'm not sure when Eric moved from 1.0 to 2.0, since he was married before but it sounds like their household wasn't very well organized, but it happened for me when (a) I got engaged to Eric and (b) I put my savings into a CD. Two simple things, but they meant that (a) my responsibilities were to someone else and therefore more complex and (b) I realized that money is more complicated than addition and subtraction. Then came household management, and dealing with emergencies, and all those other things; and I feel fully entrenched in 2.0 now. It's complicated, but I know enough now to handle it, plus all the other things that make up my life--hobbies and family and such.

I wonder if other people feel this way, even if they don't put it in software terms.I assume 3.0 comes with kids, but I won't know until we get there. Maybe it's a 2.3 patch.

Sweet tooth

My tooth is fixed, and my sense of drama happily failed me; the dentist concluded I had "plenty of tooth left" and just smoothed and filled it. It meant I was numb for our first dinner out in several months, at a local Chinese-American restaurant , but that was okay. The numbness wore off before the food actually got to the table, anyway. I don't know if my metabolism is picking up or they used the cheap stuff; normally it takes more than three hours to completely go away.

I made this pumpernickel bread over the weekend. Except for being way too salty, it was pretty good, but not better the rye recipe I tried out of Local Breads that contains no cocoa or molasses. I'll try one of those this week. Plus focaccia: semolina focaccia with tomatoes and basil. It looks like summer's drawing to a close, so I'd better enjoy it while I can.

We're stocked up on sandwich bread; I'm one or two iterations away from Eric's ideal rye sandwich loaf if he stops moving the goalposts, and I've got Harvest Wheat and Honey Wheat recipes (it was Honey Wheat Berry, but the berries are too big for my liking; cracked wheat works better) that we're happy with, so we are pretty much a bakery-independent household. I haven't made hamburger buns yet--that's one of the few holdouts--but I found some recipes and I don't see why it would be hard, not when I made some ciabatta rolls not long ago that turned out to be excellent with burgers (veggie burgers, anyway) and were pretty easy to make. Eric wants me to try making pasties, and I want to try making Pizza Bites, and if we're staying here for Thanksgiving I'm totally making this. Maybe even if we're not, if Thanksgiving isn't actually at Mom and Dad's--I could do this if we were going elsewhere, but probably not if the kitchen were full of other Thanksgiving trappings.

I've been doing a lot of crafting lately (still haven't finished the damned summer quilt, but I will, very soon, honestly) and not a lot of writing. I’m envisioning my life as a vase that I filled with pretty little bits and bobs, and now that I have something big I want to put in it, it won't fit because all the pretty knickknacks are in the way. Unfortunately I've promised to finish a few things (including a quilt for my brother for Christmas) so I can't quit entirely, but this needs fixing. I felt this way last year, as I recall. That's not good. I suggested I could publish a book of quilting patterns and Eric said it would never work because the patterns would be too intimidating, which is at least flattering.

The evil of all roots.

"Part of my tooth just fell out," I told my boss. He cringed; I went on, "I'm going to the dentist at three-thirty to get it checked out." He did not object. I would say "Woo, leaving early on Friday!" only my keen sense of drama tells me that I will shortly be told I need a root canal, principally because this exact thing--except for the boss-horrifying--happened to Eric about two months ago. Happily, we can afford it now (woohoo for a DINK household!) so aside from the hassle it's not a huge deal. I was rather hoping to spend Eric's first paycheck on something more fun, though.

Adventures in infertility: HSG

(Note: TMI.)

I had my HSG this morning. Once I found the right department (radiology) and was routed to an entirely different department (cardiology) to register--hospitals don't seem to believe that they have patients who have never been there before and don't know the procedures--it went smoothly. I was double-bagged in two hospital gowns, one opening in front, the other in back. I sat in the little radiology room while we waited for my gynecologist, and then when everything was set up, me on the table with my knees apart and a tenaculum clinging to my cervix, we waited for the radiologist. "He'll be right there," reported the nurse/technician/my best friend throughout the process.

"They always say that," said the gynecologist. "I always want to go attach a tenaculum to their scrotum. Then we'll wait as long as you like!"

At length the radiologist came and the procedure--consisting entirely of depressing the plunger, adding more dye, and depressing the plunger again--began. The radiologist completely blocked my view while it was ongoing, but once the assembly had been pulled out of me and the camera was put away, they showed me my innards as seen by X-ray. The uterus is fine, the left tube is fine, the right tube is blocked. That seems about right to me; I generally feel more activity on the left down there. "So we know we've got one to work with," the gynecologist concluded. "Next cycle we'll get you on some Clomid and go from there. Your husband had an SA, right?"

"Yes. Everything normal except a slightly low count."

"Then all the more reason to go on the Clomid. We've got to give him more to bat at."

The gynecologist left; my best friend cleaned up and told me she was on Clomid, too, and waited for me to get up. Which I did, four times; the first three I got dizzy and my ears closed, and I laid right back down. Eventually she gave me some juice and a cold compress and the fourth try took.

I was told to take the day off to rest; from what I'd read I figured that was unnecessary but wasn't going to argue. I feel both ways about it now. I'm okay, and I could certainly be sitting at my desk at work, but there's some residual weirdness and weakness (solely from my complete wussiness when it comes to medical procedures--I do the same thing when I give blood and I despise my weakness, but I don't seem to be able to do anything about it) and I'm glad to be able to stay home the rest of the day. So, I shall go bake bread and read and enjoy my sick day.

Three-Day Novel contest, first and last

10,839. I got to a late start, when I turned my computer on at 11:45 last night only to discover the hard drive was toast. Luckily I'd had signs of this and backed up my files on a CD just the night before, so I'm not concerned except for the fifty bucks or so it'll take to replace it (also that I forgot to save my custom dictionaries in Word, but that's not irreplaceable anyway, just convenient). I started this morning on one of Eric's old hard drives, on a computer he'd planned to take to school, and tooled merrily along until I realized that the portion of the story I'd decided to write was (a) coming out total crap and (b) way too short. I finished what I outlined just now, at just over 10K. I could go back and fill in, but I'm feeling discouraged by what I'm feeling are generally poor writing skills. I think I'm going to leave this as is and work on Shoelace tomorrow, but also get in other things, like spending time with Eric when he's not working on school stuff.

Maybe I'll do better another year. I'm terribly out of shape, writing-wise, I think.

If I didn't have to go to work, I'd have plenty of time.

Gah. I'm panicking about the outline and feeling like I've gotten nothing done tonight. Which is basically true (except for picking tomatoes and taking a walk--oh, and finishing a skein, so I guess it's basically not true), since I haven't posted at M&M when I'm supposed to and I haven't finished the story outline and I haven't done the canning I meant to and so on. It's that time of month and I'm feeling yucky, so that's an excuse; and work has been hectic lately and the one task I really enjoy is causing me problems, so that's another. Ugh. Mainly, I'm just feeling off. Also, Eric told me last night that PV is lousy (I mean, he didn't say that; I gathered it from what he did say) and I don't want to have to practice this much at the rate at which I write because I'll be eighty-seven by the time I can do anything good. Tomorrow I'll carve out time to finish the outline--I'd better!--and can and post, and Friday I'll stay away from the computer until midnight, and then I'll see what I can do.

Grocery shopping in the time of rising food prices

Eric and I went grocery shopping today--first to the farmer's market, where we got hot peppers for salsa and parsley for tabbouleh and fruit for all the time--and then to Kroger. We'd had to skip our usual weekend breakfast of toast with apple butter because we had no non-rye (or non-frozen) bread, so while Eric went to the pharmacy I went straight to the bread aisle.

Where I made faces and was momentarily panic-stricken, because the bread we used to buy for $2.50 is now $3.59. I had some money-related anxiety a few days ago because Eric's tuition and the car insurance are both due in a week and we don't have money to pay for both after the mortgage payment goes out. Luckily the car insurance can go on a credit card and Eric gets his first paycheck at the end of September, so we should be all right, but I berated Eric just yesterday for suggesting that we could go out to eat.

"It's a good thing you know how to make bread," Eric said when he came back from the pharmacy to my empty cart. I made a perfectly serviceable sandwich loaf not long ago, soft enough for him and whole-grain-y enough for me, and I have most of a pound of yeast at home and flour is still relatively cheap.

We debated whether or not to buy Parmesan cheese. It was $6 for a 10-oz. block, and we had recently decided to get some for breadsticks and pasta sauce and pesto. "Should we go without?" I wondered. Eventually Eric suggested we try the Kraft stuff in the green box, and I agreed since I haven't had that stuff in ten or fifteen years and he says it tastes fine. The Kraft stuff turned out to cost the same amount, but the Kroger generic was less, so we got that.

"We're having to go without luxuries," Eric observed as he picked up lunchmeat and decided to skip breakfast sausage. "At some point we're going to have to buy ice cream rather than--"

"Never!" I declared. "I'll go without."

"I'm wondering if we could retool our ice cream recipes to use half-and-half instead of cream," he said.

"Maybe," I conceded. We have plenty of ice cream right now so it's not an issue, and presumably won't be in the winter--unless we decide to make more for a party in October or so.

"We're still getting by on one paycheck," Eric reminded me as we picked up milk and winced at the price of butter. "What are we going to do when we've got two again?"

"Not complain quite so much at food prices?" I said.

There's no neat acronym for "clean up after messy husband."

Acronyms are in my future. Acronyms like HSG and IUI. I am displeased. Eric had an SA and it showed a slightly low count, but not hugely so. We've been TTC (there's another one, which I am only using to continue the theme because that one bugs me for some reason) for more than a year now, so we're trying to decide what to do next (aside from continuing to try, because it's fun).

I've been having a busy time with Eric gone. I'm quilting, writing, cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, baking bread, gardening. (Oh yeah, and I have a job.) I'm also finding myself with the odd urge to clean up Eric's spaces. He has two, his side of the bedroom and his half of the office, and I let him let them get messy, within reason. (The glasses and cans have to go downstairs within a reasonable time.) Since I don't have to interact with either one, I'm fine with this arrangement, but now that he's gone I'm itching to put his ties and books away, throw away the old receipts, sort his papers into neat stacks. Of course then he'd never find anything. Maybe this is a response to the first problem?

The invisible Jennifer

So we had our company-wide department meeting last week, and during it I volunteered, along with K, to work on improving our submission form. Someone in the branch office said she wanted to volunteer N, another person from that office, because she knew N was interested in changing the submission form. Thus far, well and good (though K made frantic "no" gestures when the branch office person spoke). We decided to meet this afternoon, and I sent a message to N saying that we were doing so and asking how she wanted the three of us to get together.

N sent back a message, addressed to K, saying that she wanted to add two more people from the branch office because they'd been discussing it there but never got a chance to do anything about it due to workload. Then K told me that our boss's boss, who had conducted the company-wide meeting, had told K that she wanted to speak to her before we met. Then N sent an e-mail to K saying it would actually be three people she was adding and she and K could discuss when a good time to meet would be. We had a different training session today that Boss's Boss was leading, and after it was over I asked Karen what was going on with scheduling. Boss's Boss reiterated that she needed to speak to Karen before we could meet.

K has been with the company for a long time and is well-known to pretty much everyone. However, I cannot help feeling slighted that no one is even acknowledging my involvement, especially since I started the communication with N--otherwise K and I would probably have met, made our recommendations, and sent them to N afterward. Is it simply because they know K and not me? This doesn't apply to Boss's Boss, but then perhaps she now thinks of me as someone who Makes Waves. Slighted, I tell you.

Not special

We spent today with Eric's family. It was a fairly nice gathering, but I heard more about my in-laws' opinions and feelings and prejudices than I have in a long time. As we drove home I thought, My God, he's just like his family, why did I marry him? and worried vaguely. So I asked him about it: do you think you're different from your family? In what ways? Why do I get so tired after a day with them when I don't after a day with you?

This led to discussions on the nature of giftedness and potential, and how in our younger years we were both expected to Do Great Things, and how those Great Things were always in the nature of "win the Nobel Prize" or otherwise change the world. We were never led to believe that we might someday use our potential to be passionate and voracious debaters, or excellent at customer service, or the person everyone in the office goes to for help; or that that would be an acceptable use of our talents. We were never told that we would most likely be just another speck on a cog in a machine, and children have, I now know, no concept that being an adult in contemporary society is just that. We were always told that we needed to sparkle externally, never that it would be okay to quietly be a good and talented person without being outwardly exceptional.

I've been struggling with this ever since I left grad school, but I never thought about it in quite this way before. Eric says he has, because he had to come to terms with what he's decided to do with his life. He does feel he still has the capacity to change the world; but it's going to be more indirectly now, and he doesn't feel the need to change the world so much as to change his students. He has better goals now, more focused ones. I'm working on developing my own. I wonder what my EEP friends are doing with their lives, and whether they think about these issues as often as I do. I kind of hope not; I hope they've either become outwardly exceptional and are happy, or have come to terms with not changing the world and are happy.

(Also I hope that if someone does change the world, some of them have a hand in it. Far better them than, say, my mother-in-law, whom Eric says he's tempted to write in as his vote in the next election, but knowing what I know he knows about her political opinions, I don't think he's serious.)

Writing, fiction and non

So I thought I had solved my problem with Shoelace by taking out a small but apparently key bit several scenes back. Only it turns out I didn't because there's a major logical flaw I missed while I was plotting this out and by rights the protagonist's semievil semiplot should be ending right here. Dammit. Now I don't know what to do. Maybe I can recruit the real villain to help me out.

In the meantime, I have been critiquing my brother's first writing assignment. Several weeks ago, he said, "I feel like my writing skills are getting worse. So I was wondering if maybe you could give me some assignments and help me out so I could practice." I found this utterly charming and assigned him three paragraphs on the history of ice cream. He sent me his three paragraphs a couple of days ago and it's evident that he needs some instruction along with practice. His grammar and sentence structure are fairly decent, but I get the feeling that he never quite got the idea that writing is used primarily for communication. I admit I did not explicitly say "This is a strictly informative, semi-formal essay" but it's my belief I shouldn't have had to. His essay is nonlinear, overly informal and joking, and isn't focusing on communicating information, even though that's what I asked him to do. I'm not sure what its focus is. I don't think he does either.

So I'm sending it back with a bunch of comments (and a couple of corrected commas and semicolons, but there are no misplaced apostrophes so I'm pleased there) and suggestions on how to improve it with reasons why they would improve it, and I'm going to ask him to revise it. After that, I have plans for more assignments to work on informative writing, persuasive writing, and descriptive writing, using examples he might actually use--memos to employees, cover letters, advertising copy, a letter to his daughter, and so on. I hope he's willing to stick with me enough to get through this. I think he could do really well at writing--I was talking to Mom about this and apparently she and a lot of her family have always been good at it; why didn't I know that before?--but he needs some guidance to get there.

I'm also bemused to find that while I still don't think I'd be a good teacher, I'm enjoying planning out lessons as a tutor. Luckily it's not fiction we're talking about, though, since I don't exactly feel qualified to teach about that these days.

A long time ago

Jesus. I just went to look at my last Three-Day and it's from 2003. Has it seriously been five years since I did this? (I never used to use 'Jesus' as an epithet until I wrote this particular story, incidentally.) What have I been doing all this time? I mean, living, I guess--2003 was when Eric got married for the first time, and all of 2004 was lousy, and then in 2005 I was long-distance dating and getting tired of my job, and 2006 was adjusting to life in Toledo and wedding planning, and 2007 was being married. So I had no time to write in there? Bah. I mean, I know what happened, I did what I'm doing now, other things that are easier and fill up my time more quickly. Five years.

I'm stuck on Shoelace, too. And it feels fragile and lousy. But maybe that's because I got stuck on the scene and then stopped working on it. I still want to finish it by the end of the year (unless I end up starting over, and if I do I may shelve it entirely for a while). I want to finish things. I don't want to look around in another five years, another fifteen, another thirty, and wonder why these things aren't done.

However, it's still past bedtime now. I have a free lunch hour tomorrow and no book to bring. I'll put it to good use.

Novelty

I have a little less than four weeks to get this year's Three-Day Novel outline together. It's a story idea I've had for, I note with some distress, three years (why the distress? I have other ideas that are older that I'm still hanging onto) and I most likely won't ever write it unless I do it as a Three-Day. However, I suspect it's too big a story to fit into forty thousand words, so I'm not sure how I'm going to work this. Eliminate one character's perspective? Eliminate one of the plot elements? Write in first person to force some limitations? Simply aim to get halfway? I don't think that's a good idea. I could do it in diary form, like the last one. There's a way to do this, I'm sure.

In other news, I continue to be amazed at how freely women discuss the various aspects of reproduction. Perhaps my workplace is a little freer than usual because we seem to get frequent large groups of pregnant women, but still, I had no idea that women walked around talking about these things so much. I guess as women it's a fairly important part of our lives, biologically speaking, but I kind of figured the cultural disapproval of speaking of such things carried over from childhood to adulthood. Not so, it seems.

Pointless, out-of-proportion mother-in-law grumbling. Don't bother to read.

Arrgh. Annoyed at my mother-in-law tonight. I went over to get the fruit she had kept for us to use for ice cream, since we want to do that tomorrow. The visit--I hadn't intended it as such but knew it probably would be--started off fine, talking about the garden and such. Then she commented on a work e-mail I had sent, and then moved into her favorite topic, "black people can call me whatever name they want but if I call them a name I'll get fired." She said it was because of a news item that Congress passed the bill to apologize to African-Americans for slavery and that since I don't watch the TV or get the newspaper I probably don't know what's going on in the world or that my e-mail could get me fired. (It was about some client/coworker interactions I had had, no identifiers included, certainly nothing about race. It could certainly get me fired because theoretically anything could, or nothing, but I'm not sure how she managed the link because she didn't explain it.)

I listened a while and then told her I thought she was being inflammatory, and disagreed with her on a couple of points, and she talked some of her favorite talking points over again while I kept the "inscrutable" face that I retrospectively realize she hates on my face and wound up with, "I wasn't trying to be inflammatory. I was trying to engage you in a conversation. But that seems to be pointless so I guess I'll give up." I said, "I guess that's my cue to go; good night," and left.

It wasn't her choice of topic specifically that annoyed me so. It's that this seems to be her favorite topic, one she's brought up multiple times in multiple settings, and I don't like her point of view or the way she expresses it but I can put up with that quietly; it's the repetition that gets me. She says the same things every time. I (and the people she often says it to, Eric and his/our friends) give the same non-response every time. I don't think she does it expressly to annoy me but I don't know why she does do it. Is she trying to provoke either a knock-down argument or a positive, supportive response? Does she think that I'll eventually agree? Does she simply enjoy saying it over and over? Is this a grievance she can't get out of her head? Is this topic the only gateway topic to other conversations and we just never get through it because (except for tonight) I can't bring myself to really respond?

And of course it doesn't help that I have not forgotten her previous blow-up at my husband. I still try to be polite, and I pretend I have forgotten it because both he and she have and evidently assume that I have too (and Eric expressly said that he wanted me to), but I have not forgotten and I do not forgive her.

Though due to that previous experience I'm not concerned about her petulant "I might as well give up" at the end of the conversation tonight. She came to the doorway to see me out and said, "Take care, kiddo," in her normal tone. Presumably she's already forgotten. Maybe that's why she keeps repeating the topic, because she doesn't remember that she's already talked it through?

The psychology major strikes again

Back with an off-hand thought, because there isn't much to do at work and I didn't start a new book when I finished one last night. I stumbled across the idea of gender schematics/aschematics a couple of years ago and it pleased me very much. Essentially, gender schematics are people who have internalized traditional ideas of male/female behavior and gender roles: they act like "typical" men/women and assume other people are the same way. They also don't like it when people act contrary to their expectations (though nobody really likes that).

Gender aschematics, on the other hand, do not have highly internalized ideas of male/female roles, and basically don't put gender high on their list when considering or judging other people. I'm fairly sure that gender schematics are much more common than aschematics. I wonder if the reason that I, and several people whom I like and who think like me, are unconcerned about gay marriage and about homosexuals in general is that we're aschematic? Which would mean that the people who are very concerned about it are schematic and being so means that seeing men and women in non-stereotypical gender roles and behaviors pinches their worldview and gives them a headache.

I still think this is their problem, not mine, or homosexuals', or shouldn’t be. But I could understand it better if I saw it as a psychological problem rather than conscious or unconscious spite.

I've been in a bad mood, so this was helpful.

I just read the first sentence of this column by Orson Scott Card on legalizing gay marriage and burst out laughing. Couldn't help it. I also enjoy the definition of marriage as a "permanent or semipermanent bond."

I think his main argument, despite the amusing first sentence, is that gay marriage shouldn't be allowed because it will confuse children, leading to more gay marriages and the eventual extinction of mankind. Evidently he doesn't believe that our mainly-heterosexual-preferences are mostly biologically inborn. Which makes me wonder how we got here to start with, and why it didn't all come tumbling down back before we had laws to force us into our evidently artificial heterosexual relationships. He promises to address the science of homosexuality in a later column, so maybe he'll discuss it there, but I don't think I'll look for that. (What was it Voltaire said? "Once, a philosopher. Twice, a pervert.")

Food and fiber

Blech. I have a stomachache, maybe from dinner, maybe from heat, maybe from both. Our friends came down today to see the zoo with their son, and so we walked around for three hours in the heat and humidity without enough to eat (at least on Eric's and my part). Upon arriving home, we flopped down in the air conditioning for a while and drank lemonade. Then we had...let's see. Carrots and hummus, homemade pickles, Indiana melon, onion-dill bread (except for possibly switching to AP flour instead of bread flour, I think I've hit on the recipe we want!), grilled zucchini, corn on the cob, and burgers (veggie for me). We'd thought about serving ice cream after but we were so stuffed we didn't even consider it. It was an excellent repast and a good, if tiring day, but I seem to be paying for it now.

Before the zoo, Carol and I went to the local yarn shop, which is closing and selling everything for 50% off (except books, which are 40% off). She got a plethora of sock yarn; I got a little baby yarn, some fun buttons, and enough yarn to make a baby sweater for my friend who's newly pregnant. I'm saving the big purchasing for the Michigan Fiber Festival, which she and I are going to in August. (There was a contest at work to write the department's new mission statement, with a $100 prize, and I've received intimations I may have won it. If so, that's going to be my fun money, since Eric doesn't get his first paycheck until September and my extras are going to be going mainly to my brother for his medical bills.)

I'm also going to be demonstrating as a fiber artist and selling handmade works at Canal Days at the mill in September, but that's not until after the fiber festival. I'm considering asking Michelle if she wants to make things to sell, or even come along and help demonstrate (because that would maximize her chances of selling things--who wouldn't buy handmade yarn or bracelets or felted pins from a cute blond ten-year-old?). I feel kind of mercenary for this, but it'll be fun. And I'm also planning to put up a board with different kinds of fiber on it for kids (and adults) to see and touch, so I'm not being totally selfish here.

Tomorrow I've got Shoelace to work on and a nonfiction query to send out, plus working on the Summer Sunrise quilt back. And sleeping late. Definitely sleeping late.

A little late, aren't we?

Dammit. I was thinking about PV for no reason today, and suddenly came up with an idea that would make the parts that always seemed a little awkward to me go away and make the whole thing more seamless (if shorter). Of course it requires substantial rewriting. I said I was done with it! I don't want to do this! I'm going to have to go over it, of course, and I'll probably end up making the changes. Dammit. Why didn't this come up two years ago?

These boots were made for sitting down

I am finally finished with that walking challenge of Bev's. It was good for me, but wearing the pedometer was, well, wearing on me. But I'm done, thanks to a last-minute pilates session and a half-hour of working in the garden.

It's been a good long weekend; I lazed around on Friday, demonstrated ice cream and spinning at the mill ("Maybe later," an old lady said, clearly trying to avoid a sales talk, when I asked if she wanted to taste the ice cream; then, later, "How much is it?" and then when I told her it was free, "Can I give you a tip?"), and cooked today. No-cheese pesto, rosemary-artichoke hummus, pita bread dough, pickles, no-egg ice cream, and of course brunch and dinner. My feet were aching and I felt I ought to be able to count it as a step equivalent, but there was no "cooking" entry at the AOM website, so I had to skip it. Thus the pilates.

I've been working on the freelancing bit, putting some marketing material together and discussing a website and logo with Eric--which was the fun part--and thinking up article ideas and places to query, which was not. Sadly, this as everything requires some actual work.

The fish are being fed.

I'm back from Seattle. Seattle was beautiful. Not too hot, not muggy, clear days, Mom's roses in bloom and strawberries ripe. The trip was partly a visiting-family trip and partly a show-Eric-that-Washington-isn't-always-gray-and-raining trip, and went well on both fronts. We went to Leavenworth (a little Bavarian tourist town in the Cascades) and Pike Place Market, and rode the ferry across the Sound to Bremerton, which is a sleepy little military town Eric says might not be bad for moving to, and spent a day with my aunts and cousins (and one uncle-in-law). We brought a bunch of apartment and real estate guides back with us. Later I'll get Bev to send us some for northern Oregon. Now that Eric's got a job, and I have a strong possibility of having regular telecommuting work, there's every chance that we'll be able to move out there next summer as planned.

In the meantime, I’m working on strengthening that possibility of mine. I've been reading about freelancing, about copywriting and articles and marketing and so on and so forth. I'm very hesitant to talk about it--either because I feel I don't know enough or because I feel sure to fail, I'm not certain which. But I'm working on it. Ideally, I'll work on the freelancing I've got, and getting more, in the evenings, and do my work as efficiently as possible during the day so that I can get to my fiction at lunch and during down times. We'll see how that goes. Now that Dad's quilt is done (and he loved it--especially since, in his words, it represents about twenty years of his life) I need to finish our summer quilt, and then I'm putting the sewing machine away until I need to make curtains in the fall. --Well, that and a baby blanket for a friend of mine, but again, not until fall.

I talked to Eric about the freelancing last night; business and names and so on. And I mentioned the idea that my current client might offer me a full-time job in a year or so, and said, "But I don't think I would want to do that. It's nice work, but it's not ultimately what I want to do. I'm twenty-eight years old, and it's time I started working on a career I love, not just a job to keep me employed." I really do feel that way. I don't regret the things I've done so far, but it's time to start working on something that makes me happy rather than something that makes me secure. (Maslow's hierarchy, dontchaknow.) We have a book on starting a small business. It's a very comprehensive book that we bought when we were talking about someday opening The Book Club, and I enjoyed reading it because using any of the information in it was in no way a part of our actual plan. It's different reading this book now. Not bad, but different.

In the meantime, we're going to a Jonathan Coulton concert tonight. This should be pretty awesome. Also awesome: it's almost the weekend already.

Time dilation

My God, I completely forgot how long a day can be when you're home alone with a long list of fairly congenial tasks. I have baked two kinds of bread, made one kind of ice cream, finished Dad's quilt top (remind me never to work with T-shirts again; also, why do I always realize that my design/color is ugly when I'm almost done and have no energy or time to start over? though I notice that generally goes away, though I'm not sure whether that's distance from the work or resignation), vacuumed, filled out the credit card fraud form (I have to get it notarized. Where do I go to have this done?), washed hand-washed laundry, and entertained a friend (who said the lemon ice cream was the best ice cream she's ever had).

Still to do tomorrow: one freelance assignment, birth and tie the quilt (because I'm not quilting; it'll take too long and will only make it look worse--luckily Dad won't really care), regular laundry, start packing, weed and mulch. Not bad, not bad at all. I can hardly believe I've got a whole other day of weekend.

No less crafty, just less bloggy

Also, there. The craft blog is gone. It was a good idea at the time, but I turned out not to have time for everything, and this was a good thing to let go. The crafts themselves are also much lessened, and that's fine. I have other things to be focusing on right now.

Ice cream disappointments

I made Cherry Garcia the way Ben & Jerry's book told me to, though I was dubious, and it doesn't taste like Cherry Garcia; it tastes like bland chocolate chip with icy chunks of cherry thrown in. Next time I'll know to listen to my instincts. I'm thinking cherry puree.

I made Mexican chocolate, chocolate with cinnamon, cloves, and cayenne. I've decided to get rid of the cayenne next time. I do find the hot-and-cold juxtaposition intriguing, but it only occurs at the very back of my throat. I can't decide whether the ice cream numbs all the ones in front of it, or there's some interaction with the fat, or what, but it's weird, and every time I eat it I feel like I'm starting a sore throat. Otherwise the ice cream is entirely satisfactory. I'm eating this stuff quickly just so I can start over with a new batch. This is not a good idea for my health, but I don't seem to be able to pay that as much attention lately. I'm eating well, just a lot--and of course a lot of ice cream tastes. Cherry vanilla is next.

A lonely housewife, that's me.

I don't wanna go to bed. I don't necessarily want to stay up, either. Dammit, having a housemate is more addictive than I thought. Well, when it's my husband and best friend, anyway. I've had almost forty-eight hours now of being able to do what I want, cook what I want, sleep when I want, etc., and I can't enjoy it as much as I should because I miss Eric. Even with his picky-eating, computer-focused, sleep-disrupting ways. He's off at a gaming convention in Columbus and it sounds like he's having a grand time; he got free admission and (shared) room by volunteering to demonstrate games but that's hardly a hardship for him, and he still gets most of his time to play. I expect him to come home with several new games in tow. I will hug and kiss him and tell him I missed him, and then I'll make him clean the bathroom.

Anyway. Things are happening to me work-wise: Jade put me in the way of some freelancing work that is pretty much exactly up my proverbial alley (why alley? This area of my experience is not at all a dirty, dark, rat- and beggar-infested slum) and I am engaged to do it: around 30 hours over the summer, and then more or less as much as I can handle in the fall and the spring. It is not exactly the science writing I was envisioning, but it pays well and it's absolutely a good start. And it's a bit of a running start; I get the feeling they would be happy if I would leave my job so they could pile work on.

If all goes well, I might discuss doing exactly that with them in the spring. Eric has a job now--hooray!--and will have cheap health insurance, and of course we're planning to move next summer anyway. They mentioned the possibility of full-time work down the road, telecommuting, which would be awesome beyond words for a cross-country move. Again, it wouldn't be the freelancing I was envisioning, but it would still be a good move and a step up (though the job involves the same industry my current job does, which makes this all the more funny coincidental). Also I've been thinking over Shoelace, and also another project I want to do after. So both Eric and I are doing well on the career front this week. I suppose my career wouldn't be hurt by my actually going to bed at this point.

I'm not sure what to think.

56 As a 1930s wife, I am Average Take the test!

Ivy Lee mode

I had a long to-do list this morning, longer than I wanted, longer than was easily winnowable as some days' lists are. I've been going back and forth between several of the items, working on a bit here, a bit there, trying to find something I can finish and check off and not finding it. Just a little while ago I settled into Ivy Lee mode and have started crossing things off. I already knew this works...but the temptation to flit is strong. Why is that? Because I'm highly distractable? I still take breaks between, and during, items to surf the Web, chat, dawdle, make lists for myself...but I do get more done.

Summertime and the theft is good

My Toledo estimated quarterly tax is due. Which is fine, except that I can't find the form to accompany it on the Toledo government website. There's a document on the municipal tax code itself, and a document for businesses on withholding it for employees (which my employer won't do, I asked), and there's the 2007 yearly form that says QUARTERLY ESTIMATED TAXES ARE REQUIRED twice and states that there is a form, but I can't find the form. You know what I can find? a "Tax Report" form with which I can report anyone I think is not paying the Toledo tax they should.

Also, I was woken up by a call this morning from a computer saying "If you are [me], press 1." I did so. It went on, "To verify your Citi Card billing address, enter your zip code." I hung up, thinking that phishing had gotten offline and into my phone and we were all doomed. Later, I found I had another message purportedly from Citi Cards, so I checked my account and found a $1,247 (or so) charge on it from Sears Roebuck. I called, and spoke with a lady who had terrible trouble deviating from her script when I asked questions, and closed the account. Apparently I have to wait for a Security Affidavit that they're going to send me before I can send in paperwork to contest the charge, but I shouldn't have to pay it in the meantime. Apparently there was a second charge after this, to Macy's, that didn't go through. I'm displeased with Citi for other reasons and intended to close this account anyway, but I'm grateful they have the security measures they do.

I'm also perplexed on how someone got my credit card number, as I haven't used this card in months (see aforementioned intention). I'm wondering if it had something to do with the Amazon order I put through months ago for Eric's Dungeons & Dragons edition four books, which just recently came out and was charged then to this card, only it didn't go through because there was some sort of error. Did the error involve someone taking the number out of Amazon's system for their own purposes? They only got a single, if expensive, item out of it, though. I wonder what they bought from Sears, and if I would have liked it.

The best is the enemy of the good

Complacency is my enemy. I think I have to remember that. I have received a kick in the pants from M, who is good at administering such kicks, to start working more actively on my career ideas again. I haven't forgotten them, but I've let them slide a little while I do all the other little things that make up my life.

Also procrastination. I have on my desk an Executive Crayon Pen, a Father's Day present for my dad. I did send his card, but this present is going to have to go expedited mail, and I'll have to get up early to get to the post office to do it. I'd have been better off sending it last week...but I didn't.

I am participating in the America on the Move challenge, which basically says that on average Americans are gaining weight and we need to stop it, and 1000 extra steps and 100 fewer calories will do it. I'm not worrying about my calories, but I'm participating in the "Oregon Trail" six-week challenge, which requires about 8400 steps a day. I'm currently at 9100, if my pedometer is to be believed (it isn't always, but it's all I've got), due to a half-hour walk at work and some gardening, plus walking to the other building whenever I needed the bathroom. I think this'll be good for me. I'm only doing it because Bev organized it and asked the family to do it. I have to admit it kinda burns me that she's ahead of all of us. Not enough to make me get up early to run, the way she's doing it, but I'm definitely feeling a competitive edge that I don't often feel.

I'm currently working on a post about gambling behaviors and feeling like I ought to cite. I probably ought to. I don't think Wordpress does superscript, though. I shall just have to use something else.

Things move, and people too

My seam ripper is missing. This is severely problematic. I have Dad's quilt to finish by July 1, when we go out. And not only is it not started, but I've got this other quilt to finish first. And to do that I need to rip out part of the also severely problematic back and redo it. Then pin, quilt, and bind--not too hard, especially since I can leave off the binding until there's more time, since it's just our summer bed quilt. But I can't find my seam ripper, which means I can't rip out the seam, which means I can't progress.

I was going to go to Joann to pick up a replacement seam ripper and maybe some cotton-acrylic or wool-acrylic yarn if I found some on sale for a baby sweater for my friend who already made me a baby blanket (I'm not pregnant and she knows it; she says she ran out of people to give blankets to and it's the only crochet stitch she knows). But Eric called because his friend from school had just told him she got a job offer, and he's worried because he was slightly later than his classmates at applying for jobs and is afraid he won't get one at all.

So I went home, and we talked. Some of the things he said were a bit odd--for example, that he would never be able to support our family. I mean, he went into teaching knowing what the salary would be like, and I've never demanded that he support the family single-handedly, and I don't expect myself to do it either (I am technically now, but by the skin of our teeth--but then, if we were permanently going to live on just my salary we'd be making some lifestyle changes). Some went back to our one big issue: where we're going to live. We talked, and as usual didn't get much resolved, but he seemed a little heartened that I wasn't disappointed in him for not having a job yet. I was put in mind of how I felt in early 2006, when I was living in my Toledo apartment, jobless and despairing and playing way too much World of Warcraft.

And instead of quilting, I spent the evening gardening and cooking. (Eric was at his weekly gaming session.) I planted some peppers and cotton and sunflowers and cantaloupe, and swatted mosquitos, and picked some spinach in the hopes it won't bolt so quickly this year. At least I've been able to enjoy some. And then I made marinated spinach salad, and chai ice cream, and brownies for the chocolate chocolate chocolate nut ice cream we're making at Eric's dad's request for our party this weekend. Other flavors we've made for the party: pineapple and lemon. Other flavors planned: strawberry (by popular demand), root beer, and apple cinnamon. We're very much enjoying the experimental part of this hobby.

I think I'm going to have to revisit my idea last year of cutting off hobbies until I get my writing tasks and ideas in order. Ice cream doesn't take much time. Neither does bread baking. But the non-food crafts do. I need to keep up the garden, and I really do need to finish these two quilts; but otherwise I may want to place a moratorium on non-literary creativity until further notice. Though that'll be hard...I want to knit some reusable grocery bags from the cotton I have that I won't use otherwise, and there's a bunch of spinning fiber I want to get to, and I wanted to make Christmas stockings this year, and I have the perfect baby sweater picked out and C will love it.

Why, and why not?

My head hurts. Wherefore the hurting? Specifically, it's my eyes that hurt, and in the way that usually comes from a day of staring at the computer without actually engaging in it (i.e., it happens when I'm bored at work and go Web-surfing, but not when I'm working all day or when I'm on to write). However, I've spent almost no time on the computer today. We slept late, I talked to Dad (he was fishing), we went shopping, I watched my coworker and her sister and brother-in-law dig out our lilac tree (I think they killed it, but it's their problem now), I worked in the garden, I read. I repeat, wherefore the hurting?

Anyway, I shall leave the computer momentarily, but first I wanted to note this: I was doing some research for my neurofinance blogging gig, looking through my old textbooks and doing a PubMed search and writing down notes, and writing up a draft, and I realized: I love this. I was truly having a fantastic time reading about science and writing about it. Why did I give up the science writer idea? It is now officially back on the table.

The question is, do I need to go back to school for it? If I want to go to the program in Santa Cruz, for example, I need to decide fairly soon so that we can change our plans for next year (assuming I got in) and get used to the idea of 250% the amount of student debt we currently have. I already know there's a series of classes at UW on science writing but no program. On the other hand, Catherine Shaffer got into it on the strength of a science background, writing skill, and determination to do it. I've been feeling myself slowly come around to a more writing-friendly, writing-focused perspective lately. I don't know what's doing it, since I've been trying and failing to get here for quite a while. But I'm coming around. Now, where do I go from here?

Happy us

I've been married for a year now. Good grief. It hasn't been the rocky year people say the first year is--at least, not for marriage reasons. We went out to the park where the wedding was, and the bookstore where we spend our time before dinner (the first anniversary is paper!), on Sunday, and out to the restaurant we ate dinner at a year ago this evening. We're good with doing this marriage thing for another year. Happy anniversary to us.

Ah, griping.

We're considering going on strike at work. My department--Technical Services--consists of five people plus the boss, and we are a hub of expertise, client contact, and general figuring-out-how-to-do-things...ness. We are not actually going to strike, but we are irritated, and we are more and more frequently gathering in a knot between MH's cubicle and mine to gripe.

A is our chemistry specialist; not only does she do her job, but she's more or less a supervisor of the actual chemistry department, which is not her responsibility except that the technicians come to her because (a) she knows more and (b) she is more responsive than the chemistry supervisors. MH and I do toxicology. K tends to most projects coming in and checks them for paperwork, to make sure we can do the work, etc. J came to us from the prep room, which is a subdepartment more or less belonging to us, and was meant to be a sort of junior specialist (assistant, working her way up to full specialist) but, since the other prep person is completely unwilling to entertain a partner other than J and has actually chased off a previous employee, and can't handle the work alone, J has been sent back to fill in for prep until we find someone the other prep person can tolerate (or our boss bites the bullet and yells at her to knock it off).

We've recently been asked to (a) start writing special protocols, (b) check certain types of projects coming in for completeness and follow up with clients, and (c) follow up with clients after we've dispensed our expertise to them. None of this is in our job description, and the last one is permanent (so fine, except that I don't like it) but the other two we were told would be temporary, but there are indications that the boss's boss considers us permanent. We also field questions from the labs and from clients' clients and regulatory bodies, help another department with their trainees, collect information, do work for the sales reps that they ought to be doing, and generally fill in a lot of little jobs that nobody else will take responsibility for. Plus with J gone, we're doing all the little things she would otherwise be responsible for (and would in fact prefer to the prep room).

The sales reps get bonuses based on the work we get from their various territories. My department gets none. This actually means that when we help our clients and net big projects, we're supplying the sales reps' bonuses. It's especially hard on MH because he used to be a sales rep. He seems to feel that not being on the road half the time is worth the pay cut, but he, like the rest of us, would like to think that when we're supplying clients with information and telling them exactly what they need to do, explaining how and why, and helping them through the process of getting their stuff in to us, we're not just doing it to enrich the people who keep sending us e-mail saying "I'm out of town, need you to do this. Send paperwork too" and "I got behind, is there anyway (sic) you can handle this?" and "I don't know what this client wants, can you find out?"

Plus I would have had to stay in Baltimore.

I was just looking at the Association for Psychological Science website and found that the current issue of their periodical is on the links between psychology and neuroscience. I took a class from one of the authors of one of the articles. It made me regret leaving grad school for a moment. I thought--and I still think--that these problems are really interesting, even important. I had wanted to do something about it.

But I don't regret leaving really. Staying wouldn't have made me happy. It might have gotten me a tiny corner in this area, if I'd stayed in the program and if I'd gotten a postdoc in something I actually wanted to do, rather than something that sounded vaguely interesting and was the only place I felt I could go. But it wouldn't have given me the wider understanding of the general problem, which is what I really wanted, I think. And I know I wasn't what a graduate school wants out of a grad student: 110% dedicated, willing to put up with politics and late nights and demeaning jobs, willing to put my head down and delve into a tiny niche and never come back up for air. I still don't know what I want entirely, but I really do think I'm happier reading such a publication than contributing to it.

The next subgenre: geek romance

Eric and I talked about whether there would ever be a market for geek romance novels. Our verdict was no, but only once we got past some prejudices about what the term "romance novel" really means, beyond "trashy cover, awful words for sex, plot revolving around fake misunderstandings and sex scenes," and what "book with strong focus on non-romantic relationship" would be called (mainstream, we suppose). The market would probably be mainly geek women, which is sadly too small a slice of the population to be commercially feasible. Eric says it might also garner a following in teen fiction, but I thought it would make more sense in adult, since more people will admit to geekery in adulthood than teendom.

But we decided the subgenre could spawn some awesome book covers. Picture a man in a labcoat, baring his white chest, hints of a calculator peeking from behind the edge of the coat, and Star Trek boxers.

Life is good.

I am currently feeling excellent. The tax thing got taken care of, by the way; I called up the guy I called before and he kind of laughed about it, noted in passing that I was listed under a completely wrong SSN in their system, and removed the charge. Today work was short because of a dentist appointment, which went very well, and after the appointment I went to Bassett's to buy wheat berries, rye berries, and oat bran for bread. I came home and spent a couple of hours in the yard, in the sunny not-too-warm weather, planting corn and echinacea and more parsnips and parsley. Then we made pizza for dinner (calculating along the way that homemade pizza costs us approximately $3 a pizza, which is $0.75 per meal) and now I'm alternately reading and working on my garden records. Soon I will write. I want more pizza but no, maybe I'll have one of the leftover killer brownies.

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!

Not just my wages but also my patience

I got a notice in the mail from the Toledo tax department, saying I owed taxes plus penalties and interest, which about doubled the tax amount. I owed this, the notice said, for 2005.

I moved here in November of 2005, right after leaving my job. I didn't get another one until May of 2006. I don't owe them tax. I told them this several months ago, when they sent out the initial notices saying "We're out of money and so we went back over our records to see what we could squeeze out of people," or rather, "We have conducted an audit, blah blah blah," and told me I owed tax. I didn't owe it for 2005 then and I don't now. (I did owe for 2006, because my current company isn't in Toledo proper and doesn't withhold tax for other cities.) I called up the principal tax auditor conducting this thing and he said, "Yeah, I thought it was unlikely when we sent them out," and told me to send in my old W2s and that should take care of it. Evidently it didn't, or perhaps nobody opened the envelope. I am unamused. I am also uninclined to pay my quarterly taxes since they'll surely just lose the check.

Books books books

My Amazon order came! I got a gift certificate for participating in a blog-related market research interview, you see. Then Eric wanted to use up most of it for his Edition Four D&D books, and I said if he got to spend that much money I was spending an equal amount, and he said okay. So I got Local Breads and Seed to Seed and an Ingrid Michaelson CD recommended by a coworker. Local Breads is looking awesome. It concentrates on local specialties in Europe, mainly sourdoughs and whole-grain recipes, and has two and a half chapters on rye; all of which are completely awesome and exactly what I would like to work on with the baking. (Well, aside from making a decent sandwich bread. I made up a recipe I like except I can't get any oven spring so the loaf is too dense and small. I'm still working on it.) And Seed to Seed promises to be very useful. Haven't listened to the CD yet, but I will. I think it's interesting I didn't get any fiction. Granting that I have plenty unread in the library, it's still a change of reading taste for me.

I'm having busy days--another week of crazy clients (four weeks after the last one, and the same week as the full moon--hmm) while people are gone, and lots to do yard-wise. Eric's final project is finished, which relieves us both mightily. Now he's just got PRAXIS this weekend. He starts studying tomorrow. We bought him a book, and looking through the practice tests I think I could do well on the multiple-choice without having looked through the review sections, though probably not on the constructed-answer questions.

I've been working on a nonfiction thing, and I find it's been way too long since I worked on Shoelace. I shall rectify that tomorrow if possible. Also Eric mentioned the other day that he still has to read PV and get me comments and query letter help. I found it charming that he remembered; it's been a while since I asked and he's been very busy since. In the meantime, though, I'm happy letting it lie and working on other things.

A weekend like all other weekends.

I am down. I was finally recovering from last weekend; this weekend is nothing big, just a finance charge on the credit card for having accidentally selected the wrong bank account with which to pay my bill (does that sound like $40' worth of hassle to you?) and money anxiety in general. I suppose paying taxes doesn't help (though we did get back more than we paid overall, the federal refund was last month and the state/city stuff was last week, so they have more impact). Eric is also behind on his big semester project, which doesn't help either--plus it made us miss Penguicon, which I was looking forward too.

But my seeds are up and I found a pot for my poor cactus for not too much money, and I'm finally finishing two craft projects that have been around a while: a baby dress for Eric's sort-of-sister's baby and Summer Sunrise. I decided I'm going to take down the craft blog; I'm not that interested in devoting time to write about my projects anymore. They're just projects. But the baby dress is cute and has taken a while, and will go off in a box tomorrow, along with low-fat recipes and books in a separate box for James (not that he needs to diet; his doctor suggested it for his cholesterol and also, I'm gathering, because fat in his diet may be causing some of his problems).

And I finally took Summer Sunrise out to finish off (it needs the back done, which I did today, and the quilting and binding) because it's finally gotten warm enough for us to put the down comforter away, and our only alternatives are two twin-size quilts. Last night we pulled out the one, but around 4 AM I got tired of waking up cold and having to wrest it away from Eric and took out the other for me. Summer Sunrise is queen-sized.

I also made cookies and bread and Swiffered and read a lot, and it's been a pretty good weekend really. Anxiety or no. Now if only I can be inspired for this one writing-related thing I have to do. I'd say "or for work," but that's too much to ask. For my birthday my coworkers got me a card that said, "Happy birthday from the smartest people you know," and on the inside, "...You need to get out more." My coworkers are (mostly) very nice people but I felt the inside of the card had an awful lot of truth to it.

Aftermath

When I got home last night, I noticed that the half of the driveway trench closest to our neighbors was filled in with dirt. When I got out of my car, one of them was in the back, grilling. We chatted a while, and I asked him about the dirt. "Yes, I did that," he said.

"I'm sorry," I said. "We really do mean to do it, and I know we took a long time--"

"It was great, I have this pile of dirt in the back from when we redid the backyard, and you guys gave me a chance to use it," he said, kindly.

"Well, we'll put grass seed down at least," I said.

"Got that already," he said. "I also had a half a bag left over, so I got to use that as well."

I went inside and teared up. I'm honestly not sure whether I was happy they were so pleasant and understanding or guilty that we had driven them to such efforts.

Later I snapped at Eric for one of his annoying pleasantries, which turned out to be due to his mishearing what I had said (though I don't doubt he would have said something similar no matter what) and started crying uncontrollably. It had to happen. I'm doing better today. Also, I'm looking up places to find dirt.

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.

Not even a year and already I'm psychoanalyzing him.

I did a bunch of work in the yard this weekend. I feel better for it, even though my back was twinging a bit last night. Apparently I really did get older; that never happened before.

Mom sent me two outfits--both rather lower-cut than I'm comfortable with--and a big black handbag, which is, she said, to replace the dreadfully old and out-of-fashion one I own. Said old and out-of-fashion purse is as sturdy and useful as ever, and considerably more reasonable-sized than the new one, at least until I become a mom, so it's not getting thrown out but I will use the new one. Eric didn't get me anything. "Your present from me isn't here yet," he said. "It's on its way?" I said, brightening because I hadn't expected him to have ordered anything. "Well, no," he said.

I then explained that while I don't necessarily need more stuff--an offer to cook dinner or vacuum (which is my job) would have been just as much or more appreciated than a book or a CD--it would have been nice to believe that he thought about me when I was not immediately before him. I would say, "Not even a year of marriage and already he's forgetting my birthday," but the thing is, he didn't forget; he just didn't do anything about it, even though he knew he ought to and voiced an intention to. He had a rough weekend, though, so I didn't push it as much as I would have liked to. There's also the question of whether his overall mood and outlook these days--i.e., possible depression or possible overmedication--is affecting his ability to get things done. He's been sliding on his homework, but then he always does that, so I don't know.

The next few days may bring that to a test, as I'm going to Pennsylvania for a training class. I'm using my new handbag to take on the plane with me. I'm in my usual "What did I forget to pack?" mode, which is normal and therefore not worrisome. This will not exactly be a vacation, but woohoo for something different!

Spoiled

Now the crazy clients have brought in the lawyers. "It's not technically breaking confidentiality if you send this information to a third party..."

Also the coworkers have got the fever. My one coworker asked me to do a couple of routine things for a client this morning. Fine; I did them, sent them to the client who had requested them, and copied the coworker to let him know it was done. "That won't work," wrote Mr. Coworker. "Here, look at this instead." Attached was a file that explained clearly what he wanted--which was nonroutine, though certainly not undoable, and which I had had no indication of before. Here's a hint, Mr. Coworker: you get faster results from me if you tell me what you want BEFORE I do it. With this revolutionary method which may not have occurred to you, not only do I get it right the first time, but there's no delay before I start my second attempt because I'm ignoring your message most of the day in order to get a grip on my temper.

I got home later than I liked because of this do-over, and spoiled my dinner with oranges and chocolate-chip cookies. I've got cinnamon roll dough rising in the kitchen--my yeast came, and my precious 3 lb. of organic pumpernickel flour, though that's not in this batch of dough--for my birthday breakfast. This weekend I shall garden and bake and write and goof off--and turn twenty-eight.

Insert generic quasibelievable story here.

I hate April Fool's Day. I hate going around for an entire day being unable to trust what anyone says. This must be what paranoid schizophrenics feel like.