Constantchange

The summer of 3 and 5

2011-06-16T11:11:00.002-04:00

After three years of barely scraping by, we didn’t go negative this month. It was the first month in a long time that we didn’t spend more than we made.

The husband has been employed full-time for almost ten months now. He dislikes his job profoundly, which is representing bankruptcies at a firm that pays him much less than we had hoped he could make with his law degree. Still, we are grateful that he has a job at all; my career is still going rather well, but I don’t make enough to support the four of us. We’re hoping the husband can step down a bit into a part-time position somewhere; by the hour he could realize almost the same amount of money, and my job carries all the benefits anyway.

We’re both working so much, I worry that we’re not available enough to the children. I am probably over-anxious about this. A few months ago I was bedridden while recovering from throat surgery; I bought six different parenting texts to read during my convalescence. I know I’m doing something wrong, but I haven’t figured out what it is yet!

Dot is registered for kindergarten at a very good public school and will start in August. She reads on a 2nd grade level, and I’m working with her on basic math this summer. Her current favorite book is called “Dinosaur Dung” and we picked it up at McKay’s in Knoxville when we were there for Devon’s wedding. Diana found a Power Puff Girls pop-up book on the same trip. Dust was with us at the bookstore, and let Dot read to him while Winn and I looked around for things for ourselves. Winn collected an arm full of fantasy paperbacks, but I couldn't find anything; Dust kindly found me some She-Hulk from the '80's, and that suits me just fine.

We saw Erin as well, however briefly. We have all changed, and we are all the same. Ford is now Christy Thurman, and visited Atlanta with her husband last Spring. They hope to move to downtown Knoxville soon, making that town even more of a locus of old college friends for me. I don’t mind at all; I’ve always liked Knoxville. The geography makes a dense urban core of the kind that I’m most comfortable in.

Still, Atlanta is and will remain my home for years to come. This year I didn’t plant so many vegetables and a good thing too, as a deep cold snap in May followed three weeks later by an intense heat wave in June nearly killed everything I did put out. Just English peas, some potatoes, cucumber and a couple of cantaloupe this year, although I did front the porch with herbs – lavender, dill, rosemary, and lots and lots of basil. I still have onions and poke salet in the side lot, but the land owner plowed down my garden plot in the winter, after I reported him to the city for all his illegal dumping.

That’s another story. Maybe I’ll have time to type it up one day. Right now though, I have a demanding job, two little girls, a marriage and a house to look after. I couldn’t even do that without help from friends and paid help. When you think of me, think of never ending motion, but know that I do find time, now and again, to enjoy a rest with those I love.

Things are still moving along

2011-06-14T13:59:00.001-04:00

More later. Here's a great picture we got at Devon and Thomas' wedding; it went out as our Father's day card to both the husband's dad and my Grandfather.

5x7 Folded Card

View the entire collection of cards.

Halloween lessons

2010-10-07T10:40:00.001-04:00

October is here, and since I’ve been an adult that’s always been a happy month. The weather in Atlanta is perfect in October, with bright blue skies and light winds. My birthday kicks the month off with well wishes from friends and family, and it’s a great time to read outside, to clean the garden up for winter, to enjoy the company of friends at festivals.

There was a lantern parade along the beltline on October 2nd, and I took Dot out at dusk and we stood on the Edgewood overpass and watched giant puppets, a spinning globe, and dozens of Chinese lanterns pass. Our friend Steve was down in the parade taking pictures, and he took one of us as he walked under the bridge; though the light wasn’t great and he was at a weird angle, I hope it turns out. I’ve been winning a lot of professional prizes lately; hopefully I will be lucky in photography as well.

The husband has also been lucky, and now has a job. It doesn’t pay much, but he’s working at a bankruptcy firm – they are the sorts of legal offices hiring these days – and we did so need the extra income. All my hard work is winning me awards, but no extra money; I feel secure in my position, but that doesn’t pay the daycare bills. So the husband went to work and we hired The Babysitter, who now picks up the girls each day from school and gets them dinner.

October is of course the Halloween month too, with a great parade through my neighborhood, and all the little kids around tick-or-treating. Dot is enthusiastic about her bumblebee costume and Diana hasn’t decided if she will be a monkey or a witch yet. Tony, Andrew, and Joshua are down in Disneyworld enjoying the park decked out in its gothy finest. The guys took the kids to a pumpkin patch last year, and I’m hoping we can do that again this year.

I love Halloween more and more as I age, and I appreciate its lessons more than any other holiday. At Christmas, you only get presents if you’ve been good, and those presents are really determined by your parents’ income. At Halloween, you march up to the doors of others and demand treats, and you get them. You can skip over to wealthy neighborhoods if you so choose, if your own is only tootsie rolls and lollypops, and get candy bars. You can dress up and be whatever you want to be, get what you asked for, and if people are mean or bothersome, you can toilet paper their house. Contrast this with Christmas, where the supposed “fun” is walking around in the cold singing songs about someone else’s idea of god, and you can see why Halloween is a clear winner in the fun department. Stay up late, eat stuff that’s bad for you, dress to terrify, and beat down the doors of those around you and demand sweets. Hooray for October, hooray for Halloween.

The Poke Sallet Summer

2010-06-17T16:14:00.002-04:00

It has been another year, and I have to admit now I'm off regular blogging altogether. Despite my best intentions, Twitter was the last nail in blogging's coffin for me. It's much more easy and fun to use Twitter on my phone, and I so rarely have contemplative time to myself anymore that would lend itself to writing.

My daughters are now two and four, and everything I do in the world is for them. The oldest is now fully herself, making up stories, flying kites and catching bugs in jars. The two year old is in full revolt against the world, not understanding why the ground gets her favorite things dirty, or why a dish should break when she drops it. They bring me much joy and comfort, even though it's often difficult. I am lucky that the husband is a good parent. It is his fourth year now without paid work, despite his recent graduation from law school. Word of his passing the bar has come and gone, and yet still there are no jobs; unemployment here in Atlanta sits at just over 10% of everyone, and we all know it's not his fault. Still, the lack of money wears on us both.

I have planted the largest garden yet this summer, stealing land from the inattentive brown lot next door. I built an eight foot long potato bin and a 12 by 10 raised bed for corn, pumpkins, beans, peas, cantaloupe, and tomatoes. On the upper deck I have continued to grow onions, garlic, radishes, and carrots. Every day I go out to the raised bed and smash squash beetles and their larvae with a little rock. Yesterday the girls helped me release a lot of live ladybugs we got in the mail to eat other bad insects. Everyday I bring in a handful of peas or carrots for my girls to eat. We have plenty of food, it's true, but I worry about nutrition and the quality of the food we can afford. The potatoes I have laid in in anticipation of a rough winter.

Invariably, when people who know food come to see my garden, they praise the variety I've packed into such a small space. "You even have poke sallet! How clever!" They say. Yes, I have poke sallet growing in the back on the raised bed, and all along the side of my house. The weed wandered in and I chose not to pull it a couple of years ago. I don't have the heart to tell the poke sallet admirers the truth: I think of the native green as starvation food. I can imagine my ancestors' thoughts when they put poke on the menu: 'It's only a little toxic. Perfectly edible if you boil it three times and throw out the water.' Things are bad, but we're not eating the poke yet. But I'm not picking it out as a weed, either. I'm hedging my bets, you see, especially with that oil spill all over the gulf.

We never did get up enough money to recover from the damage the flood last fall did to the house; the air conditioner is on its last legs; we have struck a deal with the credit cards companies. We never go to movies or hire babysitters. Yet there are always clothes for the kids and other sorts of help from the husband's parents, and for that I am grateful beyond belief.

My uncle has also been out of work for nearly a year, and others we know as well. Still, our house does better than some just by virtue of my career, which is going rather well. If we are broke and don't eat out, it's because I have chosen to have children. And I don't regret that decision at all. They are the best things in the world, and I am never happier than when curled up with them and the husband, sleepy and stomachs full of food, one way or the other.

Summer Moves Along

2009-06-15T15:24:00.005-04:00

This summer I am growing beans, onions, a giant bowl of mixed herbs, carrots, mixed spring greens, broccoli and strawberries up on my decks. In the abandoned illegal dumping lot next to our condo, I have randomly chucked sunflowers, more beans and onions, and a few cherry tomatoes to compete with the black eyed Susan seeds I threw out there a few years ago. So for a few months the weedy backlot becomes pretty, before the Kudzu crawls over everything.

It's easier than you think to grow stuff in the middle of the city. The cranky old curmudgeon who owns the urban brownlot next to us has no idea that some of my other neighbors are now farming his unused land outright, putting out rows of produce that put my small unstructured efforts to shame. Next up for me: Pumpkins. There will be a pumpkin patch back there with the abandoned electronics, rotting trailers, and occasional homeless folk getting a night away from the shelter.

I like raising stuff downtown, especially the kids. The picture at the top of this entry is Diana playing in the water element at the Atlanta Botanical Garden. While we don't have a yard, I don't think the girls are lacking for it. We go to the park and the museum almost every weekend. Next weekend I am driving them out to the middle of nowhere to visit my Grandfather, and they can play on a small farm.

I have no idea how the idea of cities being sterile came to be; ours is verdant, lush, and if anything, overrun with greenery and twisting vines. This year flash floods have town new gulleys wherever they could, changing the slope of the land and spreading thin layers of silt across some roads that had to be cleaned. You can hear chickens in the morning, and count all kinds of bees and insects at all times of day. Giant trees are far more common here than in the suburbs. When you come to visit, we will share our green food with you, and you can watch the children grow, and relax; it's much too hot to do anything else.

Summer 2009

2009-06-02T18:37:00.002-04:00

It's summer now, and after weeks of rain the Atlanta sun is on steaming the hell out of everything.

The husband had sinus surgery just before Memorial Day weekend, and spends most of his days fighting horrible headaches as he heals up. The doctors went in and also re-arranged the bones of his skull around his nose, correcting a deviated septum. After observing the pain and discomfort of healing, neither of us can believe that people elect to have nose jobs voluntarily. He still has plastic plates up in there, holding things together until the bone mends. This causes a whistle at night while he rests, and sometimes I have to sleep in our spare room. We're both impatient for him to feel better, to mend, but we knew going in that he would have a long, slow recovery. That's why he took the summer off from law school.

The girls are growing just fine; Dot jumps around and makes up stories and pretends to cook. Diana is walking now, and beginning to speak. They both have Winn's skin coloring, blue eyes and light brown hair, but that's where all similarity ends. Dot eyes are almond shaped and her hair straight. Diana's eyes are big and round and her hair curls in fat baby ringlets. The girls keep us running all weekend, every weekend. They are bundles of energy that left undirected would be incredibly destructive.

We visit museums, we visit parks, we visit the library. We pretend picnics, we feed the stuffed animals, we read stories. We collapse at night on weekdays, and on weekends raise our fists in silent joyous triumph after they're in bed by 8:30. I can't believe I ever thought I would be able to do this on my own.

Even with two active parents, I still sometimes need help; thank goodness we chose Tony and Andrew as godparents. Seriously, without them, the house would at times cease to function. Andrew was there to pick up Winn from surgery, and they've picked up the girls or babysat on the spot a great number of times.

This is all I can think of to wrote about tonight. I'm trying to get back nto the habit, and it isn't easy. Things might be rather bland over here until I can regain my knack. I suppose at this point I'm really writing for myself now, a kind of public diary I use for reference.

The Bigger Cycle

2009-05-31T20:28:00.003-04:00

Hey, I'm over on Big Oven. Come on over and join; I like it there, but unless other people come out to play, I don't have faith in my stick-to-it-iveness.

It's been 10 years since I first started blogging, and 20 years now that I've been online. For the first time I find myself wandering around, trying to find my digital tribe. These things were so effortless before; the BBS, then gopher, then pine, then the real internet, hatching out so slowly in the early nineties that you could run into casual acquaintances even states away - Mat, for instance, has essentially been running with the same digital crowd ever since he was in high school, even thought none of them lived in the same area until the past 3 or 4 years.

Livejournal was so good for me, in so many ways. Now that it's past I find myself grasping - everyone's over on Facebook, I missed the birth of Virgil's son because I can't make myself join. Even the husband joined facebook last year, and he's never been accused of being a digital pioneer, or even settler. I keep futzing around with new layout plans for this page, and can't commit. I need a few days to get things straight again, but with two kids and a high stress job, who has the time?

The truth is I'm not on Facebook because I feel like everyone is on facebook, and therefore I need to search out The Next Big Thing. Ironic that I'm typing this on good 'ol blogger, eh? Maybe retro is the new internet trendy...nah, it's just me creeping around the edges again. I miss you guys. Remind me to write more often. Or maybe I should just go over to image-only posts. Words seem so wasteful anymore.

Not all the days are best

2009-05-16T10:53:00.004-04:00

Not All the Days Are Best.

It's been a year since I last posted, but I'm back, just as I said I would be. The past few posts have been very positive, and very true. But there's no way to get around pointing out in this update that last year was difficult.

Financially, we began to really struggle. Yes, the market crashed, but that wasn't our undoing. We hadn't adequately understood the expenses of a second child, probably just because I was ready and wanted Diana so badly. Our expenses severely outpaced our income. Without help from the husband's parents, we wouldn't be able to cover the monthly daycare bill, which is half my take home pay. Then there are the tremendous medical bills - from having the baby, from discovering Dot has asthma, from my yearly bout of bronchitis, from the baby catching RSV, from the husband's sinus and allergy problems. We had to take out a mortgage on the house to remain solvent.

Sara moved out west, and then to Memphis, and completely dropped out of contact. Abby distanced herself as well, and there was no exchange of holiday or birthday presents.

There were no vacations this year, not even to watch Tony and Andrew get married in Canada. DragonCon was again subsidized by the husband's mother. I cried and cried about missing the wedding, about failing to plan for the year correctly, about my hair falling out after the pregnancy, and about my relationships falling apart with my sisters. My big project at work had its funding slashed as the company lost money. I had come back from maternity leave part-time early to help with its launch, only to be told days before that everything was being rethought. At least I and my co-workers still have jobs; the sacrifice of a year's raise and most of our budget was enough to keep us going.

So last year will always be for me, The Year I Started Taking Zoloft. Without the medication, I couldn't sleep, cried all the time, and could barely function at work. I'm a better mom, worker, and marriage partner on the drug.

The anti-depressant stops the hypergraphia though. On Zoloft I have watched my personal writing output dwindle, and then nearly dry up. I plan to start this blog again to cope with that loss, to try to build the writing muscle up again, to give myself some creative outlet. I hope it works.

After such a long spell of stress, things started to get better this year after our income tax refund came in. Of course, then there was a traffic accident, and the husband's *other* ear drum ruptured, and now there will be sinus surgery, and I've got to ask the in-laws for help again with daycare in the fall. But on the whole we're doing OK compared to most. I'll play catch-up with more posts here later.

I've missed this venue. Typing again on Blogger feels like coming home.

The second face of Summer

2008-05-09T20:36:00.005-04:00

The Second Face of Summer

I gave birth to my second daughter on April 9th, just a month ago, upstairs in our big four-poster bed. We’ve called her Diana, and from her first breath she is as different in build and temperament from her sister Dot as she can be. With two healthy girls, our family is now complete. Diana is my second face of Summer. When I feed her, she stares at me with big blue eyes.

Since the home birth, I’ve had to reassure people I’m not crazy, though. I gave birth at home because Emory Crawford-Long fired all our midwives, and I wanted to have the baby somewhere I felt safe and needn’t fear a c-section. Diana was nine and a quarter pounds; I didn’t want them cutting her out of me. I had her with Tony bracing my right shoulder and The Husband bracing my left, while Andrew and my two sisters shouted encouragement at me. Yes, I’m getting her vaccinations and a social security number. I haven’t lost my mind.

Things continue on well here. Last year Dot began daycare, The Husband went to law school full-time, and I was promoted into management at the corporate archives where I work. Things move along. My sister Sara comes over at least twice a week to take Dot to the playground or elsewhere for fun outings. Sara has pushed herself more with her artwork this year, and that’s been fun to watch. Our youngest sister, Abby, has finished a rather harrowing first year of High School. Moving from the Tennessee school system into the Georgia one was difficult for her, and the Georgia system has higher standards for which she wasn’t really ready. Sara and I are both trying to spend more time with her, but it isn’t always easy. Jobs and lack of time get in the way.

Time moves so quickly now, I don’t have a chance to regret giving up this public blog. I barely have time to trade links and comments with my friends over on livejournal. I’m still there in a friends-locked capacity. I hope the Lj platform continues to last; in the past year many people have left the community due to censorship issues with the parent company. I am forced to admit that although I recognize that both blogger and Lj are very old internet trends, I see nothing around that I like as replacements for them. I still enjoy communicating with my friends online. I still like the RSS feeds for this purpose. I suppose I'll continue to post here about once a year, or when really big events in my life occur. It's nice to have some place that's a bit like a formal record of how things with me have gone.

I’ll be 32 in October. It’s difficult to remember that I’ve been doing the blogging thing since I was 24. I see no reason to end now. After all, it’s still just now Summer, and I am in the most productive time of my life. Everything I’ve worked so hard to plant – my career, my family, my home – has grown secure roots, and the pollinated flowers are bearing their first fruits.

What I'm up to

2007-03-19T14:39:00.001-04:00

The Summer of my life

It's Spring again. Research into the database of my moods that this blog provides reveals that every mid/late March I wake up and am phenomenally happy that the winter is over. If keeping a blog for six and a half years was worth anything, it was worth this: I can see the patterns now. I can tell when I've been happy and when I've been down, when I was crushingly in love and when I thought the whole world was shit. And I can search on those feelings using Boolian logic and tag and archive and look back at it all and realise how fabulous my life really has been.

I haven't posted in months, and I don't regret it one bit. I think six and a half years is a reasonable data set to pull from at present. Here's the catalog of me; now I can scamper to livejournal where things are a bit more organised and selective. Screening one's internet presence is a part of getting older. I'm sure you understand.

I realised the other day that I'm nearing the summertime of my life. First there was the winter, the hard bits, where I was growing up and lonely all the time. And then I left home and started my springtime, my green unwrapping of me, tender bits easily damaged, pushing back all that hard soil all the time and wishing there were more to eat always. My springtime is nearly over. I'm putting down thicker and more hard to transplant roots. When the sun came out and broke winter's back a couple of weeks ago, I felt like I had bloomed for the first time. I feel lush and healthy. I am ripening.

When I put out the marigolds last week, Dot scootched and climbed all around me, biting off some of the tops and sitting on other sprouts. I didn't mind; it was just so great to have her with me, to watch her play in the dirt for the first time. She's such a joy. I can't believe that a year ago she was still swimming inside my stomach, waiting to push her way out. I love her more than I can say. When she was born, the husband and I instantly began speaking of our other child, the one we haven't yet made, and when they would join us as well. Because we don't know the second child's gender-to-be but already think of them as family, we refer to our next offspring as Embryo Zygote. We are thus already a unit of four.

The husband is not only enjoying law school, but studying religious pursuits as well; in four years he'll emerge from all of this more formidable a mind than ever. He's in a period of serious growth himself. While our daughter learns to walk and talk he's learning to think in new patterns. We are growing together with our branches and roots entangled.

Atlanta is deliciously warm again, and the weather reflects the life I have built for myself. When I curl up at night in our bed, with the baby sleeping downstairs and the warm air pushing all around us, I know the world is perfect in many ways. There are so many political problems around that I know it could be better, but I've built my shelter and my family and we're going to be OK, we're going to be alright, it's nearly summer and the worst of the cold weather is nearly past. What will be next involves shaved ice and fireflies, fireworks and playing in the dirt.

We'll need a bigger house for more guests, but I know it will all work out.

All new, all over again

2006-11-28T12:13:00.000-05:00

What Happened to the Professor Archivist?

It was six weeks ago that I posted about leaving academia to go on a trip to Disneyworld.

Let's catch up a bit. If you'll remember, I returned from maternity leave to a less than ideal work environment. In the process of trying to work things out, the job only became increasingly worse. Things were horrible; I almost decided to give up on libraries and archives all together, but realized I needed to stay after much love from friends and family. I did all the things you're supposed to do: I read management self help books, I went through Comfortable U.'s H.R. office, we did "facilitation" (don't call it mediation!).

In the end, I just left. Several people (including a relation who works in HR for a big corporation) have told me I had a straight-up nearly textbook lawsuit against Comfortable U. for a hostile work environment. Maybe I'll regret not suing them in the future, but right now I could care less. The conflict pushed me to look for a better job, and I landed a sweet position in a corporate archive almost right away. I make more money now and I can ride the train to work again. I have a hard time justifying a lawsuit to myself when the worst thing that was hurt was maybe my pride - and even then, that wasn't really damaged, because no one really believed the old boss. Not even her own HR department thought she was in the right. But I couldn't stay because she was still my boss, and when someone really wants to make things difficult for you, it's awfully easy to do that when they're your boss. If I sued, it would only mean more work for other people at Comfortable U. And the truth is, I liked, and got along with very well, almost everyone there. Quitting was the best thing I could do - it hurt the old boss' reputation in a big way.

Plus, I don't have to work a night shift once a week now.

So, really, I've been having a great time lately. It does make me sad that I've given up on academia - I thought I wanted to be an academic for a decade, but once I finally got into a full time faculty position I realized there are few things I could want less. I was the last of my friends to realize this. Amy, Devon, Steve, Cindy, and a few others...they've all left academia too, for reasons that only seem different until you realize they all boil down to bad management.

The big corporation where I work now makes their employees attend extensive management training as one is promoted. There's no management training in academia at all. And we all know that what floats on the top isn't always cream. There's even talk here about the "work-life balance", and men are active in the discussion. Although I have to wear a suit each day, I like the corporate culture here. The rules are clear and the expectations set out cleanly on paper. I may have finally found the workplace where I fit.

Big hugs, blogland. This blog has been about my search for success - romantic success, family success, and professional success. Now that I might have all of those things to my satisfaction, I'm not sure if I'll keep writing or not. I guess we'll just have to see.

Making Peace with The Mouse

2006-10-11T12:27:00.000-04:00

Last week I went into work and wrote up my resignation and gave two week's notice. About three hours after advising Comfortable U. that I would be leaving, I was given two weeks of paid "administrative leave" and sent home.

It was the day before my 30th birthday. There was nothing to do, said Tony and Andrew, but to pack up the family and drive to Disneyworld. Dust had just moved onto our couch here in Atlanta, so we didn't even have to find someone to look after the cats.

So we went. I took my daughter to Disneyworld, and thus confronted head-on everything I am ambivalent about regarding our consumer culture and childhood. Best to figure out my feelings early anyway.

I didn't know if we would have a good time; so much when traveling with a baby depends on their moods and stages. We managed to hit Disneyworld just right for Dot's babyhood. She was small enough to be happy riding in her stroller or to be carried, but had no need to venture off with her newly acquired crawling skills. She wasn't frightened of the fireworks or large costumed characters, instead smiling or gazing with unfazed curiosity at each new encounter. While we did have to exit a few attractions that made ear-splitting volume part of their program, overall Dot was happy with the trip.

Surprizingly, I was happy as well. Disneyworld has managed to boil Halloween down to its two baisc elements: costumes and candy. Those are two things that Disney does very well with all around the year, so it shouldn't have been such a shock that they were able to adapt and sucessfully throw amazing Halloween events.

I also loved seeing Disney's normally pastel self turned out in faux-goth glory. Starting at sunset, everything Disney became black and orange, and even the costumed characters like Mickey and Minnie aquired masks or costumes. Twice during the night there's a huge "Not So Scary" Halloween parade, complete with all the Disney villains and a band of skeletons. The whole place become awash in free candy, with trick-or-treat stations set up everywhere.

I might have had more problems with Disney's trick-or-treating in the past, but the last year has seen a fundamental change in the Disney archetype of little girl costuming. While previously all little girls were meant to emulate princesses, dressed in the outfits of Cinderella, Belle, and Snow White, now they have two new options: that of the Pirate, and that of the (Incredibles) Superheroine.

For every princess waiting for her prince to rescue her along our trick-or-treat path, we saw another little girl ready to board enemy ships and hunt for treasure. Sprinkled into this mix in a smaller number were entire families dressed as The Incredibles - an outfit uniform to everyone in the group regardless of gender, even if Dad's had fake muscles sewn in.

So, Disney wasn't so bad. Dot was a pirate one night and a superhero of our own making the next. While I did run terrified of the "Princess Makeover" portion of one Disney shop, there was plenty of other stuff to enjoy. I can hold my breath and close my eyes when walking past the princess crap. It's easy to ignore while surrounded by Eyeore dressed in mummy bandages and Goofy riding a giant gumball machine that spews bubbles and sweets.

It's not you, it's them

2006-09-14T08:38:00.000-04:00

People write me

If someone had to ask me the one reason I've kept blogging all these years, I would have to say it's because people write me. I'm throwing these huge open letters out into the internet every other week, and mostly they are for my friends (who I don't tell enough how much I appreciate them). My last entry was overwrought, full of too much information, and probably confusing. And yet, I'm glad I put it out there, because lots of people wrote or IM'ed me, saying the same thing that everyone always says about my writing. Basicly, the response I always get in one form or another is:

me, too.

I think Kati said it best this time though. She wrote:

I hope you're able to balance your creative life with your vocation. I
think you can have both, and like Winn, I think you have to. I think both
are a part of you, and I can't imagine Elizabeth without either. I also
think you're too conscious of yourself to be able to turn into your father.
Like Michael, you learned so much about 'how to do life' by watching what
your parents did, and then not doing it. I think you can be creative and
not become your father. I think you can have your vocation and still be
creative.

I think your bosses have sucked. And I know how a bad boss can really wear
you down. I was beginning to think it was me, these problems I've been
having at work the last year or so. I thought maybe I had a problem with
authority. But I have authority here at my new job, and no problem with it.
I have just had really sucky bosses before. So in case you were
wondering, it's not you. It's them. No worries, E.

Yep, less worries now. Kati hit the nail on the head: I was beginning to worry I had problems with authority. But I crave authority!

Still, it is partly me: I've got to learn how to handle this stuff better, personally. I'm pretty proud of myself for not crying once at this workplace. Not even when things have just been godawful. So I think I am learning how to respond better. One of my co-workers came into my office during the whole mess and told me she thought I was acting very professional and getting through some of the problems related to my return from maternity leave with grace. So everything's not all so bad. I will learn this too: how to work for and with people who don't always act their best.

And things will get better. I'm painting again, using thick acrylics to color in an old art-deco line drawing. It's taking me weeks because I can only do a little every night when Dot naps, but when the big picture is done all my patience will have paid off into something I can hang in my living room and enjoy every day.

Libraries and the Bottle City of Kandor

2006-08-21T09:00:00.000-04:00

Your Own Bottle City of Kandor

I went to work one morning last week and opened up my email to find that Mat and Emily had done the fabulous; they had stepped off the grid, and tossed their conventional career tracks involving jobs and computer-generated paychecks. They had finalized their move to Baltimore and the opening of their own recording studio.

Maybe it was that I grew up with a recording studio in my back yard, or maybe it was because the thought of leaving my conventional career behind was suddenly and unexpectedly appealing, but the effect of reading this was something for which I was completely unprepared. Sitting there at my desk at work, I felt tears in my eyes. I've been under a lot of stress at work lately, and becoming a mom has pushed my personal growth forward a lot this summer. I've had to sit around contemplating exactly what it is I'm doing with my life, and acknowledge that I've left some things I wanted to do (like creative writing) behind in my quest for other things (like a stable home life).

I have known for a while now that I'd sacrificed my creative career on the altar of library science and archival preservation. Of course, I'd do it again in a heartbeat. But realizing what I've done isn't the same as realizing *why* I've done it, and that all came in a rush reading about Mat and Emily. I've been denying my creative self because I've been afraid I'd turn into my father. He had a creative career, and some people have blamed our unstable home life on his lack of a conventional job. But our instability as a household wasn't caused by my father's creative career, it was caused by his addictions. There are just as many scary alcoholic dads with office jobs as there are scary alcoholic dads in other kinds of fields. When Mat and Emily have their kids, they're going to be awesome parents. This will still be true even now that they've dedicated their lives to making art.

So, realizing my hang-up, I no know why I haven't published in nearly four years. Because I was focused on creating a stable and happy home for myself, on some level I thought that producing really good art was out of the question. Obviously, this idea is absurd. I think that a lot of my internal funk lately has been because I'm creatively backed-up; all that art and writing has to come out somehow. Sometimes, I walk around so full of words and images that I wonder why my hands aren't dripping carbon black ink.

I called the husband and told him of my revelation. At first I despaired, because I thought this all meant I should quit my job. I thought the husband was going to cry - he told me that he has always been envious of my career, and how much I really enjoy my work. I love what I do; archives are truly my vocation. I belong in a library; I love the architecture of information, and I've spent a lot of time becoming very good at my job. There's no sense in throwing away a highly refined skill set like the one I've managed to build up in the past eleven and a half years. But, I said, look at the last four years: a job where the supervisor was so completely unlikeable no one could work with them; a job that worked me so hard I used to come home and cry because I hadn't the energy to do anything for myself; a job where the supervisor doesn't think women with small children should work at all. The husband paused at this list, but said if I quit being a librarian and archivist just because my last few jobs had bad management, he'd be crushed. He would love to have a vocation he liked as much as mine, he said, and I shouldn't give up, because all management is transitory anyway. Personality conflicts may come and go, but Mylar is forever. He kissed my forehead that night and told me not to give up on my career or my creative pursuits.

I have been blaming my creative draught these past four years on my last incomplete project, a tarot deck I started when I moved to Little 5. I discussed all this with Dust, the person who put just as much work into that failed project as I. He told me that the tarot deck was like my own personal unenlarged Bottle City of Kandor, that project sitting on Superman's shelf that never gets quite put right. Even Superman fucks projects up sometimes; you can't make everything come out right, and sometimes it's OK to let things sit up on a shelf for a while. They'll be OK.

Since then, I've been seeing metaphorical Bottle Cities of Kandor everywhere. The library at Comfortable U. is like the Bottle City of Kandor: off scale for its true purpose and isolated by a higher technology it can't possibly fight or understand without help. Watching the relationships of your exes is like watching the Bottle City of Kandor: they're so small the people look really far away, and you can't understand what they're doing in there. Breastfeeding while working is like being a citizen of the Bottle City of Kandor: you're participating in a custom that people know is important to keep, but no one really wants to think about it too much.

Right now, my whole life is like the Bottle City of Kandor: self-sustaining only so long as it is self-contained, a micro economy supported by its own limitations. Sometimes when we put things on a shelf, we do so for good reasons. Everyone's got their own Bottle Cities of Kandor, sitting in a dated four-color universe, waiting for Superman to get off his superbottom and fix things. Still, those of us inside the glass go about our daily business finding happiness in our unique existance. As long as we aren't kidnapped by Lex Luthor, we'll all be OK.

2006-08-14T08:51:00.000-04:00

The new old routine

This is a record of my current routine. I wanted to record it before everything changes again.

I wake up somewhere between midnight and four in the morning to stumble downstairs and pump about 4 ounces of breastmilk. I have to wake up in the middle of the night to pump because the pressure of milk builds up and hurts; if I ignore this pain, I will leak breastmilk on the bed.

This take about 20 minutes. Then I stumble back upstairs and sleep until the alarm goes off at 6.

After turning off the alarm, I gather Dot up from her co-sleeper. She's only half-asleep at this time, and sucking her thumb fiercely because she's hungry. I feed her and gradually wake up looking at my daughter as she eats. For this feeding, she keeps her eyes closed, demanding that I be the one to hold her and support her while she eats. She always looks like royalty to me, relaxed, reclined, and dainty. When she's done, she signals so by turning her head away, and I prop her up over my shoulder or against my chest. I pat her back and talk to her a bit until she manages to burp. This might take a few minutes, and it wakes her up a bit.

After Dot's managed to push any air she swallowed out, I lay her down on the bed and talk to her while I change her diaper. She's all smiles by this time, and the husband usually stirs next to us a bit, sometimes reaching out a hand to pet one of us while we go through our morning paces. After I've cleaned Dot up, I might play or cuddle with her for a minute or two, but not longer; she's tired and I need to get ready for work. It's always tough to lay her back down in her bed, especially since after the feeding she's all smiles and coos.

After that I pump again to get out any breastmilk I might have left, shower, eat breakfast, and drive to work. I try not to be late, but that's incrasingly more difficult as I find it hard to leave the baby and husband, whom I am sure to kiss before leaving for the day. I have to be in my car by 7:30 to make it to the library at 8. During this drive I will silently and fluently curse Cobb county residents for their lack of a train at least once every morning.

I work from 8am until 5pm. I miss my husband and daughter, and at the same time have anxiety about my job that is overwhelming enough some days to make me wonder if I need medication. Then I remember that I work in academia, and if you aren't a little paranoid in academia, then you aren't paying attention. Remind self at least once a day that paying attention is not something that really gets rewarded in public eduacation. Then I pay attnetion and work hard anyway, because that's the kind of neurotic overachiever I am.

Five to Five forty-fiveish - drive home through Atlanta traffic. Curse lack of train again. Ritually wonder why my iPod is oddly unsatisfying; perhaps use cell phone to talk to a friend.

I gt home before six, and the husband and baby are happy to see me. I put the breastmilk I've pumped at work into the fridge. We all kiss. I take the baby up in my arms and while talking to the husband about our day, and I make up a little baby cereal with breastmilk. The husband jumps on his online game while I push a little cereal into Dot's mouth. The husband and I talk about dinner and evening plans. If we have to go somewhere, we make a decision to eat before or after our outside-the-house tasks. At some point I make dinner. Too often, this dinner is the only meal the husband eats during the day; he's horrible about getting his own meals, even with microwavable frozen stuff in the freezer. Left to his own devices, he would live on gingerbread cookies and Mountain Dew.

We usually eat together around 7ish, because this is when Dot lays down for an hour-long evening nap. When she wakes from this nap she'll be ravenously hungry, so often we'll start a DVD while eating, and I'll continue to watch it while feeding the baby. We never watched so many movies before Dot; now, thanks to the baby and Netflix, I've been given the opportunity to enjoy every obscure documentary I ever wanted to see. While the husband is feeding the baby during the day, he watches obscure Japanimation and horror or kung-fu classics. We haven't had cable or braodcast TV in years.

I do small housechores as I can while playing with and caring for the baby at night. I try to help with the laundry or dusting or such, but usually I am too busy with dinner and the baby. The husband has been better at housework since he's been home during the day.

Around 10pm I use the breast pump one more time to empty myself out before laying down. I say my bedtime is at 10, but that varies; on Sunday nights it is closer to 10:30, and over the course of the week it inches back to almost 9:30 by Thursday night. As the work week wears on, I get more tired. I try to be consistant with my sleep schedule, but it's difficult. My sleep pattern wants to mimic Dot's, and she doesn't really start the day until 10am.

After I go up to bed around 10pm, The husband will wait for Dot to ask him for her last feeding. Then he'll give her the last bottle of the day, change her again once or twice, and sing to her until she goes to sleep. When she's trying to be grumpy (the I'm-tired-but-don't-want-to-sleep variety of grumpy), he will often sing to her while walking her around the house. She likes the motion. This also has the effect of sometimes wearing the husband out.

When Dot falls asleep around 11pm, the husband may or may not choose to go to bed at that time. Sometimes he puts her down in her crib and returns to playing video games online with friends. Sometimes he comes up and curls next to me. He will be in bed until 10am, when Dot wakes up for a diaper change and a bottle.

This is our weekday routine. We all agree that Sundays are best, when we can all stay up until about 11:30pm and stay in bed until 10am. Of course, I wake up twice in that time even on Sundays, since I'm still breastfeeding. On Sundays when Dot wakes up at 10, I can feed her in the bed and we roll around playing with the happy baby. Sundays are the best.

This week everything will change again; the husband starts law school at night, and I will have to start working one night a week at the library. Soon the husband will leave as I come through the door to get to his classes. He'll be out of the house for three hours, and then back to us for the nightime rituals. On Wednesday nights he will be home, but I'll be closing the library. We will have Friday nights together, and of course our weekends (except when I have a Sunday shift now and then).

I am happy that the husband is starting school, but sad that our routine is ending. I am happy that soon I will get to stop using the breast pump, but sad that this will mean loosing the closeness I feel with Dot in the very early morning. I am happy that my daughter is bright and healthy, but sad that she's growing out of this easy to manage stage in her life.

Nothing matters more than this.

Image of an Archivist

2006-07-28T14:29:00.000-04:00

Portrait of an Archivist in Middle Adulthood

Next week I'll be at the big professional conference that archivists go to every year. I find myself agonizing over my wardrobe, something that would have been unimaginable to me just a few years ago. Before working at The Job That Ate My Life, I looked professional and never cared what other people thought of my dress. But TJTAML came with a supervisor who scrutinized my image, and I've been self-conscious ever since. It's been a year since I left, a year since I've been in academia, home of the happily rumpled and casually shod. But still I find myself worried over dress.

I have always envied the UGA archivists. A few of them have dyed hair, or unconventional glasses, or have worn chunky boots to meetings. They are comfortable with themselves, and with their professional positions. I used to be that way; I had navy blue hair when I got a perfect 5 rating for my job at Harvard. I want to get back to that place of comfort with myself. Not necessarily the hair (although I do miss having blue hair, it was a pain to keep up) but the level of self-comfort and self expression. I've told the husband I want to finally get the tattoo I've always wanted for my birthday. I've never been able to afford ink before, and now that I can indulge in the luxury of body modification, I plan to wear some art.

I look forward to going under the artist's needle with great glee. I've learned so much about myself these past few years, and I have become settled enough to commit to permanent ink.

Friends have helped me learn a lot lately. I had one of those big reveals in the past few weeks about friendships. Most of the best friendships I have are often distant, with visits at most once a month, and sometimes only once a year or so. In the past couple of years I was concerned about this pattern of visitation, but now I have found great joy in distance.

Who are my friends? What does that word mean to me, now that I'm getting on 30, and have a baby?

My friends are those with whom I get along because we give each other the space to grow and learn and change. When I was in college, friendship was all about getting as close as possible with someone. Now that I have grown into the next stage of my life, friendship is about accepting the time and space between people. It's about having lived enough to recognize the stages of life and the room we all need to move from one way of thinking and seeing without friction.

The people whose friendships I value most understand that right now, sometimes it's enough to just be around each other only every once in a while. Deep discussion is wonderful and needed from time to time, but right now we need to be off on our own learning. Discussion of things we learned/texts we enjoyed to follow.

That's what friends are; the people who will hold hands with you (but understand that this can be done at a distance) as everything, including yourselves, change. I used to think that my lack of constant socialization these past few years was lamentable; now I realize it's just a sign of maturity.

2006-07-11T09:12:00.000-04:00

Summer

It's mid-July in Atlanta, and we didn't have a good cold winter this year. So the misquitoes are out in full force, biting welts as big as a nickle should I be so bold as to water my tomatoes at dusk or dawn. So far I have managed to keep the bugs away from the baby, but I dread the inevitable appearance of her first bite.

In mid-summer here the sun is bright and fierce and everything will break down: our air conditioner, the dead small animals in the roadway, communication amongst difficult parties, the temperment of tested children and relatives. My computer broke last week after my sisters used it for MySpace, and the site overloaded my PC with spyware and adware. This has cemented my opinion that MySpace is of the devil, and also that I am old. I love every new shiny internet toy, from friendster to Lj to wikipedia. But now I'm old, because I dislike MySpace.

My sisters visit; my friends visit; we visit with extended family. I don't know what else to say about July, other than that I'm working and caring for my household. I wish I was more interesting this month. I'm not.

Returning from Maternity Leave

2006-07-05T08:29:00.000-04:00

Libraries and Maternity Leave
With Devon and Alestar on the side

I returned to my archives work at Comfortable U. last week. I can't believe I was so naive as to think that going on maternity leave wouldn't affect my work, or how people perceive me as a professional. I have been profoundly disappointed to discover that now I am no longer expected to be the best I can be at my job, and that my boss has effectively tried to bench me from big projects.

The week before I returned from leave I emailed out meeting requests to my co-workers, along with my new work availability. The Library Director (L. D.) didn't respond. I emailed and called her the Friday before my return to try and set an appointment again. No answer. The L. D. then sort of dodged me for the next two days while I was back, again neither answering emails or phone calls. I had a meeting Tuesday afternoon, for a project I've been working on since November. At the meeting it turns out that the L. D. changed key components of the project while I was away. Everyone in the meeting knew about the changes but me. I was horribly embarrassed in front of co-workers and project team members. I think that was the L. D.'s intention. When I tried to talk to her about how I was embarrassed, and tried to ask for better communication, she stated that she didn't *ever* have to email me or call me if she didn't want to. The next morning, she cited me for insubordination.

I went out and bought a digital recorder. I'm now recording all of our meetings. The L. D. has terrified me into worrying that I could be fired at any moment; again, I think that was her goal. A person with an infant on staff is a liability, and worse, she's made it clear through side comments and actions that she thinks women with small babies should be at home. Never mind that my husband quit his job to take care of Dot full time. I spent most of last week sick to my stomach about work.

I woke up this morning dreaming about working at Borders again. If the bookstore had been able to pay me more, I never would have gone to grad school at all. I always had a good work environment at Waldenbooks and Borders; in fact, I still keep in touch with a number of old co-workers there, and sometimes when I'm in Nashville I stop in and say hi to my old bosses. I also had good working relationships with my bosses and supervisors in Boston, enough that I keep up e-mail correspondence with Jack, who taught me loads about library work. I'm still looking for that kind of good management here in Atlanta.

I shouldn't worry so much about this kind of stuff. Most people dislike what they do, and I actually love the *work* part of being an archivist and librarian. I even like sitting my shifts at the reference desk (although to be fair, I should mention they're short shifts). Most people have some sort of friction at the workplace. There's no mythical workplace Shangri-La where everyone gets along and all is lovely routine. If there were such a workplace, the lottery wouldn't be so damn popular.

Devon and Erin came to visit last week. Aisling came with them, wearing her bunny ears and hiding on my staircases with books. As always with visits from Devon or Erin, they brought with them a surge of tremendous creative energy. We ended up sitting around and talking about how in the past three years none of us has been satisfied with our creative output. We all decided it was because we'd been squished; Devon and Erin both had a horrid writing professor at UTK who tried to get everyone to sound like Hemingway, and that squished their ability to write; I had the peer reviewer from hell at my other job, and that squished my ability to write. We're all of us trying to regain the joy of writing, and none of us quite knows how. We're all devoted to trying to get the joy back.

Erin showed me a picture, a white page with the beginnings of a sketch of moutains on it. Just gray lines, the ghost of an idea of mountains. "This is where I broke down." she said. And she told me a story about sitting in a cafe in Italy, and how she looked at the mountains and instead of enjoying them all she could think was: "What can I produce from this?". And that's when she broke down she said, because all she could think about was product, and turning her experiences into something. She wasn't enjoying Italy or traveling because all she could think about was using the experience to produce a product.

She pointed to the page with the ghost of a mountain drawing on it. "This is where we are." she said.

That's where I am.

2006-06-20T06:47:00.000-04:00

Class issues revisited

and

Maybe I'll Quit

My subtitle last week never got fulfilled. What I wanted to say about class never got written last week because I was all bunched-up and angry still at myself and the old roomies. But let me tell you about class, as I see it now -

When I was a kid and my parents moved me to (what was then) a rural factory town half an hour outside of Nashville, I suddenly became rich. It wasn't that my parents suddenly had more money or anything; it was simply that they had bought their first house, a small but new-ish thing covered in aluminum siding in a subdivision, one that possessed a generous front and back yard. When I went to school in this community, I discovered that I was relatively well off compared to my classmates. After all, I had clothes from stores in Nashville that they had never visited. As a teen, I was the first to have a Nintendo Gameboy, and my Junior year my parents bought me a little black and white television of my very own for my room. In a community where WIC rules were taught in the parenting class and most kids had no intention of going to college, I was considered well off.

My husband grew up in a far more affluent community just inside the Nashville city limits. His family traveled the world with him as a little boy, and he saw India, Egypt, and Japan all before the age of 13. He attended a very prestigious prep school, and would, over several years, ask his mother more than once if they were rich. Her answer was always to No. While I and my friends in the rural factory town would certainly have considered my husband's family rich, my mother-in-law did not think so, because she was looking at an entirely different group of people whom she considered to be wealthy.

My mother-in-law grew up surrounded by horses, and became a rider in horse shows in her youth. She rode horses in competition for wealthy horse breeders and owners, and so, to her, she wasn't rich because in her professional life she was surrounded by people who could afford to own the most luxurious pets of all, pedigreed horses. Some of these people not only traveled the world, but might own vacation homes in other countries as well.

My husband and I, we are not as well off as his parents, but we are more well off than my parents. By the standards of many in the world, we are wrapped in luxury. But to me, luxury means that I have been able to stay home for my unpaid maternity leave for the whole 12 weeks. I am certain that most families I know could not afford 12 weeks of unpaid maternity leave. I think of myself as middle-class, but who doesn't? I am sure that my mother law thinks she is middle-class, and that many of the kids in that factory town who had never seen a dentist thought they were middle class too.

Why do I think so much about class issues? What does it matter, really? I suppose ever since I went to Boston - ever since I went from walking around Murfreesboro, dirt-ass poor, to walking around the Harvard campus still dirt-ass poor but surrounded by a kind of wealth that I had never seen - I've been changed. I can't look at the world and not think about class divisions and comparisons. You can't go from using the foodbank because you can't feed yourself to eating at 4 star restaurants all within a space of less than a decade without creating some kind of schism in your head.

I bring all this up because I know that many of my friends now think I'm wealthy. I might well be wealthy one day, but I don't think I am today. Of course, it all depends on where you're standing when you think about these things.

Within a few hours of writing my last post, I realized how bitter I sounded when talking about the last few years. While I didn't take the post down after reviewing it (I have done so to other writings I didn't like in the past, only to suffer from deletion regret), this did kick off a series of thoughts about stopping this blog.

I've considered quitting blogging only once seriously in the past - that was right around the time I got married. Of course, the one time I let the blog sit fallow for a month was the time I won an award, and this blog got more traffic than it's ever seen. Devon has recently taken down all of her old blogs and journals; you can't see the livejournal entry where she writes about this, and about becoming a new person every seven years, because now she's only blogging behind a livejournal friendslock. Maybe it's time to quit this show. I've been blogging for one year less than Devon - I am almost a completely different person, cell by cell, than I was six years ago. Or maybe I should keep up this blog for just one more year to make the seven year cycle complete. I feel sort of defeated by open access blogging. The truth is that I've been cheating on this blog with my livejournal for almost three years, and I can poinpoint where this journal got less fun and livejournal got more interesting almost exactly. Livejournal gives one far more positive social feedback, and because one can friendslock entries - hide them behind a lock with selective access - sometimes I am torn over what to write there and what to write here. The livejournal was just supposed to be for writing about my pop culture obsessions and collecting links. Now it's more about who I am than this blog.

Maybe personal blogging is dead. It certainly isn't as fashionable as it once was, with people being mentioned in Newsweek and the phenomenon getting academic study. Nowadays, blogging is what you do for your workplace project, and even that's considered kind of tired. Next week I return to work, and soon I'll have to start thinking about writing professionally (publish or perish, it's called). I hate professional writing, ever since that job where my boss used to nit-pick every damn word I wrote. This blog is, and has, been, a great pressure-release valve for things I'd like to do or say. I can talk about rude subjects and over-use hyphens here and there's not a damn person who can make me stop. So maybe I'll go on just a little bit longer.

2006-06-10T21:03:00.000-04:00

Long walks past and present
or
Class issues and friends revisited

I'm back to taking long walks through the neighborhood and parks again, now that I've recovered from having Dot. Earlier this week I decided to retrace my steps to old rental places in the neighborhood. I've lived here for three years now, and the walk down old familiar lanes was triggered by contact from a past acquaintance in Tennessee, Carl. Carl was looking for my old roomies, and I knew how to find them, even though we haven't spoken in since everything went so, so badly. After contacting the past room mates, Carl asked if I wanted him to pass along my information. I said, if they ask for it, OK.

Later I thought better of my answer. I tried to picture talking with my old roomies, and I couldn't see the conversation, I couldn't figure out what we would talk about. Still, it's not like I don't wonder what they're up to some times. In particular, I miss the roomie with whom I had shared my Freshman college year. I felt weird and conflicted, so I decided to walk back to our old rental house and figure out my frame of mind regarding people who were my friends for nearly a decade before we learned to hate each other. I hadn't been back to the house we shared since I moved away, but I've stayed within the same five or six blocks in Inman Park/Little 5 Points this whole time, so it's not like I don't pass by the place occasionally. I went down to the old place and walked up the steps, around the side, and to the back yard. It's a pretty huge rental house with more than one unit, so I figured if anyone saw me I could just say I was waiting around for a friend. I sat in my old back yard right next to Mr. Puck's grave, and thought on how much had changed in my life since the day I moved into this neighborhood three years ago.

Some things haven't changed; the owners of that rental property on Austin Avenue are still negligent, the bushes full of trash and the pond out back still dark and muddy. Mr. Puck's grave now has a small flowering tree planted over it, where neighbors are trying to screen out the badly maintained rental property. I don't mind that there's a tree over Mr. Puck now. I petted the leaves, wondering how much of my cat was in there.

My situation in life has changed so much in three years. It used to that I had emergencies all the time; a nail in my tire could once leave me scrambling to pay the bills, but three years of solid, well paying jobs have cleared me of that hurdle. The process begun when I went away to grad school is now complete; I'm white collar, and reasonably comfortable. I have no illusions that marrying well helped me along in this, but I'm certain I'd own a home and have a baby by now even if I hadn't married at all.

I've finally got the job I always wanted, working in a university library as an Archivist and Special Collections librarian. I have a husband who adores me, a healthy baby, and I can pay my bills on time. While we only have one car and don't go on all the trips we'd like too, it's because we choose to live within our means. I couldn't ask for a happier home life. I have achieved all the goals I set for myself when I moved here. I have achieved all the goals I set for myself when I went to grad school. I live in the place of my choosing with my sister just blocks away, and more success than I dared dream of.

So, sitting in that place, that backyard, I suddenly found I had to ask myself why I keep pushing myself to do better, both professionally and personally, while I seem to have gone backwards in the close friends department.

I am trying to further my professional reputation by working hard on exhibits and collections, and by being more active in my professional groups. I could just sit back and enjoy my job quietly; no need to risk my reputation by sticking my neck out, trying to be forward. I am constantly trying to think of ways to help my sisters. My mother is much better at helping them now that she's away from my father, and our new step-father has been nothing but supportive and kind, going out of his way to help both of my sisters. I needn't be so involved now, especially now that I've got my own baby to worry over. Why am I willing to keep pushing work and family boundaries, but when it comes to friends I'm so willing to let go?

Aside from not speaking to the old roomies for two and a half years (for very good reasons), I've been letting a number of friends drift from me since the pregnancy. I can tell the whole mommy thing makes them uncomfortable, and, well, there are only a handful of friendships I've been putting the work into since the whole falling out on Austin Avenue. As I sat in that backyard, I realized that the roomie falling out had made me kind of bitter; that winter in the rental house had been the beginning of me officially Not Giving A Shit about a number of friendships. I realized I was still hanging onto some of the hurt and anger generated in that house. I'm not ready, I don't think, to talk to the old roomies. I don't know if I'll ever be ready. I accept that I was just as bad in that situation as they were; while I'll never be able to forget some of the horrible things that one of the roomies said to me, I doubt he'll ever be able to forgive me for photoshopping him into Bush's visit to England. Oh, well. When given verbal abuse, I repaid in ridicule. I used to get so angry with him, and the way he behaved, that I would go into my room and shake with anger. There's no coming back from that kind of situation. I don't think it's the kind of thing one gets over.

I hope the old roomies are happy and well. I hope they're successful, and that they have a comfortable home and space that makes them content. I hope everything has gone as well for them as it has for me; I hope they've accomplished their goals. But I could no more pretend that I could go back to that friendship than I could pretend to be in the place professionally and personally that I was three years ago.

I'm sorry that our friendship got fucked up. I'm sorry that it made me trust people a little bit less, that the roomie experience was so bad that I quit letting people get that close to me, friendship-wise. I'm sorry that I know the old roomies check this blog from time to time and are likely to read this. No; wait; I'm not sorry. I do wish them well. Maybe in another three years I won't sound so bitter over the whole thing, and I'll be back to making and keeping friends in the way that I used to, with ease and grace and an ability to let people in and plan big dinners and brunches.

Soon Tony and Andrew, two other old friends, will be moving to Atlanta. I will never let the kind of things that happened with the roomies happen with them. But then, I don't think we'd ever get to that point with each other anyway. A problem as big as the one I had on Austin Avenue takes two people who work against each other to truly get off the ground.

I don't think I'll ever need to visit the old rental house again.

2006-05-24T14:19:00.000-04:00

Local Politics

I feel uninteresting and boring lately; my days are filled with playing and caring for my new daughter, who certainly fascinates and delights me, but doesn't do anything really blogworthy. We have a healthy, happy baby girl who is about eight weeks old. And that's my main concern right now.

Other than that, I've gotten wrapped up in neighborhood politics. Last Christmas i got myself elected to our condo board, and the work has been frustrating if necessary. Our converted warehouse boarders a nasty urban brownlot full of trash, kudzu, weeds, and a vandalized trailer. The negligent owner of this blighted property says he'll clean up his trash when he gets permission to build on the lot. I, and a lot of other neighbors, are committed to making it as hard as possible for this guy to build because he's such a dishonest and unfriendly person. In addition to being a negligent land owner, he was also successfully prosecuted for fraud in a previous building endevour in our neighborhood.

Fighting the bad landowner means that I have to attend a condo board meeting once a month and keep up with my neighbors and some emails. I and the husband also now attend some meetings of the Inman Park Homeowner's Association. While it's nice to meet the other people whose homes boarder the brownlot, I also find the whole thing to be a giant headache. At least I'm new to the fight; evidently negotiations with this landowner have been going on for nearly a decade. The trash in the lot behind my house has been there for at least five years. It's obscene and absurd and just part of living in the city, I guess.

Our friends Tony and Andrew - Dot's Godparents, in fact - are moving down to Atlanta next month and I couldn't be happier about that. Skeet called this morning and will be visiting over Labor Day weekend. Our friends continue to draw nearer to us, and I am hoping that everyone will continue to settle here in the neighborhood. One of the midwives who helped with Dot lives within walking distance of me. I like walking around and running into my sister, her friends, our friends, the guy from the bank, our neighbors - I like bumping into people I know while just being out. We're lucky to live in a place like that. We're lucky, and I know this is true.

2006-05-08T12:31:00.000-04:00

Home Dreaming

The Inman Park yearly festival has come and gone again, and this year was the first year I really got to enjoy it the way I'd always wanted. In the past I had always had family or work comittments that either took away my time or made me too tired to go out to see the parade and peek into the homes on the home tour. This year is different, this year is better. This year the husband and I took Dot out in her baby sling and met our friend Amy for lunch, and then we watched the parade.

I love my neighborhood; along with the local High School bands and politicians up for office, my neighborhood has a parade that highlights all the things that make Atlanta great. Marching alongside the conventional parade regulars were drag queens in masses of feathers, Klingons on custom motorbikes, war protesters of various stripes, a Harry Potter fanclub, a mass of neighborhood people dressed as superheroes just because they like superheroes, the local Youth Pride chapter, a crazy man with a placard informing us we were all going to hell, The Queen of Trash who rode atop the local garbage truck (it had been cleaned), The Queen of Little Five (who was massive and elicited reverential bows from the local punks), the local 'Possum Queen atop her opossum-mobile, The Sweet Potato Queen, and a local Homecoming Queen, who was the youngest of all the Queens by a good 30 years.

The husband took the baby home after that so Amy and I could have an afternoon out peeking inside homes open for the home tour. I had to go on the tour this year as a house on Austin/Lake Avenue near where I first rented was up for looking. When I first moved here one front corner of that house was held up by a car jack, and the rest was all crumbling at the edges. Today the house has been totally rebuilt as a dream home. We also took a look in some of the old mansions around the neighborhood. The husband and I joke all the time that we need to win the lottery so we can move three blocks from our warehouse...

It took me three days to get this posted; between breastfeeding and housework, I'm swamped. Happy, tired, and overwhemled, but in a way very different from how I feel when I'm overloaded in my professional work. Working at home is more difficult than working in an office. There is this dream that we all have, a dream of a lovely perfect house from a home tour, sparking clean. In that dream you stay at home all day helping your family and somehow everything is all relaxed. This is not reality. In reality, professional cleaners come and set the stage for those tours. In reality, I've got baby spit-up on me and my laundry isn't folded. In the dream, there are no clothes on the floor and we are all well rested and dinner is cooked every night. But still, I live in best of all real worlds - and soon we will have even more people I love best living near us.

2006-04-15T12:05:00.000-04:00

Visiting and linking back

It's half past April already - I have hardly noticed the days passing since Dot arrived. We're still working out the circadian rythms, nights from days. Despite the lack of sleep, I have never been happier in my life than when I lay in our bed with my husband and baby. Easter has come and gone again; all we did this year was take my sister Sara out to eat at Mary Mac's on Ponce. The baby went too, and laid in her car seat carrier all asleep while we ate. Life is good and quiet right now - maybe too quiet - I am thinking about starting up creative projects again for the first time in four years.

I really don't have much to say this week; and so, being an archivist, I will take stock of my internet files, and see where I am since I started blogging in the fall of 2000, vs. how I think and feel and act today. Let us link back -

Five years ago today I had just finished my professional internship, and was focused on my grad program. Kinda boring.

Five years ago June, I announced I had big new plans for my life. I didn't say what they were at the time, but this was when I decided I really wanted to have kids before I turned 30. I will be 30 this October.

Four years ago today I was preparing to march in DC to protest the war. I had a lot of other stuff going on too. I'm still glad I went and marched in that protest, but it was the last big protest I attended. Watching the DC police manage the crowds made me more aware that the old protest style just doesn't work anymore. Call me cynical, but after the protests in 2002, I focused on making more money so I could donate to social causes. I tried working for a non-profit for a while to make a differance, and I did - but at a high cost to my personal life. I think I've paid my volunteer dues in full for a while, and now I push for change with my cash. The husband has recently talked about getting politically active again, and I might do that - the election cycle is coming around here in GA very soon. But I'll be focusing on local political change. I am now convinced that small local political change affects national politics more than most people realize.

Three years ago today I was getting used to being part of my family again. And thinking about babies. So really, not much change there, except that I am now far more comfortable around my family. Last week my grandmother came and stayed with us for several days to help out and play with the baby, and on Thursday Audrey and Laura and little Laura Kate came over to visit with Grandma and Dot and gave us a bunch of good baby clothes and blankets to use. I enjoy being around my family now and have managed to become relaxed around them. These things just take time.

Two years ago I didn't post about Easter; I was all wrapped up in my future husband. Also, I was starting to get burned out on the non-profit job, but struggling to stay positive about it. Things were coming together, and I was glad; I had no clue that in a few months I'd be engaged, and then married.

Last year we had just moved into the converted warehouse, and started trying for a baby. I was completely and totally exhausted from my work but proud and accomplished about the house and the rest of my life.

Today? Today I will put my new daughter into a baby sling and take her on her first walk through the neighborhood. I will walk down to the co-op grocery store to see my sister and to show off Dot's cuteness to our gocery store people and the pharmacist. Today I am enjoying my maternity leave and still loving living here, in Little 5, in Atlanta. I still have a good life. I hope you do, too.

Dot

2006-04-03T12:38:00.001-04:00

Dot

Dot arrived last Thursday night at Emory Crawford-Long. After such a difficult pregnancy, everyone was surprised at the easy birth; she came out so fast the midwife had to catch her with just one glove on. I had been in labor for a day, but I only had to push for a few minutes.

Dot has a head of brown hair and big blue eyes. She's very alert, and very pink. The husband and I are very relieved. My sister Sara cut the cord, and we brought the baby home Saturday afternoon.

Breastfeeding is kind of complicated. We're working it out, Dot and I - learning together. You would think that if you have breasts and a baby these these would come together without effort, but that hasn't been the case yet. We get a little better at it every day.

I'm kind of tired, and busy cuddling with the new daughter and my husband. I'll write more next week.

2006-03-27T09:00:00.000-05:00

Due Date

Since midnight I've been on that arbitrary date the medical profession calls a due date. Today is the best guess of the date I will start labor. I am doubtful. I am also very tired. I am also at work. I could go home and no one would fault me; but the idea of sitting around the house waiting for my uterus to contract in a meaningful way sounds tedious and boring beyond measure. Besides, it's just not me.

I woke up this morning in the middle of a nightmare. I dreamt that I had promised a lecture to my old Job That Ate My Life. I dreamt that for some reson I told them I would lecture today, on my due date, in Nashville. But of course I had promised to lecture on a topic that I knew but had never given before, and I didn't have my slides approved. I had no power point, no handouts for the students, and no idea why they were asking me to go to and from Nashville on my due date. So I took the train to my old office to try and sort the situation out, but when I got there the building was nearly abandoned; all the workers had left and the only people still there were too busy to deal with me. I thought about going into my old space and trying to cobble together a lecture from my old notes. When I got to my old cubicle, my former supervisor had gutted all my old notes and turned the notebooks into awful scrapbooks. I woke up confused.

Some time within the next week, I'll have a baby. This entry makes no sense. I make no sense. I know what comes next: labor, birth, 12 weeks of maternity leave, the husband quits his job, in the fall he starts law school. I continue along my career path, mounting exhibits and sorting through the lost letters and photographs of people long dead. Isn't it important to know what happened, so that we can try and imagine what comes next? I'm an archivist. I arrange, describe, learn, educate, I swim in the past but did you know chemistry is more important to my job than history? If the Ph balance is off in that paper, it's all for nothing, acids will eat our memories, photographs curl and fade, and the electric hum of the internet needs constant maintence in order to be readable.

That's what I would have said in my nightmare lecture, if I had been forced to give it. History is now chemical and electrical, just like your dreams. And just like your dreams, it's all about perception. I know what comes next, in my own personal chemistry. I just don't know when the hormones and water will release, when the specific nerve connections will fire, or for how long. I know that I am tired. I know I am typing nonsense. I know the hind parts of my brain dedicated to instinct will take over soon. I know I'll still be an individual when this is all over, but I will have a new and independant little person to help along for the next couple of decades.

I know everything will be just fine. I just don't know how much longer I get to be in this window, between the projected date of birth and the actual act. While I wait, I'll fight the decay of cultural memory. After all, that's my job.

2006-03-17T15:20:00.000-05:00

Nashvillians in Atlanta

"[Tennessee]Senate Bill 3794 (House Bill 3798), legislation that would make it illegal to sell, advertise, publish or exhibit to another person any three-dimensional device designed or marketed as useful primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs. For that matter, if you offer to show someone your dildo collection, or possess a vibrator with the intent to show it to someone, you'd be violating this proposed state law.

The seventh set of Nashville stories

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
16 17 18

Nineteen

In the past year and a half a number of Nashvillians I know have moved to Atlanta. The job market in Tennessee has always been tight, and, by my observation, only seems to be getting worse. The problem isn't unemployment, but underemployment. I always had to work two part time jobs there because I couldn't find a full time job in the service sector. The same is true today, and the problem seems to be growing as more local businesses are replaced with chain stores.

There's our friends Daniel and Raven, who bartend at the Fox. Recently they accepted another Nashville refugee, Cole, who is job seeking in Little 5. Both Raven and Daniel were able to get hired on, full time, in a job that was willing to train them in a skill that they can use to support themselves even if their current jobs at the Fox end. Daniel has used his year and a half here most wisely, and is now considering saving up money to follow his dreams to New York, where he'd like to work as a manager in an off-broadway playhouse. Daniel is a former theater major, and all he's ever wanted to do is work behind the scenes at theaters. He's thriving here. His other roomies are less complacent, but I have hope they'll find their place here before too long.

Then there's my sister, who has for the past 6 months worked at a vegetarian grocery store and has been trained there as a Vegan cook. She's thinking about culinary school now. Her job will be giving her health care benefits soon, something an 18 year old in the Nashville job market scarcely dream of. Likewise, a friend of my sister's moved down here last month with $300 in her pocket after months of struggling to get her bosses in Nashville to give her more than 25 hours a week. Within two weeks the friend had a full time hostess job at a local restaurant that begged her to work overtime when another employee quit - to go to an even better job!

I worry about the 10,000 Bell South employees that will be laid off here in Atlanta with the AT&T merger, and how that will affect our good job market. There are plenty of jobs here on the low end of the service sector for sure - if you want to work in a restaurant, hotel, or bar, your prospects are good in Atlanta. I'm more worried about the white collar workers. We were able to absorb so many people from New Orleans in the past year with scarcely an eyeblink, thanks to the aggressive expansion into tourism. But we need more jobs in the mid-level for people with kids - jobs in banking and other markets to replace those lost telecom slots and the ever shrinking Delta job pool. I'm curious to see how long the good job market lasts here. Curious and hopeful, for both a place a love and people I want to see succeed.

Heck, even Dust had an interview down here in the past week, down at our excellent puppet museum. He is planning to move here even if the job doesn't come through, because he feels the job market will allow him to find something theater related.

Twenty

My in-laws drove down from Nashville last weekend to help us make the house ready for the baby. Our converted warehouse needed some spaces walled off. We made a pantry under the stairs, fixed my broken curtain rod over the laundry area, and even made spaces to keep the cat boxes hidden under the stairs as well.

The husband and his father also spent an entire day in the urban brown lot next to our warehouse shifting trash away from our building, where it was causing drainage problems. The irresponsible landowner next door keeps his lot junky, in part because he is angry the neighborhood won't allow him to build crappy duplexes there. The neighborhood wants single-unit family dwellings, and it's their right to use every Atlanta law on the books to block a man who has lost several lawsuits over his past construction projects.

My father-in-law was impressed by the quality of "construction trash" people just left laying around in Atlanta. I suspect he chucked several pieces of wood and pipe and plastic sheeting in the back of his pickup truck before he left. He just couldn't believe anyone would leave such treasure laying around. Most of the city mystifies and frustrates him. He didn't believe me when I told him it was illegal to leave your dog in a parked car here (I didn't try to explain how dangerous this is to dogs, because he wouldn't have believed that either).

The weekend ended with me nervously gripping the bottom of the pickup truck passenger seat as my very rural father-in-law rode down Peachtree Street at 15 mph, in the middle of two lanes, gawking at things as I tried to direct him to Cafe Intermezzo. The husband and his mother were following us in another car, and thank god, because I was sure that at any moment we might get plowed by an actual Atlanta driver. We did manage to convince the father-in-law that next time they drive down they should come in the mother-in-law's sedan instead of the truck, and that valet parking was perfectly safe. He remains irritated at the idea of not being able to park his own car.

My father-in-law was also confused by my method of dealing with racial jokes. He kept trying to make me laugh by telling me a joke about black drivers, but I just acted really stupid and kept saying "What?", and "But that guy over there isn't driving like that", and "I don't get it" and such, pretending to be totally uncomprehending until he gave up and stopped trying to tell the racist joke. I taught myself this method for dealing with people of his generation after long years of hearing much the same from my Grandfather. I love the older men in my life, and pretending that they're speaking a foreign language is easiest way around their nasty old jokes. I'm really, really glad my in-laws are so helpful. I'm also really relieved they live four hours away.

Twenty-One

The baby will be here around the end of the month, and that will add one more to the Atlanta population, someone who is actually from here. But the numbers of people moving here from somewhere else are staggering. One of my midwives and two of the other couples in our birthing group are from the west coast. They all live on my side of town. Then there are all the Nashvillians I haven't mentioned who want to move here, but are scared to jump out of the relatively secure jobs they might have back in Tennessee.

My friends Tony and Andrew, the baby's Godparents, are the friends I most want to see get a chance at Atlanta. Andrew even works for Coca-Cola, and started chasing job prospects back in December. We are all rooting for Andrew, because he deserves to work for big Coca-Cola, and he's ready for that next income boost in his career. Plus, I want the baby's support network to be as big as possible.

I have to chase down Skeet and try to convince him again. I consider my friends V. and his new wife to be likely Atlanta prospects as V. also works for a corporation with a regional headquarters here in town. I am working on wooing as many people as I can to my area. Part of this is selfish. Part of this is because Tennessee scares me anymore, when I am there. The Southern Baptist Convention believes in theocracy as a viable form of government, and they are based in Nashville. Here in Atlanta I live between the crazy old hippies in Lake Claire and the crazy old civil rights preachers in Sweet Auburn. Jimmy Carter, both literally and figuratively, has got my back. I feel safe and a little insulated from the political neo-con waves here.

I have managed to successfully nest in Little 5. I have my sister three blocks away in one direction, the bartender guys three blocks in another direction. Then I have my sister's friends 4 blocks away, which I still count as support network. I have joined my condo association board to try and improve our property. I am helping more friends move here, and they are benefiting from the city I love. I am raising a family here, and it is better than Nashville in all respects I care about. I think my mother will leave Nashville in the next decade, and most likely move somewhere here in Georgia.

You should, too.

2006-03-03T09:31:00.000-05:00

Winter is over

I'm going ahead and annoucing that winter is over here in Atlanta, even though I know this annoucement will come back and bite me in the ass. We never got our once-a-year snow day here this year; it was a winter of cold rains with no relief of having school or work closed because of ice. Still, when I stepped outside yesterday to the 69 degree bright and sunny day, the fruit trees were starting to bloom and there was the unmistakable air of spring about everything.

At my house we closed off the dark cold season with a horrible round of bronchitis. I was put on bed rest for three days and told that if I got dehydrated I'd end up in early labor, and so I was to drink a gallon of water every 12 hours. The husband stayed home with me to watch me worriedly as I faded in and out of nasty coughing spells and drugged sleep. We had to take my tempreture every hour or so to make sure I didn't get too hot for the baby. The husband ended up getting the same sickness himself, and is still at home in bed with the sweaty mess. Our baby was generally imprevious, rolling around in my stomach, annoyed by the change in daily routine sickness brought. A trip to the midwives Thursday night gave me the breifest of last ultrasound glimpses at the person who we'll meet at the end of the month. I saw only the top of my firstborn's head, and the midwife's sigh of relief:

"Plenty of water in there, and the baby's head is down. Look at that nice, round head!"

Strong heartbeat, lots of movement, and I had even managed to gain a pound despite sickness. The baby will be here in less than a month now, and I have become boring because I can write of little else. The husband worries a lot about delivery; I don't. I worry about bringing the baby home more than labor. Labor only lasts a number of hours. Having the baby home lasts 20 years or so, and the first bit is going to be the most challenging. Everything will be different, once again. Of course I am terrified and excited all at the same time.

2006-02-14T08:12:00.000-05:00

Glitter Fabulous and Gone

Last month the Disco Diner closed here in Atlanta. It was one of those things I always thought about when I thought of this town - a strange purple and white A-frame sitting on the corner of North and Juniper, serving breakfast at all hours. A decade ago, this was Atlanta for me - driving down to shop for things you couldn't get in Nashville, watching drag and dancing at Backstreets, people watching at the Disco Diner. Atlanta always seemed to be a midnight place full of drunkeness and fun and greasy food, a place where the glitter fabulous from all over the South washed up at 4a.m. because, well, where else would you be at 4am? It's not like we had much by way of alternative; no, if you were from any of the four surrounding states, Atlanta was the midnight party destination you fought to find gas money for.

Sure, the techno/disco/glamrock Atlanta of a decade ago was pretty gay. Some of my friends were gay, but not the majority of us. We drove to the gay venues of Atlanta for the same reason our Grandparents drove here to go to black venues 50 years earlier. Because our own culture and clubs were boring as hell, and all the good artistic breakthroughs in a society happen in the margins of what is considered acceptable. I guess in 2006, where one of the top-grossing movies out is Brokeback Mountain, that it's just time the glitter-fabulous Atlanta moved on to that great party graveyard in the sky. Boys kissing on the dance floor can't be as thrilling to younger kids as it was to me; they've seen it all already. And I am soon to be thirty, and heavily pregnant. I'm not allowed to be edgy and cool anymore.

The Atlanta I knew from my young adulthood is gone. The laws passed a little over a year ago restricting bars and personal smoking habits in public places have closed Backstreets and, by extension, now the Disco Diner and a bunch of other places that catered to the after midnight crowd. Some venues have re-opened in The Underground, and maybe right now there's a younger version of me rhapsodizing about how wonderful Atlanta is after a night of partying there. I can devote a little time to eulogizing it here, but honestly, the baby kicks so much now that I can't even plan a farewell party for a time that I loved. Years ago, the death of glitter-fabulous would have been an occasion for a theme.

I should not complain about the city changing so much when I have changed as well. One of my core beliefs used to be "work hard, play harder", by which I meant that I would work on 10 hour, 12 hour workday binges for a couple of weeks at a stretch, and then crash for a few days or maybe even a week into a few days and nights of parties. This strategy got me great grades and a shiny Master's degree and I was happy for a while. But on this day last year - Valentine's Day, for chrissakes - I was in GoddamnMiami working instead of at home for my first Valentines with my new husband. I booked that business trip because I felt manipulated into it by a supervisor who thought Valentine's was a stupid day. And I remember sitting in a hotel room by myself wondering how I ended up in Miami, a city I hate more than any other, when I should have been at home curled around my husband. It was insane, the misplaced priorities of a workaholic. I will admit that the excesses of my glitter-fabulous times in Atlanta were destructive. But the alcohol, the weed, the excessive sex were all easy to give up as my body got older and started to object to rough treatment.

The excessive work? I have yet to entirely kick the habit. But I'm getting better now at saying no to projects that would increase my prestige but run me ragged. I will be home on time from work for Valentine's this year. The husband and I will go to a restaurant that we normally don't allow ourselves to afford, and I will be at home curled up with the love of my life by 10 pm. If my dreams are sprinkled with glitter dust and rememberances of hair dyes past, it is because I spent my younger days well, and I am glad I live here near where I have always been most happy.

2006-01-20T12:05:00.000-05:00

Another tooth gone

I lost another tooth yesterday; it was the companion, way in the back, to the one I had taken out in October of 2003. I now have the same bridle gap in the back of my mouth that a horse does. I probably spent about 4 grand between 1997 and yesterday trying to save that one tooth; add in the cost of its brother tooth and you might come up with a figure closer to ten grand spent over a period of 9 years trying to correct problems caused by poverty and bad dentistry and worse advice.

It's nearly over now; a little more tylenol, a few weeks of healing, a follow-up visit to remove the stitches, and 9 years of badness will be gone, with only a smooth place of healed flesh quietly resting in the back of my head to prove it all ever happened. Those smooth hollows along my top jaw will serve as a private reminder of how bad things were for a long, long time.

It's like this:

In October of 1997 I was 21, and had just landed my first stable full time job in years, working at a book store in Antioch, TN. I lived in Murfreesboro in a rental house on Bell Street with my first fiance. He was going to school full time and I was working and for the first time in a long time it seemed like everything would be all right, like everything could get better.

I woke up one night with an amazing toothache. We had no insurance and no extra money. It would take 4 weeks for me to see the local free clinic dentist. I chewed ibuprofen, aspirin, anything I could get my hands on that whole time. And then the dentist, when I got in, told me that one of my teeth needed to come out and its brother needed a root canal, but he couldn't work on me that day because all the pain killers I'd been eating had lowered my platelet count.

I made the appointment to loose my teeth. I couldn't afford a root canal; the tooth removal, because it is life-threatening, is free. When I got in the car and told my finace, I laughed and cried at the same time. I felt like we had hit rock-bottom poverty. I thought of loosing teeth and I thought of the gap-toothed brown smiles of Waffle House waitresses, of homeless people, of the indigent southern dirt poverty I had been fighting my whole life. Losing my teeth was like admitting to myself the truth of my life: I was poor,and I was gonna stay that way. There seemed like no way out of scratching just enough pay to buy food and cover the rent. My fiance and I decided to tell my parents, hoping they could help out. Thanksgiving was only a few days away.

November, 1997: My parents yell and scream in my fiance's face while I'm away. My Grandfather blames him for everything that's ever been wrong. I'm not there; I'm working at the bookstore while all this happens, the day after Thanksgiving. When we drive home together later that day he sits down on the bed, looks at me, and says "I can't take your family. They're awful."

Later that night my Grandfather drives to our house and lectures, no, preaches at us for an hour about how if I have that tooth pulled, it's a sign that my whole life is a failure.

By the time the holidays are over, so is my engagement. This has as much to do with my fiance as my family.

1998: The split with my fiance leaves me effectively homeless and carless. I survive the next 8 months sleeping at my parents house a few nights each week, and by relying on friends. I apply for a grant through my book store company. The company does *not* provide dental benefits, but they have a charitable arm that grants help to those in need; my grant is accepted, and I go to the only dentist in walking distance from my parent's house. The dentist turns out to be incredibly bad. I have two root canals, and both go rotten because she fails to clear out the infections, and should never have been doing root canals. I do make it back into school and dorm living by the fall, but only because of the intervention of my Great Aunt Beth. The pain in my mouth that year was a phenomenal low hum of a pulsing underbeat that drove me, every minute of every day, to focus on working my way out of the incredible pit I was in.

1999: My mother takes me to her dentist, who is disgusted at what the bad dentist has done to my mouth. He advises me to sue for malpractice and reports the bad dentist to his professional board. I don't sue; I threaten to sue and get all the grant money back. I start using the grant money to go to an oral surgeon in Murfreesboro, who, the first time he sees me, sits back and says: "Dear God. I am so, so sorry." I don't have enough money to fix all my problems, just to clean out the infections and get temporary crowns in place. My dad at first says he'll help, but visits to the oral surgeon end after the first time dad doesn't pay. I am embarrassed; the oral surgeon takes my dad to court for non-payment. The work is solid, and the temporaries will hold for years.

Spring, 2002: For the first time I have dental insurance through my job at Harvard. The minute it is switched on, I start going to an oral surgeon once a week, every week. She cleans out the infections again. She takes off the old temps and puts on new temps. I run out of money again, but unlike my dad, I pay for everything.

2003: The minute I have dental insurance again, I go to the best cosmetic oral surgeon in town. He's used to dealing with people who have been in car wrecks and worse; he is the first person to look in my mouth and say: "Well, that's not so bad, really." In October, he removes the tooth that had been reccomended for removal in the first consultation in 1997. The tooth was cracked all the way to the root, he said, and never could have healed. In December, I eat corn chips for the first time in 6 years.

2004: The process of root canals begins. By now I need many. In September I marry my husband, who has never known before he met me how hard it is to pay for basic dental care. I warn him before we are married that I have to help take care of my sisters.

2005: A cyst is removed from the root of the brother tooth. The dentist crowns it but warns me that it may not heal entirely. The operation takes 6 hours, and I am not sedated because I am trying to get pregnant. I do get pregnant; I also get Hyperemesis, which is caused by an abnormally high amount of progesterone in my blood. The progesterone affects my gums, amongst other things. The dental hygenist tells me my gums look like hamburger meat when I go in for an evaluation. My husband pays not only for my dental treatments this year, but also for those of my 18-year-old sister. Her dental problems add up to over $6,000 by the end of the year. It seems that after dad had his little run-in with my oral surgeon in Murfreesboro, he quit taking any of his children to the dentist. My sister had black holes in her teeth, including the ones in the front of her mouth. The oral surgeon shakes his head and gives us about $1,000 in free treatment on her. We've got weak enamel in our family.

2006, yesterday: The second tooth from that 1997 free dentist visit is removed. I'm in my third trimester, and manage to control my blood pressure through the whole operation, which impresses the technician there to evaluate me to no end. Everyone in the office is so surprized and please that I can control my breathing and heart rate while having a tooth pulled. I shrug and smile at them, and manage to croak out "Yoga" after the procedure.

It's not Yoga. It's just that I know I can make it through anything. The pain - it's not so much. While 9 years ago I was upset to think of losing a tooth, today I am merely relieved that it's over. The dentist says he'll set me up to get implants after the baby comes. Yo know what? I don't know that I want them. When I touch the vacant pocket of flesh with my tounge, it reminds me of all the bad times. It reminds me of nights of pain and poverty I made it through to get where I am today. From rock-bottom to white collar. Now? Now I just hope the baby gets my husband's teeth. Strong and bright and looked-after.

2006-01-10T16:15:00.000-05:00

Skeet Should Call Me, Again

This weekend marks the last weekend I'll be traveling to Nashville for a while. I've managed to lose my friend Skeet's cell phone number again; he should leave a message in the guestbook here (which I will erase right away) with some sort of contact information.

Last weekend the husband and I made my last plane flight for a while. We flew to McAllen, Texas, a border town where my Great Aunt Beth lives. We walked across the border to Mexico twice, and ate fabulous food. You can get the best baked Alaska in Mexico, if you know where to go. You can also buy a bottle of Tequila shaped like a pistol, and some nifty hand-blown glassware. It was a nice trip; only once did the heat and dust get to me. Aunt Beth had a hard time with all the women who had babies and were begging in the street. I had a hard time with that too. I always do.

On the flight back, I sat directly in front of a screaming infant. There were two other unhappy toddlers on the flight as well. I think the universe put me on that flight for a reason; and that reason was to convince me that it's not a good idea to fly with infants and persons under the age of 3 if you can help it at all. It's a lesson I'm taking seriously.

My last trip in this last trimester of preganancy will be up to Nashville for MLK weekend and baby showers. After that, if Nashville peeps want to see me in the next 6 or 8 months, they'll have to drive down here.

2005-12-28T09:44:00.000-05:00

The H.M.S. Me

As I enter into my third trimester of pregnancy, I have become aware that I and the baby are simply passengers aboard the ship that is my body. The vessel that carries us both is a lurching, sloshing thing, inducing seasickness in the both of us. The ship leaks in mysterious places. We are prone to days of little movement, and then tossed about on days of great activity. The ship isn't really big enough for two people. As the baby gets bigger, the quarters are more cramped and less comfortable. Sometimes it's hard to breathe.

I can hold my baby and protect it inside this ship for three more months, and then I've got no choice but to let it out.

My dreams are brilliant and vivid every night. Sometimes they are nightmares, and I wake up the husband to be comforted. The good dreams are random, or about breastfeeding, or sleeping close with the baby and my husband. My nightmares involve miscarriages, filthy houses, and (once or twice) being forced to move back to Murfreesboro.

This week my youngest sister, Abby, is in town with me. We've both got the week off and plan to visit family and start setting up the nursery for the baby's arrival. While the baby will sleep upstairs with me for the first six months or so, we've still got to put together its room so there will be a place for all the stuff people are giving us. Little hats and booties and toys are already floating our way. It's nice.

Because I have waited to have my baby, I can afford a nice crib that will convert to a toddler bed. Because I have waited to have a baby, carrying it is more difficult. There are plusses and minuses to everything. I know the financial ease with which I am giving birth arouses envy in some of my family and friends. And to them I should say: we are two people aboard this ship. I've been to the emergency room once. I have vomited until all the blood vessles in my face burst to the surface. Hyperemesis Gravidarum. When I talk to you and say I'm feeling better, a lot of the time I'm lying. Although; it's not a big lie. I feel better now than I did three months ago. But I am still sick. I am less sick than I was and I am used to the constant queasiness now and I have learned to manage the illness better. You can have your children young with ease on your body, or older with ease on your wallet. At 29, I have tried to find that balance point between age and money. So it is only a little difficult both ways.

The week I will call about making a will. This week I will call about getting the fireplace cleaned. This week the house will get cleaned in a way that will chase away the nightmares. This week, inside my storm-tossed ship, I will not be ill, but well. I will be careful. You should come and see all the progress.

The king-size bed

2005-12-08T08:44:00.000-05:00

The king-size bed

I woke up this morning profoundly wishing that when I go into labor, I could give birth at home in my own bed.

The bed that the husband and I share is a big king-size four-poster darkly finished beast of a thing. I didn't want a king-size bed at first, but he talked me into it; I have always slept on very small beds myself, and only went up to queen-size a few years ago when someone tipped me off that queens have an extra few inches at the bottom. When you're six feet tall, those extra inches matter, and I was having trouble getting sheets for my extra-long twin. But sleeping in the queen-size bed alone was a total chore. I always felt very vulnerable there unless someone else was with me. The queen-size bed, when slept by a person alone, seemed to represent a vast stretch of matress that haunted me at night with its vacancy. The extra room only emphasized my aloneness.

When the husband moved in for good, I was thrilled to be in the queen bed with him, but at times he found it too small. I warned him about how it would feel when I left, and as soon as I went on my first business trip, he called the next day and told me: "You were right. This bed is huge without another person."

Still, the husband pressed for the king-size when we moved and it was time for a new bed. I gave in with the stipulation that I expected a baby to be in that bed with us. He agreed, and now the baby will be here about the time of the new bed's first anniversary. I hate to admit how much I love the new bed. It's the nicest piece of furniture I've ever slept on. The husband also talked me into a pillow-topped mattress, and I like our bed so much that on occassion I have cut adventures a little short just so I can get back to my own bed for the night.

The bed upstairs in our converted warehouse isn't just comfortable on a physical level. The new bed is the place where I have felt the most loved in my whole life. It's not just the sex, or the cuddling, or the security that the bed represents. It's so many other things that have happened in the past few months. Since I was diagnosed with Hyperemesis, the husband has brought me a little breakfast in bed every morning to help settle my stomach. He does this without asking. He's not a cook, but he can manage the microwave and a little oatmeal, or toaster waffles, or a piece of last night's pie warmed over. And so every morning now when I wake in a wave of nausea, there's something there to help me, and often my husband as well, eating breakfast beside me.

Before I was pregnant I was always first to rise and woke easily and quickly. I would wash up before getting my breakfast and eat in front of the computer. Now it takes me longer to fight my way out of sleep, and I'm always a little afraid of vomiting again. The breakfasts in bed were prompted by a series of mornings where I heaved stomach acid into the shower. The husband left me alone, but I know the sounds had to be a bit terrifying. Afterwards, I would crawl back into bed shivvering and exhausted again. I'm past that now, luckily. I'm six months pregnant now and the Hyperemesis has gradually faded into just a little morning queasyness. But it'll be a while before I'm a morning person again; for now, the husband wakes me with food, and I roll the blankets around him as I wake, often seeking his foot or hand for a little skin to skin contact before he leaves for work each morning. His attention every morning means more to me than anything anyone's ever given to me or expressed. I have never felt more loved than I do every morning now when I wake up in the king-size bed.

So I wish I could have our baby in this bed too. It's against the law here in Georgia to have a baby at home, but of course, the law in this case means nothing; only that I would have a difficult, but not impossible, time finding a good midwife. I like and trust the midwives at Emory who will deliver me at Crawford-Long, but I'd be lying if I didn't say that the hospital experience causes me some anxiety. The bed where I wake every morning seems safe and reassuring, and the hospital foriegn and strange. The husband finds the idea of the hospital comforting, because he trusts the machines and the degrees and the antiseptic smells. I trust our bed more than all those things.

Even when I am alone in the new bed, it never feels too large; the empty spaces on the mattress seem like promises instead of vacancies. The empty stretches of bed are merely waiting places for the new pink bodies my husband and I can create.

2005-11-30T09:06:00.000-05:00

Thankful to live in Atlanta

"We have no other choice but to … cut the level of health care we provide," said Bill Merry Jr., president of Herndon & Merry Inc., a Nashville ornamental ironworks with 21 employees.

The sixth set of Nashville stories

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

Sixteen

"I miss Halloween and trick-or-treaters," my mother-in-law said thoughtfully over the phone, "you, know, every year the neighborhood used to get together and we'd have such a good time."

I made an agreeable sound. Halloween has been dying a slow death in Nashville for over a decade now, as the Conservative Christians have gained more and more power. Indeed, when the husband and I were small in the 1980's, you could see neighborhoods filled with kids on Halloween night. Now, people are much more likely to go to organized events - because half of your neighbors won't celebrate a "satanic holiday". Here around Atlanta, I had been telling my mother-in-law, we still have Halloween neighborhoods. There are still plenty of trick-or-treaters where there are houses, full of running and shouting little kids on sugar highs, and in more grown-up neighborhoods like mine we've got the bars and businesses open late, twenty-somethings spilling out into the street. Halloween is still fun here.

She started to reminisce. "Every year we'd burn a witch. Except that year we accidentally burned a cross."

WHAT?!?!

Turns out in the upscale subdivision my husband grew up in, a couple from some other region had introduced the custom of burning a fake witch in effigy before letting children go trick-or-treating. The idea was that you had a big bonfire, and burned the with, and then it was safe for the kids to go out. I have never heard of this custom and I don't know where it comes from, but I told my mother-in-law it was one of the most horrible things I'd ever heard of. "Good God, and how did you end up accidentally burning a cross?"

Well, one year the folks who normally made the witch to burn were going to be out of town. So neighbors asked mother-in-law to make a witch. She didn't know how, but guessed, starting with two sticks wrapped as a crossbar like a scarecrow. Then she made a witch out of batting and cloth. When they lit the fire, all the fabric burned off right away, leaving the kids to watch...a cross burn. None of the adults knew what to do, as they stood a little aghast at their holiday bonfire.

"And that was the last Halloween we burned a witch." she said.

Seventeen

Back in September, an acquaintance of my sister's was tasered to death by Nashville Metro Police outside a show at the Mercy Lounge. The kid was 22, drunk, and a little bit high. The cops had him outside the bar and were trying to reason with a drunk 22-year-old. He wouldn't listen. They sprayed him with pepper spray, which fucking hurts, if you've never had the experience and he went beserk, running around the parking lot, taking off his shirt, drunkenly trying to stop the pain. When he wouldn't obey their commands to lay down, the police discharged their tasers over 18 times. Onto a drunk, skinny, kid acting like an idiot at a bar. He died.

Atlanta police are underpaid, but seem to be better trained than Nashville police. One day I'll write the story of my sister's experience with the Nashville force in May of 2003. Not enough time has passed yet for me to write that story, but let me tell you; they don't train their police enough in Nashville. The police there make mistakes that could be easily avoided by better training. A twenty-two year old guy is dead, because he got too drunk in a bar and the police didn't know how to handle that simple, everyday occurrence properly. It was an accident that could have been prevented.

My middle sister did not return to Nashville this year for Thanksgiving; she had to work. What she is thankful for most this year is living in Atlanta. The Metro Nashville police force had a little bit to do with that.

Eighteen

I had a good Thanksgiving up in Nashville this year. My mother was there, and so was my youngest sister, and the in-laws. Mom and father-in-law aren't in the best health. Youngest sister has progressed to angry adolescent - and become quite beautiful. It's as if at night her anger and body grow a little bit each day; being a teenager is so, so difficult. In a few years though, I know we'll get to be good friends again.

I let go of a lot of my own teenage anger Thanksgiving weekend. I had a little help. When I was small, my Grandfather made me a cedar chest that I used for my toys. It's one of the things that survived my parent's divorce, but barely; my father, one night in a drunken rage, used a black permanent marker to graffiti all over the inside lid. He no doubt tried to smash the thing too, but failed. He was more successful in smashing the cedar chest my Grandfather had given my mother, which had more detail work that was easier to break.

I had avoided getting the chest of toys from my mom because I didn't know how to deal with dad's graffiti. It had become this physical symbol in my mind of how he was hellbent on destroying everything with his drinking, and every time I thought about the chest I felt like I wanted to vomit. But it was time; my mother is moving on with her life, and that means moving on with her furniture and decorating. She needed my cedar chest to leave her house.

The in-laws know a very good carpenter, an immigrant from Mexico who does some of the most beautiful detail work you've ever seen. He picked up the chest from my mother's house, and sanded down the graffiti. He looked it over; someone had tried to take a hammer to the legs, but found them unable to break. The carpenter admired my Grandfather's craftsmanship, and said this was a perfect example of a chest to give a child - nearly impossible to break but nice enough that they would still want it as an adult.

I sorted through the toys, painfully throwing out those that were now just rags, saving a couple of things, keeping the nicest ones for charity (and, OK, one or two for me). This weekend I'll move the chest into the new baby's room and start storing quilts in there. Maybe. The husband likes the chest so much he's arguing for it to go in our room. I don't know; the graffiti is sanded off, but the chest holds too much weight still.

I can't imagine how my mother feels when she looks at her piece; the divorce has been so expensive that she hasn't got the money to fix it yet. The back is smashed in, the feet broken off, the inside lid also defaced. It can probably be put back together, after some time and expense. I'm thankful for that. If it's one thing I quietly told myself this year in Nashville, it's that I'm thankful for the idea that some things can be fixed; you just have to find the right tools and know-how. Time helps, too.

2005-11-15T08:59:00.000-05:00

Personal Choice

Last Sunday my sister and I had planned to go to see a documentary showing at The Earl in East Atlanta. We e-mailed the documentary people an RSVP in advance; we arrived at The Earl on time, and waited in line at the smoky front bar for 15 minutes. Then we were turned away at The Earl's stage entrance, because my sister is under 21.

The justification for turning away people under 21 from the back portion of The Earl is that the bar alllows smoking, and under Atlanta's restrictive laws, smoking is only allowed in restaurants (bars, really), that serve people 21 and up. The idea is that they are protecting young people's lungs and discoraging young people from picking up smoking. This is ridiculous. The unintended side effect of the under-21 ban is to bar adults (because, legally, people over 18 are adults) aged 18-20 from many concerts, cultural events, and restaurants. In short, if you're 18 you're old enough to die in Iraq, but not old enough to see a documentary at The Earl. Many would then say, "Well, that's The Earl's choice. If they disallowed smoking, then everyone could see their shows."

But how would The Earl then remain viable as a business? Some adults enjoy smoking while they drink, and The Earl's main business is selling alcohol. Honestly, I see the smoking ban as a feable attempt at controlling bars in Atlanta - and one more sign that the Southern Baptists in the state have used their influence to write a nonsensical law. After all, the outer restaurant portion of The Earl was just as smoky as any place I've ever been in - and my sister's tender underage lungs did not fall out of her chest and explode while we waited in line.

So we went home and bought DVD's of The City of God (which features corrupt cops), and Angels in America (which does a pretty good job of villianizing Reagan). And I felt like purchasing and watching those two films was at least in some way exercising my personal freedoms, after having them stomped on by the goddamn smoking law. I'm also annoyed that the documentary website said nothing to us about the show being 21 and up.

I've been cranky about my civil liberties lately. Maybe it's because my pregnant state causes people to constantly feel the need to advise me (put your feet up! you need rest! don't lift that! don't eat tuna fish! etc.). I feel entrenched in a battle against those who would limit my personal freedoms, even in giving birth. Did you know that it's illegal to give birth anywhere but a hospital in the State of Georgia? No home births are legal here, and there are no birthing clinics like in other states. My personal research did reveal to me a highly networked underground of feminist women secretly arranging for midwives to attend them outside of hospitals. Were I more adventerous, and my pregnancy less complicated, I would join the secret underground of home births. As it is, I have had to be content in firing my Obstetrician who ignored me and treated me impersonally, and replacing the traditional OB with two midwives at Emory. The OB just wasn't working for me - I would make an appointment, and go to an office too busy to remember who I was, and then they would stick me in an examination room, where I would wait...and wait...and wait...

So I left the OB, went downstaris a few floors in the same medical office building, and met up with two young midwives, nurse-practicioners with a different view. And now I get to go to group examinations with other couples who are due about the same time I am. And we meet the same time, on the same day of the month, once a month. As a group, we get to laugh and talk and express our worries and measure each other's tummies. I feel so much better about my monthly checkups on the baby now, and so much more in control of the process. I feel like my caregivers know who I am, and all about my pregnancy. And even though I know I'll have to give birth in the hospital, at least I won't feel like I'm just part of someone's damn rounds, another faceless person impinging on their time.

Thank god I still have some choice over how my body is cared for and operates. I wonder how long it will be before someone tries to take that away from me, too.

2005-11-08T08:27:00.000-05:00

Being Cliche

About twice a year I call my Aunt Karen. Karen was married to my father's brother, my Uncle Mike, who was an alcoholic and killed himself just over a dozen years ago. I call Karen and talk about twice a year to catch up on how my cousins are and generally just to talk about life. Karen's got a very dry, bitter sense of humor that not everyone gets, the kind of humor that annoys my mother but that I understand completely. Now that both my younger sisters are teenagers, I value her conversations immensely. My Uncle's alcoholism and death left her raising three boys alone in a rural factory town on the South Carolina side of the Savannah River.

There's a Great Southern Novel in Karen's story somewhere, but I won't write it. Drunk and dead daddies are cliche, every southern poverty tale seems to have them. I think that's why it's so difficult to write or talk about my father's alcoholism, even though it's been a big influence on my life the past couple of years. It is not that I am embarrassed by my father's addiction; it is simply that I am embarrassed to be affected by so common a problem.

I am embarrassed by my family's cliche reactions to alcoholism. We have all too neatly fallen into stereotypes: the oppressed and put-upon working mother, the oldest child who tries to fix everything, the problem teen, the angry little girl. We are everybody's working-class family of Irish descent. Worse, my father was in the music business, the Entertainment Industry, and every biography of an Entertainment Industry figure or family details their struggles with addiction of some kind in the family. We're not even afflicted to levels of horror that are noteworthy. We're just your average family, living in the southeast, that has crumbled against a problem so common that it's not even noteworthy. Every neighborhood in every town has a family like mine. That's part of what makes the pain so damn sharp sometimes; I don't even feel justified in complaining about so common a situation.

Talking to Karen every now and again helps. She understands teenagers, having raised three now, and I rely on her for insights into my own teenage sisters. Karen also understands living with an alcoholic on the edge of your life, a person who can come in at any point in the day and just introduce a problem so big and so unexpected and tiresome that you can barely deal with it. Even though her ex-husband has been gone for over a decade, she has been living with the results of alcoholism in her life every day for years. Like my family, she and her sons have been marked for life by the simple, common, and cliche destructive actions of someone else.

I haven't spoken to my father in over a year now, and I recently made the decision not to include him at all in the new baby's life. Karen understands my decision, and unlike other family members does not reproach me about attempting to excise my father from my life. She understands that my father is on a downward spiral, and that I have simply decided not to watch him as he continues down his path. The truth about alcoholics is far worse than you'd expect; my father may live another decade or two, or even three. He is killing himself in the smallest doses possible, in order to stretch out the pain. He wants witnesses to his grief and agony; he wants us to feel his slow suicide with him. I have simply refused to be in the audience for his last big show. I will not let his grandchildren watch this last performance, the twisted last years of an addict. The sad thing is, alcoholism is so common, I can't help but wonder if someone else will act out the play for my children - or if they'll end up as stock characters in the same story with someone else.

2005-10-22T13:20:00.000-04:00

The first cold day of Autumn

It was colder than I thought it would be this morning, and as a result I'm doomed to be a little chilly all day. Autumn creeps up so slowly on us here in Atlanta that I am always a little surprized when, one day, I wake up and it's not quite as warm as I thought it might be. The climate here spoils me with so much sunshine.

The past few weekends have been crammed. Both my mother and the husband's parents have been visiting. My mother has a steady boyfriend now, and he seems nice enough. I have realized that I am too old to get a step-dad. My sisters, should my mom re-marry, will have a step-dad, but I am simply too old for one; while I hope my mom finds a new partner that makes her happy, I am past the sort of serious influence a dad might have. Things in that arena remain complicated.

The husband's parents came down for a stay and we went out to eat a number of times. And I realized that I have an inner teenager that mightily resists being told what to do. I *like* my husband's parents, but if I had grown up in their houshold I promise you I'd have a faceful of piercings and a mohawk. A green mohawk. Seriously.

Probably I am feeling resistant to authority because everyone keeps telling me to take naps and put my feet up, and every time this happens, I can feel a devil pop up over my left shoulder. That little devil says things like: "Name the baby Damien and embroider pentacles on the nursery gear." Because I am forced to be so conventional lately, because I am pushed into this weakened pregnant-lady state, I crave shock value suddenly. I even understand pregnant teens who smoke now. They probably didn't want to be pregnant, but finding themselves in that role, show their definance the only way they know how, by smoking, the most shocking act a pregnant lady in the U.S. can committ. It's horrible. But they'll do it anyway to show that they are in control of their bodies.

I am not in control of my body. I'm still throwing up, thanks to Hyperemesis. I had a few tubes of blood taken from me again this week, both for the AFP test, and to try and figure out why I'm still heaving all the goddamn time. The next visit to the doctor will be the high-resolution scan, where we can see the baby's face; hopefully, the kid won't flash us, and I can continue not to know the gender. Not knowing, so far, has been the best part.

2005-10-11T15:45:00.000-04:00

Vomiting in Public

Well, it finally happened: I threw up in public. My Hyperemesis had been so extreme last month that I rarely left the house except for work. After a month of this, I was desperate to go out and have fun. I had been feeling a little bit better every day. The husband had planned to take me up to Salem for my birthday to see friends, and I was just itching to go. I hadn't thrown up in two weeks at that point, and was starting to get a little energy back; I thought I would be fine.

I wasn't. I vomited at the Atlanta airport into a trash can in the rotunda. I vomited again into a plastic bag from the gift shop at Boston Logan a few days later. I'm still sick. I had been weaning myself off of the nausea medication, which makes me sleepy and fogs my thoughts. I thought I would be all right without the meds. I'm not all right. I'm still sick.

There's something about collaspsing on the pavement outside of an airport and heaving your guts out that is worse than anything in the world. It's not just that the pavement is cold, but that no matter who is whith you, you are alone in that no-place place, the airport which isn't ever exactly part of any town or city, just a waystation to somewhere else. And then, no matter how ill you've been, you have to get up and get through security to get to your plane. That was a rough day.

I had a really great time in New England, though. It was so nice to see the parade in Salem on Friday night, where all the little kids were dressed up for Halloween. The holiday has been dying a slow death at the hands of Southern Baptists down here, and it was just a breath of fresh air to go some place and see the thing celebrated with all the innocence I attached to Halloween when I was a kid. I miss real Halloween, the holiday without wierd associations and guilt.

2005-09-29T09:09:00.000-04:00

Progress of the lump

I can feel the baby move now. Not kicks or things like that, but the lump in my lower belly sometimes rolls over or pushes from one bit of area from another. The baby is quick, and alive, and at night The Husband sings to my tummy. I have tried to let him feel the baby move, but the lump is too small yet. No one can feel it move but me. I am thuroughly enjoying not finding out the gender, as I can tell how much this really, really bothers people who are into gender stereotyping. A baby really doesn't care about weather its a boy or girl for the first couple of years. Only people determined to hang pink bows or blue trains on things care.

My refusal to gender-type the lump isn't well recieved by most of society. So many people now know what they are having that nursury furniture and baby clothes tend to be far more pointed about gender than they used to be. A sea of blue and pink awaits you in all baby catalogs, with green, yellow, and purple more difficult to find.

I was relieved when I finally decided that decorating the baby's room in primary red, yellow, and orange wouldn't be too difficult if I told everyone my nursury theme was baby quilts. Quilts to me represent comfort, and baby quilts are sort of traditional, and people would think I was being clever and tasteful. The online catalogs filled with hearts and bears and trains had depressed and stressed me out. I remebered when my mom was pregnant, how she spent hours in wallpaper stores poring over catalogs of border paper for each child, and how she used to make all the sheets and comforters and wall hangings and bumper pads and all not just for her children, but for some of my cousins as well. I could never do that. I failed to inherit the decorating gene, and even if I had I don't have the time to sew. My over-exposure to wall paper stores, and the fact that my mom made me help her strip wall paper ensures that I hate wall paper. I chose red and yellow and orange because that room is already red, and therefore I won't have to repaint the whole damn thing.

I was happy to reveal the decorating epiphany to The Husband one night, thinking he would be impressed. "I found I theme for the baby's room!" I exclaimed as he climbed into bed.

"A what?"

"A theme. For the baby's room. I decided on quilts."

"Why does the baby's room have to have a theme?" He was puzzled; after all, the husband has never really been around babies. He's an only child of much older parents, and his cousins are all a generation older than he. His family is small, and so he didn't grow up with the steady progression of new babies in his life like I did. He has no idea of the tyranny of social pressure that is about to descend on us once the baby is here. Everyone has an opinion about the best way to treat babies. I thought on his question.

"Because if we don't theme the baby's room, old ladies will yell at us."

"What!?!"

I yelled downstairs to my sister. "Sara! Tell Winn that old ladies will yell at us if we don't theme the baby's room!"

Sara hollered back "It's true! My room had clowns! They were creepy! You have to find a theme!"

The husband looked appalled and confused. Clowns? Baby room themes? His desire to sing his favorite bits of "Pirates of Penzance" to my abdomen was out for the night. The husband is totally with me on the whole not gender typing the baby idea, because he knows this will decrease the liklihood of us getting frilly dresses or little baseball uniforms when what we really need are bottles and diapers and bibs and things. He loves me for my practicality, and the whole idea of themeing a baby's room doesn't sound practical to him.

I await the day our mothers descend on us from four hours away to tell us what to do with the baby with increasing dread and sick glee. They have radically different philosophies; my mother was a huge hippie when I was younger, insisting on everything natural (this relaxed considerably as she had more kids). The husband's mom wouldn't leave the hospital until she was sure the nanny was at their house, and she certainly didn't breastfeed. She raised her son according to some scientific method that was supposed to make him smarter. My mom was pretty much into the very passive form of parenting. The grandmothers are going to have a train wreck of conflicting advice, and will probably ignore that we don't agree with either of them. I suppose this is the way it is with many families. I'll be more interesting next week, I promise.

2005-09-20T10:55:00.000-04:00

With a properly placed lever...

My 18-year-old sister has a full time job now, and we're all pretty relieved. For those who might have lost track, Sara moved in with The Husband and I two months ago. We're trying to help her get her start in life; she's taking a year off between High School and college to figure out what she wants to do with herself in the long run. I'm excited about her job at a local grocery store because this job will pay her decent wages for her age (three dollars over minimum per hour), and even better, this place will actually extend a health care plan to her after 90 days - I was so, so worried about her having no health care.

Having my sister live with us has been great, if sometimes nervous-making. I've been sick for a month now, and she was there to help keep the mess in the house down to a tolerable level and to cook sometimes when the thought of cooking made me ill. Sara made friends right away with others her age in the neighborhood, and likes to stay out late. I worried a lot at first about that - we do live in a huge city - but The Husband reminded me again and again that Sara is an adult now, and in charge of her own life. I reminded him again and again that Sara's not been properly looked after for ages, and lacks good judgement. "How good was your judgement at 18?" I asked. The Husband refuses to admit that he was ever immature.

It's hard not to baby my sister sometimes. She's very into the grafitti scene, and because she is smart and quick and talented has already met a few big name artists. She hasn't told me about any of her art, because she knows I don't want to know. A huge part of street art's appeal is that it will always be illegal, and a thrill to create. One of her favorite artists signed her shoe one night, and she proudly scanned that shoe to show all of her friends back in Nashville.

She comes home at night and tells me about warehouses where a dozen or more young artists live, splittling the rent in a concrete-floored space where there's only a stage and sleeping bags around. She tells me about meeting a band of gay boys who perform electric-pop versions of video game music. She tells me about dancing with drag queens and the store in Cabbage Town with spray tips and crashing art parties way out in Buckhead. Sara is having the time of her life. I try to keep an open mind and not flinch when she tells me that she wants to live in the warehouse, or the funny story about her buying a bike for $40 off of a crackhead and painting it right away in case it was stolen.

Sara's old enough to take care of herself, I have to keep reminding myself. I know I'm doing the right thing by staying out of her way, but giving her the tools she needs right now to succeed - she has a stable place to come home to every night and plenty of food. I'm taking her to the dentist to fix her neglected teeth, and showing her why keeping a ledger is a good idea. I need to be respectful that Sara's finding her own side of Atlanta. Her territory overlaps with mine - we both can't think of living anywhere but our side of town - but her side of Atlanta is more daring and younger and full of risk and art and a good deal dirtier. I have loaned her my very nice digital camera and she can use my internet connection as much as she would like. When you are 18 you can make your own destiny shiny and new every single day. When you are 18, all you need is a big enough lever, and you can move your whole world.

Sara's going to be OK, now that she has a good job within walking distance to our house. She's a hard worker, and no matter what happens, I know that being a good worker will carry her through this part of her life well. She plans on moving out before the baby is due. I hope she doesn't feel too much pressure about that.

My stomach now pokes out in a round. The texture of my belly has changed, from soft and squishy to harder and dense - I've built up strange new connective tissues in my abdomen. The baby makes me tired all the time now too, but that's most likely part of the anti-nausea medicine I've been given. I fall asleep before 9 most nights lately, but I have been feeling a little bit better. I managed to cook last night for the first time in quite a while. I'm worn out from being so sick, and from the new job, but I'll be OK. Come visit next month, we miss you.

2005-09-12T08:28:00.000-04:00

Hyperemesis Gravidarum

Some of the most beautiful weather of the year is here, but I haven't been able to enjoy it. I've been too sick for anything but sleep. This landed me in the emergency room Thursday with dehydration - I have Hyperemesis Gravidarum, (HG), a rare and severe form of morning sickness. I'm at my new job today, but I'm weaker than I've ever felt. Luckily most of my job is the sit-down sort-and-file type of things right now. The sickness - and the medicine used to treat the sickness - has left me exhausted.

In some ways the diagnosis of HG has made me feel a little better. I've been so sick, and was worried that everyone must be this sick, but I was just some sort of terrific whiner about it.

The huge Labor Day party I usually enjoy at DragonCon was very subdued this year. Attendance was way down becuase of the hurricane and gas prices. I couldn't stay up late because I kept falling alseep after violent vomiting. I attended maybe 6 panels in the 3 days I was there. I saw lots of my friends, but only briefly, and about half the people I usually enjoy seeing weren't there at all.

Did I mention that I'm exhausted?

This will get better soon. I know it will.

2005-09-02T10:41:00.000-04:00

All the new Beginnings

September has come at last, and with it comes the good news of my healthy pregnancy, my new job, breezes to cool the city, and the fun of our annual labor day party at DragonCon.

I haven't been in contact with many people over the last three weeks. Pregnancy made August quite difficult. I went to New Orleans two weeks before Hurricane Katina hit, for my big professional conference there. Usually I love New Orleans, and usually my conference is something I look forward too every year. On this last trip it was all I could do to attend one or two professional events a day, and crawl back out of the elevator to my hotel room where I could be sick in private. I never thought I would be so sick from pregnancy. Oh, I had heard stories from people about how ill you could be, but I just didn't think that would happen to me. I thought I'd be able to travel around laugh and just be happy to have a baby inside of me. But no. I've been damn near green for a month. And the moniker "morning sickness" is a total lie. I've had days where all I could do was sleep and sit up. Last weekend I vomited dry toast and water. Dry toast and water.

Now the city of New Orleans is gone. I watch the news with horror at the working poor - those who could not afford a hotel room to flee too - bake in the steamy heat. I know how lucky I am. I feel guilty about buying a new dress last week for the party. I can't even give blood - mine is full of baby hormones right now.

I ended the old job last week. It was alright (except for the part where I nearly lost my temper on Tuesday, and the part where Cafe Intermezzo took an hour and a half to serve my going away party food). I had one last business trip up to Nashville, and was thankful it was my last. I was only 10 weeks pregnant, but I had to stop once an hour on the way home that night to pee. I'm so glad I don't have to travel any more.

The new job is better than I had even hoped it would be. I'm back in academia again, at a place I'll call Comfortable U. Comfortable U. has never had a full time archivist before. It's a suburban campus with a small town feel - the student population here is under 5,000, and so the staff all seems to know each other. I was given a tour yesterday by the library director and introduced to a lot of people and everyone seemed concerned about making me feel comfortable. I do feel comfortable. This is fabulous. I have a decent starting budget and room to really shine here. I will, for the first time in a couple of years, get to feel like I'm doing my job *right*, like I'm really getting to work *well*. The people here are low-key and quiet, and happy to have me on staff.

I'm the only full time person here who is not a baby boomer, but after my big professional conference I feel better about that. A survey was recently taken of our profession, and baby boomers outnumber all other age groups in my field by 2 to 1.

Georgia is overdue for a graduate program in Archival Science. Public History programs are not turning out people with practical experience to work in archives. I heard Clayton State was going to start a program for archivists, but it won't be open until 2007 at the earliest. That's not early enough.

2005-08-13T20:22:00.000-04:00

Where's the sun?

Here in Atlanta it has been either boiling hot or raining. On the MARTA trains people step out of the wet and shivver if the train car has air conditioning or let off light wafts of steam from their drying clothes if the car is hot. The train platforms are miserable because none of them have air, but at least they are mostly dry.

The train service on all lines has been cut back a bit, so the officers have given up on trying to stop people from loitering. There's no telling if someone is loitering, or just waiting for a train that is running later than it used too. The trains used to run ever 5 to 10 minutes during rush hour. They now run about every 15 minutes, and this has led to general ill-will, as the normal delays mean that trains *really* run every 20 to 30 minutes, depending on what the hold-up is on any particular day.

I wish someone would fix our transit system. Things really are getting quite difficult here in the city, and there's no relief in sight. The beltline project is at least 10 years into the future (supposing it goes forward, which I hope it will), and in the meantime we lose our train service and bus services by inches...

The only unpleasent thing about starting my new job in September is that I will have to drive 20 minutes each way. I resent this. I have lived in Atlanta now for two and a half years relying on public transit, and I've been pretty proud of that. Now I will have to drive. There is no public transit from my home (near a major retail center) to my new place of work (a small-ish academic place just off of I-75).

Ok, I admit that my resentment stems from the fact that I will be working in Cobb County, and I know Cobb had a chance to get train lines approved a decade ago and they chose not to have them. And now I have to drive. I hope every morning and afternoon my car sits right in front of someone who voted against the trains. I want a bumper sticker that says "I would be riding the train if you had one".

2005-08-05T08:57:00.000-04:00

Calling in Sick

As some of my long-time friends will tell you, I did not know how to call in sick to work until I was nearly 26. I come from a family where you never, ever skipped work. You must be deathly ill to call in sick to your place of employment or school. It doesn't matter if you have a cold, or a headache, or a queasy stomach or a sore throat. You get up in the morning, and you go to work. I'm pretty sure this ethos helped me spread strep throat to everyone in my fifth-grade class when I was a kid.

I didn't grow up in a family that went to the doctor a lot. Doctors are expensive, and taking a child to the doctor means that you have to miss a day of work. You have to be nearly dead yo get a doctor's appointment out of my mom. Likewize, a broken bone was nearly unprovable to my father. He once almost lost a finger once because he refused to admit it was broken. Luckily, my mom always drove us to get needed x-rays for that sort of thing. For anything else, I was SOL. I used to throw up just before the first day of school every year, and every year my mom would have a variation on the same reply:

"Do you really think that will get you out of going to school?"

So I was in my mid-twenties before I realized that calling into work was normal and sometimes necessary. It was Dust that taught me how, back when we were both working for Waldenbooks. Before I met Dust, I once went and worked a 10 hour shift at the mall directly after having a root canal done. Dust, on the other hand, counted "sick" as meaning "I'm sick of waking up on time every morning, and therefore too sick to work today."

I was astonished at his (then) lack of work ethic. How would his bills get paid?

"Elizabeth, we have a number of paid sick days."

"But then other people at work will have to cover your shift! It's not fair to them!"

"You have to think about yourself first, sometimes. Don't worry about the other people."

I was mortified. But gradually I realized he was right. You do have to think about yourself sometimes. And the germ phobias of others. I have worked with people who will cover their mouths and noses with their hands when in the presence of someone with a cold.

Yesterday and today I am home sick. I have a little stomach bug or something that's just making me queasy and my sinuses are draining down the back of my throat. The idea of riding the train in the Atlanta August heat makes me certain I'd vomit. But still, I feel bad about calling in sick. I only have three weeks left at my job, and I *know* how this has to look to my supervisors. It's got to look like I'm faking sick, using up all my days before I leave. I have a huge number of sick days stored up, because I almost never use them. When my husband found out how many paid days I had, he was just amazed.

"You need to use every one of those days before you leave." he said, folding his arms, angry.

I made a face. "I can't. I have too much to do."

"You certainly can use all those days! When I think about all the times I've seen you go into work when you were sick - you went in last month just two days after surgery!"

"It was only a half-day. I came home early..."

He threw his hands into the air. Every once in a while, the husband will use a sick day to stay home and play new video games. I don't think there's anything wrong with that, but my job is usually just too fast paced to take a day off for no damn reason. If I call in sick and I'm not really sick, it usually means I have something critical to do that I don't want to tell people about - like going to traffic court or something. And I haven't done that but a very few times. I have so many sick days built up that I could, if I wanted too, just go into the office for one or two days before leaving altogether. Of course I won't do that. The husband is off on the idea of me using all my sick days.

I'm home ill - legitimately ill - and I have guilt over that. Sick, eh?

2005-08-01T06:52:00.000-04:00

Numbered Events

Controlled chaos by the numbers

1) My 17-year-old sister came to live with me. For pants, she owned two ragged pairs of jeans, the kahkis I bought her last fall, and the suit pants she wore to prom. She was afraid to wear the kahkis because what if she messed them up and then had nothing for job interviews? Since she moved in, we have slowly begun to build her an adult life. She will be 18 in three weeks.

2) Andrew and Tony, two of my best friends, came to visit just over a week ago. I call them best friends not in that immature elementary school way, but in the grown-up sense. We don't hang out that often, but when we do, it's nice. We try to be there for each other when the chips are down. We're all hard workers. Andrew helped me organize my kitchen a bit. He pointed out that when most people get new kitchen things, they get them one at a time and make space for the new stuff as they go along. I went from having practicly nothing in my kitchen to having a $10,000 kitchen from Williams-Sonoma (thanks to the wedding gifts). It's more confusing than you'd think. When he realized I hadn't even had a chance to use the mandoline yet, I thought he might cry. Then I resalized I might cry, because I've always *wanted* this stuff, and damn if I haven't had time to use it.

3) I'm really regretting not just giving the current employers two weeks' notice and leaving. Instead I got caught up in my weird sense of obligation, guilt, and duty. I could have spent this last month at home learning to make waffle fries with my mandoline. Instead, I'm waking up with stomach cramps because I have a huge federal report due before I go. Sure, the money's nice - we need the money - but I could be at home making waffle fries. Or learning to cut fancy salad bits. Instead, my mandoline sits in a cupboard with the directions still attached. Sometimes I realize I have badly misplaced priorities about life. I have 3 weeks left to work at this job. My blood pressure is 5 points higher than it should be, and I have gained 15 pounds in the past year, chiefly because I bribe myself with sweets to go to this job.

4) The husabnd and I spent 24 hours (nearly exactly) at my Grandfather's this weekend. That was just about the right amount of time.

5) I had dinner with my grandmother twice while I was in Savannah to work this week. That was not nearly enough time at all. I miss my Grandmother.

6) I know that when I resort to lists, I'm doing too much. I need to spend one night doing bills, two nights cleaning the house, and one day this weekend trying to do as little as possible so I can relax. Oh, wait - my mother is coming into town on Saturday...

7) I'll have three weekdays off between my new job and my old job.

2005-07-13T07:17:00.000-04:00

Jessica came to visit me last weekend. We were acquainted way back when I lived in Murfreesboro – she was a friend of friends – but in the past five years we've become decent online buddies.

On Sunday we sat in traffic on the way to Buckhead and talking about online interaction . Well, really, we were talking about men, but interactivity was all tangled up in that.

I loved him, I think, but what he loved – what he fell in love with –
was not me, but online me. We used to Instant Message all day. What
he was really in love with was the feetnik, not Jessica. And when he
asked me to marry him, I just sat down and cried after I said yes,
which should have been a clue that things weren't right.

I get that. I totally get that. Jessica started to blog just a little bit before I did. She used to have a full-on web page, but now that she's out of school she's cut her online presence back to a livejournal. I've had interactivity on the brain
lately, thinking about how my digital self can be at times so much more comfortable and at rest than my, my…RL self? My corporeal self?, no, none of that is right. I am one whole person, not an online person and an offline person. Honestly, when you meet me and hang out with me, I'm just like this. But I can understand how it is easier to relate to someone without having to see them. Words and noises and
feeling move differently here, inside the internet. This is easier than hanging out in real life, because a person can modulate exactly what they would like to say and how they would like to appear. In face to face interaction, there are so many other cues to a person's presence, so many visual prejudices and habits to overcome.

Take, for instance, my experience at Tiffany's this weekend.

I hate Tiffany's. If I've offended you, I'm sorry. Tiffany's is the sort of place where they have solid silver monogrammed ice buckets for sale, along with a lot of overpriced jewelry. I admire the craftsmanship of the old Tiffany stained glass and art nouveau jewelry. But if you think that a $2,500 silver monogrammed ice bucket is a good idea, and you don't understand how having a $2,500 silver monogrammed ice bucket makes you sort of a worthless human being, then
you shouldn't be reading this anyway. Please go hock your goddamned ice bucket on ebay, give a grand to charity, and spend the other grand on something more useful, like, maybe, therapy. If you own this sort of object, I believe that you fail to separate the worth of a human being from the physical possessions.

Jessica and I ended up at Tiffany's because some goddamned worthless human being gave the husband and I gifts from Tiffany's for our wedding. I would have returned them before now, but Tiffany's is in Buckhead, which I dislike driving to, and the one time when he and I did try to return the stuff the doors closed on us. Seriously. It was 6:55 and they close at 7:00 pm, and as we rushed down the hall
with useless crap to return, we watched those big silver doors close…

Well, when Jessica visited she wanted to go out Buckhead way to look at fancy closes and cosmetics, and since I was going with her I thought I would return the useless Tiffany's stuff – champagne glasses and a crystal candy dish. These are the two cheapest items you can get from Tiffany's, by the way. They added up to just over a hundred dollars, and even a keychain at Tiffany's is at least $175. Several people have asked me why I didn't just re-gift the crap to people who would be more impressed with the Tiffy's blue boxes than I was. And let me tell you why I won't do that: I don't want to be the kind of person who gives useless Tiffany crap. Regifting something useful, like a frying pan or a coffee maker is OK, because those things are needed and useful things. Regifting an ugly candy dish is cheap and not really a gift at all. It's foisting societal garbage onto someone else.

So we went to Tiffany's. And they did not appreciate that I wanted to return their stuff. And they asked me all kinds of difficult questions, to which I lied like a rug. You are supposed to return things to Tiffany's within 30 days of their purchase. I said we had been on a honeymoon for months and months. The salesgirl had to go get the manager. I stood at the counter, and quiet anger filled the spaces all around me so throuroughly that Jessica excused herself to the mall hallway to get out of the tense situation. I didn't blame her at all. I have enough anger in situations like this that it can surround me like a fog. I didn't say or do anything aggressive; it was just my presence. That's something you only get to experience in face to face interations with me. It took jessica by surprise, because she knows me from online.

I wasn't loud. I didn't yell. I stood quietly at the counter and smiled. I was wearing a faded black and blue baseball shirt with jeans and the black leather thick soled shoes I bought when I was told that army boots are no longer acceptable. I stood and waited for the manager. And I murmmered quietly to Jessica just before she skipped out into the hall that if Tiffany's didn't take this crap back, I was
leaving it on the counter and walking straight out of the store. I discretely eyed the other customers, who were busy buying expensive, useless crap.

Eventually they decided to let me out of the store. I was given a store credit, for which I wanted to trade for cuff links. This meant I had to give Tiffany's all the money in my wallet. Because cuff links at Tiffany's are $150.00. I will use them my whole life. They cost me $27. I think that's about how much cuff links should really cost. The sales ladies assumed the cuff links were for my husband. I let them know that they were for me (men's shirts come with longer sleeves, so I often wear them). They then assumed I wanted them gift wrapped. No, I really didn't, but by then it was too late. Ribbons were being tied, and I was forced to stand at the counter, looking at a $1,200 pool ball rack, and jewelry that was themed to match.

When she handed them over, the girl at the counter kept asking – Don't you want them engraved?,

No. No, I don't want them engraved at Tiffany's. If I get these links engraved, it will be at an honest jeweler's or gift store somewhere else where people have got good sense. And I will have them put something a lot better than my initials on. Maybe dragons or a sun or a simple drawing of an upraised middle finger. But I didn't say this to the salesperson. I gave her a tight smile and left the store.

None of that would have happened in an online store. More to the point, if the person who bought that unwanted stuff for me had simply checked my registry online, she would have seen the type of things I like, the type of person I am - deadly practical. Except, of course, for that $200 toaster I asked for as a joke. Of course someone bought that, too...

One day I'll feel comfortable around money. That day is not today.

2005-07-06T08:02:00.000-04:00

Hooray! Ouch. Hooray!

I apologize for posting the same thing here that I've posted to my LJ. I usually try to write here and just post little things to LJ. But right now I'm on a lot of pain meds. Here's the good and the bad from the past few days. I'm sure there was blackberry cobbler and fireworks in there, but right now all I can think about is healing up.

Good

Yesterday, I accepted a position in an academic library to start after I leave the current job.

Bad

Yesterday, I went to the desntist/oral surgeon at 7am for a brief wellness visit, and ended up in 6 hours of oral surgery.

Good

The husband bought me a blue iPod mini as a congrats gift for the new job.

Bad

iPod batteries only last about 3 hours, so the battery wore down during the surgery and I didn't have any other music to listen too.

Good

Affordable childcare at my new job.

Bad

Not being able to take sleeping gas during surgery, 'cause I'm trying to get pregnant and laughing gas can damage fetuses.

Good

Chocolate soy milk, mashed potatoes made with chicken broth, ginger ale, cold bottled water, pain medicine, sleep.

Bad

Lots and lots of stiches in your mouth.

Good

My oral surgeon, Dr. Kaufmann, without whom I'd have two less teeth right now.

Bad

Hearing your oral surgeon say: "I've seen infections like this 3 times in 30 years, and once a decade is quite enough."

2005-06-24T07:27:00.000-04:00

The end of June

I have no idea what "I broke the power law means, mind you, but it was one of the available graphics offered as a "prize" at the end of the MIT blogging survey, so I took it. I hope some of my blogging friends take this too.

Last weekend I happened to be in the car with my old friend Virgil drving across east Tennessee to Ford's wedding shower. He asked me about my blog, of which I know him to be a semi-occasional reader. "So how many people read that thing?"

I told him - it's easy to see, really, with the sitemeter at the bottom of the page. I love blogging, and I don't know that I'll ever be able to stop. We talked about the internet in general, and about my publishing. I haven't had any creative writing published since I've moved to Atlanta. There hasn't been time, what with getting the life in order and managing the job that eats all my energy. I miss publishing creative writing. I look forward to getting back to that, now that things are getting a bit more settled at home and I plan on switching jobs.

But blogging will always be here for me as instant self publishing. It's a bit masturabatory, I know, but people do enjoy reading blogs and I do enjoy writing this one. So I'm not going to stop any time soon, although I contemplated it last fall. This is part of my routine now, this is how I keep the constant flow of words in my head somehow still flowing, somehow still a little bit useful. If I don't keep up my creative outlets, I get all backed up in my mind and grouchy. When people ask me "How can you write all the time?" I have always replied "How can you not? In September, I will have been blogging for six years. This is part of who I am now.

At work we had a meeting not too long ago where the HR officer, looking rather uncomfortable, let us know that the company did read our blogs from time to time. I didn't feel bad about this. I've never named who I work for, and I doubt anyone who reads this cares very much, as few of my posts mention work and when they do it's never anything terribly important. Most of my readers are friends, or friends of friends, or people who stumble in, read around for a few days, and then dissapear into the internet ether rarely to be seen again. And that's fine with me. I won't be made to feel like I should be guilty or worried about Blogging because big brother or work might be watching. Of course they're watching. I invited them too. That's the point - I am here, I am writing, I am expressing myself and I can get feedback on style. I can tell what tone and events interest other people. I am expressing myself and learning from that expression what is best recieved, what my friends are interested in.

The survey from MIT is mostly about the social dynamics of blogging. I'll be interested to hear what the survey has to say. I won't take it too seriously though. The internet - we don't really know what it is yet, we don't even have the words to explain how it is altering our social connections.

When I occasionally hear the topic of blogs come up with people who don't understand them ("Blogs? Those internet diary thingies? Hah!")*, I always marvel at their incomprehension. You write things, and people read them. But it's not really a form of publishing as they understand it. This is nothing that they've ever delt with before. And the idea that I would write about my life - my adventures, my alcholic dad, my daily pitfalls and successes as I struggle to find a stable, secure life - the idea that I would write about these things confuses them. Why would I share? Who would read it, and who would care?

I consider myself late to the blogging game, as several of my friends had blogs a year or two before I did. I find it strange that blogs have been around for so long and only this year the president of the American Library Association felt compelled to notice them. When he did notice "the blog people", he called them shallow and inconsequential in so many words. He had just noticed blogs, you see, and some had said unflattering things about him. He struck out in blind anger, like a child. He came out looking rather foolish in the eyes of many people my age. I don't go to ALA. I'm a member of SAA. I don't know that I'll be joining ALA any time soon. It might be a few year before there are people in power who understand how much the internet has changed the social dynamics of communication, self expression, and publishing.

I share my life here on this blog because I am compelled to write. People read because they are interested. I make no claim to be extra interesting or even a better than average writer. But this page exists. I enjoy keeping it up, and other people enjoy reading it, so why not keep on? This is a different kind of communication.

*Direct quote from authority figure, upon hearing that I had won an award for blogging.

2005-06-13T19:06:00.000-04:00

The MLK Memorial

Last Saturday I took my youngest sister Abby down to see the MLK end of Freedom Park. Abby had requested a chance to see the MLK memorial because she just completed sixth grade, and in sixth grade at her school they study the civil rights movement and so this year she is Very Up On That. Since I live within walking distance of where MLK was born and buried, Abby was excited to see the historic site.

I wanted to see the MLK grounds too. Not just because I love history, and Georgia history in particular, but out of professional curiosity I was interested in the MLK site. No such elaborate memorial existed when I was growing up; the memories and wounds of desegregation were too fresh then, matters still left too unsettled. We still have segregated proms here in some rural parts of the state. The MLK National Park site went up in the early 1990's as the city ramped up for the 1996 Olympics. Visitors from overseas would expect a memorial, and the Kennedy Library on the Massachusetts shore had just opened and - if JFK got such a place, shouldn't Martin? Of course he should.

But MLK's family has long been known to be disagreeable. The National Park Service took charge of a visitor center and refurbished the King birthplace, but MLK's family refused to donate important papers or the gravesite to National care. The King family said that they could not bare to have the gravesite be taken care of by the government that killed their patriarch. In truth, the family was used to using the gravesite as well as rights to King's papers as their personal piggy banks. The extent of their theft is unknown, but it was disclosed earlier this year in the Atlanta Journal-constitution that King's family pays themselves exorbitant six figure salaries while the gravesite and the buildings around it go unrepaired. Had the gravesite been annexed into federal park grounds, no such thing would have happened. I've never heard of a park ranger, no matter how long they have been with the service, being paid six figures. It's unheard of.

Before we went to see the park and birth home, Abby got a taste of Traditonal Southern opinion at my breakfast table. The husband would not go with us to the park. He believes MLK's role in history to be exaggerated, and MLK himself to be a shady character who has ended up a saint only via his martyrdom. Sometimes it's easy to forget that my husband was raised by parents the age of my grandparents, but then words like that fall out of his mouth and I remember that his parents would have been vehemently against desegregation, while I was raised by parents 15 years younger who of course think that MLK was a Really Neat Guy. The husband isn't racist - at least not in the way that his parents were - in fact, one of his college roomies was black. But scratch the surface and all those beliefs he grew up with are still there.

Abby was horrified to hear these opinions of her new brother-in-law. Not like MLK? How could you not like MLK? she asked on our way there. I explained as best I could that the civil rights movement was made up of hundreds of different people, and some of them - Thurgood Marshall, for instance - probably did more than MLK to advance the cause of a more egalitarian society. But, I pointed out, MLK's death had been such a horrifying act that he became a symbol for the whole movement. His death changed opinions, his death pushed a divided society the half that believed in segregation and the half that didn't - together for a few moments. And we all changed.

Of course MLK cheated on his wife. He attracted media attention because of his incredible good looks and his amazing ability as a speaker. MLK was made for television, and the National Park site plays on that. When you go there - and you should - you'll see a dozen or so multimedia exhibits that try to explain the civil rights movement and MLK's place within that phase of American politics. All I could think of when I saw all the exhibits about protest politics was : Once upon a time that worked. Once upon a time 40 or 50 thousand people could march and effect change.... How much we have changed. The police know how to deal with protesters these days. If MLK had encountered modern police protest tactics, would he have prevailed?

What Abby and I liked most about the National Park site was the section of Auburn Avenue that the park service has restored, including the King birth home. Dr. King was a son of privaledge, and his house reflects that. But walking through his house and hearing stories of his family made him seem more like a rounded person to me. here is where a little boy hid to get out of doing the dishes. Later he grew up to be an amazing orator, and made the world a better place.

There were hundreds of people who helped bring down segregation. Is it fair to give MLK the defacto sainthood for this cause? Of course it's fair. It is always the orators with fabulous charisma who history remembers best. MLK is sainted worldwide by now, no matter what the generation who disagreed with him says. Thomas Jefferson had his children as slaves, and no one now blinks an eye; so too will go MLK's business dealings and affairs, along with the incompetency of his heirs. My husband will be the last of his line to be infected with sympathy for segregation, for our children will grow up to ask as my sister did, "So what, exactly, was segregation?"

2005-06-06T08:00:00.000-04:00

Pain, Dark, and Light (eventually)

I woke up last night around 2 in the morning with a full-on panic attack. Have you ever had one? For me, panic attacks are a searing pressure and pain in my upper left chest, right over my heart. I woke up, gasped, and tried to concentrate on the comforting feeling of my husband's skin next to me in our bed. I took deep breaths. I concentrated on not going to the bathroom and emptying the contents of my stomach, which is what I usually do when I get this stressed out. I haven't thrown up from stress since January. The husband is so good for me - if I think about how comforting he is, I can calm down. If I just take a lot of deep breaths and think about how wonderful my life actually is, I can calm down. When I remember that I have people who love me, and a house now, and dental care, and a refridgerator full of groceries, and solid transportation, and comics all organized - I can calm down. I petted my husband, and he rolled over and kissed me and fell all unconcious again.

Eventually the dawn started to peek around the curtains, and I fell asleep again.

I know why I had the panic attack. The surface (micro) reason would be that I'm taking half a day off of work today even thoiugh I was out for two days last week, and I have loads of work to do, and I *need* to be at work this week. The deeper reason (macro) would be that I spent Sunday in Augusta, and had some dealings with my father's family, and, at a distance, my father. I haven't written publicly about any of that for a long time because people who know me know how bad everything has been and I haven't felt the need to broadcast details. I have been told that whenever you blog, you should pretend that you're yelling whatever you say from the top of a high mountain, and that everyone - everyone can hear you.

So let me yell this from the top of my small mountain: last night before bedtime I got a call from Nashville. Neighbors at my parent's old house had called my mom to tell her that my father's dog was at their door, smelly and hungry and confused. When my parents split last year, they split the house too, and that was sold two months ago. When the house was sold, my father simply turned his dog loose in the neighborhood. God knows what he did to her to get her to run from him, because that dog never ran, but only loved to be petted and to sleep in his garage when the weather was bad. The dog must have been confused and sad - the children had left, and now so had dad, and the garage that she lived in and next to for so long was closed up or had all of her favorite things missing. Cold, and hungry, I imagine she ate garbage for a while before just sitting on the neighbor's porch, afraid and howling. There would have been no clean water, nor the dog house that my sisters decorated with old doll blankets. Her chew toys had probably been thrown away when the new owner cleaned the yard.

She was abandoned. My mother cried when the neighbors called her, and then had to try and find my teenage sister, who was out with friends and had the car. I suppose Sara today will try to help dad's dog. We have a friend of the family who works at a no-kill shelter who could have taken the dog months ago - but no, no, dad did this, dad abused the dog.

My father is an alcoholic. He has been one all my life, but only in the past few years has his slow slide down been accelerated, bringing him faster and closer to permanent brain damage and losing everyone, everything. It's all gone - he threw everything away. His marriage, his kids, and even his dog. Even his car was taken away a few weeks ago. His health, his teeth are slipping. I don't know how much longer it will be until he dies. People can live for years like that, rolling, tumbling down a mountainside of addiction and pain that they thow out to everyone around them.

I went to Augusta Sunday and saw my father's mother, and a cousin who happened to be seeing her at the same time. We did not talk of my father. I did not see any other members of my father's family. No one wants to talk about anything, no one wants to face the truth. There is nothing I can do, or say.

Eventually things will get better - for myself, for my sisters, for my mother. There is pain in the darkness, but eventually, if you wait in the dark long enough and remember that everything will be fine, that life is beautiful - the sun will rise. And when the sun comes up you can use half a personal day to take your youngest sister to breakfast and then give custody of her over to your aunt and uncle for the summer. There will be cousins playing, and blackberries for picking, and a funny story about the fourth of July. Then you can go to work and fel accomplished. You can come home at night to your husband, and if you happen to wake up at 2 a.m. with a terrible pressure in your chest you can remember that things will get better. Dawn will come, and the sun will rise.

2005-05-30T20:09:00.000-04:00

The lot unbuilt upon

My new condo borders one of the many urban brownlots along the old train lines here in Atlanta. When factories had to back up to the train lines to get their goods to market, my section of town was a bustling production corridor. But times changed and trucks took over as the main mode of transport; while the train yard near my new house is always bustling with work and movement, it is the movement of train containers onto and off of trucks. Factories can be way out on Peachtree Industrial where there's lots more space and the property taxes are cheap. Then they can load all their goods onto a truck and have the truck drive to the train yard - and hey, while it's there - the truck can pick up raw materials that have shipped up from the port in Savannah.

All of this is a way of explaining why my area of town has slowly turned from factories to abandoned factories that crumbled into urban brownlots into slow creeping gentrification. My condo is in a converted warehouse, and next door to my condo is an eight foot wooden fence. Inside that fence is a mess of voracious kudzu that covers loads of scrap lumber, old tires, and the back of a rusting semi. When we bought the condo a couple of months ago, the kudzu was asleep for the winter still, a brown gray creeping skeleton that allowed us to see all the trash underneath. Now the kudzu is a lush green carpet that keeps trying to climb over the fence and eat my patio.

Developers want to take the zudzu covered lot and turn it into a neat development of "affordable" townhomes. I put affordable in quotes because I don't trust developers. What they think are affordable starter homes often aren't. Many of the new condo developments around my area are quite posh - marble countertops luxury bathrooms and other add-ins make the price of some places quite out of reach. There are some affordable townhomes near me, but they have a hard time selling because the property taxes in this area are very high, and the market has gone soft with over- saturation. There are simply too many condos on the market in Atlanta right now, and that's how the husband and I managed to get one at all.

Anyhow, I feel a little guilty. I chucked some scrap wood into the brownlot today, confident in the knowledge that kudzu would soon cover my crime. I, the husband, and our friend Daniel have been trying and so far failing in some home improvements today. We royally screwed up at least one entire 4 by 4, trying to cut it into equal lengths at 45 degrees. If you've ever tried to spilt a long piece of wood at a 45 degree angle, you'll understand our problems. It was a first attempt that went horribly awry, and took us at least an hour and a half and a change of saw blades to accomplish. In the end we were just covered in saw dust and feeling bad.

We all looked at each other, and the mangled 4 by 4, after our mistake was realized. "Look", I said, "Let's just chuck the bastard over the fence, and never speak of this again." Daniel felt bad about this. We all did. As the 4 by 4 was heaved over the fence, I realized I'd feel guilty for some time. Not just for public littering, but also for wasting wood. But after heaving that 4 by 4 away I let it all go. Sometimes you just have to put your mistakes behind you. What I want to tell you is that when I heaved that 4 by 4 into the brownlot, I attached a lot of of failures to it mentally. There's been quite a few things lately hanging out in my head that my concience wouldn't let me get rid of. When I fail, I tend to sit around trying to fix my failures for far too long. Sometimes, you just have to chuck a project or section of your life over the fence and let it go.

After the old heave-ho, Daniel expressed his remorse. "But what about when people find the 4 by 4? What the hell will they think happened to it?"

"I know nothing about this piece of wood you've mentioned." I said. Then I went into the house and made a cake.

2005-05-25T05:38:00.000-04:00

I have yet to hang pictures

Here in Atlanta, the pollen count is so high that everyone is a little bit sick, it seems. Thick blooms in my neighbor's careful landscaping make me want to strangle him. Why are flowers os important? I have a neat row of marigolds and that's enough for me.

My aunt and uncle both got some sort of nose infection from the over-exuberant flowers this year, and when I went to visit them my cousin Ruel was asleep on the couch despite the 6 o'clock hour. I passed them illegal fireworks I bought from a market on the Tennessee border for our fourth of July party. So much has happened to my family in the past year. I'm almost ready to write about it. Maybe I will this weekend. I am looking forward to the fourth of July this year for the first time in several years.

Audrey and Jamie have had a little girl, Laura Kate. I went to see them and the new cousin a week or so ago. It was nice to meet a new family member, to see her pink and small and wonder what she'll be like. I saw Colin as well, and he surprised me; he's really a little boy now, skinned knees and gruffer voice. All of my cousins age a bit when I'm not looking. Audrey talked to me about pregnancy and childbirth and we both wondered when it would be my turn. I am not pregnant. If I am not pregnant by Christmas, it will be time to make an appointment with someone who can use science to tell me why I can't seem to make this magic happen. Maybe I am too much of a skeptic to create new life.

I have been so buried by work that I forgot this weekend would be Memorial Day weekend. I was so happy to discover I had Monday off I nearly cried. I still haven't hung pictures in the new house. I still haven't bought blinds or curtains. Because I went to Nashville to visit family this weekend, I didn't get a day home to clean the house, and it's a wreck. When I come home from work during the week I either have to keep working at home to keep up with my workload and/or I'm so drained I don't want to do anything but read to try and relax. I am increasingly glad I put in my resignation at work. I only have about 3 more months to go before I'm finished with The Job That Ate My Life. I'm so burned out, I find myself wishing I didn't have to work at all. Economic reality demands that I can't stay home, and right now that just kills me.

Two of my oldest friends are getting maried this summer. Both are people I didn't think would ever get married. I can only hope that their marriages make them as happy as mine has made me. Even though work is a huge drain, I recognise that before I was married, I managed the work load by simply working all the time. I neglected my personal life for my career. And now that I have this rich beautiful life away from my career, the career pales by comparison. I hope that a new job will make me happier, that a new job will kill the greedy want of staying home all day. Truthfully, if one of us stays home, it should proably not be me.

2005-05-07T20:55:00.000-04:00

I can probably keep swimming

Tonight the husband is out gaming, and I am home organizing my comic book collection into big old wooden filing cabinets we found at a used furniture store over in Poncey Highlands. I am filing my comics in hanging folders, alpha by title - except for all the Tim Hunter books, because, dear god, alpha by title would just be a disaster there - they are filed like this:

Hunter, Tim - Life during Wartime
Hunter, Tim - Age of Magic
Hunter, Tim - Names of Magic
Hunter, Tim - Books of Magic

The filing and sorting is soothing, and calms my archival nerves, the ones that get rumpled every day by disorganization. Have you any idea what it is like to grow up in a house where your parents can't remember where they put anything? We are all products of our environments. I miss my sisters so much this weekend - Sara in particular lately, because she is good moving help and good company when you are cleaning something. I miss Abby because I see things she would like to do or try all the time. There is a new shop down in Little 5 she would love. Sara will have her GED and driver's liscense soon, and Abby should be on Summer break now. I want them to visit.

The husband and I have been in the new house now for six weeks, and while we achieved a decent level of near tidy-ness last week I still don't consider the house to have been clean yet once. Maybe tomorrow this will happen, when I hang pictures. But then, I have to work at home on a Sunday again tomorrow in order to catch up from all the out-of-office work I did *again* this week. Oh, and I need to look for a new job, and I need to call my mom, and I need to find some curtains, or blinds or something, because we don't have any. And I need, I need, I need...more time. There is too much to do still. Oh, I'm calmer about it lately, but the tide of life is still high, the current is still pulling at my ankles. I have to get a new job, one that requires little to no travel.

I'm trying to get pregnant. Wish me luck.

2005-05-01T12:23:00.000-04:00

The Normality Drive

I feel much calmer this weekend. Life seems to be moving forward, and steady cleaning and cooking in the new house is helping me feel less frustrated with the state of things. We had our planning meeting at work where my department gets together once a quarter and syncs up calendars for the next five or six months, and when I wrote down that my last day was September 30th, and had that confirmed, I felt a great sense of peace come over me. I have had it out of my system now; my work does not define me, my career is not the most important thing in my life.

Audrey gave birth to a new cousin last night, Laura Kate, and I expect the husband and I will get to go see everyone soon to celebrate the new family member. Mother's Day is coming up, and I plan on inviting my mother and Grandma Alice to come visit my new house. I miss them, and my sisters. Everyone will have to visit to see the new baby, and I will be happy to see them all as well. I do not visit with my family as much as I would like under happy circumstances. I would like to play with Ellie, Colin, and Ruel. I can't remember the last time I really had a chance. And besides, it is almost time for the blackberries to be out in the wooded lot behind my uncle's house, thick and dark and ripe as big as your thumb, it is time for cobbler and ice cream and the sun hot on the back of my neck.

All of this is a way of saying, I suppose, that summer is here at last. I know that the calendar says that summer is not here yet, but it is May Day, and the festivals have begun here in Atlanta. The Inman Park had its tour of homes last weekend, and there's an outdoor public art festival in Freedom Park this weekend, and I am cleaning and baking in the house that my husband has bought us, and I am happy. The sun is out. I'm going to find a new job, and then I can make a baby of my own. I am nesting. We are having friends over for dinner for the first time tomorrow night. I have cabinets full of food and kisses whenever I ask for them and soon I will have the time to write for myself. Things get better, a little bit at a time, all the time.

I miss you; come visit. We have the guest bed set up now with clean sheets. I have ordered a new tea cup to replace that one that got broken so long ago. Come and visit, and I will make you breakfast, and we can sit and talk about the books that we have read and make collages on the kitchen table if we want or try that complicated recipe or draw comics and print up a 'zine. We can laugh about the bad things that have happened in the last year, too. The long dark windy rainy times are almost past. It's summer, I don't care what the calendar says.

2005-04-24T11:10:00.000-04:00

Almost Connected Again

For the first time since we moved into the new house, I am online on my own computer again. Yes, it took me over three weeks to hook up my computer. The past three weeks have been overflowing with accomplishments; they've also been filled with a very special kind of torture. It's as if I've been working right between heaven and hell. I have nearly everything I've ever wanted. I just have almost no goddamn time to enjoy any of it at all.

In addition to moving I have been to rural Mississippi and Memphis for work, and will be in rural Lousiana next week. I did manage at last to get to Chicago for some fun with Kati and Michael. For a weekend in the middle of all this madness, the husband and I took a deep breath and did nothing but tour exhibits, eat good food with friends, and play games and talk and enjoy ourselves. Chicago was needed and neccessary. I do miss Kati so. I want to go back and visit her again before too long...

But I came right back into town and left again; and then my mother-in-law was here and we I was shown, how much, how much I really needed. Tommorrow the husband is home from work and the delivery men will bring a new bookcase for him, two filing cabinets for me, nice old wooden ones, and a dining room table from the 1920's refinished and so overdone in the turning of the legs that my sister Abby could tap dance on the top and it would never wobble. And then there's a kind of china cabinet with no glass, a blind cabinet it's called, that I like very much.

The husband and I have hung a pot rack from the exposed iron girders in the cieling. The whole house, little by little, is coming together quite well. You should come to visit and see it. But do that later - there are still piles and piles of books and clothes in the floor. And I can't figure out when I'll have time to unpack everything because even today I have a report to work on for my job, and then I'm off to Lousiana.

I put in my notice at work. I'm terrified I'll get pregnant and I can't keep up this constant rush of work and travel. I can barely hold everything together now, never mind if I have to do all that thinking about a baby as well. I said in the notice I'd wait until September. Cross your fingers for me that I can make it that long, and think thought in my direction about the National Archives and Records Adminstration. Whenever you think of me, think "8 to 4 desk job". Whenever I think of you, I'll think of warm summer vacations.

2005-04-06T09:43:00.000-04:00

Our friend Raven came down from Nashville to help us move last weekend. Raven is the most fabulous moving help ever.

We closed on the house Thursday night, and the husband surprised me by taking me out to one of the nicest restaurants in town, The Oceanaire. We split a lobster and had the most fabulous deserts. I ordered baked Alaska because whenever you have the chance to watch a really good waiter set food on fire, you should. The husband ordered the white chocolate banana crème pie, which did not get set on fire but tasted like the best banana crème pie you’ve ever had, only better.

When we got home we met up with Raven, and the moving began. Raven, for those who haven’t met him, is about 6’ 3” and was raised by interior decorators. He has a habit of wearing a black wool coat and a fedora. His long brown hair goes down to his waist, and his blue eyes are always seeing something that you haven’t. Raven is pure Nashville, walking around in bondage pants and shoes that need mending. He will not move to Atlanta, although the husband and Daniel and I have tried to persuade him. Raven talks about New York sometimes, and I hope he goes there. He talks also some times about Memphis, which has a big goth scene. I hope he doesn’t move to Memphis. Memphis scares me a bit in a way I can’t describe.

We took Raven to Cafe Intermezzo before he left. This made him pretty damn happy, if only because he was able to get a good shot of expresso. Raven says he can't get a good expresso in Nashville anymore, not since Bongo Java changed a few years ago.

We have moved, and moved, and moved for a week nearly now, and we will not be done moving for a couple more weeks. This is the way of moving. Somehow, when you are moving into a house that you own and not an apartment the moving seems more intense and arduous. We have only moved about 5 blocks in the physical, three dimensional world; yet we have moved into another phase and plane somehow, we have crossed rivers and dragged boxes through deserts somehow else.

I can’t explain this to you. I don’t have the words to explain moving into the first home that you own. Nothing seems real to me still. Owning our condo seemed a little more real when I bought a curb key and showed off my ability to turn on the water without the water department’s help. Perhaps owning our condo will seem even more real once we’ve painted and have a chance to sleep in a bed again instead of mattresses on the living room floor.

Does anyone, by chance, know how you get rid of a mattress?

2005-03-29T09:20:00.000-05:00

Like how Darth vader Sounds

The new Target is open now over on Moreland Avenue. I have already managed to convince the store clerks that I’m a little crazy. This wasn’t intentional.

I went into the new Target last night looking for a white noise machine. Before my trip to Target, I thought everyone would know what a white noise machine was. It’s one of those little devices that puts out a sound much like low radio static, and the purpose of this white noise is the blocking out of lots of other noises. It seems now that white noise machines also like to have options where you can listen instead to noises of the ocean, or crickets in the forest, or water bubbling in a creek. In my mother’s family, it is common to put white noise machines in the rooms of very small children, so that they can’t hear you making noise while they are taking a nap.

Anyway, the husband and I walked into the new Target, and up to the Guest Services desk, and asked where we could find a white noise machine.

“A what?” asked the clerk.

“You know, a machine that puts out a low noise…like they have at hotels.”

“Uh, I never heard of that. Hold on.” She motioned to her supervisor. “Have you ever heard of a white noise machine?”

“Do you want the movie White Noise?” asked the manager helpfully.

“No, no, I’m looking for a machine that goes in your bedroom. Sometimes it’s a travel accessory and sometimes it’s in house wares. It’s a machine that makes a noise like this…” and then I cupped my hands in front of my mouth and made a noise much like how one imagines Darth Vader sounds in a deep sleep.

The Target workers stared at me.

I added helpfully: “It cancels out other noises. You probably have one on in this store and don’t realize it.”

They stared at me again. “Um, we’ve never heard of what you’re talking about.” The clerks were trying very hard to be polite, but I could tell that they were convinced I was making it all up. A machine that sounded like radio static? Who would want one of those?

My husband was trying not to giggle. I sighed. “Ok, look, I’ll find one and show you after I’ve bought it.” I knew Target sold white noise machines. I’d seen them there before.

We wandered off down red-striped lanes. “I hate Target” said the husband. He hates all department stores. It’s a thing with him. He hasn’t got the patience for bad service and a store the length of a football field. We shop at Target because I like Target, and despise most of their competitors. Besides, they have loads of things we usually need.

We needed a white noise machine not only for the new house, which is loft style and therefore needs noise dampening, but for the tiny apartment where we live now until the big move this weekend. We need the machine for this week in the current apartment because out friend Daniel has had yet again horrible room mate luck. His last roomie moved out of town in the middle of the night with no warning, taking some of Daniel’s bill money with her. He’s got a new place to move into at the first of the month, but is spending this last week with us. The apartment is small enough that I would feel guilty about the husband and I enjoying married life at night without some sort of noise interference. The husband and I were on a quest.

We eventually found the white noise machines not in travel accessories nor house wares, but in the back of the pharmacy section. We wouldn’t have found the machines (Target has a small selection) at all, except that when on the edge of giving up over by the air purifiers, we ran into one of those huge stock men who know a store like the back of one of their calloused hands. They know their store because they stock it, just as I once did during Christmas a year and a half ago.

“Oh, yeah.” Said the stockman. “Those things. They used to be over here, but they moved ‘em for some reason.” The stockman took us back to where the foot spas were, and there were the white noise machines, now called “Noise Spas”.

We bought two. One for me that has a timer on it – it shuts off after 15 minutes, 30 minutes, or an hour – and one for the husband that he had to have because it was a white noise machine/alarm clock/ radio and it projects the time overhead or onto a wall in glowing blue light. Both machines were les than $15. After we bought them, I stood in line at guest services again to show them to the clerk and manager. They had never seen them before, but both agreed they looked nice. I felt like I was proven to be sane.

2005-03-20T19:17:00.000-05:00

Abby's Spring Break and My First Home

It's my youngest sister's spring break this week, and she is 12. Today I took her horseback riding way out in the country side. Then we went out to lunch in the city. I took her to Cafe Intermezzo, where the desert case is very large and sure to make a twelve-year-old happy. Of course, now I have stomach cramps, because I always eat too much dairy at Cafe Intermezzo and I should only eat dairy in moderation. I can't help it. Their food is so very fine. The fact that I love their coffee doesn't help matters much either.

I wish I could spend more time with my sister this week. I wish I could start packing for the big move I'm going to make soon. I can't do those things because I'll be back in Roanoke, Virginia for work again this week. Even if I was in town, it would be difficult to spend much time with Abby working a regular job just because it's sort of difficult to do family things at all lately. I want to hang out with Audrey and Laura more; there's just not enough time.

The big move I'm about to make is into my very first owned home. The husband and I bought a condo over on Dekalb Avenue near the Inman Park station. I feel comfortable revealing that much of the location because Dekalb avenue is lined with condos over there. As well it should be; we get to stay in the neighborhood I love (just barely) and I will still be able to walk to Little 5 and the new Target that has just opened up on Moreland Avenue. I can continue to live without a car, and that is well worth the price we paid to live in town. We will pay as much for our small condo as my aunt and uncle paid for a spacious home with an acre or so out in Powder Springs. I will pay more a month in property tax than many people pay for car insurance. It's worth the money not to have to fight traffic, but just barely.

Wish me luck this week in Virginia. I really don't want to be away from home and family for most of this week. I will need cheering up via e-mail and through phone calls. I still miss you. When I move, I'll have the best place for you to visit comfortably, and we can drink hot tea and eat cookies.

2005-03-10T06:49:00.000-05:00

The world is a vampire drag queen wedding

I was in New Orleans getting ready to take the husband out for his first taste of alligator when I got the Big Family Drama call. One of those calls from a loved one that make you feel powerless, like you should run home and fix everything that you can, only you can't. I recieved this call on Friday night, the second night of our four day trip to the big dirty. I wouldn't be able to respond until Tuesday night. So for the past week now I've been running, running, running, inhaling the exhuast from the engine that runs the world.

Not that it's a bad world. I don't mind inhaling a little exhaust when it means I get to see the sights. In New Orleans we were obligated to stay in two hotels on out trip. The fiirst hotel was the Prince Conti down in the French Quarter. The Prince Conti was a lovely crumbling New Orleans sort of place near all the restaurants and cheesy tours we wanted to take. We saw the city of the dead and went on a good ghost story tour and ate fabulous food. The second hotel we visited was the Hilton out by the N. O. airport, and it was there that I missed the Vampire Drag Queen Wedding.

Last weekend was the southeastern regional event for people who like to play the vampire role playing game. Because this was in New Orleans, loads of our friends were there. Not all my friends play vampire characters of their biological gender. Hence the big drag queen wedding between two major players for plot and strategy purposes.

The wedding only lasted 10 minutes, and I missed it. I was having a lie-down upstairs in the room after being sunburnt on the cemetary tour, and I was fighting terminal PMS and the blues from the big family drma. I had asked the husband to call me when the wedding started so I could go down and watch, but by the time I made it downstairs, I was just in time to see the wedding party posing for pictures.

The rest of the trip was a mix of fun and hard work, as I was in New Orleans for business. We flew back into Atlanta late on Monday night in great turbulence and with delays. I went to work late the next morning and left early to drive to Nashville, where we didn't fall into bed until after 4am.

Safe and sound, I feel asleep before ten last night. It's seven am now and I should get to work. There is so much to do, and so little time. Friday night we have to return to Nashville again. I'm exhausted, and I don't really want to go. I want to lie in bed next to my husband, and dream of moving into the condo we're in the process of buying. That sort of activiity - lieing peacefully in bed and day dreaming - can't realisticly occur this month.

2005-02-28T10:46:00.000-05:00

Why does Georgia hate Atlanta?

At the beginning of the year the state legislature stopped Atlanta from passing a living wage. Now they won't allow Atlanta to enforce their non-discrimination laws against those who don't like gays. Finally, riding MARTA the other day - a train system much, much in need of maintenance, I realized that the rest of the state hates Atlanta. Damn if I know why. It must be envy.

Maybe the husband will be able to solve the Georgia hates Atlanta mystery soon. He has been hired by a state agency that works on regional planning issues. He is much relieved to have this job, because for the past month or so he has been bartending at the Fox theater. Bartending at the Fox is a nifty job if you can get it, but it's back-breaking work for inconsistant pay - just like any job bartending, waitressing, or anything that relies on tips. When you go to the Fox, please tip the concession people. All the tips are split among the employees at the end of the night, and they all work their asses off.

The husband was able to land this job with the state because it's the same sort of job he's held before. Now we'll both have solid middle class incomes to go with the new house. I will have to get a tattoo to balance out the white breadedness of it, some secret rebel symbol to prove I'm still, um, cool. Mostly. There's nothing wrong with being comfortable, right?

We're going to New Orleans next weekend to celebrate the husband's 30th birthday. I plan on eating and taking ghost story tours, the kind that let you bar-hop. Write me if there's anything in N. O. that you need.

2005-02-19T18:17:00.000-05:00

Good News in a month of Bad news

When I posted last week, I was filled with anxiety about our house search. I am happy to report that the husband and I saw three condos today, all of them in our price range and all in our neighborhood, within a mile of where we live now. I am so comforted. We have a good real-estate agent, something that had concerned me; so many people were, well, *pushy* about trying to sell us a home. There were calls and calls from friends of friends or people who knew somebody, trying to get us to sign with such-and-such as an agent. I picked an agent I was comfortable with and stood by my choice, despite pursuasive arguments from other people; now I am so glad that I followed my instincts.

She's not pushy; she respects that I want to stay in town; she has let us know that there are more options available than we had thought. She's going to show us places in Midtown - I thought Midtown was just too expensive, but no, maybe there are places we'd like to see. She gives us scads of information beforehand, and doesn't try to get us to pick something *she* likes. And oh, thank god, she's low key. High strung sales people bother me to no end.

There was, for instance, the real estate angent from Buckhead who called to tell me that we should move to Brookhaven. She tried to tell me that Brookhaven was the right part of town, which immeadiately got me off on the wrong foot - like I care about the "right" part of town! She completely failed to understand that I love Atlanta and urban environments. A few of the places the husband and I looked at today face the train tracks along DeKalb avenue. I was ecstatic, because this meant a 10 minute reduction on the morning walk to the train station. I can imagine that Ms. Brookhaven would think the view ugly. I thought it beautiful; a view of the train tracks is a view of another 10 minutes in my bed every morning. A view of the train tracks is another view of my husband 20 minutes a day, another hour and 20 minutes in my own home each week. What would Brookhaven do but rob me of time? I am sure it is a perfectly nice place to live, and has earned its reputation. But it's not like I'm trying to join a country club, or really give a damn about the opinions of people who are country-club types.

The new house-to-be is my new muse. I have done rough sketches of places the husband and I have seen and liked, so we can better recall the floor plans. I have begun ot dream of furniture. I feel so energized by the thought of a space completely ours, the dream of not moving for five or six years. Perhaps next weekend we'll see some of those places in Midtown. Perhaps one of the condo owners will call us with some fantasic offer. I'm so excited. A place of our own, with all the headaches, heartbreaks, and comfort of my own decisions dominates my dreams.

2005-02-07T06:58:00.000-05:00

The sun is bright and terrible in its beauty

The sun came out Friday for the first time in days. I had a hard time not running out of my office building on West Peachtree, disrobing, and streaking towards home. I wanted to be in the sun; it seems like it rained for weeks and weeks without a day like Friday, a day of clear skies and bright light and the 60 degree winters I moved here to enjoy. We have had a rainy, wet time for months and months. This weekend of sunshine and warmer weather was such a treat.

I have slowly started to pick up all my old comfortable habits again, the ones I lost during engagement and marriage. I now walk to Sevananda by myself again for guacamole supplies and chocolates, I again maintain my blog regularly, I can again make mix CD's and write letters to friends and toy with the idea of art projects. I again can ride the train to new restaurants and explore Atlanta. My routines are more comforting than I can explain. Yet I fall back into them with the dread knowledge that I am forcing a huge change in my life soon. Within two months, the husband and I will buy a house.

A house. I will have a house before I'm 30. The idea is wonderful and exciting and still fills my stomach with acid. I was standing in Sevananda the other day, shopping, and *enjoying* myself, because there is nothing I like more than a trip to the grocery store unless it is a trip to the comic book store. As I was standing the idea hit me that soon I would no longer live in my neighborhood, my home of two years now. I want to stay here, in this part of town. Inman Park is the center of my internal Atlanta map, where I have drawn all my directions from, yet the houses here are so expensive that Winn and I most likely can't stay. We'll be buying out in East Point or another neighborhood…the prices are just too high here. It kills me, but I have to accept the fact that just as I re-establish all of my beloved routines, I'm going to have to change them, and chart new paths, paths that will probably involve a car. The idea of driving everywhere is like ashes in my mouth.

We're trying to move somewhere close to a train station. This isn't easy. Wish us luck.

2005-01-31T06:55:00.000-05:00

404 ass error

"My ass is broken!" wailed the husband, not 5 minutes ago. As one gets older, we have both discovered, it is now possible to wake up in the morning with bruises and contusions one has no idea how one gained. The husband woke up this morning and his hip hurt. I'm guessing his hip is hurt because of the late night wrestling match we had when he tried to sing me a Wierd Al song in bed, and I would have none of it. The wrestling wasn't violent or anything, but at some point he must have hurt his hip a bit and then slept on it funny. Surprizingly enough, the husband's ass has managed to get broken not over sex but over pop culture cheese. Life is strange and beautiful.

"I don't think your ass is broken." I replied to him after careful hip inspection. "I think your ass is temporarily unavailable. You have a 404 ass error."

This never would have happened had Atlanta not been covered in ice this weekend. As Max will show you over on his page, we were iced in from Friday night onward. This meant that the husband and I had all weekend trapped inside the apartment together instead of spending a couple of days apart, as we had intended. He was to go to Nashville and I had all these grand plans for cleaning the house and getting some professional writing done for work. I feel very behind on my everyday tasks after being so sick last week. Some of the writing happened. The cleaning? Not so much.

Atlanta incased in ice is beautiful; Atlanta's one small snow of the year was mixed in with tiny granules of ice. Everything was glazed and deadly. Locked in together during the storm, our desires for independant entertainment thwarted, I suppose it is a healthy sign that the husband and I were only mock-wrestling by Sunday night.

I feel immobilized by the winter, by the ice, by the waiting for the stars to align so that we can get out of this tiny apartment and into a home of our own. Every winter I can't believe how long I have to wait for Spring.

2005-01-24T07:16:00.000-05:00

Strep Throat

It seems only just that the week after I felt so accomplished in work and at home that I would turn out to be incubating a perfectly nasty case of strep throat. Luckily there's a new urgent care facility over on Ponce de Leon not far from my house. So the husband and I lost all our pocket money for the rest of the month on being ill. There was a certain joy to laying in bed for a few days reading, if you discount all the disgusting snot, and the fact that neither of us was inclined to do anything that might make breathing more difficult that the congestion made it already.

I'm still tired.

Anyhow, we did manage to make it to Chattanooga this weekend to see some friends. I spent most of the weekend in bed watching TV at the hotel because I was ill, but Chattacon was OK. I don't know that we'll go next year, but overall, it was a decent enough party.

My job is busy enough that while sick, I had dreams of being at work, and vague notions of sending the husband to fetch my laptop. Luckily, my cold medication made me pass out every time I resolved to be productive. Speaking of which, I have to attempt to go back to work today. Wish me luck!

2005-01-17T14:30:00.000-05:00

Accomplished and Mildly Amused

It's MLK day here in Atlanta, and I caught sight of one of the parades downtown this afternoon as I walked from a dentist appointment into Peachtree Center Station. I really appreciated the long tunnels underneath Peachtree Center today; winter is here at last, cold as anything, and the tunnels meant I could walk down into slightly warmer air for a whole block before reaching the heated train platform. The glimpse of a passing marching band cheered on by war protesters and happy city folk was enough of a celebration for me.

I find myself sad that I didn't see the traditional MLK television broadcast from the Doctor's church this morning, but as I can read what was said tommorrow in the paper, I don't think I missed that much. I enjoy watching the annual toungue-lashing the MLK day allows the church to give Republicans. Seeing poor Senator Frist take things so hard right up front last year was rewarding. Petty, but rewarding.

I feel very accomplished this week. I went to a local amateur comedian's night yesterday to see a friend perform, and this weekend I've also assembled flat furniture, cleaned my house (with much help from The Husband), visited the Fernbank museum with cousins, and made mix CD's. I plan on updating some of my web pages later. Things are good.

The Husband, now on month four of his job search, frets about money, but I don't. I'm so much better off than I was this time last year, I'm not worried at all. We'll soon buy a house, and that will cut out most substantial monthly bill down quite a bit. Wish me luck - I want to stay in Inman Park or hereabouts, and I can only cross my fingers and pray it's financially possible.

2005-01-10T19:37:00.000-05:00

Together Again

It took me a week to recover from my vacation. I couldn't find my cell phone, or my date book, or my phone book, or my watch. But then slowly everything came back together again on Sunday. Sunday was the first day since I've been married that I felt like myself again. The husband and I cleaned house and napped, and then later walked down to a pub where we eat sometimes. I played pinball, and then we walked to the movies, my favorite movie theater that only has two screens and a lobby with decrepit 80's arcade games in it. And I was watching my husband's ass as he played Galaga and I realized that I was comfortable again. That everything was Okay, that everything was all right, that my life hasn't really escaped or changed beyond my control.

The vacation was the honeymoon combined with the holidays. Our honeymoon consisted of my mother-in-law harassing us onto a plane bound for a private island in the keys that she paid for our stay upon. We went more for her than for ourselves. It made her happy, and I'm trying very hard to keep her happy. I'm not the daughter-in-law she expected, and I want to please her as much as I can up front before she realizes that I'm not going to ever be anyone but myself. My huge, hulking, callous, common, unrefined self. When she picked us up from the airport, we had a little lunch, and she confessed she wanted to help me "blossom". I replied I felt like I had bloomed all ready, just not into the sort of flower she was used to. And what sort of flower would that be? The quiet, shaded, kind, I replied. I can't remember what we said after that. I should have said clover.

The next week in Nashville was characterized by ice storms both real and metaphorical. While it was truly the best holiday season I've had in a while, I realized that this is the last New Year's Eve I'm likely to spend there. The Husband's company aside, I had a difficult time connecting to many friends. It's mostly my own fault, as I have transgressed that line from single friend to married friend so completely that some people no longer recognize me fully as my own person. I have done nothing to dispel this notion since the husband I and have recently been photographed making out at our own holiday party...

We're a little too into each other right now, and I know it. But I'm still here. I'm over all the marriage parties now. I have more free time. I can update this blog once a week again. And as the days grow colder this winter, I want you to know that I'm here for you. You can still write and call. Just because I'm all into him? It doesn't mean that I've forgotten you.

Skeet should call me

2005-01-01T22:09:00.000-05:00

I repeat, Skeet should contact me . So should Cairy and Virgil. I couldn't find you in Nashville; my phonebook was not with me on this past trip. You can also leave a comment in the guestbook.

I have returned, oh gods and godesses of the internet. I had adventures, some of which I plan to write about later in this post and other posts.

I will never go on a vacation that long ever again. I missed y'all. I missed the quiet glow and hum of my computer chugging away into the night. I missed the ability to type out my thoughts as they itch under my fingernails. I had trouble sleeping some nights. I had a nightmare my final night away, and in this nightmare Atlanta was under attack by enemy jet fighters of some kind, but when our jet fighters shot them down they crashed into tall buildings and caused more damage. And no cell phones worked and I had to start walking from Midtown back to Inman Park by myself, with all the fire and mayhem and looting. And then there were these beasts - giant weasles with curiously flat heads and intelligent eyes, running around eating people's garbage. Some of the weasles were wearing sweaters.

But other than that, my honeymoon and holiday break went fairly well.

But I was homesick for the city. I love it here. I never want to live anywhere else.

2004-11-30T06:23:00.000-05:00

The first family Thanksgiving in 5 years

Fun things first:

The weekend after the holiday, The Husband and I drove up to Knoxville so that he could be introduced to the East Tennesseeans: Dust, Alestar, Devon & Aisling. We also saw Ford in Oak Ridge, which is consistantly rewarding.

We had dinner with Dust in Old City, which was so abandoned it might have had tumbleweeds blowing through it. This made me sad, because in the early nineties Old City was...well, what an urban center should be. Full of people and parties and clever things to buy. A decade after I first saw the Old City it is nearly abandoned by crowds.

Devon, Alestar, Ais and Ais' dad went with us to a big arcadein West Knoxville where I managed to pull a Darth Vader key ring out of a machine for The Husband. Ais' dad kicked my ass in air hockey hard enough to remind me that I'm only good at air hockey because I play people who aren't that great at air hockey. Alestar, per usual, said a few things I should pay attention to. Ais took home a light up spinning top, and I cashed in my tickets for wooden beads from China with chinese charaters stamped on them. I don't know what they say.

Knoxville was Knoxville; which is to say I like it there but it made both The Husband and I miss Atlanta terribly. And truly, whomever laid out the traffic plans there should be held accountable.

As in other years, the weekend after Thanksgiving was fun and relaxed.

The small handful of peeps that have been reading my blog for over four years now know that I like to spend Thanksgiving alone. Thanksgiving is a very personal holiday for me; I enjoy the lack of (too) rampant commercialism, and I like how the streets clear out. I usually enjoy a couple of days of quiet reflection around Thanksgiving, reading and playing with art projects.

All that personal time is gone. I'll never get Thanksgiving alone again. I'm married to an only child now, and it would hurt his parent's feelings not to be home. My parent's recent divorce requires extra effort from my sisters and myself to define ourselves as a unit. Holidays were something I could once easily ignore by working through them. Now I am obliged to work *at* them.

Thankgiving dinner with The Husband's family and mine blended together went very well. The party the Husband and I attended afterwards went even better. Tony and Andrew threw a Thanksgiving party and many friends were there; I saw Sue and Paula and a few other people I enjoy.

Later people from Andrew and Tony's party and I took food to the policemen on duty in Berry Hill. It was Andrew or Tony's idea, but I felt like I needed to help. The policemen in Nashville have had horrible behavior the past year, and I thought they could use some positive attention. Acting out is no way to get noticed.

2004-11-21T11:55:00.000-05:00

Bruises, Fire, and Family

I've been too depressed to write in my blog since the election. Instead of blogging I've ended up writing long letters to friends, rambling about the impact of my recent marriage on my views of gender and procreation and the future of mankind. It's navel gazing, all of it. Half the nation hates the other half.

I spent election night itself wandering in and out of bars around the neighborhood with Therm and a friend of hers. We started off at Manuel's, a historic liberal hangout. I wanted to start there because I knew, deep down inside, I knew there would be no regime change. I had let myself believe a little in the lie that it could happen because there did seem to be the possibility. We drifted from Manuel's to poker night down at the Yatch Club and finally to Vertigo. I came home to The Republican around 9:30, only a little drunk.

I needed that drunk to sleep, and it didn't help as much as I'd hoped. My husband woke up through the night anxiously checking the internet. The next day I closed my eyes to all media. The next few days I had a headache that wouldn't quit. I have only been cheered up a little by the purple map, showing how our country is not truly divided into red and blue but rather a shading of both those colors. Of course, right now the whole of America looks just like it feels: just like one big bruise.

The Sunday night after the election I woke to the smell of smoke and the sight of burning ash raining outside of my window. We have an arsonist here in my part of Atlanta, and a couple of weeks ago this person set a vacant building across from mine on fire. At first I was worried it was my apartment building, but no, it was a vacant crappy lot across the street. The noise from the firemen, police choppers, and the fire itself was amazingly loud. The building on fire was gutted. This is the fourth or fifth big hit by the arsonist in the past few months. They have not caught the arsonist, and I worry about leaving my cats over the holidays.

I drove the new husband to Augusta yesterday to meet with some of my father's family - the ones I could track down. Dad's family has never been what you would call close-knit, and now with my parents divorce I'm not that hopeful about seeing too many of them. They never called me when things were great, so I don't think they're likely to start holding family events now that things have become even more decentralized. I went to the Flea market and saw my Granny and my cousin Steven; I drove across the river and saw Keith and Nick and their mom. Then we drove home.

I wish I had big descriptive adventures to pass on. I wish I felt more motivated to write about how scary the fire was, or how the flea market in Augusta never seems to change. I wish I could find the time to tell you about the museum exhibit at the Bremen, or Halloween in Little 5. But there's no time and I lack the passion, this month. My job wears me out; talk of politics makes me want to hide under the bed; the holidays are coming, and I'd rather they not come at all. Call or write and cheer me up.

Progress in the new life

2004-10-28T20:04:00.000-04:00

Progress in my new life; voting ahead of time

Upon passing people in the halls at work, or in phone conversations or IM, everyone has the same question for me:

"So how's married life?"

As if in getting married I threw away all my old clothes, books, and apartment, and embarked on some brave new adventure. This is not so. It is true enough that all my old routines have been broken; that I have to constantly streatch my brain around the fact that things have indeed changed quite throughly at my apartment and that somehow more is expected of me by other people. But I'm still Elizabeth. I still have a difficult job, and I still read my comics every week. I still worry about my sisters and I still hate dress shoes and I still plan things at least six months in advance. I still have a nervous stomach and I still daydream a great deal too much. I still live in Atlanta, and I still love it here.

I did change my last name. I had not planned to, but The Republican's last name is rather rare and my old one rather common. The uniqueness of the name appealed to me, and I knew this change would please his parents, who are older and conservative and far too interested in me. I like them very much, but am also looking forward to the day when I am not so novel and interesting to them.

The truth is that I enjoyed my somewhat solitary life, punctuated by a party every other month or so where I could be hyper-social for a few days before retreating again to my room to read quietly, or to long walks where I could think quietly. I've been quite the party girl lately, and it wears a bit thin on the nerves.

This morning was the pinnacle, I think, of my nerves just being frayed and shot. I woke up and found I could not go to work; there was a family emergency that needed my attention most all morning. Work, of course, really shouldn't have been called off but there wasn't much I could do but resolve the issue that would have affected my life much more than a day of missed work. I hadn't much sleep the night before from a combination of visiting my Grandfather and quarreling with someone I care for a great deal. I spent the morning nervous and tired. By one o'clock all the drama had resolved itself but I felt the day had enough challenges already; there was nothing to do but go ahead and say the day was shot and attempt to vote.

Georgia has early voting all this week before the formal election in order to accomodate the record number of voters this year. I only had a two-hour wait down by 5 Points and The Underground. I went with a book in hand, as both Winn and others I knew had waited in line about 3 hours each earlier in the week. The line to vote wound out the side of the Fulton county building, up to the second floor and then to the fourth; the line wrapped around hallways and the entire space was packed with polite, patient, intense people determined to cast their Very Important Ballots. It is not only a hotly contested Presidential election, but here in Georgia we must also decide if gays should be constitutionally barred from marriage. I voted not to amend the constitution, and not to keep the current President. For good measure, I have been quietly distributing a radical political zine in favor of deposing Bush.

Pity The Republican; he has had to abandon his roots and vote Libertarian. He was disconsolate but resigned about his first formal defection from the Republican party line, but could not bring himself to vote for Kerry, whom we both agree is up to his neck in political shit. I feel a little dirty myself, as I have always previously voted Green. So we make a pair, both of us unsatisfied with our political options but at least feeling good about not voting for the current power while still managing to vote at all. Atlanta is one of the easier places in America to vote, as Mr. King once lived here, and Mr. Carter still maintains a residence in town.

I do not think we will know who the president is by Wednesday of next week. I can only hope that whatever the events are, they will not be too upsetting nor too dramatic, but I fear they may be, if not in Atlanta than in other towns.

2004-10-15T07:12:00.000-04:00

October falls right into my lap

October blew in sooner than I expected, bringing with it cooler weather, my 28th birthday, and a host of party planning expectations. It's dark now when I go to work, and often windy as well. Atlanta's trees have begun to shed their leaves, and the homeless people look more tired and hungry.

I had a pretty fabulous birthday. Ford sent me a package of goodies, and The Republican bought me my first new pair of glasses in nearly four years. Dust called, and Kati and many others besides. There were comics and Indian food and snuggles a-plenty. I changed my name at the Social Security and DMV offices with a minimum of red tape hassle. Life is good.

This weekend my mother's family has set up a reception north of the city for me. The Republican's mother has planned us one the first weekend in November, and then there's one between Christmas and New Year's for the friends in Nashville. Plus, I've plans to hang out in Knoxville over Thanksgiving weekend. So I'll see all y'all soon.

The Republican has been caring for me while I have a cold; he rubs my back and brings me herbal tea and generally does things that nobody else would. It is nice to have him here, proof against the winter, insulation against the lonely wind.

2004-10-07T20:34:00.000-04:00

The Best Blog in Atlanta

Creative Loafing recently voted this blog one of the best in Atlanta for 2004. I'm going to pretend I deserve this honor by allowing my ego to become inflated enough to interview myself. Also, doing this will make the losers feel better about losing, and allow me to post something less depressing than my last two posts, which, let's face it, were just a little bit down.

So, in light of the recent award, I humbly offer you this FAQ. If you know me, entertain yourself by picturing the archivist "work" me in glasses, khakis, and a button up blue shirt interviewing the "party" me, in contacts and jeans, and a button up blue shirt while you read this. If you don't know me, pretend that last sentance didn't make me sound a little flakey.

Q: So, did you nominate yourself, or what?

A: No, I didn't even know this award existed. I read the print version of Creative Loafing (CL) once a week usually, but last week I was out of town. When I came back, there was a note on my guest book from someone in Canada who mentioned they'd seen me in CL. I don't know the editors, nor anyone who works for CL. Honestly, I was thrilled, shocked, and surprised.

Q: That's a lot of adjectives.

A: Yes, yes it is. I feel that this award is sort of a default in a way because I have the mad grammar skillz, while so many of my compatriot bloggers have a problem distinguishing the plural from possessive form of "it is".

Q: But don't you often put up posts with spelling and capatlization errors?

A: Bite me.

Q: In its recommendation, CL called you "sweet". How do you feel about this assessment?

A: Well, I think maybe my blog comes across as sweet because I'm generally a happy person, but obviously my blog leads to the perception that I'm also light hearted. I plan on making sure that from now on I swear and discuss adult vices a little more. Maybe I'll wear my black leather pants while I type.

Q: So, the editors of CL like you! Do you think you can give up your day job now and indulge in your fantasy of being a professional writer?

A: Oh, hell no. CL already has two hip, alternative women columnists who observe wry things about living in Atlanta. I really doubt they need another. Besides, writers get paid, like…

Q: Like archivists?

A: Yes, and you're breaking from format.

Q: How mortified were you when you realized that hundreds of people had visited your web site expecting stories of Atlanta and by happenstance saw stories of Nashville instead that week?

A: Completely mortified. Again, if I had know they were issuing an award, I would have come up with something snappier and more ironic for random passers-by to read.

Q: So do you plan on altering your format now?

A: Hells, no. What do you think won me this award?

Q: So I heard that this other blog really won.

A: No, that was the popular pick. You're thinking of the guy who made cupcakes like Janet Jackson's boobs, got reviewed by the AJC and now is enrolled in a prestigious creative writing program. I was the critic's pick. Well, me and this one druggie guy. I bet the popluar pick gets his ass kissed by The New Yorker or Gourmet in a couple of years. Me, I get to know the editors thought I was better. It's like winning "Miss Congeniality".

Q: So you're loved by "the man". Will you get a tattoo now to re-establish you street cred?

A: I wish. My street cred is only that I live in Inman Park, and so in this blog I can say things like: There's a giant goddamn tree that Hurricane Ivan blew down in the park. When the hell is city going to come and bust that thing up?

Q: Good Swearing! Shake that sweetness!

A: I try.

Q: So what did you get for winning? Cash money? Prizes? A CL hoodie?

A: Nope. All I get is their paper for free every week, which is what I do anyway. As a side benefit though, I heard all the other bloggers in Atlanta now how to address me as "Queen of the Universe", but only in writing; in person I will prefer "Your Highness". Or they can salute, if they have food in their mouths.

Q: You don't mean that, do you?

A: No. In truth all we did was write Suzanne Van *******, who was in charge of the Cityscape section, a nice thank-you note.

Q: Is that the royal we?

A: No, you idiot, we're the same damn person. It is first person plural omniscient.

Q: Eager to show off that English BA, aren't we?

A: Yes, goddmanit, since all it's ever done was win us this award. Recognize!

2004-10-06T06:59:00.000-04:00

Holy Shit, I'm famous.

Thanks, Creative Loafing. I heart you back.

Now back to your regualrly scheduled navel gazing.

My Own Natural Bridge

The Republican and I were standing in the middle of Christi's new living room, getting married, when I noticed there was something wrong with his voice. I looked up into his eyes - I had been trying not to look at him, not to look at anything because formal ceremonies freak me out - but I looked up into his eyes just then and he almost lost it. He was Southern Man-Crying. All choked up, struggling to speak, no tears but clogged nose. So I said: "Don't cry! Don't cry, motherfucker, because then I'll cry."

And everyone cracked up. I'm so romantic. Christi took a break from her role as clergy and retrieved tissues while I, The Republican, Tony and Andrew were consumed by humor and a tidal wave of emotion I should have been more prepared for. I didn't expect to be so affected by the marriage ceremony. I did cry. The Republican blew his nose several times. We laughed. I think Andrew cried a little too.

After the ceremony Christi fed us all homemade apple pie, and Tony insisted on taking us all out to dinner. Then The Republican and I curled up under an old quilt loaned to us by Andrew, and that was it, folks, I was happily married.

Three days later I was driving to Harrisonburg, Virginia on my own. Just because I'm married doesn't mean that the world stopped. I just means that my home life has changed. I still have to work, and I'm still me. It's only that everything about my home life has changed, once again. I'm moving more towards being stable soon though. I hope.

I was driving up the interstate from Roanoke to Harrisonburg to work, and I noticed that this interstate that I was on repeatedly crossed Highway 11 , the metaphorical Road to Devon. Off of Highway 11 in Virginia is The Natural Bridge, a phenomenon that sparked one of Devon's best short stories. I thought a lot about Devon and Erin and Dust a lot on this trip. My old Scribbling Mob friends, they're mostly still single, or still in the same romantic cycles they were five years ago. I have broken free. I am still part of them, but I have taken this act, marriage, and separated myself a bit from their lot.

Harrisonburg is in north-west Virginia, and I thought that because of this, I might be able to meet Dust for a meal or talk or something. On the map, it only looked as though Morgantown were a couple of hours away, but on further investigation I found that the drive from Morgantown to Harrisonburg is over four hours. The map is flat, but Appalachia is not. Huge mountains lay between us, impossible to cross as we both had deadlines in the work we were meant to accomplish. Like everything between Dust and I, our timing was off, and the obstacles were just too big. Dust and I are still friends, but there will always be this between us: not enough time, and too many mountains.

I enjoyed visiting Harrisonburg, even if the quilt museum was closed on Tuesday and Wednesdays, precluding me from a visit. I flew back to Atlanta Wednesday night happy to see my new husband again, but with a heart full of lead for another reason. Wednesday morning, Dust and Jill's dad died.

I never met Mr. Collins in person, but I felt like I knew him after all the stories I'd heard. Mr. Collins was an alcoholic, just like my dad. Many of my friends have alcoholic fathers; having an alcoholic dad grants you an automatic pass into the secret club of the cynical, the clubhouse of black humor. Mr. Collins was a man that everyone remembered well. His funeral was large and attended by nearly everyone he'd ever met in his life, and they all sang his praises. I sent flowers, only to have everyone wonder who sent them at first. My last name has changed.

I didn't go to the funeral. It would have been the wrong place at the wrong time, my attempt to comfort friends would have only drawn attention away from their grief. I sat on the edge of my bed holding The Republican's hand that Friday morning and choked back tears. I didn't cry. Truthfully I am done crying this year. But I sat and had my moment of profound grief, another emotional wave to surf in a month where everything seems significant. Random acts of geography have displaced me from my life. I have crossed my own natural bridge and forgotten to bring a map. But really, I've been off map since I left grad school.

The Republican and I had a lovely weekend together, and then I was away from home again for another week; now I am home for the rest of the year, still working and still off map. I find that I don't worry so much, with The Republican around. He is reassuring, if just as lost as I am. It's nice to hear two footfalls for every one that I take, and it's nice, sometimes, to know that for once, I have changed something as permanently as I can. I am married. I crossed my natural bridge and burned some others behind it.

2004-09-11T17:43:00.000-04:00

Three Neighborhoods in Nashville

The 5th set of Nashville Stories

1 2 3
4 5 6
7 8 9
10 11 12

Unlucky Thirteen
When my parents first moved to Nashville, it was the early 80's, and we lived in a pink rental house on Acklen Avenue between the United Methodist Church and Dragon Park. I loved this house; it was small, even to a child, but the sidewalks were where I first rode a big wheel. The park down the street was fabulous and new. The day care at United Methodist was progressive and exciting, and I was forming bright new memories: my first bee sting, drawing hopscotch, learning to work a water hose, a cat ate my parakeet, the host of imaginary friends under my bed, the first Christmas I can remember, Dr. Who on TV, with Godzilla, and Siskel and Ebert.

We were robbed twice while living in this house, and moved to White Oaks Apartments in Hermitage before I started school the next year. I was disappointed to leave the pink house, but accepted it; after all, we moved once a year every year when I was young. A move was nothing that needed explaining to me at that time.

But 20 years later, my mom told me why we left.

The whole neighborhood was one of musicians and their families, and that is why my parents had moved there. One day, while all the men were away on tour, a rapist pushed down a friend of my mother's as she was bringing groceries into a neighboring house, and attacked her in front of her young daughter. The women of the neighborhood were afraid, my mother even more so after she received a threatening phone call late one night. She was alone, in her early twenties, and watching another friend's young daughter and me. The rape had the effect of uniting the women in the neighborhood; another musician's wife came and sat with my mother all night, baseball bat in hand. They were braced for the worst. The police said they could do nothing but drive by every once in a while; they couldn't sit on the street all night protecting the women, whose husbands were off playing in various parts of the country.

The next day, my mother arranged for all our belongings to be put into storage, left Nashville for the remainder of the tour season. She returned to Georgia with me, and I never questioned why; I was used to traveling, and happy to see my cousins again. Mom did not return to Nashville until my father was off the road and she had secured another apartment.

Years later mom and dad moved into their dream house in Hillsboro, less than 3 miles from the rental house that had been their first home in Nashville. The pink house isn't on Acklen anymore. After the burglaries and rape, the neighborhood had acquired a bad reputation, and a handful of the houses, including the one where the attack took place and our pink house, were razed in favor of some rather ugly apartment buildings that clash with the nice small craftsman style houses still there.

Fourteen
The Republican and I, soon to be married, are often taken around the Brentwood area when I'm there to visit his mother. This is the expensive part of town, where houses are large and meant to impress, where pedestrianism is frowned upon, and indeed, seen only in maids, landscapers, and the homeless. I have recently met the maid that works for my fiancé's family, and I am probably more comfortable around her than most other people in Brentwood. Her mother worked for The Republican's family before her. I don't want her to work for me. I'd rather clean the house with this woman, talk to her about what my husband-to-be was like as a child. I bet she knows all the best gossip. I bet she has oral history to impart. I want to sit and laugh with her, I want to share recipes and dish the dirt.

I don't do any of those things with the maid (yet). Instead, I have been to the jewelers with Mrs. The Republican, my future mother-in-law. We have been to lunch. She has apologized for teaching her son nothing of cleaning and cooking, and less about women. I do like her; she is loud and talkative and excited that her only child is marrying. She and I are physical opposites, and I worry about standing next to her. I in my 6 foot 200 lb. hulking frame of coarse blue-collar manners stand in direct contrast to Mrs. The Republican's tiny 5-foot petite frame, all clad in Ralph Lauren and tasteful cosmetics.

Future-mom-in-law is insistent that she can find me clothes and wants to buy my trousseau. I have tried to convey how impossible this will be, but she remains undeterred. I will take Sara, my now 17-year-old sister, with me when we go shopping next weekend. Sara first tried to demand payment for this favor, but settled for blackmailing me into a visit to a local art gallery she wants to visit. Both Sara and I agree we are terrified of the impending shopping trip, where I will be outfitted in expensive Republican style weather I like it or not, lest I offend someone who is trying to welcome me into a very different sort of family.

The Republicans live in an upscale neighborhood in Brentwood where a friend of mine used to do landscaping. As a teenager, I babysat a few streets away for a family that went to Hawaii once a year and bought their children whatever their little hearts desired. Issues of class, education, and behavior constantly form an internal monologue I have to ignore when in Nashville now. I will probably struggle with these issues for the rest of my life. I may marry into The Republicans, but I will never be one of them. I am perversely happy about being part of The Academia, which allows me to stand astride two classes like a seasick court jester, free to laugh at both the haves and the have nots while trying not to vomit from nervousness.

Fifteen
Since the divorce has gotten underway, my mother and sisters have rented an apartment in an historic building near the state capitol. Their neighbor is an elderly Tennessee political figure of some note, a man known for his top hats and a run at the governor's office a few years ago when no democrat was willing to even try to move the Republican party out of power.

This apartment building is exactly where I would live in Nashville if I ever lost my mind and moved back. It is furnished with things almost ugly enough to be cool, and is within walking distance of loads of fun things. Predictably my teen sister loves it and my youngest sister, Abby, is not as happy. There is no yard, and no other children her age nearby. While she is happy to have moved and enjoys her new school, downtown Nashville offers little by way of entertainment for an 11 year old. Because of the divorce, my Grandmother has temporarily moved in with my mother and sisters to help out for a bit.

Too often Abby ends up inside with my grandmother, and I thought that sounded fun until I remembered that Grandma is fifteen years older than when she played with me at that age. I was stricken by how old my grandmother now is when visiting she and Abby last. When I was 11, Grandma and I went to museums; we played board games and walked around historic districts. I thought Abby and Grandma would be going to Fort Nashboro or buying memberships to the Frist. Not so. A walk even up a few stairs leaves Grandma now winded, age and weight having caught up with her at last. I worry about them both, because I love them.

Downtown Nashville is not an area kind to the very young or elderly. I am approached by aggressive beggars each time I visit, and downtown lacks basic amenities like grocery stores or pharmacies. There are no cab stands or trendy shopping districts except for the short strip for tourists unlucky enough to arrive in town 10 years too late to visit the music business. Restaurants close at 5 or 6, when the workers leave the state buildings for the day. There are no green parks for playing, and even if there were Grandma and Abby wouldn't feel safe. In short, downtown Nashville is not like Atlanta or even Knoxville. Downtown Nashville lacks a community of families, although it seems to be populated now by young single people more and more. Perhaps families will arrive in a few years, if the single people don't move out when they decide to breed.

But for now Abby and Grandma sit in the shadow of a state capitol run by people who detest cities and love suburbs. I sit in Atlanta, and I worry.

Hey, Don't Worry

2004-08-23T06:04:00.000-04:00

Hey, don’t worry.

I used to secretly despise my friends who wouldn’t update their blog for a month or more. How dare they? Didn’t they know I needed to read about their lives? And here I am, a month out of turn.

I’ll be back. It’s just that right now everything is terribly complicated.

My routines are nothing but shreds in the winds. Blogging regularly, using my lj, and other internet habits are a dream that will not be realized fully again until mid September, at the earliest. Then I will be back, I promise, for those of you who have wondered what the hell happened and where the hell I’ve been.

Some points of interest along the way to rebooting my life, as observed outside the starboard window:

1) Isolated thunderstorms, both real and metaphorical, are expected to continue off and on for the next week and a half.

2) The storms promise to give way to 4 months of parties, and you, beautiful, are invited to as many as you’d like – starting labor day weekend, and continuing into the new year.

3) Some of these parties will involve the celebration of my marriage. Some of these parties will involve the celebration of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Some of these will be fairly circumspect family affairs. At any you attend, please feel free to throw your head back and howl at the moon, so long as you do this in an honest expression of feral feeling, and not in a drunk, late 70’s kind of way meant to reference the classic rock hit “Werewolves of Thunder”.That is strictly prohibited.

4) Dates for some of these events have yet to be set; please inquire as to those which you may like to attend. Cities will include Atlanta, Nashville, Knoxville, Augusta, and The Campground Which Must Not Be Named.

5) I am still collecting Nashville stories like your pet collects burrs from the yard. Expect them soon.

6) My job, when it isn’t making me want to cry or vomit from stress, has actually settled down a bit. I think.

7) Adventures were had in Boston. I don’t have time to write about that now.

8) I have to stop. I love you but I have to stop. I don’t have the time to write this now.

9) I have been blogging for four years now, on average once a week. And it seems to me that every now and again I say: "Things are just so hard now, but once this bit is over my life will be easier. I mean, things can never be this hard again."

10) But things are just difficult, and there's no way around that, except to expect less of myself.

11) I'm almost there. Just a bit farther...

2004-07-29T09:41:00.000-04:00

Mayo in my bra, spasms in my back, exhaustion in my heart

I got mayonnaise in my favorite bra Sunday night. I was rushing through the Atlanta airport after being suitably harassed by security for daring to have the nerve to buy tickets from two different airlines for a trip (thus making it look like I had two one way tickets, when really what I was doing was saving fifty bucks) when I realized I hadn't eaten that day. So I stopped at Popeye's and ordered a meal that came with cole slaw. But I didn't have time to eat the slaw before boarding the plane, so I put the sealed container in my luggage. Upon opening this bag a few hours later in Orlando, I found my favorite bra filled with mayo. I had to throw the slaw away, because at that point it had separated into its components of cabbage and mayo, and was no longer appetizing.

Washing mayo out of a bra, by the way, is very difficult.

I worked in Orlando Monday though Wednesday evening. I got home late last night and fell into bed after another frustrating call to The Republican, where we sighed at each other and cursed the rough economy for keeping us apart. The Republican had spent that evening playing monopoly with my sisters and talking to my mom and grandmother. He's awesome like that. He's becoming a part of my family. This is a very brave thing to do.

I woke up this morning and called into work late, which is how I have time to write this blog entry. I was thinking about all the work I have to do by 6 tomorrow, and my back did something it likes to do about once a year. The muscles seized up on me and tried to jump off my back. I think my back muscles try to abandon me when the going gets rough because they feel neglected. Anyway, there I was, gasping in the shower, muscles spasming from stress and overwork, when I realized I was stressed out because I hadn't had time to write for myself very much lately. My body was telling me to blog. So here I am, getting ever later for work.

Tomorrow I will have dinner with Audrey, and Saturday morning I will fly to Boston for what promises to be a very interesting week. I will miss my cats terribly, but Audrey will take care of them for me, and if not her, then somebody, by golly. I wish cats traveled better, but they don't.

I will probably post on the old blog next week. I will hang out with Aral and Baub and Maria any many of my excellent northern peeps. I will be very, very busy for the rest of the forseeable future. Until mid December at least. Wish me luck on keeping my back muscles in place!

2004-07-19T16:17:00.000-04:00

Eight short scenes from three very busy weeks

One
Around midnight on the fourth of July, I hugged the Republican as much of my family yelled and clapped around me. The Republican had smuggled us fireworks for the 4th of July. My aunt and I had chipped in each a conservative amount of money, but along with the normal selection of rockets, roman candles, and sparklers we had hoped for, my sweetie brought us the largest firework any of us had ever seen. Easily eighteen inches in circumference and standing 6 to 8 inches high, we waited all night to light it. Doug, Laura, Audrey, Jamie and all the little children were excited. My sister and her friend Sophie eyed my future husband in a different light after seeing the firepower he invested in. And when it came time to light the giant red round symbol of freedom made in a China, the firework shot colored lights of multiple effects for 2 or 3 minutes straight. The colored sights did not go up into the air but lent great excitement by displaying right in front of us. Everyone agreed it was the best firework they had ever seen.

Two
My mother watched the fireworks from behind the glass front door of my uncle’s house. She has always disliked the loud noises and smells of gunpowder on the holidays. Ellie May joined her inside as well, but they did enjoy the sights from the reassuring distance my uncle’s house provided. Earlier that day she had taken myself and my sister Sara aside and had the long talk with us about our parent’s divorce. My parent’s 29th anniversary would have been July 4th, 2004, except they were late in getting to the courthouse all those years ago and were married on July 6th instead. This lateness in dealing with legal obligations was the hallmark of their 30 years together. They will be much happier apart.

Three
After the fourth, I ended up on a red-eye to the Bahamas, a trip scheduled as part of my work. This would have been much more enjoyable if I hadn’t spent the previous 36 hours entertaining my fiancé and family. At 2 am in the Atlanta airport, I call my father. By 11 am I find myself in the British Colonial Hilton, where kind hotel staff let me into my room early because I am so exhausted. Surrounded by marble and expensive furnishings, overlooking the bright blue Caribbean, I sleep. When I awake, I find I am missing a crucial computer part, which I chase until later in the evening when I attend a reception where I meet many lawyers and two attorneys general. There are a great deal of free drinks but little food, and after an hour and a half I escape back to the hotel where I spend the rest of the night working on my presentation for the next day. I leave the Bahamas immediately after my obligations are done. No swimming. No sand and saltwater. My dry bathing suit gave me the evil eye as I unpacked the next day, returning to sleep off travel at 3 in the morning. Audrey took me in again as I fell exhausted into the spare room futon.

Four
My sisters both end up at my uncle’s house the next day, which I took off from work. Abby, as the youngest, is most affected by our parent’s divorce. I try to stay close to her, to spend time with her, but I too often find myself at a loss for the right words. I was never eleven. When I was eleven, I was really fifteen, reading book after book without pause, the summer between fifth and sixth grade- well, I was younger than her. I went to 4-H camp, learned leather stamping and to shoot better with a rifle and bow. But that was just two weeks out of many. The rest of the summer when I was Abby’s age was spent with E. Nesbit, Charles Dickens, Judy Bloom, and Isaac Asimov.   I do not know how to talk to an eleven year old, because I never talked to other eleven year olds when I was that age myself. When I was eleven, my Grandmother took me to the pool a lot, and museums and historical houses. Abby does that with my Grandmother now, but they do not get along as well as she and I did. Grandma is older, and Abby is less interested in architecture and local history than I was.

Five
My sixteen year old sister has found the most massive blackberry patch behind my uncle’s house. Sara declares that heaven is a blackberry patch without the pickers or pests. Heaven is a blackberry patch where you can pick all day and there are no snakes or bears or biting flies or mosquitoes. The bushes will have no thorns. I am not inclined to disagree with her. The blackberries behind my uncle’s house are not there by accident; years ago he and my grandfather tore the beginnings of the bushes out from Grandpa’s old business, and Doug chucked them in holes back behind his property line in the woods. Then he forgot about them for a few years, and they grew into thickets so ripe and full of berries that Sara and I have to use machetes to get to some of them, and we pick for two hours. We pick so many berries that juice runs out the bottom of our gallon zip lock bags, berries at the bottom pressed from the weight of berries at the top.   Sara makes a cobbler and Abby makes a cobbler and there are still berries left over, dark and soft and sweet, eaten at my aunt’s table with vanilla ice cream, my sisters, my cousins, my aunt and uncle.

Six
Tony and Andrew and Sara and I hang out downtown on a Saturday. The meeting is too short to be satisfying, but it is good to see them again. I miss them, and things are different somehow since The Republican and I have announced our engagement. All of us look healthier than we’ve been for awhile, but Andrew comments on how happy Sara looks. Sara stays with me for one more week before my uncle drives her and Abby back to Nashville. We debate on her leaving. Once she is gone my apartment feels strangely foreign to me, and her unattended art supplies leave unfinished work lying about. I can’t complete my sister’s paintings for her. There are things she must do for herself. Still, it was nice having her around to go to films and art stores with. It is nice to be friends with her as well as sisters. I hope Abby and I are this way eventually as well. A week after their visit, Tony and Andrew consent to being the legal witnesses on my marriage certificate.

Seven
Bunny Psycho Kitty looks out from underneath my bed every day when I come home now. She has come to live with me again, unable once more to cope with my aunt’s toddlers or outdoor living. It will take her almost a week to gain good indoor toilet habits again. Bunny needs time, her own space, her own litter box and bowls. Titania is undeniably pissed at me for bringing another cat home, and cuddles with me no more than she has to, even when I buy her a toy squirrel stuffed with catnip.

Eight
I have to call Underdown and apologize Saturday because The Republican and I were sickeningly sweet the night before. He and I went to a party with Underdown and other friends, and we did not pay enough attention to other people. We are the couple everyone hates. Even I can’t stand us. We’re a collection of heavy sighs and barely-hidden make out touches. I don’t want to be that way, but it’s how we are right now. I maintain the excuse that his skin contains some sort of addictive, mind altering drug, and that I must have contact with it as much as possible right now. He maintains that I am pretty. I maintain that he is insane. Before marrying, we must 1) consult the lawyer people 2) finish our marriage counseling book and 3) get a license. I leave him at home Saturday night, and we go to separate parties so that we don’t gross more of our friends out than is absolutely necessary.

2004-06-27T22:09:00.000-04:00

Procrastination Mantra

Moving, engagement, and family drama have succeeded in making me so distracted at work that I have problems completing tasks. It’s my own fault, and I need to find a way to make myself more focused. I’m considering going back on coffee. We’ll see next week if that works. What really works, of course, is having a little writing time like this to myself before starting in on more formal writing. But blogging is banned at work, and I often stare at the screen stymied, ideas blocked at the bottleneck of my mind.

As I write this, my sister Sara and I are sitting at a table together in my new apartment. She’s learning calligraphy from a book, and getting quite good at it, I think. She’s using an old pen set of mine with three nibs for the plastic pen and two automatic ink cartridges. She’s starting out with blue ink and I won’t let her start the red until she’s used up the blue. I plan on showing her how to make excellent fake blood splatters with the red ink in a few days, by blowing the red ink through a straw. I am writing this blog entry to procrastinate again instead of finishing up some reports for work. It’s Sunday, and in 12 hours I need to be at work with something resembling a full first draft of a rather complicated project. I’m stuck on it out of fear of criticism, I suppose.

We’re both inside at the table because it’s raining. It’s been raining for two weeks in Atlanta now. There’s a little muddy creek in the back parking lot of our apartment building. Other friends have written to me about flooded basements, and I feel lucky to live on high land. I should feel lucky that the rain has made this June a little cooler than most in Atlanta, since I still ride the train and walk to work every day. I am concerned about getting to work sweat-free in August.

In a few days Underdown will visit again, and bring with her Sara’s PS2, which will serve as our DVD player, sound system, and video arcade. As soon as Underdown leaves, Sara’s friend Sophie will be here to visit her for a few days, and then The Republican will come for the weekend. After that I’m off to the Bahamas for a short business trip I can’t really afford to go on. More on that soon.

2004-06-21T06:44:00.000-04:00

Too much, too fast, all at once

A week ago Sunday

I brought The Republican warm chocolate chip cookies in bed. My room was filled with light and both our smells. We decided to get married. He touched the scars on my back softly, looking at where the moles once were, before I had them taken off. Before he left, I kissed him on the forehead, and was surprised at the salty taste. I told my room mates I was getting married, but after that focused on work.

Last Monday

Lugging my laptop to work hurt my back a little. Work was entirely too busy; I panicked a little at everything that must be done before the end of the month. My sister Sara was a day late returning from Bonnaroo, and until she shows up at lunchtime my parents were on the phone with me, panicked. After work, I picked up the keys to my new apartment; and walked around in my new space a little, delighted with myself. The new place is clean and cool and comfortable. I call The Republican to crow about my new apartment, and he asks : Has my mother called you yet? What? Says I. The Republican's mother does call. She talks to me for an hour and a half. She tells me she is so happy he and I are to be married, and offers to book our honeymoon. I let her. In December, we're going to Key West. I dislike Florida intensely, but it makes my future mom in law happy, so I just sort of roll with it.

Last Tuesday

I talk to my mother. She cries and tells me how happy she is. I give her The Republican's contact information as well as his mom's. I e-mail him and ask him if my mother has called yet, a petty but satisfying act of revenge. He continued to profess to love me anyway. Work is again hectic, and it rains so hard I have to take a cab home, and cannot begin moving that night.

Wednesday

I make a test registry at Amazon.com. I attend many meetings at work. At the comic book store, they forget to drop two of my favorites in my hold box. I move just a few things into my new apartment. Everyone wants to talk to me on the phone about my engagement. I am glad we've planned not to have a wedding.

Thursday

I get a distress call from my sisters. If all had gone according to plan, they would have been in Georgia on the 14th, but all is awry. I get very worried about them. I work late. I begin moving larger things into the new place. My bedroom at the old place begins to devolve into piles of dirty clothes and misplaced objects. There's no internet service at home again, because Comcast sucks. I feel adrift.

Friday

I am far to distracted at work to get much done. Everyone still wants to talk to me, and I continue to worry about my sisters until The Republican pitches in on a rental car. I leave work half an hour early, and find myself in the grocery store overspending out of nervousness. I pile food into the new apartment before leaving for Nashville. The house is a wreck, I've got biils to pay, an apartment to move, and still I fly up I24. There I abruptly push The Republican into my car to meet my parents. All this guy has ever done is be nice to me and love me, and I throw him into a house with my mom and dad, where, during conversation, my mother is sure to mention that mental illness and addiction run in the family. I make jokes. They interrogate him. We leave near midnight, with a promise to pick up the kids tomorrow. Back at The Republican's apartment we curl around each other and take a good long while to unwind after such a stressful week. He's going to add ten years to my life, just understanding that someone has to calm me down sometimes. Without him, I'd be a shaking wreck.

Saturday

I take Sara to the museum. Then I ride out to meet The Republican at a small party, before turning back to pick up Abby and Sara. The ride back to Atlanta is long, and we are not surprised to find out it is nearly the longest day of the year. I take them to eat Indian food. They sleep in my bed, in the wrecked house. I feel guilty about the incredible mess.

Sunday

Sara is very ill with a summer cold, and Abby is ill with the world. We all eat out and run errands until Audrey calls us up to Acworth. I drive the girls there already exhausted. They've worn me out. Colin is cute. We look at recent vacation photos before I leave Abby with my cousins, a little guilty that I can't care for her myself, but I can't. There's too much going on, all at once. Sara and I stay up too late moving, and go to sleep grumpy.

Today

I have to return the rental car a day late. I've spent too much money. I can't find my car keys. I left my house keys in Acworth with Abby, and Audrey will have to mail them to me. My room is a disaster zone, and Sara will have to help me clean up the house. I'm sure I've abused my girlfriend privelages with The Republican. We've got to move, I've got reports for work to finish, and none of my good clothes are clean. I can't call in sick today, because there are meetings. I'm going to be late for work by typing this.

But I needed to get everything all out there.

Transit of Venus

2004-06-09T19:25:00.000-04:00

Transit of Venus

0 days, 0 hours, 0 minutes

I had been waiting for the transit of Venus for 18 months, but when it came time to watch the star I was born under cross the face of the sun for the first time in 132 years, there was nothing to see. It was raining in Atlanta, and while friends of mine dreamed strange and complicated things hundreds of miles away from me, I slept only in fits and starts, waking at 3a.m. to listen to the rain, my cat’s demands for attention, and the sound of my own heart. There was no sunrise to watch Tuesday morning.

I resolved some issues with my work environment Monday, and that had settled my stomach a bit, along with the security check I had done on my new building, the one where I’ll be living alone for the first time. There are keypad locks on the front of the apartment complex. Lots of other single women live there, many of whom have large friendly dogs. My windows are on the second story, and there’s a modern fire escape that gives me a back exit but which would be difficult for a thief to enter. Hardening my resolve to live alone was my younger roomie’s free use of my cookie dough, and the sudden interruption of water service to the rental house, probably due to the landlord’s inattention again. I really do have a genetic predisposition to having my utilities disconnected. At least in the new place it will probably only be my fault.

Audrey and I had our once-a-month lunch Tuesday afternoon, and I was happy that Jamie came with her and Colin this time. Work was incredibly busy that day, and after a night of little sleep I needed a long lunch of solid food and coffee to keep me going. After they left, I grinned for the rest of the day, because I realized that although I was exhausted, I was happy. I was tired physically from lack of sleep, tired mentally from all the stress surrounding my work and living situations, tired emotionally from relationship and family drama.

You know what makes this all okay? That I can sit and laugh and eat with friends – Audrey and Jamie, Kati on the phone reassuring me, Underdown, sick with strep throat needing the company of my voice, Dust needing distraction from his own problems. Winn and I laughing about fandom, Tony and Aral and everyone else planning the yearly big end of summer party. It’s going to be OK. It’s going to be alright. I can do this, this horrible and beautiful thing called being in charge of my own life.

I watched the transit of Venus on the internet just before going to bed Tuesday night. Someone with a telescope in Germany had made a Quick-Time movie of the different stages of progress of the transit, and so I watched Venus move across the face of the sun from half a world away as a recording. It was beautiful, just a simple black dot on the bright round ball that gives us light and life every day. Venus tracked across the sun in front of Earth yesterday, and it will do this again in 12 years, just to show me how small an entire planet is in the face of the sun. My problems are so tiny, and the source of warmth and light is so large.

Quilts have magical protective qualities

2004-06-06T10:09:00.000-04:00

Quilts have magical protective qualities

I told The Republican about the magical protective qualities of quilts last weekend. I had to tell him something, because as he brought up planning for the future I pulled the quilt on my bed over my head.

We sat there for a few seconds after that, me under the quilt and he, I suppose, trying to figure out how he had ended up with this crazy person beside him. Then he stuck his head under the quilt next to mine, and stared at me.

"Okay", I said, "Okay, now we can talk about planning, as long as we have quilt protection."

I know that's not the best example of rational, adult, behavior but I'm having to act a little silly to cope with the fact that The Republican can't be scared off. I've tried everything, from Family Drama to job panics to boarderline irrational demands. He just won't be deterred from his resolution to stay with me. The normal cycle of a long term relationships has previously followed these stages with me:

1) Fall hopelessly in love

2) Due to returned affections, fall even more hopelessly in love

3) One of us will begin planning the rest of their lives around the other

4) Communications breakdown

5) Someone does the leaving, which is more of a formality after the communications breakdown

To top all of that off, I haven't had a relationship survive the summer season in nearly seven years. So I'm understandably a bit nervous.

And then there's my job.

And my family problems.

And the money thing, which I've never been good at.

And I just signed for a new apartment yesterday.

Have I mentioned that my job is very stressful?

All of this adds up to me wretching in the bathroom repeatedly sometimes, twisted over in agony, guts in knots any boy scout would envy. I eat crackers. I eat pretzles. I eat tums. Herbal tea usually will calm me down. My body hates my job but would hate unemployment more. I have to be able to take care of myself. I've done a year of this. I can do one more. And having made it through two years, then I can make it through four.

Kati last week made it through the Chicago marathon, finished the race far from first but managed to make it all the way through. Although I could never run that far, I feel as if I'm in my own personal marathon right now. Currently I'm at that stage where your body wants to eat its own muscle, where the lights and whirls of protien starvation try to knock you down. This is the stage of the race where your body works against your goals. I will not be knocked down. I will finish this race even though it hurts. I will do this wrapped in quilts at night, just in case.

This blog

2004-05-30T15:45:00.001-04:00

This blog

I'm having trouble making myself write in this blog lately. I've posted a little over once a week both here and over on einboston for almost four years now. But lately it's been a struggle; not just because livejournal has come around with more interesting ideas, either. It's because, well, I have a full social life now, which leaves little time for writing.

I still need to write. I compose beautiful blog updates in my head all the time, when I'm on the train or on one of the mind-clearing walks I need daily to feel healthy. But my blogging was born of loneliness and lack of time. I started blogging in Boston because I found myself hundreds of miles away from everyone in a place so culturally different that I woke up everyday awed. Blogging not only let me keep up with my friends while I worked three jobs and attended grad school, blogging kept me sane. Writing about my experiences helped me process the sights and sounds and activities I never dreamed of.

Since I've found myself living in Atlanta, I feel that the quality of my blogging has declined. There's a good reason for the decline of quality; I'm surrounded by friends and family and things to do, and so I haven't got as much time to think about my writing as I once did. I'm writing this now while The Republican is washing up; once he's out, we're off into Little 5 where we'll laugh and read the Sunday paper and gossip about friends and probably play some pinball. I also need to call Aral about DragonCon; check on my sister's plans for the summer, and plan my next move.

Everything moves so fast at home, and I'm not allowed to blog at my current job like I have at past places of employ. I'm thinking of giving it up when this blog reaches the two year mark, the fourth anniversary of my internet presence. This makes me an internet Methuselah, so I shouldn't feel too bad about it. But I do. Blogging has been important to me since I started on a lark back in 2000. I looked forward every week to posting. I still do; it's just that too often I'm too exhausted to do this anymore.

In August I'm returning to Boston for a week of work and play. I'll try to update as frequently as I can between now and then. Probably while I'm back in Boston I'll switch over to the old page to record my (ambiguously) triumphant return. Then once I'm back I'll put down a few final thoughts and shut this puppy down.

It's been a fun trip, mi amigas, and it's not over yet, but I can see the end of the tunnel now.

2004-05-30T15:45:00.000-04:00

Because the landlord is selling the house, I have to move at the end of June. With all the rental difficulties I've had living in Atlanta, people might wonder why I'm so dead-set on staying here. When I first meet people from rural areas of the south and I tell them I live in downtown Atlanta, their eyes get wide. "Ooooh." they say, knowing that I must be wicked or gay or just plain odd to want to live here. They don't say those things to my face though. What they talk about is usually the horrific traffic, or our crippled public services (water, library, or police force).

The people who fear and loathe Atlanta just don't know the city like I do. Or maybe they do know the city but fear its racial problems or pollution. It takes a certain sensibility to live in the Dirtiest South, I admit. But for those great doubters, I will now offer up my top 5 reasons to live in Atlanta:

1) The neighborhoods.

Honestly, I talk more to my neighbors here in the city than I ever did in the suburbs. People in Atlanta are generally friendly! I love the neighborhoods of ATL, many of which are named after their own park system (Inman Park, Candler Park, Piedmont Park, Ansley Park etc.). I also love how each of the parks reflect the sensibility of that neighborhood. Inman Park, for instance, is rarely mowed, alllowing the wildflowers to run riot, and contains the old staircases of houses long town down embedded into weedy slopes. Piedmont Park is always carefully trimmed, best dressed to show the city how much it wants to be the center of attention. Ansley park has a lot of landscaping, formal flower beds. Other neighborhoods include Midtown, East Point, West Side, College Park and oh, the list goes on and on. And in your neighborhood there are people just like you, and lots of dogs that get walked, and a barrista who knows your name and how you take your coffee (half soy milk, have coffee of the day, with a shot of chocolate).

2) Public Transportation

Sure, it's old, and sure, it needs more money. But I don't have to own a car. Can you say that about your Southern city? Nope! We're the *only* Southern city with true mass transit. Bite me.

Hot water again

2004-05-22T09:30:00.000-04:00

Hot water again

I shouldn't be typing this right now; my Great Aunt Beth and my Grandmother are in town, and they, along with my aunt Laura, are headed to my house from Cobb County *right now*. I should be cleaning and getting dressed and...I thought I had this weekend to myself, but instead I've got family to see. And I'm happy to see them! Aunt Beth comes around from Texas but once a year. Golly, do I need some down time soon though. And I'm not sure when the down time might happen...The summer looms hot and long, filled with obligation, sweat, tears and work. It's 90 degrees here already, and the weather calls for locusts.

Christi Underdown was here the past week, attending a class I taught in town on book repair. We had a good time, I made her sleep a lot, and golly, if I ever think I'm overcomitted, I someone should just point me in Underdown's direction and say, "No, honey, SHE'S overcommitted. You're just really, really busy."

Other than the class we just hung out and ate good food. At Cafe Intermezzo, I laughed at her when the hairs on her arm stood up after a bite of Cheesecake and she laughed at me when my drink caused my face to go red. WE stayed up waaay too late on a worknight the last night she was here, talking about life and love and houses. After Christi left, there was nothing to my week but work and sleep.

My flakey landlord put us without hot water for a week. WHile Skeet was here, the gas company cut off the gas because even though we, the renters, had paid our landlord, he had forgotten to pay the gas bill on time. So they axed the gas, and I couldn't cook, and I couldn't take a shower without losing a year off my life. And what was worse is that I had guests all that time! Skeet was here and then Underdown was here and the hot water didn't come back on until after all my guests had left. I'm sooooo ready to move. And I've made the decision to get an apartment by myself for the first time. And I'm scared that I can't afford it, and I'm scared to live by myself, and it's out of the frying pan and into the fire...you know, as long as the gas is on, anyway.

Skeet is here

2004-05-12T06:30:00.000-04:00

Skeet is here.

Have I ever mentioned that I have the best group of friends in the whole world? I do. I know that no one believes me when I say that, but it's true.

Skeet is here visiting for a week. I'm working, and so he's on his own during the day, but I think he's enjoying that; Skeet works in Nashville as a waiter and lives in a big house full of people, and I think he's rarely alone in his everyday life. He's going to museums and seeing things he's always wanted to see - dinosaurs and mummies and sculptures.

We've known each other for nearly 15 years now, and this is the most time we've hung out together in almost ten years. We're having a marvelous time, walking around the city and trying to figure out what I should do with my life. Skeet is the perfect friend to have around for that kind of decision making, because he knows the truth about me: I generally do whatever the hell I want. Skeet's the same way.

Somehow, without meaning too, I've come to another big crossroads, a place where I have to make a ton of decisions about where I'm going to live and how I'm going to live. I love my life right now, living in Little 5, but I worry about my job, and of course my love life is frighteningly stable lately. The Rebuplican is getting ready for even more commitment, or maybe he's just going to step up his level of gift-giving. It's all very confusing. The Republican and I are starting to plan around each other, and it makes me a little queasy, because of course I'm worried about making plans around another person. I'm not used to the men in my life being stable.

Except, of course, for the guys I knew in High School, like Skeet and Cairy and Virgil, who are all terribly stable. They're still basically who they've always been, and somehow I'm lucky enough to still be in contact and in good graces with all of them. When I think about the types of men I've had in my life, I know I'm lucky not to have turned into a total man-bashing bitch. If you've ever wondered why I keep dating, how I stay attracted to men, take a look at the guys I knew in High School and know: I never stopped looking for men just like these.

I came home from work Monday just bawling my eyes out, crying and sobbing because I feel like I'm a bad worker. I've never had a job before that made me feel so bad so often. I'm used to being the *best* worker, the worker that the boss brags on, the top seller in my store, the one you want at the front desk to greet people, the kid everyone knows is going to shine the brightest. But at this job I just can't seem to get things right lately, and it's killing me. I want to do a good job, and I worry that I may never get things right, even though my employer seems confident that eventually I will. It's such a huge workload and so intimidating that it amkees me emotional in uncharacteristic ways. People who know me know, I'm not a crier. I didn't even cry at Steel Magnolias.

Skeet was here, and he was the best while I used up a whole box of kleenex and then wore the box as a festive hat. We made stupid jokes about my next career selling tissue box hats, and then went out and played pin ball. And the next night, after I went out on the porch and talked to The Republican at some length, I came back in and apologized for being an inconsiderate host, but Skeet pretended to cry.

"No! It's my night to cry!" He said.

"Oh, Ok then, I'll take tomorrow and you can have Thursday...If we're crying in shifts."

"Thursday's no good for me."

"Well, maybe we could double up tomorrow, both of us could watch Angel and cry."

"Yeah, because they're canceling the series."

"Ok, so we both cry Wednesday at Angel and then take Thursday off, and Friday we can get drunk and cry because we're getting old."

"I was just thinking we should get drunk and cry Friday! That would be perfect! It'll make the drive back Saturday just right!"

"And then we can cry Saturday because it's the last day of your vacation."

"Yeah."

Big hugs.

Getting Over It

2004-04-30T15:06:00.000-04:00

Getting Over It

Erin is very proud of herself for not having resorted to any lists lately. Since I normally do long narratives, I don't feel guilty about resorting to a bulleted list right now. I'm sick, folks, I got the upper respiratory infection of the overworked. I like to call it the Christi Underdown Overcommitted Crud. Not to worry; I have sulfa drugs I got from a doctor's appointment today. Thank goodness I scheduled that Doc appointment two months ago, otherwise I couldn't have found the time to attend to myself.

Why? I'm having too much fun again. Consider:

1) I got sick three weeks ago.

2) But then I had to eat shrimp and hang with many peeps that I love.

3) Then I had a nearly three day road trip with the supervisor, working.

4) Then Ford was here to visit, whom I love.

5) We saw 2 museums and 3 restaurants while she was here. Our goal was 3 museums and 5 restaurants. But then we were relaxing, you know?

6) We also walked through a bit of the Inman Park Festival.

7) Suddenly Sunday morning, when we were only into hour 2 of brunch (merely halfway, amateur eaters!) The Republican, Tony, and a friend of their knocked on the door.

8) So of course then we had a little party.

9) We discussed how dairy makes snot a lot, right after we consumed good amount of Italian food.

10) Then it was time for me to work like a madwoman again. I flew to KY.

11) Where I held and purused a direct facsimile of the Book of Kells.

12) Where I also saw an albino squirrel

13) And taught a class, even though I was quite ill.

14) Then, after paying $25 to hop a direct flight that would get me home earlier, I found myself locked out of my house

15) For an hour and a half. Luckily the neighbors let me in to pee.

16) Had to be up early the next morning for an important meeting

17) Which was canceled.

18) Ran around like half dead chicken putting out fires, realizing a huge project is due Tuesday.

19) Haven't had time to work on this project in weeks.

20) Went home around 1 and slept, and slept and slept

21) Up this morning, went to Doctor

22) Going camping despite illness. When I say "camping", what I mean is : spending weekend in tent reading comics curled next to The Republican. May possibly contain some nudity in sunlight.

23) My neighborhood smells like clover flowers. I have a good life.

2004-04-23T23:08:00.000-04:00

Shrimp are Still Beautiful

My Grandfather and his girlfriend, Alberta, rolled into town in their giant camper last weekend. I was ready for some family time and rented a car to go and meet them, taking time to visit with cousins first and staying with my aunt and uncle in their open, comfortable house.

Work has been so exhausting lately on every level. There's so much to do, so many different type-A personalities to think about, so much to learn every day. My one year evaluation is coming up. My landlord has decided to change the rental agreement. I've started having anxiety dreams again, and I'm considering going on medication for my worry level, because even a year into my new career path I worry about being unemployed again.

I was ready to be hugged. I was ready for the long table filled with family and huge steaming bowls of shrimp boiled with onions and Grandpa goodness. I was ready to see my cousins. They're all so awesome, from Audrey and Jamie, who are my age, down to Ellie who is now three. Ellie's current favorite word is vagina, proving to me what I have always suspected since I first met the kid - we're on the same wavelength. Ruel is into biting people, and Colin proudly peed in the sandbox. And I laughed my ass off at all these things. My cousin Connie just returned from a teaching internship in South Africa, where she saw and tasted things I probably never will. She's ready to start grad school, and I remember how much I loved grad school. How could that have been over two years ago now? My aunt and uncle both took time to tell me how happy they were to have me spend the night at their house. I felt very loved.

On a whim I drove up to Nashville after that huge shrimp dinner, crashed Kati's welcome home party, hugged her and kissed Underdown and slept next to The Republican. The next morning I took my youngest sister out for some individual attention. We bought shirts at Bongo Java, and talked about the social politics of twelve year old girls, which are vicious. I hugged her and told her that she was one of the neatest people I've ever known, and always has been from the minute she was born and I held her after mom and dad did. It's hard for me to watch Abby, who has always been self-confident and original, who fought for her right to wear wigs to second grade, become unsteady and unsure of herself because of peer disapproval. I'm watching one of my favorite people approach the politics of Junior High with impending dread. I think she'll make it through OK. I'm going to reassure her a lot. But Jesus Christ, Sixth Grade...

I remember once Aral and I had a discussion about leg shaving. And basically I realized I shave my legs because I'm afraid the girls I knew in Junior High will come back and make fun of me if I don't. Thank goodness I grew up, that I now have unlearned all the lessons Junior High tried to teach me.

My life really is wonderful , you know? I live in the part of town I love best, and I'm considering getting an apartment on my own. I'm making money and although the job is stressful, it stretches my mental muscles constantly, challenging me and forcing me to learn again and again. I have a boyfriend who sent me a dozen red roses Tuesday for no reason other than that he was thinking of me. I am loved, I can buy whatever I need from the grocery store, I can drink coffee and read comics on a Friday night with impunity.

Of course, I worry too much that I'll lose all this somehow.

This week I worked so hard and so much, spending two nights away from home with my immediate supervisor. The next two weeks will be no better, and I'm thankful that I had the foresight to schedule some vacation time, next Friday and Monday. I'll go camping over May Day weekend with The Republican. I can think of nothing better than stretching on the warm green grass next to him, under the sun, eating strawberries and laughing about any goddamn thing.

All of that fun? It's made possible by my incredibly stressful job. I have to learn to celebrate that hard work, because as much as it wears me out psychologically, I'm definitely enjoying the benefits I get just by keeping on with it.

2004-04-14T18:52:00.000-04:00

Too much of a good thing

Last Saturday I attended a very large, very wild sort of festival. Among the attractions was a make-up artist who used an airbrush machine to body paint people. His work was amazing, and The Republican couldn’t resist the temptation to get covered in a way that would let him walk around with less clothes on. I watched with frank admiration as the airbrush artist covered him with green and brown vines that wound around his torso and back, climbing up to the sides of his face and highlighting his eyes. After the vines were sprayed on, leaves were painted and outlined, making my boyfriend a living celebration of spring. There was one last go-over with the airbrush equipment then, adding highlights and sheen to the leaves. To cap off the whole thing, The Republican was then showered with copper-gold glitter.

I know this all sounds terribly feminine, but the artwork didn’t present itself that way at all. In the end he was just…well, I guess manly is a weird word to use when talking about a make-up treatment, but the vines and leaves had a way of making him look stronger. The artist knew his work, and without seeming too the lines of greenery highlighted the lean muscle and sinew beneath The Republican’s skin. Only pictures would do the art, and the man, justice. As we walked around for the rest of the day, people took his picture. The airbrush artist did a lot of good work that day; the festival was full of girls in different colored flames, complicated Celtic designs, waves of color and patterns that didn’t rub off as easily as you’d expect. Soap got rid of everything fairly quickly though.

Of course, I sneezed glitter for the next three days. Good God, that stuff is pernicious. Still, I wouldn’t have traded seeing him look like that under the warm April sun for anything in the world.

I had a few people over to my house for breakfast the next day. We had all stayed up too late and partied too hard the day before. I had the unfortunate experience of sleeping on what had to be the hardest floor in the world after deciding not to go home the previous evening. Sunday was spent sore and sleeping, Monday much the same way only with the dull horror of a stressful workday mixed in. I’m not 19 anymore. I still love the big parties, the loud crowd, and it’s hard for me to leave when I know I ought too. But I’ve got to quit that kind of thing. It’s taking me longer and longer to recover, physically, from too much fun.

It’s not that I was drinking or smoking last weekend. In fact, I made myself the designated driver this time around. It’s just that I get tired more easily, and my body is less forgiving when I eat crap all day and sleep under a blanket on some random floor. These things used not to bother me, but here it’s Wednesday, I think *maybe* by tomorrow I might feel right again. And good god, my room at home is a mess because I didn’t have time this weekend to clean. I’m getting old, I’m getting boring, and I know it. Half the joy of seeing The Republican in glitter was having him on my arm, and knowing that at nearly 30 he could still draw looks of envy from other people in the crowd.

So this weekend I’ll be with family, and next weekend Ford will visit, and both of these weekends will be full of a quieter kind of joy. After that I’m going to another big festival/party, camping on May Day weekend. And I will take better care of myself next time. Although it’s hard not to get caught up in the moment when there’s glitter, and music, and the world is so full of the wonderful press of life and living.

2004-04-06T14:32:00.000-04:00

Artists and the price of things

Following the burst of creative energy I had last week, I decided that making hemp necklaces again would be fun and entertaining. I missed my old living room set-up in Murfreesboro, where I had two big drawers full of arts and crafts next to the TV to busy myself with when I was indoors. I wanted that again; drawers full of odd things to create little gifts for my friends with. I got a ball of hemp twine from the grocer’s, but was at a loss to find beads. Surely, I thought, in my neighborhood full of head shops and alternative establishments, I could find craft supplies.

I stopped first at 42 degrees, an art glass shop near the grocer’s. The front of this store is full of vases and ornaments and sculptures of hand-blown glass, beautiful things to see. The middle of the store contains supplies for glass artisans. The back of the store, in front of which a sign prohibiting anyone under 18, is full of head gear. The shop owner was happy I came in looking for beads, and showed me around the jewelry counter in the middle of the store. There in cases were hand-made bracelets, earrings, and pendants, many by local artists. On one end of the counter was a rack much like an abacus full of glass beads. The rods of each rack came off and I was shown the most beautiful beads on a piece of black velvet. Each one had its own pattern, and the smallest were about half an inch in diameter. The rods on the abacus set-up were numbered, and they belonged to local artists. The least expensive beads were $6.50, $12 a pair. I felt compelled to support this type of artwork and despite knowing better bought a few, which were each wrapped and put in a small box. But I couldn’t make whole necklaces out of these without going bankrupt, so I still needed beads.

Another store that I thought would sell beads didn’t but sent me on to a storefront down Euclid I’d never been into before. I thought the place next to where I go for used paperbacks was another head shop (my neighborhood now has 4 in 2 blocks), but instead the grimy storefront turned out to be full of cheap imported accessories, including one wall of nothing but beads for craft work. The store owner there told me she went to Indonesia herself to buy the beads, and would be returning there for more supplies soon. Strung on cords of grass or string about half a meter long and looped like necklaces were rough beads of glass, wood, bone, all different shades and colors. The ropes of beads were priced as a whole, but if you don’t want the whole rope the store owner would half it for you. The cheapest strands were around $6, the most expensive $32. Because I wanted variety, I got three half-strands of very plain glass beads and one half-strand of glass beads that had stripes in them. Patterns cost more than plain, and a lot of the pricing seemed rather arbitrary to me, probably based on popularity of pattern rather than quality of work.

While I was checking out, some copper bracelets and necklaces by the register caught my eye. I recognized the bracelets because I’d seen them being made just a few weekends before. A homeless man with a pair of pliers and a pile of copper wiring he’d ripped out of some old house had sat on the corner outside of Little 5 and had made the jewelry out of nothing, it seemed. Watching the homeless man with the thick copper wire had been a crowd of 20-somethings like me, transfixed. It was like watching someone make balloon animals. None of us knew copper wiring could do the things that man did with it, and so quickly! Someone had actually said “He should do parties!”

Some of these pieces were far more elaborate than the ones he made that night, but his work was unmistakable. I had to ask the shop owner. “Did you buy these from that homeless guy in the park?”

“Who, Copper John?”

“I don’t know his name. I saw him making bracelets a few weekends ago..”

“Yeah, that’s him. He’s in jail again right now. He’s a thief, watch out.”

“Is he just a crack addict, or what?”

“Yup.”

“Well, that’s too bad.”

“He doesn’t think so. I buy whatever he makes but doesn’t sell in a night, and he gets his mail here.”

I took a close look at Copper John’s work, displayed on black velvet jewelry cushions in this grubby import shop. Loops and swirls and other things tightly bound together to form patterns any designer would envy – Copper John had made pieces that, if I hadn’t known they were the work of a crack addict on a street corner out of stolen wiring – might have commanded high prices in a store like 42 degrees. Copper John’s pieces ran from $12 to $24 retail. I think on the street corner he was asking 10 to 20. I suspect the shop owner pays much less, but then she probably buys many pieces at a time, besides keeping Copper John’s mail for him.

Despite the fact that I admire his work, I passed on the copper pieces. I thought about it though, as I walked home with a bag full of beads that had cost me just as much as the smaller box I’d gotten at the start of the day. As I put all the beads on the coffee table that afternoon to take a look before planning my craft work, I had to take a minute to think about their production. The beads from Indonesia were rough glass. As I pulled them off their stands, some were fused together and some had rough edges. Although color from batch to batch was uniform, the beads were cut at all different sizes, and to my dismay one lot had an inner diameter that varied widely. By contrast the beads from local artists sat smooth, beautiful, little works of art polished and sickenly expensive compared to their imported counterparts. I imagined my imported beads being made on some foreign beach as quickly as possible by women and children who had lots of burns from the process. I thought about my American beads being individually fussed over by some guy in a house near mine. I thought about Copper John on the street corner, and someone in an old rental unit wondering why their air conditioning didn’t work after a long winter, only to discover the wiring had been removed.

What is the fair price for handcrafts? These are shiny things that catch our eyes, but serve very little purpose. I never sell mine, but give them away. How is it so much less expensive for one store owner to fly halfway around the world for beads, and accessories when such a superior product is made locally? Sometimes I think that the more I know about art, the less I understand.

2004-03-28T17:55:00.000-05:00

Progenative Force

It seems I can't help but create things these days. On weekends I tend plants growing out of hand. I bake outrageously complex meals for myself and my roomies, experimental recipes for brownies, breads, chicken, and cakes, all from scratch using a variety of new kitchen tools I got for Christmas or borrow from the roomie's odd collection. I write long twisted letters revealing too much to friends, decorated with images from Comics Preview magazine and using other photocopied works of art, newspaper clippings, and hand-drawn doodles. A few weekends ago I spontaneously decided to make a stuffed animal, a little white cat out of fleece for Titania to help her feel less lonely while I'm at work. I desperately want some hemp thread so I can start making necklaces again for myself and friends. Knitting has become wildly popular among my peer group, and I've considered taking it up; after all I already have the needles, as they're a common tool used in book repair. I've been repairing a lot of my books, too.

Help help, I'm bleeding arts & crafts.

The worst of all this preoccupation with handiwork is that I know I'm doing it to avoid writing. While I have managed to turn out two short articles for a political 'zine in Chicago this month, it seemed that my out-of-control creative force only applied to writing once I found out that this 'zine was hopelessly stalled, and that Kati feared for it ever seeing press. Freed up by the thought of being part of another stymied project, I typed away with glee, composing a satirical conversation between Karl Rove and Nixon, and completing a brief biographical rundown of another Republican administrator. Reading about the 9-11 hearings this past week made my efforts feel doubly redundant; now not only did I write these pieces for a zine which may never get published, everyone knows these guys are bastards.

While every plant and meal I touch exceeds expectations, every literary project I involve myself into seems destined to go bitter and fail. The project I am closest to completing sits on my hard drive, mocking me. In order to finish it I'd need a week off of work, a co-conspirator, and at least a grand. I have the leave from work, it's true, but the idea of me pulling together a grand and not using it on my sisters or ever-growing debt is just laughable. The other literary projects I have, while much easier to complete, just languish like forgotten ferns. If I watered the comic book projects with Alestar or myself, I know they'd live again. But they stare at me from my subconscious mockingly. The projects know I've given up on being a writer.

It would be easier to learn how to knit. I could knit while I watched TV. Or I could buy some hemp and glass beads and once again turn out presents for friends that I'd see around their necks for years. Step aside, guys, I've got cookies to bake. Even writing for work seems a chore, the words that should flow easily from me are constricted, too tight, unacceptable for one reason or another, not what the company magazine really needs. The resulting pieces, which, it's true, reach thousands of readers, feel alien to me; informational quasi-advertisements for services available to libraries and archives from the government funding. And to think, I once thrilled feminist horror fans with that short story about puppet miscarriages.

I want to finish the ghost story I started a year and a half ago. I have a clear picture in my head of how the resulting short graphic novel would look, and I think I'm going to approach my filmmaker roomie about working on it with me. He's a photographer, and I think that between the two of us we could really do some innovative image work, twisting digital images to tell the story. But I am afraid of starting another project, with the last one languishing in my picture drive, giggling at my attempts to create again. I am often worn out by my professional work, and I feel deeply conflicted about what the last, unfinished project says about me as an artist and a person. It's like the last project accomplished what I'd really been looking for in my art and writing from nearly 30 years. The last project held a mirror up to me and showed me parts of myself I can't always see, and truthfully it wasn't a flattering reflection as a whole.

Through my own art, I was able to understand more about myself than other people do. And what I discovered has nearly halted my ability to express myself on a higher artistic level. Everything in my life was affected by that last big project - friendship collapsed and were built up around it. My romantic life revolutionized itself. My opinions about family members changed. Everything moved and tilted because at last, I was really making art. And now I find it hard to want to do that again.

Does anyone want a nice scarf?

2004-03-23T22:56:00.000-05:00

More than I need

Of the nearly four dozen sunflowers I planted two weeks ago, every goddamn one came up and turned into a seedling. This means I have nearly 48 sunflower plants, each well over four inches tall, all of whom would like the chance to grow between six and ten feet tall. It seems to be the same with every plant I touch lately. I have marigolds and catnip coming out my ears, and then the neighbor gave me a bunch of ferns. The only plant untouched by my radioactive green thumb are my dill seeds. Only three plants resulted from that pack.

So if you want a giant sunflower, let me know. Currently I'm trying to kill the buggers by transplanting them to spots in the yard where they are wildly unlikely to grow. And yet the buggers keep thriving. They're more than I need, but I suppose the birds and squirrels will come to love me in a few months.

Spring is in high gear here. There are flowers everywhere in the park and my neighborhood, the cat is shedding like a goddamn deamon, and The Republican and took some time to cast eyes at each other last week. We had dinner at the local pub, walked through the warm night and ate ice cream, and I revealed my mad pinball skills to him. I tried to get him to play but he said he'd rather just watch me. Later we sat on my back porch and argued weather the one celestial light to be seen above us was a satellite, star, or planet. Then we kissed a rather lot.

I also got the run-arounds and hung out with Underdown and Dust a bit. Underdown and I had so much to say that even as we left each other she was walking backward talking as she got into her car. We don't see each other enough. I'm happy that we have both a camping trip and a working visit planned in May. Dust and I were out of phase with one another, talking about the same thing on different planes. Which is OK sometimes - sometimes you just need to see your friends, and weather or not you do anything consequential isn't important. Sometimes you just have to be near them for a bit, to get your head back around who you are in relation to them again.

As Spring comes on I find I am resentful as ever at having to dress up for work. I visited Underdown at her workplace, and there she was in this fabulous archive, hoodie and jeans, fraying braid, absolutely comfortable. At the office where I work now they're very concerned with image, and so even though we are librarians and archivists we must adhere to an arcane dress code which isn't written down but relies solely on the opinion of each department's supervisor. My supervisor wants me ironed, has deep-sixed combat boots, and will comment on anything from hemlines on pants to dress socks. I am very pliable on all her suggestions, as I'd like to keep my job, but I draw the line at dress socks. All my socks are white, so they match each other. I used to actually pair up all my socks in the drawer after I washed them until someone pointed out to me that matching up white socks was a pointless endeavor. Since then I have quite happily chucked them all in a drawer and pulled out socks as needed, always confident that they match. Not that it mattered since I wore combat boots all the time, but knowing the socks matched was something. Until I met Kati, who, as far as I know, has never worn matched socks in her life and continues to be a successful professional woman.

Dressing up just seems so unnecessary to me. No one becomes a librarian or archivist for the pay, or for the stunning fashion. In fact, a major draw to the field was people's lack of concern for appearance. The best librarian at the top of his field that I have ever known wore a blue denim workshirt nearly every day. When we had tours come through, he'd bother to wear a tie. Sometimes. This was quite inspiring to me, and I always hoped I'd one day have his ease in the profession, his confidence in what he does. But alas, all good things come to an end, and I now get fashion lectures despite the fact that most women in our field have never ironed a skirt in their life.

The horn-rimmed glasses, the comfortable shoes, the slightly stained blouse - yes, I'd love to be a typical archivist sometimes. Dress clothes are just more than I need in my life. I have too much of everything suddenly right now, and I'm still learning how to handle it. I do love my job. I do love my boyfriend. I do love my plants. I do want a few more things. But I worry it's all more than I need. I've been getting by on so little for so long now the tide of work and love and abundance is a lot to handle.

2004-03-15T21:06:00.000-05:00

Cigarettes: A Love Story

or, how much I love that which I cannot have.

So beautiful and slim and full of desire is a cigarette. I never had one until at age 18 I fell for a boy in an MTSU dorm named Alan who smoked Sampoerna cloves. Every time I kissed him he tasted wonderful, sweet and smoky and spicy. It was around this same time that I began to drink. I think it was Alan who gave me my first clove, but it might as well have been Tracey Grandmaison, or any of those other people whom I've lost touch with over the years. In any event, we all smoked cloves, because it was the early 90's, and we were all very alternative, and when you ran with an alternative crowd in the 90's smoking cloves was still a Very Hip Thing To Do. By the late 90's smoking cloves was a little embarrassing, because a lot of uncool teens had picked it up. By then you were hip if you knew about bendes, these flavored things you smoked that were from India. I think they're still around. I never tried them. When I do still smoke, I sneak furtive cloves, a little embarrassed because they're so out of style. But I can't help it. I love clove cigarettes.

I was hooked on regular cigarettes very briefly in the summer I had my first apartment. Tracey knew these people who were looking for a roomie, and even though I knew none of them I signed on the lease. My roomies all smoked like chimneys. Jeremy and Rodney were amateur drag queens, and I think Rodney in particular lived off of diet coke and Winston Light 100's. I did have, officially, one other roomie, an anorexic/bulimic borderline transgender lesbian named Hope. She signed the lease and slept in the apartment maybe twice, although I did come home one afternoon in June to find her binging on all my groceries. I was the token straight. Both Jeremy and I were still in our teens, and became good friends for a short time before I moved back into the dorms and Jeremy left college altogether. I heard he was in Nashville some years ago, but never managed to find him again.

Which is all too bad, because we did a killer lip-sync version of "Sunset Boulevard", with Jeremy as Norma and me as Joe. But that's another story.

Anyhow, that summer I learned to love cigarettes. I bummed them all the time, paying back the roomies with food. And then came the fateful day when I went with one of the guys to the Discount Tobacco Outlet to buy cartons, and I thought, "Hey, I might as well start picking up my own." But I didn't. Probably because right then I happened to look up and see a woman 9 months pregnant buying her family's stock of cartons to take home. Here this heavily pregnant redneck woman was, just loaded down with four or five different jumbo cartons of discount cigarettes. Her toddler son was playing with packs in a dump bin near the register, running his little hands through the multi-colored off brands. In proud Southern tradition, he was shirtless, shoeless, and a little grubby.

I put my thought of smoking regularly away. And I've managed to resist since then. Mostly. Except -

God, I love a cigarette. When I'm stressed and wound up, it's just soothing. I tend to keep a secret pack of cloves in the fridge or freezer and pull one out from time to time. I smoke them so infrequently that to keep the pack anywhere but the fridge would just mean most of them would go stale, unsmokable after the third or fourth cancer-causing stick. I'll smoke when I'm drinking sometimes too, and in grad school it wasn't unusual to see me standing with the smokers on a fine night when I was skinned again, waiting on a check, trying to figure out how to juggle 3 jobs and the education I loved so much. Some times there was nothing finer in Boston than sitting on my fire escape and blowing smoke into the wind while I wrote. Other times - the last semester times especially - I would deny myself the pleasure in order to try to keep from becoming addicted again. I'd pace my little hallway between the bathroom and the common room, sweating, *wanting* a cigarette so badly my mouth tasted like ashes anyway, but refusing to go buy a pack. Smoking stains your teeth, smoking hurts your throat, smoking is bad for your skin, but oh, just one taste. Please. But no.

When I moved back south the temptation was especially strong in the first few months. Some of my relatives smoke, and in a show of solidarity I'd join in. I was stressed and unemployed and living with my cousins. So I smoked once or twice a week, so what? It's expensive, that's what. And eventually my drive to live on my own was greater than my need to buy cigarettes. I avoided the habit again.

Now I work at a job where smoking would actually be a positive career move of sorts. My division boss is a smoker, and when she breaks she smokes with another division boss. Recently my supervisor seems to have relapsed into smoking as well, the result of family stress or as a shrewd career move I'll never ask her. But there's definitely a smoker's club where I work, and yeah, friends up north, it's all women. Sometimes my work is so stressful I want to smoke too. But I still don't. If I can make it through grad school and family crisis without becoming a habitual smoker, I can make it through anything.

But do love a cigarette. A black-wrappered clove. I love to roll the smoke around my mouth and feel the rush after a few puffs. The settling effect it has on me. I love the way cloves taste, like my first college boyfriend, like I'm still 18 and skinny and a little invincible. And I want one right now. I'll always want a cigarette just a little bit. A delicious, nerve claming cigarette. I haven't had one in months and months and oh, how I'll always love them, and hide them, and covet them from others.

But really, they're not meant for me.

2004-03-13T10:54:00.000-05:00

Watching the sunflowers grow

Last Sunday morning I put some seeds into potting soil. Dill, catnip, marigolds (the properly tall ones), and more sunflowers than I could possible need. I planted the seeds in random makeshift starters - the cut-off bottom of a two-liter, old bowls I never liked anyway, heavy-duty cardboard boxes I can cut up once the seedlings take off. The seeds have been getting days of sunlight and nights indoors to keep them safe. By Thursday night the first sunflower had popped up, their heads still heavy with the casings of their former shells. Yesterday the marigolds came up. Today I'm hoping for evidence of dill, at least. The herbs will take longer, because the plants are so small, I suppose. By Easter, they should all be big enough to put in the ground.

I love watching sunflowers grow. They're so dramatic, they grow so fast, almost like slow animals, rearranging the dirt around them as they go. It's tempting to help the seedlings break through, but I know better; this pushing, this beginning hard part they need to do for themselves so they can build strong stalks. The sunflowers will all be around six feet tall, and I hope their heavy heads attract the songbirds. But we'll see.

Right after I got the seeds in the ground, The Republican called me and we had this huge "relationship" talk. It's sort of on hold until he visits next weekend, but of course I'm full of anxiety. You can't help these little things, right at the beginning. Pull the shells off the top of those seedlings and the plant won't grow. The light will be too harsh for the leaves not yet ready for sun, it'll shrivel up and die. Or in trying to get the seed shells off, you could accidentally pull the whole sprout out of the ground, and without roots to hold things together, the seedling is nothing.

I worry I've planted things too early. I worry that we're pushing around the wrong sort of dirt. But I only worry a little because - and this is a horrible thing to write but I'll write it anyway - I've done all this before. Many times. And I know what it's like to love somebody, or some town, or some thing, and to not get to be with that thing or place or person for the rest of your life. I know that people can be the best thing that ever happened to you, and still not be the person or place you end up with.

I loved Boston. I couldn't afford to stay. I've loved a few men who were good men but had lives to lead that didn't include me. On occasion, I've been the one to break it off. I've got places to go and things to do. Usually, when someone wants to talk about the future, it's the beginning of the end. The only thing you can really do in life is make your own plans and be confident that your decisions are, by and large, the right ones.

And that's life. I loved my cat, Mr. Puck; he isn't around anymore. I loved him as much as anybody could while we were together. But fate's a bitch, you know? The great loves of my life - and there have been a few - goddamn, did I love them. I've seen the reflection of grandchildren in a few sets of brown eyes. But my life and the lives of those owning the brown eyes had radically different versions of our own futures.

So when the Republican comes to me and says "I want to talk about the future", I cringe a little. Then I go out on the back porch, sit with Titania in my lap, and smoke while I watch my seedlings grow. Damn little plants. As soon as they establish themselves, things will just get harder. I'll transplant them. A lot of the sunflowers will need to be tied to stakes for support. There will be weeds and insects and hard rains. It takes so much work, just to get something to grow.

2004-03-06T09:49:00.000-05:00

That special feeling

There's a physical feeling I get that's attached to happiness. It's a tingling around the back of my neck, a certain lightness of being I feel when walking in the sunshine. I've had this feeling nearly all week , and I've realized what triggers the tingling, the physical sensation of happiness for me: it's the muscles in my back and shoulders relaxing. When I'm really happy, the muscles in my neck release their strained crunch.

I am happy. Here's a few reasons why:

I have a job that can be horribly stressful, but I have been reassured that the job is mine and some of my heavier gripes were repeated to me when I bumped into a co-worker on the train one morning this week. And I realized that my gripes weren't just mine alone, but part of everyone's there - and oh, this person had been working there for over four years! So if this person had the same gripes and was getting the same sort of stresses - well, I must be OK. So I feel a lot more secure in my job after the past week. A few people have made the effort lately to let me know things will be fine there, too. I needed that reassurance to get comfortable.

I have a guy who loves me. That can be sort of intimidating at times. I have finally realized that he loves me after months of him telling me so. He talks about me to other people. He tells other people that he loves me. I suppose I must always have external proof, eh?

I live in the most beautiful neighborhood in the best city. About a block from me is a big old house with deep beds of daffodils in bloom. On either side of their walk they have daffodils in beds about six feet deep and five feet wide. It's like a little field in bloom. Every day I walk through three blocks of park to get to and from the train. And yesterday afternoon I sat down in the park, which hasn't been mown in a bit, and I was surrounded by dandelions and violets and lots of the other little weedy flowers that I love. The sun was shining and there were children in the park and I know how lucky I am.

My roomies and I are all sympatico. This house functions as a unit. That's a wonderful thing.

I look forward to walks every day through my neighborhood of bungalows to Little 5, where I might eat a sandwich and read in the sunshine. I do miss you though; come visit.

2004-03-04T21:30:00.000-05:00

lull
Andrew Bird

being alone it can be quite romantic
like jacques cousteau underneath the atlantic
a fantastic voyage to parts unknown
going to depths where the sun's never shone
and i fascinate myself when i'm alone

so i go a little overboard but hang on to the hull
while i'm airbrushing fantasy art on a life
that's really kind of dull
oh, i'm in a lull

i'm all for moderation but sometimes it seems
moderation itself can be a kind of extreme
so i joined the congregation
i joined the softball team
i went in for my confirmation
where incense looks like steam
i start conjugating proverbs
where once there were nouns
this whole damn rhyme scheme's starting to get me down

oh, i'm in a lull
i'm in a lull

being alone it can be quite romantic
like jacques cousteau underneath the atlantic
a fantastic voyage to parts unknown
going to depths where the sun's never shone
and i fascinate myself when i'm alone

i'm rambling on rather self consciously
while i'm stirring these condiments into my tea
and i think i'm so lame
i bet i think this song's about me
don't i don't i don't i ?

i'm in a lull

2004-03-02T09:19:00.000-05:00

It's Spring

Spring is here!

YaAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!!

Good lord, winter is long and depressing. But luckily I live in a region where Spring starts roughly around March 1st. The crocuses are up, there are pink roses in bloom, and little wildflowers in my new backyard. It's too warm to walk around in a jacket, even if the March wind makes you want one. Thank goodness, the cold is over. My eyes are a little sticky and I've got my annual Spring head crud, but who cares! IT'S SPRING!! Everyone I know should be glad I at least have the inhibition of clothes about me. Because some times the compulsion to walk around naked really does make itself present, and I have to hold myself back.

Atlanta is hashing out the gay marriage issue in their statehouse lately. After defeating a "defense of marriage" bill Friday, the Christian coalition had a rally downtown yesterday to protest...something. I'm not really sure what they were protesting, but that's OK, because they weren't sure either. They were plenty angry, that's for sure. I stayed away because I heard Ralph Reed might be there, and if there's anything I'm nearly phobic about, it's Ralph Reed. Seriously, the hairs on my arm stand up just typing his name. I honestly believe he's representative of everything evil in the world. The man is creepy. He's like the Witch-King of the conservative movement. It pains me that he lives here in the state that I love, casting his shadow over the city of my heart.

This is going to be a hard year for me, politically. While I respect John Kerry, I have no love for him. I wish I thought John Edwards could win, because I like him so much. My dream ticket is Edwards/Mosley-Braun. Which has a snowball's chance in hell right now.

I'm on a creative tear right now, because of the weather or hormones or stimulation of creative friends. I'm on a writing jag, one so productive that I stayed late at work yesterday without meaning too.

Life is good. Let's party.

2004-02-27T22:30:00.000-05:00

The new philosophy

in three main parts

1) For me, the whole world boils down to this:

What will you do, and refuse to do, to please the people you love?

Anyway. So.

2)My biology will eventually undo all my ambition.

My job is so stressful that at the end of every week I can't believe I made it through again, and every Monday I sort of have this heaving feeling of: "Well, here I go. I can do this. I can make a difference. I just have to make it through another week."

And, miracles of miracles, four days later it's Friday, and I'm free.

My feminist philosophy is constantly undermined by the never-ending references to women who have left my field to be full time moms, and the sick, nauseous feeling I get whenever I realise that the second I get pregnant, I too am doomed to leave my rewarding, demanding, stressful job for a much more rewarding life...where someone will throw up on me daily and I'll lack financial independance. I want this more than anything else in the world, like some sick invention of William Moulton-Marston, a woman wanting to be free by asking for more imprisonment.

3)I am done with snow. Forever.

We got our once a year snow here in Atlanta this week. You could see the grass sticking up through it but that didn't stop the little kids who live all around me from trying to sled. Out in the park they ran their little plastic discs up and down the hillside. But the friction and wieght of their sleds melted the thin crust of pricipitation, meaning that after their fun the hillside was nothing but a mess of muddy streaks by early afternoon.

I resented even this thin crust of snow despite the joy that it brought so many others, which led me to realise: I really am never going to move. So no big appointement to NARA for me, no on to the Smithsonian or back to Harvard or even away to UCLA. I really love Atlanta, and the South. My own native cell structure has undermined me.

And the sick thing is, I don't even mind.

2004-02-19T14:33:00.000-05:00

The truth is, I'm just impatient and a little greedy.

In the past six weeks I’ve had visits from Jeff, The Republican, Devon, Kati and Michael. And every single time one of my friends was in Atlanta to hang out, it was bitterly cold. I’m not lying about the nice weather; it’s 65 degrees today and we’ll get even warmer tomorrow. I feel so bad that it was cold when all of these people visited. Kati and Michael especially suffered; after long dark months in Chicago, they came to town just last weekend…right in the middle of the coldest temperatures Atlanta’s likely to have all year.

I didn’t get to hang with Kati and Michael as much as I would have liked, but then they were busy on a working retreat. They were also a good hour away from me, out near Stone Mountain. But I did get one fun Monday night in the Waffle House with Kati and Michael. Michael, as usual, did not eat. He sipped hot chocolate while Kati had pie and I ate dinner. I was exhausted beyond all belief after a week in South Carolina and a not-up-for-discussion trip to Nashville.

Kati and Michael look great. They were rested and Michael had changed, you could see it in his eyes and posture. He has some facial hair now, which fosters the type of look you expect from new professors trying to look older than their students. It works on him. Kati looked well but starved for the familiar. I wanted to put her in my rental car and drive her away from her current job for a bit. She was squirrelly like I am when I need to go on a long walk away from everything for awhile.

We couldn’t talk as long as I’d like, but we talked as long as I could without falling asleep in the Stone Mountain Waffle House. And that had to be enough. I am still pissed that my Christmas presents to them have been lost in the mail, because I put a lot of thought into their boxes and now those boxes are just gone, disappeared into the US mail system’s crazy maze of lost things. That or a postal carrier somewhere is having a little party with chocolates, Garam Marsala, pesto sauce, star anise and herbal teas.

We gossiped about as much as we could. Kati asked about Devon, Michael asked after The Republican. I need to go to Chicago. I also need to go to Boston, but Aral has a problem with e-mailing me back, so I suppose Chicago might be up first. Unless Aral needs help moving, in which case I’m off to Boston. I don’t know. I should buy lots of plane tickets: one for Skeet to get here from Nashville for his birthday, one for me to visit Chicago, one for my sister to Savannah, one for me to visit my aunt in Texas, one for my Grandmother to come visit, and then…I could give all the frequent flyer miles to The Republican. Because I am now an addict when it comes to The Republican’s attentions.

Love is another addiction, just like the copper-gold box of dark chocolates he gave me for Valentine’s day, or the monster shows we watched Sunday, curled in his living room under warm blankets. For Lent, I’m giving up on half my phone calls to him. Calling The Republican is like drinking; I want to do it, and it might make me a little giddy, but afterwards there’s a hollow knawing on my insides. I shouldn’t have. This is too much. I can’t handle the way this makes me feel. I don’t know how to deal. I hate dating more than anything in the entire world, and the only thing worse than dating is not dating at all. The masculine objects of my true affections always tear me up in a million little ways. This is at least the fourth time I’ve been through this; you’d think I’d learn by now. But I never do. I can’t help myself. They just…smell good. And now I’m off on a tangent.

The truth is, I need Spring. I need it more than anything in the whole world. So I called up Dust, who is the vernal equinox boy, and demanded he get on with it all ready. He sighed at me the way he does when I’m being unreasonable.

“Look, I’m working on it, OK? I figure if I concentrate real hard for the next four weeks, then it’ll be ready.”

That’s not soon enough. I want Spring and I want it NOW.

“Well, you’ll just have to wait.”

He was positively intractable on the point. The next four weeks will pass like syrup for me, as I wait and wait for the ice to break, for the sun to shine on me full time, for the bulbs to show me what they’ve been working on all year. This is torture.

2004-02-10T17:15:00.000-05:00

Southern Gothic

“I have issues about reservations.” – Dustin Collins, 2/10/2004

I’m writing this blog update from a Holiday Inn room in Columbia, South Carolina. Traveling in South Carolina is a little like going on a time travel trip to 5 or 10 years ago. It’s comfortable and familiar and you keep being reminded of the not so distant past.

I like South Carolina, even in February when the landscape is all greys and browns and the beige of dead grass with touches of purple and dark red laying in wait for the spring. This is my third trip down into the river valley where I was born since I moved back to the South a year and a half ago. I love looking at the land along the Savannah River, because it triggers so many familiar and pleasant memories. The Savannah River valley makes me listen to 70’s rock music and drink loads of tea. These are good things.

Of course, there are bad things here too; the dome of the South Carolina State house, just blocks from here, is thick with rust and pollution. The conservation lab of a place I visited today lies empty and idle after all its workers were laid off in the past few years. The class I’m here to teach is less than half full, because public librarians in South Carolina are some of the lowest paid in the nation.

There was a man outside the post office today, and he wore a paper crown covered in gold foil, a flowing robe, and stood next to an ancient hospital wheelchair that proudly flew the flag of the American Revolution. Around his neck he had a colorful hand lettered sign that I found difficult to read, but the gist of which was that since slaves built this nation it rightfully belonged to their descendants. Weather the man was a performance artist or just plain crazy was difficult for me to discern.

Devon visited me in Atlanta last weekend, and I took her around Little 5. While we were at the comic book store, my friendly comic book guy asked us to list the elements of Southern Gothic for him. He said he was writing a post-apocalyptic scenario, but wanted to incorporate the Southern Gothic form. Devon and I came up with this list and more:

Unstated incest (preferably brother/sister)
Miscarriage
Dark and stormy nights
Class disparity
Graveyard scenes
The war/the lost cause

Comic book guy, who is far from anglo-saxon, wrinkled his nose. “The War? Why? Ick.”

“I’m sorry, but you can’t have a Southern Gothic theme without the war. Them’s the rules.”

Devon nodded. Later that day she tries on an $80 pirate shirt that looked fabulous, along with several black stretchy things. For fun, she laces me into a boustiere. She explains properly clunky boots to me. Devon is modern Southern Gothic.

We talked in a café about our common lost cause, about our lack of motivation. We are fighting the new war against ourselves, not with guns or slaves but with happiness and hormone control and men who love us and how much that costs. It costs a lot, success-wise. I fear we are the new lost cause. We have been defeated by crosswise purposes, our craving for artistic success subsumed by our need to be loved – and our ability to let people love us. Maybe I was better miserable, I say.

We can overcome this, she says, but doesn’t buy any of the black club gear that fits her so well. She has a family now. She has better things to do with $80.

2004-01-29T11:03:00.000-05:00

Because people are basicly nice

Having to move this week has underlined to me how fundamentally nice people in Atlanta are.

Again and again I met people much like myself, who were inclined to help others in the same situation. People coming to look at my apartment mostly had the same story to tell; they were either fleeing bad roomie situations, or were just looking for a roommate who fit them specifically. When I gave up and started looking for a new place to live, I met people just like me who had been looking for roomies for two or three months. Everyone was terribly pleasant.

I met lots of girls out on their own in the city, with stories that paralleled mine. Amy had moved here after dropping out of a PhD program, and found that her friend from the internet was not the friend she thought. Leslie, a paralegal, found that her roomie’s partying way interfered with her need to sleep after a demanding job. Ellen, who worked two part time jobs while finishing her Graphic Design thesis, had her roomie move in with his girlfriend – and out on her.

Both Amy and Leslie decided to get apartments on their own. In this renter’s market, they could afford to. I considered moving in with Ellen, but her condo was farther away from the train than I liked. I’ve settled on moving in with Dave and Parker, who have a house just two blocks from mine in a much better spot. They were so in need of a roomie after looking for over 2 months that the landlord waived my deposit.

As I was walking to the train from work Monday, a young woman approached me. Although neither of us mentioned it, it was clear she had just been crying. She was blonde and 21ish, wearing too much makeup, and lost. She looked like she was OTP – not from inside the city.

“Do you know the way to the train station?”

“It’s right down here, follow me – I’m going there myself.”

She struck up a conversation and her story spilled out to me – just moved here, can’t find a job, her roomies are awful and smoke pot all the time. I told her about craigslist, and how she could find a much cheaper apartment right away if she needed. She had moved here to try and go to school, but had picked a place far too quickly in Midtown, the most expensive section of Atlanta.

I barely resisted the urge to hug her as she got off the train.

We’re all in this together, you know? None of us are so much different than the others. And as I showed my apartment to a mom with two kids and one on the way last night, I realized I could never be alone – I am no different than the sea of other people who have moved here just to try and make it.