the modernity ward

Orientation

Day 2 of orientation -- not even classes! -- and all I can do is SHRIEK INSIDE MY HEAD because seriously? Seriously? Sitting in a room for basically seven hours and trying to learn stuff EVEN if it is stuff about how nice the rec center is and how I get free pap smears (I know, right? I'm gonna get one every week just on principle!) and how it is not okay to flash patients your thong-th-thong-thong-thong EVEN if it is just by accident and all that? 

It is making my brain into one of those too-hard poops, you know, a really tightly packed stool that pushes the boundaries of what poop particles are capable of and really makes you THINK (and you DO have time to think, since it takes like an hour and a half to pass the thing, I swear, nulliparas push out nine-pounders in less time than it's gonna take this thing to leave your asshole) where was I oh yeah REALLY MAKES YOU THINK about the origin of the phrase "shit a brick."

It's pressed too hard for its own good and stuff that should be separate is all immobilized and it doesn't corner too well, this turd that was my brain.

I'm sure everything is going to be fine though.

EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE FINE.

See?

One unforeseen benefit of being out of the house from 7 to 5 is that I am no longer touched out at the end of the day. And I actually like rolling around on the floor with the kids, and tickling them and getting kicked in the gums by them and having them jab me in the solar plexus with their sharp sharp chins. No, really! I like it!

Maybe that is also the antidepressants, at their fullest flower.

Either way, who could complain about that?

Well. Nice talking with you. I have to go find things in the freezer and put them in the microwave and eat them now. Love you bye.

 

The Used-Up Tits Are A Metaphor

I don't want to give the impression that I am always down. Because sometimes I feel pretty great!

I mean I'm like totally bipolar or whatever! HA HA HA

(Okay but you have to admit it's kind of funny.)
(Or you could just sit there with your arms crossed staring at me like the audience at open mic.)

I'm not flying too close to the sun, I don't think. I just had a nice day. A nice day after a pretty good week (that had a few dips and freakouts but righted itself, eventually), and the house looks better and I did all the grocery shopping and we have a washing machine that works and the air conditioner done got fixed and tomorrow, tomorrow, my task for the day is to purge the children's dresser of the faded, stained, too-small, and holey, and replace that stuff with the giant tub of hand-me-downs we just got. And wash and hang up all the school uniforms, because Sophia, child who began as a most determined little sea monkey no matter how uncertain her mother was, is about to begin second grade.

Second grade! Could you just die? 

And Daphne, no less a blessing for how much we didn't have to sweat for her, will start full-time day care. On MONDAY, people. Which means the days of dressing her in a shredded pajama top and a skirt and no underpants and sending her out into the world with the Kool-Aid Mustache of the Subsequent Child (and we don't even HAVE Kool-Aid, I don't know where it comes from) are coming to a screeching halt. 

Let us not mention the fact of my own classes, beginning in oh about two weeks.

Or of the things that must take place before that happens: The purchase of the remaining books, of the smartphone, the receiving of the holy Hep B shot #2, the flu shot, oh can we get a Trileptal level and a sodium level while we're at it, and oh yes the CPR course.

I am determined to do one more open mic before school starts. Mostly because after one of those the terror I have of the social upheaval of beginning school will seem as deflated as my used-up tits. 

The used-up tits are a metaphor, of course. They represent the depletion of that certain little-baby mothering energy I had. That part is gone away and not coming back, and I will admit defiantly that I am looking forward to the paradigm shift. I want to be a school-and-daycare mom. I want to spend large chunks of the day in the company of adults, using big words!

It was awful nice while it lasted. But to everything there is a season blah blah blah. 

I'm not sure where the tits metaphor goes after this. 

 

Friday Scatter

It's been fun to watch my creativity come roaring back, and by "creativity" I mean "willingness to broadcast my thoughts to Facebook in realtime" (thank you Bridget). It's a sort of low-cost social engagement, a way to get laughs without having to look out at a roomful of people with their arms folded. I mean I imagine most of you guys sitting like that, maybe texting, looking at your watches, but it doesn't make me want to crumble into dust the way it did, oh, two weeks ago.

Oh HEY CRAP I haven't taken my pills yet this morning. Excuse me.

Well hang on I just need to check Facebook for a second.

Yeah so anyway, the faucet is back on and I don't know what to do about it. Part of me worries that any improvement over the sort of basalt-bedrock zombie depression is merely a return to the supersaturated color and pretty lights of hypomania, which while amusing and productive also completely disables my self-criticism function (again FUN for me, less so for innocent passers-by) and I am unable to determine what percentage of the crap I generate is, well, crap. 

Speaking of crap OH MY PILLS HANG ON

Okay. Now just don't let me forget to retrieve the cup of tea I have now microwaved and allowed to cool three times. 

I don't think my thinking is as disordered as it seems. I'm just watching Wow Wow Wubbzy with the girls which is basically the same thing as having a seizure at a skating rink, and the kids are throwing plastic Spidermans at each other with their feet.

On August 1 both my kids are in full-time something or other. I can hardly believe it. The downside is that then I have to go to school for like two and a half years, but now I'm pretty sure I can handle it. 

I don't imagine I'll have a ton of free time for creative pursuits but I'm hoping the momentum of nearly a decade of blogging will carry me. I guess you make a habit of it, the way you make coffee in the morning. 

Have a good weekend, guys.

 

 

 

 

On the Brink

I ran six miles today. Six-point-three, technically -- the longest run since I effed up my iliotibial band in December. (No pain beyond the expected discomfort, by the way.) 

I wish you could hear what it sounded like in my head while I ran. I am poised, right now, between a valley of horrible self-talk and a peak of self-encouragement, and until I can settle on one or the other we're just going to whip back and forth between the two. 

"This is going to be awesome! Good for you, Joey! You suck and you can't do this, see how awful you feel? You need to just give up right now. Don't give up! You can do this! You've done it before and you can do it again! See how strong you are? See how much faster you can go without feeling the effort? You went out too fast and you're going to blow it! That's it, one foot in front of the other! Just keep going! Hey, look, you're almost done -- you did it!"

And that's basically how it goes all the time in there, no matter what I'm doing. 

I look terrible! I look great, look how strong I am, look at those pecs, oh shit, look at that lumpy fat on that belly, look at those thighs that still rub together. Hey, they rub together because the muscles underneath are so huge now and the little fat you have left just happens to be right there. But who cares because they're all gross and rashy from the chafing? It's not going to get any better from here. You're not funny, you know that? You think you're funny but nobody else does, nobody's going to laugh if you go up and tell a story at open mic. But hell, nobody else is all that funny either, and I'm proud of me for trying! 

I guess this is a side effect of pushing my own boundaries like a tackle dummy, digging up the grass into divots of earth with my toes. I'm waging a valiant battle against my own stupid self and having to cheer myself on for it. It's better than the times when the mean self-talk overtakes the cheerleading entirely. At least I have someone on my side, in there. I'm doing something I've never done in all my life: actually following through on the shit I said I was going to do. Go to school, finally. Find another way to tell stories. Care for my body without the safety net of metformin, make that body as strong as it can be. Find goals beyond parenting. I shouldn't be surprised when my head gets all roiled up.

Does this happen to you? Have you gone through periods of intense internal reorganization -- or just finally calling yourself on the carpet for all the stuff you always wanted to do? What was it like?

 

Five Months of Awesome

We had this decrepit chihuahua when I was growing up (and then after -- little dogs live a long time). She went by many names but the final name, that stuck up until her demise, was Boo, and so I shall refer to her thusly.

Boo was shaky, old, and toothless, lame and halt after an injury sustained in her youth, and yet something would happen on a warm afternoon -- she'd prance around the yard, zip through the grass in antic circles like a squirrel. "Oh, Boo's having her second youth," my mother would say.

* * * * *

So! I got into nursing school! Well, one of my nursing schools. The one where I come out with a BSN and then later on I have to apply to an MSN program, but which is less likely to kill me in the process. (Still waiting on school 2. I'll keep you posted.) School starts in August.

Which means my second youth can't be spontaneous -- it can't wait for a warm spring afternoon. Hey, I'm a busy mama. I have to schedule that shit. Yep, I have five months left to cram in ALL THE AWESOME I POSSIBLY CAN.

Some of it is awesome of the racing-around-in-circles-in-the-grass variety: Sharing a case of the Fuck-Its with my kids on a beautiful afternoon, converting the dining room into the Art and Music Salon and just leaving the paper and crayons out all the time, encouraging reading at the table by, oh, everyone. 

Some of the awesome is of the ostensibly superficial variety: every haircut I've ever wanted, from mohawk to purple stubble (I've had shaved but not PURPLE shaved), remembering to play my old music loud at every opportunity and to pay attention to new music, wearing the ridiculous combinations of shorts and tights that I've loved and put away over the years (why? Why did I stop wearing shorts and tights ever?). I say superficial because yes, hair and clothes are not the same as artistic expression or life changes, but you know what, that stuff can be a touchstone for the part of your self you don't want to lose. I've let go of that self here and there over the years and it's always a relief and a joy when she returns to me. So I wear the knee-high stompin' boots to remind me to kick my OWN ass about being who I really am. I do funny things with my hair even when I'm not really feeling up to it because it sharpens my awareness of any disconnect between who I am and who I want to be.

And finally, some of the awesome is actual, real stuff I want to accomplish. I hate to mention specifics because I fear I'll doom my projects to the Idea Scrapyard but there are things I need to write and draw and DO, and at least one of them needs to come to completion before August. I have a deadline. I have an Estimated Date of Delivery, people. It's all sketchbook form now but when it's not I'll let you know. Pinky swear.

Five months of awesome. Five months left before everything about our lives changes so radically as to render September unimaginable. 

But I want to know about you, readers. I want to know how you keep ahold of your self when changes come. What are your touchstones? Your road signs? How do you know you're still you when you feel like you've been knocked off your orbit? How do you come back to your self if you get too far afield? 

Episodes

I think we talked about this before, right? How some of us get huge waves of energy and creativity, and you have to learn to ride it because count on it, sister, it is gonna recede?

It's exhausting to be all rolled up in one. But I'm getting so much done. I only have five months. After which point I am either in school or it's The Nothing. You know, that roiling cloud in the Neverending Story that eats everything. So one or the other but it's a deadline, either way. I think, what, two books and a finished house? Ducks in a row. Freezer full of enchiladas. A place for everything. Everything in its place.

I have to get a piano. Next week. A good old one with a voice of its own.

Would I be more productive if I didn't have children? Maybe not. There would be no urgency. Nothing kicking me in the back, literally and figuratively. This morning I woke up to Daphne's tiny fingers on my neck, her babyish face whispering a reassurance directly into my mouth: "Mama, I will never leave you again."

Yeah. I don't know either. But okay, sweetie. See that you don't.

 

 

Need to Know

I just want everybody to know some things. 

First, Sean referred to today's look as "sexy '90s dockworker" and I think he was DEAD ON, man.

I feel like it's important to have at least one day a week where people look at me and think lady, you are a GROWN-ASS WOMAN! What in the damn hell is the matter with you. 

Also it turns out that camouflage pants are a very handy thing to have at certain times and if only they had been the right color family I might not even have noticed the Diva Cup fail that occurred whilst I took a phone call from some admissions office dude. Who with a sentence managed to reduce me to barely suppressed SHRIEKING PANIC.

 

Second is that if I don't get into nursing school I am going to be a TOTAL DICK about it for like a whole month. That is my life plan. After that I will have to come up with something else, which will involve hourly wages in amount sufficient to cover child care for Daphne. 

Third is that the sketchbook got short shrift, last couple days, so having completed my date with DeWalt (the cordless drill! Who is responsible for our now having a toilet paper holder in our bathroom!) I am off to scribble some sweet nothings on its pages. So goodnight. But remember! TOTAL DICK! That's the plan. 

 

State of the Leery Polyp

• Rocked the GRE. 740 verbal, 710 math, writing scores pending. You know, just in time for me to not apply to grad school. Har. Believe me, I don't report this out of a desire to expose my superior test abilities, but because it shocked the heck out of me. Not the verbal so much, but the math! The math! I credit this book for taking me from a 490 to a 710.
• Our house now boasts four humans, one cat, one dog, one turtle, and four chicks. Sometimes the answer to chaos is more chaos. It's awesome. Frankly the turtle and the chicks are the easiest inhabitants of the house.
• I am righteously sick with a real bear of a virus. Sophia and Daphne have already had it; Sophia earned two very infected ears. I just feel awful and have to, you know, keep doing the do. Cook and serve food to the ingrates and be crawled upon and dispense Band-Aids and pick up all the tiny socks that have been tied into knots and strewn about the house (Why? WHY?).
• And it's spring break for Sophia so I'm sitting here feeling guilty that we're not hanging out with friends and doing all sorts of awesome things but I can't even handle the grocery store at this point.
• Ooooh and Thursday is IUD day! It should be interesting, as I shall be traveling directly from the midwives' office to my A&P lab where I may be expected to give a PowerPoint presentation about the female reproductive system. If I get any crap about being late I will describe my recent procedure in detail and boy, won't that show 'em.
• It is so strange and so freeing to make the transition from my fertility defining everything I think to being able to contemplate something happening a month or six months or a year away without at least some part of my brain rubbing its hands together and thinking, "oh, but what if you get pregnant?" Every month I was in danger of sabotaging myself around ovulation (that powerful hormone brain!) and toward the end of each cycle I got antsy and preoccupied, hoping and worrying. No more of that, now. It's like clearing out a pile of junk that's been sitting on the kitchen counter for ten years. Ten years!

 

I'm Just Sayin'

You can now get a copper IUD even if you have a history of ectopic pregnancy.

I have an appointment next week, to be rescheduled depending on precise arrival date of the monthlies.

I declared very definitively, some years back, that AS GOD IS MY WITNESS I WILL NEVER USE BIRTH CONTROL AGAIN, but HA HA, that. Absolutely no other method is acceptable to me, so Paragard is my last best hope; I am optimistic that it will not cause me to hemorrhage monthly or slice through my insides like a tiny cocktail sword because that can totally happen, I read it on the internet, and that it will prevent any inconvenient disruptions to my attempts at bettering myself.

About that: I had it all in my head that I was destined for A Certain UniVANDYersity's Accelerated MSN program -- two years of a solid wall of work at the end of which English majors are awarded Advanced Practice Nurse credentials. I had attended an open house a couple of years ago, researched, met people who had gone through the program, and then I decided to go to one more open house -- since I now was most of the way through my prereqs and had some relevant questions.

And you know, they pretty much talked me out of going. Without trying to.

The first nail in the coffin was the student panel, where five fresh-faced youngsters (well, relative to me) talked about the workload and the tens of hours of studying they put in, on top of 30-40 hours a week in the classroom/lab/hospital. You have to make time for yourself, they advised us. Give yourself permission to do something fun once in a while. Have a social life.

"Do any of you have children?" I asked. Ten eyes opened wide and five heads shook slowly, back and forth. "But I have a friend in the program with kids," one young man volunteered. "See, he just parcels out his time -- he goes to class until 2 or 3 and then spends 2 hours in the library, and then he's done for the day -- he goes home to his kids!"

I wondered, inwardly, about Father of the Year's wife and just how much she was doing to make his quality time sessions possible. Did she work full-time or part-time? Did she do all the grocery shopping, the meal planning, the house cleaning, the shuttling around of offspring? Hmm.

Other students knew people with kids who went through the program -- they scheduled tightly, depended heavily on family. Which I would love to do, except that all my family lives somewhat outside of commuting distance.

So. That was the first nail. The second was the revelation that the job market for advanced practice nurses, here in the immediate Nashville area, is pretty well saturated. It stands to reason, with multiple schools pumping out MSNs. "But people retire, people die, people have to go on leave," one instructor said encouragingly. "Jobs do open up."

Third was the suggestion from a program higher-up that we be willing to consider working as an RN -- because as a nurse practitioner, you are a nurse first. That we be willing to persevere if we don't get that dream job right away -- and something like 95% of grads did in fact get those coveted APN positions.

What I heard, in short, was that I might dig myself into 70K worth of debt, exhaust my inner and financial resources, spend almost no time with my family, and stress myself into a full-body twitch, just so I could either take a job I could have gotten with half the schooling, stress, and debt, or sit around waiting for someone to die.

That would be three nails in the coffin of NO.

The good news is that one, if one already had a BSN, could enter at the MSN level and spend 3-5 semesters doing the advanced coursework (intense but nowhere near the breakneck pace of trying to cram six semesters worth of knowledge into three), emerging with not only that bright shiny degree but a solid work history, a knowledge of the local job scene, connections galore, and presumably, one's sanity intact. Not to mention a better sense of what field one might wish to enter (the Certain UniVANDYersity's accelerated MSN requires you apply to and stay within one discipline).

Oh, and not to mention, in a certain blogger's case, the possibility of a move in the next year or two (this new plan puts me through MSN school just in time for Sean's tenure review).

I am still taking the GRE on Wednesday, because I did not do this to my brain for nothing -- and the score should still be "fresh" when I get around to using it, three years from now. A slight change in course, is all this is. I hope you all will enjoy the thought of me having to take religion classes at a Baptist institution. I know I do.

 

 

 

No More, Kids.

Last night was my first class of Back to School: The Prerequisitioning: Part II. Two nights a week, 6:30 to 8, of the kind of class where the professor spends the entire first session making sure we've all Learned A Little Something About Each Other. It's an interesting enough subject to be engaging but it's a slow pitch, some nice academic training wheels to get me back on the road to Nurse Know-It-All.

Sophia's in school and I am, okay, totally unsurprised by how much we're all liking that. One might argue (cogently) that my need for externally imposed structure was generated in the first place by traditional schooling, but hey, there it is, and it's a little too late to do anything about it now. I yam what I yam, and what I yam is someone who can quite ably get up at 6 a.m. and pack lunches and have school uniforms neatly arrayed in a closet as long as Someone Else is requiring it of me. For her part Sophia seems to love school -- and her kindergarten is worlds away from my own in terms of good teaching and learning expectations.  Daphne is enjoying the opportunity to play with all the cool toys without someone snatching them out of her hand.

La Leche League continues apace and I love that too. It's certainly firmed up my resolve to work at least part of the time with new mothers.

So this is all good, right? I have certainly had an easy enough time bidding goodbye to plans for homeschooling, at least until the girls are a little older; as amazing as I think it can be, I think I might not have the right personality to handle my particular kid at this particular age. (Especially not with the other one in the picture.) No regrets there; even if I do feel differently about it later, that's a door we can always open later.

There's one thing I keep worrying like a hangnail, though: whether our family is complete. I am the first to admit I am at my limit right now. "NO MORE, KIDS!" leads nicely to "NO MORE KIDS!"

But then that turns into "No...more kids?" Are we really too far away from "NO! More kids!"...?

I know I can't handle any more right now -- and I know I don't want to delay nursing school much longer. But in focusing on school, am I necessarily closing the door on having more children? My fertility was not so impressive to begin with; I'll be 34 this year, and we all know that your ovaries turn into dessicated cat turds after that. I mean, I know the hot new trend is having your entire ladyparts cryogenically preserved for after you've made partner, but come on, anyone who's ever read an infertility blog (or, um, injected her stomach fat with potent synthetic hormones for months on end) knows what a load of horseshit that is.  To even consider adding more when the first one was a shock and the second one a pleasant surprise seems like the height of hubris.

Oh yeah, plus we are seriously going to need my income in another five years. Frankly we could use some now but no job I could get currently would do much more than cover daycare for Daphne.

Of course none of these arguments carry enough weight to make me want another baby now. Therein lies the conflict: I know two is about as much as we can manage right now -- and I'm not entirely happy about that.