Category Archives: Uncategorized

Very sweet.

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This morning we brought apples and grapes and donuts and bagels to our local polling place cause it’s an awesome thing for people to volunteer to do. When we got back from dinner tonight they left us a thank you note. Yay!

Things that are pissing me off today

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The fact that making a flight reservation has taken me over an hour. I am getting really pissed off. Now I am on hold being shuffled between various Indian customer service reps who cannot understand me reading off my reservation number as I try to add a lap infant. I am really really frustrated. And after 20 minutes Travelocity told me that I have to call Air New Zealand. Now Air New Zealand is telling me they can’t do anything, Travelocity has to do it.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

And Shanna just woke up from her nap and is yelling. This took her whole goddamn nap.

Edited: I am up to 55 minutes of phone time after 40 minutes of fucking with websites. But I’m done

about etiquette

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I am so bad at taking constructive criticism, but I’m keeping an open mind. Some of the feedback on the letter is very helpful and I thank you all for offering opinions when I ask for one.

One point though for the folks who are telling me not to send such an email unless prompted, you are giving me etiquette feedback, not tactfulness feedback. It’s different. I am aware that according to tradition you should not send things like this unasked for. My family won’t take this amiss though. They are well acquainted with me being extremely forward and blunt and by now they just smile and nod. Noah’s family may think this is too forward but I don’t really care as long as they get the message. I would rather they think I am a bit on the rude side than to continue sending crap I don’t want. His family doesn’t know me and in the main they don’t know him either so they send random shit. Given that I have a problem with being sent tacky shit I will send to Goodwill as soon as I unwrap it I’d rather just say this stuff up front. If it means that a few of them decide I am awful and no longer send presents that would be jim-dandy-fine as well.

But ya’ll did give me some good tips on rewriting it to sound less demanding. I appreciate that. 🙂

warping my kid

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So far I have been trying pretty hard to ensure that the clothing Shanna has is at least mostly gender neutral. Some of it is pink stuff that I will happily put on a boy, so it is at least somewhat gendered by society’s standards. I feel a lot of conflict around buying her thoroughly girly stuff though. I don’t want to imprint on her that as a girl it is her job to be ruffly and fluffy and cutesy anymore than I will put a boy in some of the uberbutch shit that I have seen. I wonder how this will play out in the long run in terms of warping her.

(This comes up because I see very cute girly stuff and I consciously choose to not buy it because I don’t want to “send that message”. It’s weird.)

Ooft

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Yesterday was mostly really great. ribbin and I were not as thoroughly focused on prep for my comp as maybe I should have made us be, but instead we did general lit geeking. That was really awesome so I can’t complain. 🙂 Shanna was thoroughly good for the vast majority of the day until she completely lost it to hysteria an hour and a half before the train. That was… hard. We got through it though. We came home and went to bed a bit late, 8:40ish. She slept straight through till 4 without waking for boobie. w00t! We woke up and ate for half an hour, then pottied and tried to get her back to sleep again. Unfortunately my pesty daughter (Mark, I love that word) refuses to go back to sleep. So now she is being uberexcited to have her toys back. 🙂

7 days till the comp exam.

Studying

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I’m feeling pretty solid on American history and literary periods. I’m ok on British literary periods (there aren’t many [for this test]: Romantic, Victorian, “Modern”) but I’m still a bit weak on their history. Luckily, I was sent a handy dandy cheat sheet by my advisor. I should do a bit more looking at the world lit stuff–what are the common threads. I should do a brief review of literary criticism, but that won’t be too hard. That was the class I got an A in last semester. Maybe briefly review a couple of critics. And decide on two or three poems from each time period to be rock solid on. I’m thinking I’m going to cheat and go with whatever the anthology says is the most significant one.

I was able to study a bunch today while Shanna slept. I’m feeling a little less scared. I probably need a good solid 18 more hours of studying. That’s actually not that bad.

Awesome!

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We got a Leap Frog Alphabet Pal from a friend. It has several different modes–one of them “letter sounds.” Noah suggested making it say dirty words. It won’t! They have it blocked. When you have it sound out a dirty word it breaks to giggles and says, “That tickles!”

Oh man. That’s awesome.

Anxious and fussy

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I should so be asleep right now. I’m not. Here’s some of what I’m looking at right now.

The comp exam is in 11 days. I’m not fully prepared. On Thursday I head up to Davis to do some studying with a fellow English geek, and I’m not even really ready for that. Shanna had a really hard day today for no obvious reason and I got zero studying done. If I look at the calendar, what I really ought to do is bail on the two social things I was hoping to do this weekend and study pretty much straight through. I’m getting really scared. If I fail this test it is going to be a rather hardcore blow to my ego that I don’t need. On one hand I objectively think that I am pretty damn prepared, on the other hand I subjectively believe that my last failure on this exam (when I was completely unprepared) is an indication that I am stupid and deserve to fail. I know this isn’t reasonable. I know that they honestly won’t expect that amazing of essays given that we have three hours to write three essays.

I’m dropping weight like crazy with eating to my daily maximum of points and I think that as a result I am thinking less clearly. I am having more trouble than usual finding the words I want to use in casual conversation and that is scaring the shit out of me. Right now, judging by the scale in my bathroom, I am dropping 1/2 a pound per day. That’s uhm, noticeable. Noah pointed out that dropping weight quickly (No really–I am eating all that I am supposed to be eating and I’m eating a rather healthy variety) will cause blood sugar issues which make it harder to think. Maybe for the next 11 days I should start eating more food of higher fat/calorie level. [See–this entry so far I’ve had to stop and think for several minutes more than once to think about what words I should be using; that’s just not cool.]

I’m giving up my idea of making a costume for Shanna. 🙁 I’m sad and pissy and frustrated. I just ran out of time with studying and I feel upset and strangely cheated. Yes, I was given a costume I could put her in but frankly it’s not something I would have selected and as I result I just don’t want to. I’m feeling ridiculous and petulant on this topic for no good reason.

There are a variety of things on the sex/play front that are taking up a lot of space in my brain. I don’t have anything useful to say about any of them. It’s all….. AHHHHHHHHHH

And I have a god damn oral report for my Spanish class coming up. I need to do research tomorrow before class so that I can talk to my partner about it. Have I mentioned that I could give a flying fuck about it just now? Oh, I got a B on the last Spanish test. Not that bad.

Not sleeping isn’t going to help me think. But all I want to do is cry.

Oh, and my mom is arriving right after the comp exam for a visit. I think she is staying with us but that hasn’t been actually decided and as my family typically sucks ass at communicating I may not know until she calls me saying, “What’s your address again?” *sigh* So I feel rather shitty about the fact that my house is a huge mess. The clutter isn’t so bad, but it’s rather grossly dirty and frankly that’s low on my priority list to change. Noah will say, “We could pay someone to do it.” Yes, but then I would feel humiliated and pathetic that I can’t do something so simple as to clean my house when that’s a large portion of my job. And I would have to call and schedule it and blah and it’s more energy.

I think I’m going to cry now.

Memeish

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Say something nice about each of the last five people you’ve “broken up with” – romantic break-ups, friendships, whatever.

See, this is the sort of meme I can really get into. 🙂 I’m including me initiating the break up and times when the other person initiated.

E: went far out of his way for me as a boyfriend and as a friend. Tolerated all the quirks I threw at him with a grin.
T: one of the best people I have ever known. He gave me the love and support I needed to grow past my childhood.
J: always willing to be supportive no matter what was happening. He likes people more than almost anyone else I’ve dated and that was neat to be around.
P: he cooked well. I just wish he had been happier about me eating the results. *sigh*
A: gave me the opportunity to find out about a part of myself I had never experienced before. I appreciate the efforts made to accompany me along such a bumpy road. 🙂

I was tempted to put Noah on here. Chronologically he is one of the last five. I decided that was cheating. 🙂

Stats of the tank.

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She turns 5 months old in 16 hours so I’m a tiny bit early. 🙂

She is now 26.5″ tall and 18.5 lbs. She is barely still in 9 month clothes except for jammies, which have already moved up to 12 months.

Other general updates: sitting up for pretty much as long as she wants to. She can correct from 45 degrees of lean backwards to sitting and she can push herself up from bent in half forward. She can roll in both directions but she rarely bothers. She does push ups about as well as I do. 🙂 She loves to chit chat and has long conversations. She has gotten really grabby. My glasses are no longer safe. She loves to play with books and seems to recognize that Mommy is into books as well. She can now eat with greater purpose and get it over with quicker (thank Gawd). She eats a little bit of avocado but isn’t that interested. She goes ~ 10 hours without a diaper change most nights and gets up and goes on the potty. Most nights she wakes up twice and relatches on my boob, but we both pretty much sleep through these feedings. During growth spurts she will nurse every hour on the hour; those nights are hard. She hates having a dirty diaper and hates having her diaper changed. We need to start trying harder on EC cause she just loathes the whole “diaper” thing. She likes to sit and play with a couple of rattles and books for long periods. Oh! And by far her favorite toy is the ducky that masterfiddler gave us. He lives in the car and she loves her ducky. It’s very cute.

Generally speaking she is an extremely happy and cheerful baby. She loves to be around people and she loves to flirt. She likes playing in the water. If you haven’t met her yet, you should. She’s neat. 🙂 And if you see us out and about and you would like to hold her but feel shy about asking… go ahead and ask. My physical boundaries don’t seem to extend to her. She loves being passed around so I do it.

Travelin’

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Not that far, but the icon is fun.

Next Thursday the loverly Miss Shanna and I will be in Davis from ~9am till ~6pm. Most of the day will be spent with the delightful Anselm as we geek about poetry (and probably other random fiction stuff) in prep for the scary exam coming up. He believes (what a silly boy) that he should have some time during the day to do his own school work so I’m interested in meeting up with folks for an early dinner at about 4:30 if anyone is able to do so. 🙂 At the very least if we don’t grab food it would be good to hang out for a little while. I will need to stay near the Davis train station as I am not bringing a carseat.

Anyone interested?