Coping with Coping

Seriously, Em is the best woman in the whole world. I've been feeling oddly cold and sleepy for two days, and she has been giving me blankets and making me soup and tea. I'm starting to feel better, but I'd like the tea and soup to keep coming, please.

We have tons of snow on the ground. I made a snow angel, but she's gotten all soft around the edges from the more recent snowfall. She looks more like a blob now, with an odd little trail leading away. I'm glad I got out to feed the birds because there has been quite a diverse flock out at the suet. There is also an adorable trail through the snow. I'm not sure what made it. What burrows in the top layer of snow? Lots of wildlife around here. Speaking of wildlife, Muggle managed to unearth (unsnow?) a vole yesterday when he was outside with me. I don't know how he did it. I kind of thought those things were hibernators. Guess not.

I guess I have nothing interesting or witty to say. Must be the lethargy.

Today was the kind of Saturday that all Saturdays should be. I slept in (been awhile since I got up after the sun), listened to NPR (TAL was a rerun, but a good show nonetheless), had sex, took a nap, ordered in pizza, drank wine, played Scrabble, and had more sex. It just doesn’t get better than that. Of course the house didn’t get cleaned, and we have people coming over tomorrow, but with the wine, I’m not caring much. Indeed, with the wine, I am having trouble typing.

Em and I did some math to figure out how much I need to make. About $24K is the verdict. If we have a kid, that goes up to $34. I really do want a baby, but there is no way the U will hire me for that. Now, if I get my Master’s and get a job at the Big Evil Pharmaceutical Company, that salary shouldn’t be a problem. ‘Course, it doesn’t seem like they are doing much hiring right now.

I’d like to give a shot out to Papa John’s. Their pizza tastes like college (‘cause they were about the only place to get pizza in Valpo). Something about the semi-sweet crust and the oily garlic sauce….mmmmm. Life is very, very good.

I got a new pair of jeans yesterday. I’d been holding out for almost a year, but last week my only pair of jeans ripped. So, since I couldn’t imagine facing life without blue jeans, to the mall we went. Being in the mall and trying on cute jeans made me think I was in college again. So much so that I bought a sexy pair of pants. I was planning on getting just a boring everyday pair, but what the hell, just ‘cause I have a mortgage, am married, want a kid, and need a job doesn’t mean I can’t pretend to be young and fancy free.

In fact, today I bought a sweater at Talbots. When did I become the kind of person who shops at Talbots? Not that there is anything wrong with the store, but I always viewed it as more for my mom and her friends. But what the hell, they had the only reasonably priced black cardigan without sparkles in the mall.

I was going to write about marital love and the wonderful yummy sex I have (and want to have) with my wife. Someday I’ll have an entry about the wonderful love and connection I feel to Em, about how much more intense this seems because we’re married. I really do think it’s an important and dynamic part of our life together, not to get all right-wing, conservative Christian on you. ‘Course we’re not legally married because of those right-wing, conservative Christians, so I suppose you wouldn’t expect that anyway. At least I hope not. However, she just ducked in to say the bathroom counter, which I just cleaned, is still dusty. So maybe you’d better check back in with me later on that one.

I visited my Aunt K with my mom. She’s in her eighties, her husband’s been dead for six and a half years, so she is neither surprised nor terribly upset about dying. I’m going to make her a lemon pie and take it down sometime this week. I’m going to miss her, but this is a kind of sadness I can deal with.

It looks like I’m going to be watching M more soon. His regular nanny is getting closer to her due date, and she needs more time to rest. That’s fine with me. I love the kid, and we can certainly use the money.

I came with Em to her parents’ house this time. I wasn’t going to, but she wanted me to come. There is tons of stuff to do at home, and the amount of work here is tiring, especially considering that I’ll need to do the same stuff again at home. But after the fight we had Sunday morning, I was amazed she even wanted to spend time with me. So, here I am. This is hard. I try to support her, but I can’t as much as I want to and should. There’s the stuff with my aunt and my lack of job and subsequent lack of income, plus the fact that I feel unemployable. Trying to keep up with our house by myself is exhausting, especially since I’ve been alone so much. It’s so hard to be motivated to get all this stuff done when I’m alone. Still, I need to be better about taking care of her and our home. I need to cut her more slack. I know that when she gets upset about little things it isn’t really the misplaced cell phone that’s got her furious. But still, sometimes it just drives me crazy.

We watched the first episode of “The L Word” on Showtime last night. All I can say is that there was way too much sex. I was watching it with my father-in-law for Pete’s sake. Plus, there was a serious lack of plot and/or character development. The show was two hours long, probably because it was the pilot. During yet another sex scene, I decided to give up and go to bed. Probably not the result the producers where looking for.

Okay, so my great aunt is dying. She'd been sick with pneumonia around Christmas, but she was doing much better. In fact, she still is. It's just that she has this mass on her pancreas which is shutting down her liver. There is nothing they can do. Even if she were young and otherwise healthy, nothing could be done. So. I'm going down with my mom to see her Saturday.

I should have called my dad tonight to tell him. Instead he called here. I was taking a short break-from-reality nap, so I didn't answer the phone. He sounded drunk, or at least not very coherent. Wonderful.

My mom was so upset when she called, she didn't realize she was talking to me. I'm her only child. My aunt K is really the only relative of the older generation my mom has left. There is a picture of my aunt and me from my wedding. I look just like her.

This is really hard. And totally unexpected.

I hope I can concentrate on my interview tomorrow.

My interview is tomorrow morning, so I had to wash my fancy French bra. Not that I expect the state of my breasts to influence the outcome, but I figured it would look more professional if I didn’t have black and/or lace showing through my shirt.

Since I was already downstairs with wet soapy hands, I decided to do all of the hand wash. That included two tank tops we got after Em’s parents got back from Brazil two years ago. We haven’t worn them yet. Likely we won’t for another couple months, but when hot weather comes, they’ll be clean and ready to go. I also washed a sarong/wall hanging from Em’s days as a white water guide. As soon as I got it wet, the laundry room started to smell like pot. Just a coincidence, I’m sure.

I was gone for a couple of hours this morning watching M, and we had four (4!) messages on the machine when I got back. Of course, I'm not sure when people called, since the power went out a couple of days ago and I don't know how to fix the time/date stamp, but I'm sure the light wasn't blinking when we left. The first was from M's mom asking if I'd left yet. Okay, I know I was late, but in my defense it took me half an hour to get there because of the snow. M and split a blood orange with his second breakfast (my first.) He was thrilled with it. He kept dancing around the house singing “pink and lellow, pink and lellow.” Personally, I thought it was more red and orange, but whatever. This is the kid who didn’t want hot chocolate when we came in from sledding. Instead he wanted tea.

My mom called saying my great aunt is back in the hospital. I think she was going to suggest I come with her to visit. Alas, I was not home. No trip to Toledo for me.

Em got a call from the company that made the crappy file cabinet I spent all day yesterday trying to assemble. Apparently they realized that the side rollers are labeled incorrectly. If you have them on the wrong side, the drawers sit too high. So I switched them. And the drawers are now higher than they were before. At least the bottom one is. The top one wouldn’t even fit. Guess I had them right the first time. Back to the store it goes. Now I get to spend all day today disassembling it.

All of this is just intro to the fourth message. I've got (or will have when I call them back) another interview. Woohoo!

Today was also the day of dodging big trucks on my little suburban street. Coming into the neighborhood I nearly got run over (plowed down, as it were) by the snowplow coming out. Then I couldn’t turn down the street where our driveway is because the garbage truck was stopped there. It seems they couldn’t get the truck down the street because of the snow. So they piled all of our recycling into the herbie-curbie (the trash had already been picked up, I hope) and wheeled the recycling up the hill to the truck. I think they had to make two trips. We had a lot of recycling. All the Christmas boxes got taken out this week, plus some other stuff from the basement purge I did last week. Hope they were dressed warm. It’s brutal out there.

I'm starting this blog as a way to try to articulate how I feel about what's happening in my life. Obviously. Mostly, though, I'm hoping that writing some of this down will help me deal with all the rotten things going on right now. Instead of just my life, it will be material. Right?

Besides, if I put an ironic twist on things maybe they'll be funny instead of depressing. And I somehow doubt that depression will make any of this easier.

The background:

1. I dropped out of grad school without a degree. I don't have a job. We need money.

2. My mother-in-law is dying. I'm trying to support Em in her grief, but I'm not sure what to
do with mine. I'm not so good at sharing unpleasant emotions. Come to that, I'm not so
good at even accepting that she is dying.

3. I'm trying to figure out my vocation, the thing which I was put on this planet to do and to
be. I'm not quite sure how to do this, but I feel very much that I need to discover it.

4. I want to have a baby. However, see numbers 1-3.