Ha! Not even close. I am a neglectful blogger, but I was inspired this morning, at about 7AM, by an ad in the monthly coupon packet for custom closets. There is a woman who from her dress and bearing is about forty (who can tell by things like skin or teeth anymore) throwing her head back in relief before her $20,000 closet, and then the tag line in my title. What does she do with her relaxation time? What is the indulgence she finally allows herself after what must be two decades of cleaning, straightening and fretting about the cluttered state of her home? A FUCKING CUP OF COFFEE!
Excuse my "fuck" but this was just too much for me this morning, when I was choosing whether to drink my coffee with milk or take it black and assemble the recycling. I am not going to be so vapid as to say 'this is everything that's wrong with the world,' because it's not. I have always found the media's demands on a woman's time conspicuous, yet I feel the same force compelling me to take care of my home before myself--or, at least I could not sit and enjoy a cup of coffee in the midst of last night's dinner and dirty wine glasses. I am also guilty of the following: No, Husband, I can't have sex until the sheets are straightened....I will only shower when I finish this article--and maybe a few more emails.....I will just stay in my pajamas this morning while I do the week's food shopping.
Yes. I miraculously avoided the similar evil, whispering monster who tells me to dye my roots, shave my bikini line--slather my tired skin in creamy foundation. Why, then, do feel the need to keep house as though it were so...biological? (Don't flame me; I know it's not). Could I relax any better if my house really were perfectly clean and straight all the time? (Well, no. I still have an infant to take care of--but you get the point). These things I do not know.
At any rate, I think I am beginning to find a balance between work/Baby Apollo. It's kind of a 15/85% ratio. I am looking forward to the days when it will be more like 35/65. One of my more difficult bosses has praised my dedication--apparently everyone really DID expect me to drop off the face of the earth when Apollo was born.
But no matter what I do, there is always something lacking. When I went to pick him up to put him in bed last night, Apollo's head was bleeding! because he gashed himself with overlong nails. Crib training....I haven't even started it. Am I too attached to cosleeping? He is cuddly. Will I eventually find his cuddliness more alluring than Husband's?
Anyway, I guess I have a lot of questions about myself today. A good thing.
Stay curious,
Asteria
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
I've had my share...of the crying game...
So this week I learned that Baby Apollo does not like the heat. He had three major crying fits. One in the house, one on our attempt at a grown-up lunch date, and one during the entire ceremony of his christening. We thought that taking him to the wine bar--the one with the old ship's door and the tattooed Sommelier--would be okay at 11:30, but of course hipsters even come out at that hour. Apollo was fine until the food came. Important lesson: do not assume that just because the restaurant feels cool enough, and baby isn't crying yet, that he is going to be okay for the rest of dinner. Because he is not, and the more annoyed he gets, the hotter he gets.
And because it is 100 degrees up here in home-buyer's purgatory, Baby Apollo rarely goes to sleep without doing a lot of loud complaining first. But by far the worst was at his christening. Normally, a deacon does the head dipping, but since it was high school graduation weekend, they must have all been busy that weekend. In case you do not know, the difference between a priest and a deacon in the RCC is that the deacons are almost always married with children. So we had this childless priest extolling the wonders of children in his homily. He talked about children who run to their parents laughing with their arms open, who repeat with glee everything they hear, who make their grandparents feel young again. He talked about Jesus loving little children for just those reasons. None of the children he spoke of were anything like my screaming, helpless, unhappy infant, who made everyone around him feel hotter and older and more miserable. When it was all over, Husband went to hand him the check and heard him commisserating with a woman about how hard it was for him to preach over our child crying, and how we should have used the "crying room."
I was seriously going to start going to church, but this has bothered me. Apparently, to this guy, Jesus only loves smiley, happy children, who are old enough to understand that the situation in the un-airconditioned church is temporary. Apparently he has no interest in blessing or baptizing a suffering infant. Apparently, I should have removed my baby from HIS OWN BAPTISM so that the priest could hear himself talk.
Poor Apollo. He is such a good baby, and now he has a rep. In other news, we are in contract on our house, and my brother moved in downstairs. It's hot, and going to get hotter. The universe is conspiring to make our last months here as difficult as possible.
I have finished my paper on stuff dead people used to think and write about before they were dead, and now I have three more projects to start, two of which are so vast they make me want to drink heavily when I think about writing about them. One of these is a coauthored job, where the lead decided we should take on a third writer, and now (accidentally?) leaves me out of the loop on emails, and asks me to do things and then acts like he never got them. Fun. I wonder if this has anything to do with me being a mom and not a typical, maleable, anxiety ridden grad student! I am a mommy, and I am fucking melting!
Anyway, I am pissed off this week..
And because it is 100 degrees up here in home-buyer's purgatory, Baby Apollo rarely goes to sleep without doing a lot of loud complaining first. But by far the worst was at his christening. Normally, a deacon does the head dipping, but since it was high school graduation weekend, they must have all been busy that weekend. In case you do not know, the difference between a priest and a deacon in the RCC is that the deacons are almost always married with children. So we had this childless priest extolling the wonders of children in his homily. He talked about children who run to their parents laughing with their arms open, who repeat with glee everything they hear, who make their grandparents feel young again. He talked about Jesus loving little children for just those reasons. None of the children he spoke of were anything like my screaming, helpless, unhappy infant, who made everyone around him feel hotter and older and more miserable. When it was all over, Husband went to hand him the check and heard him commisserating with a woman about how hard it was for him to preach over our child crying, and how we should have used the "crying room."
I was seriously going to start going to church, but this has bothered me. Apparently, to this guy, Jesus only loves smiley, happy children, who are old enough to understand that the situation in the un-airconditioned church is temporary. Apparently he has no interest in blessing or baptizing a suffering infant. Apparently, I should have removed my baby from HIS OWN BAPTISM so that the priest could hear himself talk.
Poor Apollo. He is such a good baby, and now he has a rep. In other news, we are in contract on our house, and my brother moved in downstairs. It's hot, and going to get hotter. The universe is conspiring to make our last months here as difficult as possible.
I have finished my paper on stuff dead people used to think and write about before they were dead, and now I have three more projects to start, two of which are so vast they make me want to drink heavily when I think about writing about them. One of these is a coauthored job, where the lead decided we should take on a third writer, and now (accidentally?) leaves me out of the loop on emails, and asks me to do things and then acts like he never got them. Fun. I wonder if this has anything to do with me being a mom and not a typical, maleable, anxiety ridden grad student! I am a mommy, and I am fucking melting!
Anyway, I am pissed off this week..
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