Fun Iran?

OK, so about three capfuls of snow melted this week.

When this winter ends I'll get naked in the sun!

Well, maybe not. But I'll go for some sunny-soaking walks with my kid and maybe even the H-dot if I can wheedle him into it.

I read The Burma Chronicles.

Interesting, but lacking any kind of urgency. I mean, I know memoirs don't have any kind of plot necessarily. But some of the little stories are ridiculously mundane. 

And exoticism : hmm? Any thoughts?

Against my desire to not buy more stuff not necessary to living, eating, breathing, I bought:

-2 Azar Nafisi books

-both persepolis books

I don't even have time to read them.  Which means I'll read them and feel guilty about it.

I'm supposed to be reading about the history of environmentalism in BC. And about mean cracker settlers in northern BC. (I chose that adjective carefully : some settlers were better than others, but they all stole land and contributed to starving, jailing and decimating First Nations populations).

Iran seems funner to read about. 

is thanking you and is a tad overwhelmed

Thanks for all the love and phone calls.

Having friends I can call and ask for love and help in tough times makes tough times liveable.

Really, I wasn't doing as well as I'd hoped I would in there.

Hospitals can be icky. And seeing my baby scared and unhappy was terrifying.

We are still shaken ffrom it.

Actually, I'm more anxious and sad. I can't shake the sadness. I need winter to end.

Pettmans : look carefulllllly into your mailbox this coming week! 

I'm IN for the reading club.

Persepolis will be good because it has pictures.

Other than what I read for work and school, I only read very short  books right now. Or books with pictures. 

I'm studying for exams until March. After that, I'll have passed or failed my exams.

Either way, I'm taking a month break from reading anything without pictures in April.

Sometimes I narrate my life as if it were a series of Facebook statuses. (statii?)

Like this:

-is yearning for lost youth.

-is unseemly and tired.

- is nervous about teaching First Nations literature.

-cannot figure out whether "aboriginal" or "First Nations" is more appropriate.

- feels guilty.

- shuns her guilt.

- embraces her guilt.

- wants chocolate.

- has taken too many ibuprofen to digest properly.

- wants to sleep for a month.

- wants her youthful complexion back.

- is nostalgic, which she finds pathetic.

- does not know how she would survive without the geographically scattered and loving and reliable good friends she has.

xoxo

nb

more later but for now just a vague note must do

ok, so this past week was pretty bad.

at this point i don't want to to write the details.

sometimes, well, i think most of the time, writing makes things real. and i still need to repress this last week.

i'm not ready to think about what happened. and what could have happened.

i'll say this much : we are all OK, now. there are still four baskets of laundry to go. we collectively lost about 15 pounds.

we love our baby. we love our baby. we love our baby.

thanks to my friends who helped me through it.

pill

1.I cut my finger on our decrepit fridge as the plastic crisper shattered in my hand. 

2. I therefore cannot type very well.

3. I am on mastitis number 14. 

4. I have now swallowed thousands of these little orange apo-cephalex anti-biotic pills for mastitis.

5. There seems to be no explanation for why I get it so often.

6. Because of the recession, my babysitter is in Saskatchewan.

6. I am watching the 11th Hour tonight. Better not be boring.

7. I ate a bag of Rip.L. Chips. Old Dutch.

8. I want to read Obama's book but am too cheap to buy it. 

9. I love my job.

10. Hugo says "hug" and hugs himself.

11. I've had a paper called "To Become Beavers of Sorts" accepted for a peer-reviewed book.

12. Beavers. Heh heh.

loneliest, bestest, worstest job

Parenting, surprisingly, is lonely work.

Nobody knows your kid and your family like you do.

Yourself, you're so far in it that you can barely see your way out of it.

So for all the books and workshops and friendly neighbours and "helpful" relatives and actually helpful relatives, it's still you and that plasticine-like newish person at 3 am, looking into each other's tired and similar eyes. Trying to love and care and be apart and be together.

I don't want Hugo to be like me. I want Hugo to be better than me.

I want Hugo to be happier, more peaceful, more resolute, less fearful, richer, and taller than me.

I want Hugo to find love more easily, to give love more easily.

I want Hugo, most of all, to be safe.

I'm thinking of the Admiral and BG, and especially the Admiral's last post.

There's not much anyone can really say to help - I mean, you know your family. I don't, really.

Parenting is so damn scary. And great. 

PS. I love your kids.

badd speling, great life

The first week of teaching is behind me.

I'm not sure I'm ready to let it slide by.

It was my one chance to convince the students that I am their comrade, their leader, their silent (and loud) guidance.

It was my one chance to facilitate an atmosphere of caring, determined co-operation (did I?)

It was my one chance to spell correctly on the chalkboard (I didn't).

Whether or not the first week meant anything, it was a rush. I like my job. I have a job!

Hugo is adjusting, I  guess. I mean, I know he wishes I was with him every minute of every day. 

And I don't just want Hugo to "turn out fine."

I want Hugo to be happy and excited and loving and loved every minute of the way. 

As if turning into someone were all that mattered. I still don't know how I'll turn out.

We still co-sleep and Hugo still nurses. We are close. I still sing him to sleep and snuggle him awake. We still read stories and he still sits on my lap when he watches Dora (ps - he's scared of Swiper the Fox. should I cut out/back on Dora?). He still names my nose, eyes, ears, hair, and milk jugs a few times a day. Hugo is still my baby. And my darling, beautiful, chatty toddler.

no one knows

I'm glad the year is changing.

Eight is a strange number.  I know it is a chess number, and I like chess, but I am not really all that good at chess.

Still, anyone reading this who would like to play chess with me : I will be good enough to make you think. For a minute or two. Until you win. :)

This year, I've got a few goals.

1. Write my comprehensive exams. 

2. Write my comprehensive exams without throwing up before, during, or after.

3. Pay off consumer debt.

4. Pay off consumer debt and not accumulate scads more.

Hugo is grand, and requires no goals on my part. He is all perfection, all dimples and chattiness and smiles and love. Even his farts are perfect. Even his tantrums are endearing.

And I'm starting a part-time job teaching first year English at the college. Perhaps the anticipation of talking with adults, sharing my research, and having colleagues, is all so pleasing that parenting seems, well, easier. Being at home 24/7 with a toddler, even if the toddler is a gem, makes me batty. 

And speaking of batty: children's television. Hellbats. Wonderpets? Miffy the Bunny? 

I'll end this little note with a quotation from one of my favourite thinkers, Mark Halsey, an environmental criminologist:

"No one knows ahead of time what will happen" (Halsey, 2006, 70).

flattery

A former professor has flattered me into agreeing to write an 800 word review of a book about gender in the Middle East.
He called me "brilliant."
No, I am not getting paid to read the massive and probably depressing book or to write the very long review that will be published in an acdemic journal that many people love to read and criticize (hence forcing me to write in an agony of self-doubt).
Damnit.
Flattery. It works. Damnit.

And a pitch for an article for a magazine is taking wayyyyy to long to get past the editor. It's not even an accepted pitch and I've spent hours on it. Again, no money!!

I've really got to stop working for free. I work for free at home already (cooking, cleaning, etc).

I write this blog for LOVE. :) And to prove that Hugo can climb stairs.

Although some flattery would help too.

Oh, America, America.

I know, you aren't surprised. I'm not sure why I was.
That I cried during Obama's speech on Tuesday. And that Vita and I both cried, sitting on the floor, Hugo asleep in my lap, the TV glowing like some messianic cloud.
That's what it felt like - revelationary. Hopefully Obama will also be revolutionary.

Unlike those dumbasses who voted against unmarried parents being able to adopt or foster.
And who denied gay people marriages or legal civil unions. And the even dumber asses (worse because they should know better) at the Globe and Mail who subtitled the story about it as a "family values" story:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/freeheadlines/LAC/20081106/ELECTCALIFORNIA06/international/International

No way. Homophobia and meanness are not family values.
Homophobia and mean-spiritedness are how fear, self-doubt, fragility and emotional laziness manifest.

So, Americans are good for electing Obama.
And many of them are horrid for being legal homophobes.

Who is the cutest baby tiger EVER?

gross

I'm writing.
There was a rock slide and I can't go and see my parents this weekend. God. I mean, if there were a God, it would be an irritating one.
And some stupid lady in the pool the other day asked if Hugo's name was "ethnic."
And I answered by rambling on about his name and other lame and not-lame baby names, nervously filling the politely racist air.
In said ramble I noted that "People are all over the Old Testament names these days. Which is so weird."
Stupid racist lady said "My son's name is Zachary. "
I said nothing.
"And I'm 38 weeks pregnant. It's a boy. We're naming it Elijah."
Just so you know, she was in the pool and I couldn't see her pregnant self.

Note to self : when someone says "ethnic," excuse myself for an emergency. Like peeing. Or looking at clouds.
Effers.
I don't want to be mean to pregnant people. Even if they deserve it. Did she deserve it? Am I a meanie?

And Hugo's going to be an awesome stripey tiger tomorrow. I bought his costume. Did not make it. Not at all. Yet another surprise of what kind of Momma I am. Cartoons : sure!!! Store bought costume : yahooo!!!!
At least he's back in cloth diapers. Close brush with the convenience of plastic. Ewww. Plastic. Grody gross grodessy grosssss plastic pee diapers.

Dishevelling Writerly Anxiety Hides Behind Ugly Doll

And may I add that although, in yesterday's late-night-posted-photo, I look like a dishevelled ex-hippie-turned-pseudo-indie twentysomething,
I am actually a dishevelled, actual, PhD student turned mother.
And still a PhD student.

And a happy one. I went to the YM/YWCA last night to swim. I swam for half an hour. I sat in the steam room. I sat in the hot tub.
This was perfect.
Today I went back to the Y with Hugo for Baby Splash Time. Hugo loves the water and he isn't afraid at all. He wants to jump in - he wants to dive into the fountains - he wants to do a backstroke across the kid pool.

I know this is boring. Here's the thing : I think of a lot ineresting things to write, and I have odd interesting moments all day. And they are sometimes disturbing, or provocative, or curious. But I'm scared to write them down. Because then they are real - but they are real only in the way that I write about them. My written record of these important events becomes the thing : the thing is no longer itself. My writing is.
And my writing is not up to the task.

hee hee.
photo booth IS hilarious!

Rampage of Cute

Hello friends.
Hugo is asleep. Vita is asleep.
I'm awake and I'm not tired - yahooo!!!
Hugo and I went on a long walk - inspired by autumn, which is my favourite season, and by an interview in the weekend Globe and Mail by a doctor who prescribes things like "drink more water," "get one more hour of sleep a day," or "go for walks." It works. People get better!
And so I feel great after walking with Hugo for a few hours. I did some errands and we went to the playground at the Mission Creek greenway. It's one of my favourite playgrounds.
There are always tons of kids and parents and dogs there, and Hugo likes people and pet watching.
And I am, despitecertain troubles with my family, pretty happy. Life is alright. I have a lot of love, a lot of goodness around me.
I mean, stress is always there, right?
Unless we are lobotomized by TV, scrapbooking or money. Even then, CSI is scary, fancy paper is ridiculous and money : bah!
Hugo's hilarious, and I'm attaching two photos. I'm not that good at blog formatting, so who knows where the pictures will end up. But they are both autumn pictures. One is curious Hugo, sweet and standing up with his cousins. One is Hugo rampaging through our house. A rampage of cute.

Homework

OK, Mikara gave us homework.
My happy list:
-snuggling wuth Hugo
-seeing Hugo happy
-going for long walks, especially in the fall and spring
-running
-reading great books
-getting published
-friends
-relaxing with Vita
-paying off debt
-eating lots of vegetables


I know, you may not believe me on the vegetable one. But really!! mmm. A big bowl of tasty veggies just makes me happy in my body and mind.
Getting published is probably one of the more difficult items on the list. Hugo is easy to make happy, relaxing is easy, eating veggies is easy, paying off debt is irritating but not complicated.
Friends are the best.
Wow. How could we get by without one another?

Scared : And this is a picture of one of Edmonton's Prettier Spots

I started to write a long post complaining about what is bugging me.
But I think it made everything worse.
In any case, I'm sure I'll be cheerier by, say 10 pm. Bedtime.

I'm scared of school. Scared that it is too hard, that I am not smart enough, that I don't have enough time. That if I don't find a babysitter NOW I will be way too behind to ever catch up.
Gotta go.

mongolian trim

School is back.
Um. I had a meeting with my supervisor.
She just got back from riding a wild horse with a wooden saddle across the Ghobi Desert.
I am not even kidding.
She was, she described, fairly humbled by the experience.
She said that "the transcendentalist" in her head was messed with : everything is land, horizon is endless, and now sitting at her desk writing emails is just plain odd.

I have bangs.
A haircut may not be a horse ride in Mongolia, but it's pretty damn exciting in my life.

In the photo I am showing you how fantastic I would look with a facelift.

Appreciate or Else

The summer is over. I know because our summer guest has left.
She got, the day before leaving, "traveller's fever." She told me this so as to explain her sudden diet of dry bread, garlic broth and strange cups of tea.
She put chunks of ginger, two mint tea bags, and sugar cubes into one of those big Starbucks coffee cups. The soupbowl sized cups. And then drank it, cold, all day. The tea looked greasy and green. Apparently that is also how she looked at the airport. Eva doesn't like travelling.
I'm talking about Eva, the mother of the father of my child. My mother-in-law, but I don't really like that title. It's too accurate. And Eva, or as I call her in the privacy of my mind, "She Who Communicates in Mysterious Mutterings," is never an accurate communicator.
She did do a lot of housework. The house SHONE. Hugo ate off the floor a few times and it was cleaner than the table is now that she's gone.
And she loves her grandson. She spent a solid month playing with him, trying to teach him Czech, fretting about his bumps, farts, rashes, poops, naps. I'm glad he has so much love.
And there is nothing like really getting to know your in-laws to really get to know your spouse. Holy Insight.
I appreciate Vita a lot.
And I love my baby.

Drool to Be Happy

Every time I think I am losing any academic competence, something good happens.
I mean, something like a scholarship or a nice email from a smart and scary professor happens. This time around something even better happened - I finally understood Deleuze.
Deleuze is a dead French philosopher. Ah, Gilles Deleuze.
Gil, I call him, for short.
I've been reading and writing about Gil for 4 years now.
I think that everything I wrote about Gil, up to this past week, was wrong.

Last week I was laying bed, Hugo drooling to sleep on my tummy, and as I drifted to sleep myself I thought, "Damnit, Gilles Deleuze might just be total nonsense. Maybe it is all baloney he just made up and nobody really understands it. Maybe Gil is the snuffalufagus of post-post-structuralism."
And at that blessed (I mean blessed in a strictly immanent, atheist sense) it kicked in.
I saw in my sleepy mind an image of a herd of elk.
And I recalled Gil's passage about nomadism and deterritorialization.
And the elk, smelling a bit like horses and a lot like dust, deterritorialized as they ran, as they moved, loud and warm, as one.
Which means I finally figured it out.

In no way does this mean I can explain it to anyone yet.
Wait another 3 years for that.

Inexplicably happy, I am now writing about it all. About pine beetles, lodgepole pines, the Chilcotin, MacBlo, moose, elk, trappers, loggers, tourists and trains.

And Hugo is still drooling. Happily.