Back!!

It's been a long time since I've posted. I kinda-sorta gave up on blogging for a variety of reasons...too busy, too tired, nothing to say, etc - but I think the main culprit was Facebook. It's easy to keep in touch with a large amount of people with a minimum of effort on FB, and when you have little but periodic soundbites to contribute, well...anyway, I'm going to try and blow the dust off this old blog and get my ASCII in gear with regular posting.

"Me" time

OK, I'm trying to get back into the habit of blogging...it's been a few months since I've done it on any kind of regular basis. Lots has been happening (as is inevitable when one is a new parent) but I just haven't had the energy to record much of it, either in photos, words, video, whatever. I guess that's one of the many things that makes me a lousy mother (or at least a lazy one), but I'm working on it.

Lately I'm finding myself much more stimulated (huh-huh) in terms of creativity...whether this is due to a positive-energy type change in my personality, or merely out of plain-old boredom is arguable, but I figure it doesn't really matter so long as I'm acting upon it. And acting upon it I have been...I've been taking classes in stained glass for the past few months, and I've been enjoying it very much. It's painstaking, meticulous (not to mention somewhat hazardous) work, but it gets me out of the house every week or so. Anyway, I'll post some photos when I have my projects completed (my first fell out of a window and broke, and I need to repair it).

I've also learned to live without the midday nap that I used to take while Sy is down for his own nap..."me time" is just way too valuable and rare to spend all of it sleeping. I've cracked open a H.O.T. book on Dreamweaver 8...I've been wanting to spend more quality time with my baby-bling (i.e., my Mac Pro), and I need to brush up on my skillz, so to speak. I'm hoping to be able to put together my own website (especially as a showcase for my artwork). I'm not sure how I'm going to host it, given that I'm reluctantly letting my .mac membership expire (we're too broke and I can't justify dropping $100 for the annual membership fee). Maybe I'll just put together a CSS and apply it to my myspace page, what the hell.

My family is doing fine and well...mostly, anyway. Simon is awesome -- crawling like mad, getting into everything, pulling himself up to a standing position, cutting his top teeth, and giving his mom holy hell with his erratic sleep patterns and separation anxiety. I wouldn't trade him for the world, by the way *wink*. Motherhood is exhausting and the most comprehensive lesson a woman can ever learn about self-sacrifice, but yes, it IS worth it, at least for me. I love my little guy to pieces.

Matt is in a near-constant state of panic over our finances (or more specifically, our lack thereof)...I can't say that I blame him. We're not starving but it's a very hand-to-mouth kind of existence; and we're hardly living high on the hog, either. We've made every kind of cutback in spending that we reasonably can, but they're just isn't enough money coming in. Matt takes it more personally than I think he really should...it sucks, but I know we're far from being alone in this. The economy is tanking and a lot of folks are in the red, just look around.

For a variety of reasons I won't go into, it's not possible for me to get a job right now, but I'm thinking that sometime next year I may start looking for something. With any luck DPL will need another imaging tech, but that's a long shot (and they're in the midst of a hiring freeze anyway). So long as I'm not waiting tables or taking care of other people's kids, I'm open to just about any kind of work (no jokes about prostitution, please -- no one would wanna buy a ride on my fat middle-aged arse anyway, har!).

I'm giving serious thought to going back to school this fall...a lot of times I truly hate it, but I'm close enough to being done where it seems stupid not to just finish the goddamn program and get it over with. I have a hefty resentment for the art department administration, but it seems like the best thing to do will be to grit my teeth and try to ignore the fact that their inane policies irritate the hell out of me. Gee, does this mean that I'm growing up??

That's about all for now -- I need to shower and eat lunch while Sy is still down for his nap. Stay tuned for more info about my site.

Lighting the fire

So the trip to Baltimore that Matt and I had been planning had to be canceled at the eleventh hour, due to a combination of factors -- sick husband, irritable son, and no money, to name a few. I was very disappointed (as were Chris and Colleen, who were planning to host us), but under the circumstances I think it was the right thing to do...even if I feel kind of stupid for buying the tickets without thinking things through first.

But it's not a total loss -- at least some of the purchase price of the airfare can be applied toward another trip within a year. Tentatively, we're planning to come out to Baltimore in the mid to late summer...better weather, and then there's the beach within driving distance (Yo Jason -- get the VW van ready, woo!).

A couple of weeks ago I resigned from my position at the library...another hard decision to make, but one I feel was ultimately the right thing to do (whoever said that doing the right thing was easy, eh?). I'd been working there for almost six years, and it was hands down the best job I've ever had. To make matters even more difficult, the situation in my department had been vastly improved by the arrival of my coworker Ben, as well as some fat grants and equipment upgrades...just in time for me to leave, dammit.

But I feel content in knowing that I left the place in better shape than it'd been in quite some time, and with the assurances of my supervisor that I have excellent references and a welcome return should a position become open in the future. I've left jobs under much, MUCH worse circumstances than those, so I guess that's something.

I've become a real homebody these days...so much that at the urging of Matt and my friend Terry, I have decided to join a mother's group. OK, I know how odd that may sound coming from me, but the group seems to be comprised of intelligent and interesting women, and it'll get me the hell out of the house every once in a while. The group I'll be joining has playgroups and such, but that's not of a whole lot of interest to me while Sy is still so small. I'm more about the evening activities -- a book club and a "nibble night" being among them (books, good food and wine being among my favorite things these days).

Although I've historically been not so great about maintaining friendships with women, I found the company of the group members to be pretty enjoyable (especially my friend Terry -- we had a great time gabbing in the car on the way to-and-from, a conversation which ran the gamut from religion to penises, hell yeah!). I think this could be just the impetus I need to get off my ass and try to build a network of friends in the area...as it stands, I was starting to go a tad batshit with being in the house all the time, to the point of getting worked up about household duties more than what is normally considered healthy. Many thanks to Terry for lighting a fire under my ass on this one! :-)

I have more I'd like to write about, but I need to get over to my apartment community's fitness center (dismal but functional) and spend some time on the treadmill while listening to my dumbass electronic music on my iPod...these 40 lbs I want to lose won't come off on their own. Sy has been whinier than usual today, and blowing off some steam is in order.

Meet Simon!

I know I haven't posted any birth stories yet, but while I figure out whether or not I want to go there, here are some long overdue pics of my Sy-guy and his frazzled (but happy!) parents.

Here goes nothing

I'm scheduled for induction tonight, assuming I'm not bumped for some reason. Matt and I are walking around with thousand-yard stares and useless demeanors, but wish us luck anyway!

Early riser

So here it is, 5:31 in the AM of the day in which is estimated to be the 280th of my pregnancy; as such, the date which I am "due" to give birth to my son. I do not, however, anticipate giving birth on this day, and probably not anytime in at least the next 48 hours ("although ya never know!" quotes the tiny, tiny voice of eternal optimism inside my head). Beyond that, it's anyone's guess.

This late-term pregnancy thing is more depressing than I thought it would be. I'm reminded of when I was about eleven or twelve years old, waiting for a different (but related) hormonal event to transform me into what I thought would be a new person, one that I was all too eager to become. By that time I was becoming extremely jaded from being a helpless little girl at the mercy of her immediate fucked-up surroundings...I wanted to be independent, in control of my own life, and (as lame and clichéd as it is), respected -- even loved -- by others.

With my primitive pre-teen sense of logic, I thought that reaching menarche and growing a pair of tits would help me to escape from a home life that I found to be oppressive, abusive and generally hideous. As it happened, this deduction was not entirely incorrect, even if it was overly simplistic and rather sad. Having not much in the way of other options, I eventually ended up taking the "ticket out" offered to me by way of relationships with men.

One after another, it was these relationships that described the arch of my adult life...only in the past few years has this pattern really changed. This isn't so much because of a lack of relationships with men, but of a change in the nature of the role these relationships played in my life. Which in turn is not to say that relationships are no longer important to me; especially in regard to my marriage, they are very much so. But I no longer feel entirely at the mercy of them; they're no longer my sole point of navigation, be-all-end-all, etc. Somehow during the past few years, something far truer to adult autonomy has emerged in my personality. I wouldn't say that it's the most stable of my character traits, but it's a major change from how I functioned in my teens and twenties.

But as I mentioned, in the here-and-now I'm finding myself on the verge of another biologically determined life-changing event. (Odd how the female life span seems to be gaged by biology...the "maiden, mother, crone" archetypes come to mind. Interesting how there doesn't seem to be such a triadic pattern with males, just one "boy --> man" transition. I guess we women must be more utilitarian, eh?). The calm before the labor and delivery storm is hard for me to deal with...the anticipation is driving me nuts, as is the inertia. But now that I'm some 25 years older, I'm not nearly so blinded by impatience or desire as I was as a young girl. I have a much better idea of what it is that I'm getting into, not to mention a hefty appreciation of what I'm leaving behind -- namely, the autonomy and independence that I wanted so badly. Having a child changes everything...for women, anyway. It reduces your options and makes you very dependent upon the goodwill of your husband / significant other / family...and in my past experience, having trust in these relationships is a tenuous proposition at best (and an invitation to hell at worst).

So I'm experiencing a pretty massive wad of mixed emotions here...on one hand I'm excited to meet my son and assume the role of "mother", but on the other hand I'm feeling very trepidatious about it the changes and sacrifices it will entail on a personal level. To make things even more arduous, there's my own unresolved angst over my nasty childhood family life. My relations with what little family I have remain unhealthy, even if they are far more distant, and I have no reason to believe that this will change -- no one seems interested in changing them, including (I'll admit it) myself. Too much water under the bridge, and at least on my part it would involve revisiting some history that I'd just as soon leave for dead.

One thing I do seem to have going for me is my relationship with my husband / father of my child. Matt and I have many problems, but we're also very close, and there's something to be said for that kind of intimacy. It doesn't make the issues go away, but it does make them easier to face with some semblance of perspective. Our life together isn't exactly bliss, but it's better than what either of us have known previously, and we're very dedicated to each other. That's nothing to take for granted.

There's more to this that I may add later. But for now I must pull myself from this reverie of depressive navel-gazing and go bake some pies with a friend and her two lovely daughters...life goes on. And to end on a bright, corny note -- may the life within my belly soon come out!

The Missionary Men

(Note: this entry is reposted from my myspace blog, in an effort to generate some interest in THIS poor attention-starved blog. Shameless, I know.)

Last night Matt and I had an unexpected (and unwelcome) interruption of our evening -- two high-ranking officials from the local ward of the Jesus Christ Church of Latter-Day Saints knocked on our door, wanting to speak with Matt. By name.

My spouse handled the situation with a commendable level of tact and composure but was very direct with them -- he was NOT interested in having them come into our house that evening, and was NOT interested in their coming back at another time. In fact, he told them (politely but firmly) not to return -- ever. Please and thank you.

This is not the first time that Matt's had to deal with visiting missionaries...the Mormon church maintains a notoriously thorough record of anyone who has ever been a member of their congregation (even if only as a child, apparently). A couple of times a year we get the odd phone call and / or visit from a pair of pimply but earnest-as-hell teenaged boys by way of Matt's name and address popping up on some list or another. These intrusions are irritating, but usually we just chalk it up to being par-of-the-apostate-LDS-course (either in actuality or by proxy) and then forget about it.

However, last night's visit got both of our backs pretty far up. First off, we've only been living at our current address for two months. Although our home telephone number hasn't changed in several years, the fact that the local chapter of the church knew Matt's new address so soon leads me to conclude that they didn't dig his information up via postal records / whatever, but were INFORMED of our new address by "someone on the inside", i.e., a church member. It doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to figure out that this "someone" is almost certainly a person in Matt's family, and very probably one or both of his parents.

This is further compounded by the fact that the individuals who visited us last night were NOT the usual and aforementioned 19 year old boys, but a 50-60 year old ward Bishop and his 1st Counselor -- essentially, two of the bigger guns in local-level Mormon missionary work. This makes me suspect that these officials went out of their way to make a personal visit to us by way of a personal appeal from whoever tipped them off to our address (again, probably Matt's parents). Both Matt and myself cannot help but be discomfited by such a breach of our privacy, not to mention rather flagrant disregard for our clear choice not to be involved with ANY church (Mormon or otherwise).

Most of my friends already know that Matt was brought up in a devout LDS family, but discontinued his own involvement with the church by about 14 years of age. Given that Matt is the eldest of seven kids (nearly all of which are boys), and that his entire immediate family (as well as some of his extended family) remains staunch practicing and tithe-paying Mormons, one can imagine how difficult his teenage and young adult years were.

It is both remarkable and praiseworthy that Matt and his family have been able to remain close despite this "schism" (for the lack of a better word), but understandably the subject remains an extremely tense one for Matt. For myself I can only say that the overt religiosity of his family made me pretty damn uncomfortable at first, but I've since become desensitized to it. In general, Matt's fam are a very kind and welcoming bunch of folks -- I like them, and in many ways they've been far more accepting and warm to me than my own family. I'm not nuts about the ever-present Mormon agenda, but I take it with a grain of salt -- there's no law that says everyone in the world has to think exactly like I do, and I accept their choice to bow before whatever imaginary friends they wish (snark snark).

That being said, by offering such tolerance I think that it's only fair to expect the gesture to be returned in kind. I fail to see how surreptitiously providing our contact information to church officials (combined with personal requests to visit with us?!) demonstrates anything resembling "respect", "acceptance", or even mere "tolerance". To be blunt, it seems underhanded, presumptuous and disrespectful (not to mention a smidge cowardly).

Neither my husband or myself wants to create a big shit storm out of this, but we feel that we may be forced into a situation where we have to "get up, stand up!" so to speak. Ignoring this elephant in the room for much longer will only cause more potential for tension and hurt feelings, and no one needs that.

Naturally, the fact that we have a child on the immediate horizon only makes this seem even more imperative. Forgive me for jumping to any conclusions, but finding out that my child was subjected to some sort of indoctrination in my absence / against my will is something that could push me well beyond my normal levels of tolerance and acceptance (not to mention tact!). Simply put: DO NOT GO THERE!

I'll state for the record that I have no proof that Matt's parents / family members had anything to do with this recent church visit (even if common sense and simple deduction leans strongly toward it). Therefore, I'll temper this blog-screed and extend the benefit of the doubt with the following logical statement: "IF Matt's family informed the church of our address change AND requested that they come and speak with us, THEN I accuse them of violating our privacy and disrespecting our wishes to not be involved with the church".

And THEN, boys and girls...we got a problem!