Eisenhower tunnel.
Anyway, behold our nifty new ride -- the 2007 Hyundai Elantra. A sensible little family truckster, wouldn't you say?
(ours is dark grey, and as such I have named it "Spalding". I miss that guy.)
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Car!
Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's back into car-loan debt we go. Ach, to hell with it...we needed a car and we got one, and with a reasonably good deal. I must say that it's nice to come out of a car-buying experience without finding yourself with the psychological equivalent of a bleeding rectum stretched to the size of the
Eisenhower tunnel.
Anyway, behold our nifty new ride -- the 2007 Hyundai Elantra. A sensible little family truckster, wouldn't you say?
(ours is dark grey, and as such I have named it "Spalding". I miss that guy.)
Eisenhower tunnel.
Anyway, behold our nifty new ride -- the 2007 Hyundai Elantra. A sensible little family truckster, wouldn't you say?
(ours is dark grey, and as such I have named it "Spalding". I miss that guy.)
Pre-parental tension
The pregnancy continues on it's life-altering course. Physically I'm doing just fine -- according to my OB I've gained about 9-10 lbs so far, which is well within an acceptable range for my gestation (currently 18 weeks). Not that you'd guess this to look at me; my belly is huge and I feel like a moose. I know, I know -- "shut up and be pregnant". I am, and all things considered it's not really bothering me all that much, even though I am as big as I've ever been in my life (soon to get even bigger, muah-ah-ahhhh!). I'm not looking forward to having to lose the weight, but what the hell...every pregnant woman in the world goes through this.
Matt and I have been having a rough time of it lately...things are OK now, but the past couple of weeks have been tense (to put it mildly). I attribute this to a combination of factors: I'm pregnant, hormonal and being weaned off anti-depressants; Matt's having major father-to-be anxiety and a stressful time at his job, and we're in a fairly dismal financial situation. Oh, and we're both trying to minimalize the booze intake while negotiating the huge amount of life tweaking / streamlining necessitated by the pending arrival of a screaming newborn. Furthermore, we have a history of going Klingon when trying to solve problems together...definitely candidates for Parents of the Century, eh folks? *rolling eyes*
Anyway, after I realized that acting like a hystrionic bitch wasn't helping anything, I decided to try and ease back on the chicken-little routine while somehow remaining focused on what needs to be done before the baby arrives. I can't say that I'm feeling very sure of myself right now...I'm as daunted by parenthood as Matt, and as I've mentioned our lives are hardly in that "Okay! NOW we're ready to have kids!" strata that the media would have me believe actually exists.
But instead of beating myself up for my perceptions of inferiority and buying into all of the gloomy predictions given to me by my own family ("Your life is a MESS!"), I'm making an effort to remain positive and proactive. I'm trying to find strength to convince my husband that everything will ultimately be alright, and maybe even BETTER than alright...I guess by doing that I'm trying to convince myself as well. Hopefully he and I can get in a situation where we're pulling together...I think it's possible, and am trying like hell to not let these hopes become buried under my fears.
Matt and I have been having a rough time of it lately...things are OK now, but the past couple of weeks have been tense (to put it mildly). I attribute this to a combination of factors: I'm pregnant, hormonal and being weaned off anti-depressants; Matt's having major father-to-be anxiety and a stressful time at his job, and we're in a fairly dismal financial situation. Oh, and we're both trying to minimalize the booze intake while negotiating the huge amount of life tweaking / streamlining necessitated by the pending arrival of a screaming newborn. Furthermore, we have a history of going Klingon when trying to solve problems together...definitely candidates for Parents of the Century, eh folks? *rolling eyes*
Anyway, after I realized that acting like a hystrionic bitch wasn't helping anything, I decided to try and ease back on the chicken-little routine while somehow remaining focused on what needs to be done before the baby arrives. I can't say that I'm feeling very sure of myself right now...I'm as daunted by parenthood as Matt, and as I've mentioned our lives are hardly in that "Okay! NOW we're ready to have kids!" strata that the media would have me believe actually exists.
But instead of beating myself up for my perceptions of inferiority and buying into all of the gloomy predictions given to me by my own family ("Your life is a MESS!"), I'm making an effort to remain positive and proactive. I'm trying to find strength to convince my husband that everything will ultimately be alright, and maybe even BETTER than alright...I guess by doing that I'm trying to convince myself as well. Hopefully he and I can get in a situation where we're pulling together...I think it's possible, and am trying like hell to not let these hopes become buried under my fears.
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Monday, March 05, 2007
"Mammon is Queen"
Okay, like some other poseur faux-intellectual-walking-stereotype-of-the-left snobs you may know, I rarely watch network television. However, during a recent visit with my mother and sister in North Carolina, I found myself parked in front of an idiot box pretty much constantly, as it seemed to be the easiest way to avoid the pitfall of conversing with my relations. Yeah, I know -- "ask me about my dysfunctional family". Or better yet, don't.
At any rate, by the insistence of my sister and my own tendency toward cowardly avoidance of conflict, I sat through a portion of Oprah that may as well have been an infomercial for the latest self-help craze known as "The Secret". I choked down about ten minutes of bromidic viewer testimony and smugly authoritative commentary from Oprah's "expert panel" before (by way of preventing myself from asphyxiating on my own righteous indignation) needing to leave the room.
My husband -- who clearly has a higher outrage threshold than I, or at least is a lot more mean-spirited -- viewed the entire show, and highlighted it for me afterwards despite my clapping my hands over my ears and rolling around on the floor screaming "NONONONONONONO!!". And because I think he truly enjoys seeing me get pissed off (so long as it's not at him), he recently forwarded this Slate.com piece to me (quoted below). Which, in turn, I am now compelled to share with the three individuals who might actually read this blog. Vive le spleen!
"And at what point do we stop feeling like we have to take the good with the craven when it comes to Oprah, and the culture she's helped to create? I get nauseated when I think of people in South Africa being taught they don't have enough money because they're "blocking it with their thoughts." I'm already sickened by an American culture that teaches people, as "The Secret" does, that they "create the circumstances of their lives with the choices they make every day," a culture that elected a president who cried tears of self-congratulation at his inauguration, rejects intellectualism, and believes he can intuit the trustworthiness of world leaders by looking into their eyes. I'm sickened by a culture in which the tenets of the Oprah philosophy have become conventional wisdom, in which genuine self-actualization has been confused with self-aggrandizement, reality is whatever you want it to be, and mammon is queen."
~Peter Birkenhead
At any rate, by the insistence of my sister and my own tendency toward cowardly avoidance of conflict, I sat through a portion of Oprah that may as well have been an infomercial for the latest self-help craze known as "The Secret". I choked down about ten minutes of bromidic viewer testimony and smugly authoritative commentary from Oprah's "expert panel" before (by way of preventing myself from asphyxiating on my own righteous indignation) needing to leave the room.
My husband -- who clearly has a higher outrage threshold than I, or at least is a lot more mean-spirited -- viewed the entire show, and highlighted it for me afterwards despite my clapping my hands over my ears and rolling around on the floor screaming "NONONONONONONO!!". And because I think he truly enjoys seeing me get pissed off (so long as it's not at him), he recently forwarded this Slate.com piece to me (quoted below). Which, in turn, I am now compelled to share with the three individuals who might actually read this blog. Vive le spleen!
"And at what point do we stop feeling like we have to take the good with the craven when it comes to Oprah, and the culture she's helped to create? I get nauseated when I think of people in South Africa being taught they don't have enough money because they're "blocking it with their thoughts." I'm already sickened by an American culture that teaches people, as "The Secret" does, that they "create the circumstances of their lives with the choices they make every day," a culture that elected a president who cried tears of self-congratulation at his inauguration, rejects intellectualism, and believes he can intuit the trustworthiness of world leaders by looking into their eyes. I'm sickened by a culture in which the tenets of the Oprah philosophy have become conventional wisdom, in which genuine self-actualization has been confused with self-aggrandizement, reality is whatever you want it to be, and mammon is queen."
~Peter Birkenhead
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