IF and the art of home renovation

Thanks for all your comments, insight, and support in reaction to my professional angst. Wait--does that mean I'm getting paid for being confused? I wish.

We've basically ripped up and out almost all the nasty remnants of decades of shoddy repairs and poor taste. These were projects we had delayed for months and months. What, I wonder, has sparked this sudden, new obsession with domestic search and destroy?

I hear from books and stuff that pregnant women and their partners get all nesty and start making their home ready for their new arrival. While I might technically still be pregnant, that clearly isn't it. We're taking control of the mess our lives have become, and discovering, unexpectedly, that the way out of the mess may take some time and energy to find and follow, but it's right there.

While taking a break from our fumey, grouty labors, I talked with my guy about my many jumbled thoughts and feelings regarding what I'd like to do for the next decade or two. During our discussion, I realized I want to stay here. It may not be an easy path, to forge my own, new approach to scholarship, but it will be the best fit and likely the most rewarding in the long run.

And just so you know, my plan doesn't include making a living from that work necessarily. Instead, I'll likely work elsewhere (I've got a mini-career as a pr writer already launched) hopefully as a telecommuter. Really, the only practical concern we have is health insurance, because, alas alack, once my guy quits his current job to become a full-time farmer, we'll be uninsured. But whatever. We've got time to solve that one.

I realized that my desire to become many things in my life--a mother, a professor or other professional, a wife--has been colored by certain, unhelpful patterns: I must be special, no matter what it costs me. This outward appearance of excellence makes life so hollow for me. I don't care what my car says about me. I like an attractive living space, but for my own pleasure. I'd like to raise a child, but IF has divorced that longing to love from the precious visions of enlightened modern parenting so many fertiles fall into, without realizing it.

Yes, I would have been one of those self-righteous biyoches telling you to relax and do some mediation or something while fishing for a wholewheat organic teething biscuit for little Arden Louise lolling in a hemp onesie or something. Though I've been subject to suffering, I've been spared that ignorance. And should we get our heart's desire, this kid will be showered with genuine love (and hopefully sheltered from the worst winds of our misplaced egos and expectations).

So, by ripping out the fireplace doors and dehazing the nice new white tile in the formerly Satanic bath, we're making a new home for ourselves, our relationship, our hopes. We're putting down some roots, opting for substance and the slow fix as opposed to myth and instant gratification.

Now that I don't feel like shit...

What am I going to do with the rest of my life?

I love researching and writing. Love it. I like teaching and interacting with young folks, even the ones who aren't all that into my subject. Then why does the thought of applying for an academic job make me want to hurl?

For those of you outside of the wacky world of higher ed, getting a prof job is truly stupid and grueling process. But so is IF treatment, and I seem to be able to handle that. In fact, I've spent a lot of time engaged in various stupid and grueling processes, so while the job search is a big turn off (it is for everyone), something else is at play here.

I've long had a love-hate relationship with academe. My entire educational career was devoted to studying hardcore, then fleeing the scene (usually to Eastern Europe) as fast as my credit card and passport could take me. I finished undergrad a semester early to leave the country. I split town the second I finished my PhD coursework. But then eventually, I decided I wanted to finish my degree, if only because I had already poured so much blood, sweat, and tears into it that it seemed a betrayal of self to just throw all that effort away. Plus, I love the Obscure Corner of the World, its languages, its history and culture.

What would I really want to do? Write books about OCOW, intelligent yet popular books about the people and history I've learned. Translate works on OCOW that are not available in English, or even in some other widely known European language. Do something creative, while helping out on The Farm.

But I'm scared. I'm terrified of failing. Of not being able to make a living. Of not being taken seriously because I don't have a prof position to fall back on as proof of my worthiness to tell these tales, and thus never being able to get my work out to potential readers.

(WARNING: potentially dull critique of academia ahead!)

Of turning into some version of Sarah Palin (just without the lipstick and political ambitions), the Crazy Cat Lady, or the sad, threadbare "independent scholar" trying to prove that Ataturk was actually a prophet predicting the eventual dominance of the Hungarians in the EU or that certain ruins in Western China point to Swedish-Uighur trade links and possible alien visitations of Urumchi in the 11th century. You know, one of those "scholars."

I'm scared because I feel that academia has the pursuit of knowledge in a kind of lock-down, unless you can call what you do "art." Yet so few academics reach out to the wider public and share, in clear and eloquent language, what (you'd think) they love so dearly. Most academics write in such obtuse language, referencing sources irrelevent to the lives of even excellently read and broadly engaged laypeople. Their accounts are technical, and frankly, just plain dead. I don't want to write that way.

More popular accounts are often shallow and/or inaccurate (especially as the narratives regarding my area of specialty are only poorly sketched out). I want to change that.

(End of academia rant)

So how do I proceed? Part of me wants desperately to stay here, in this community my guy and I love so well, where all the elements for a happy life can be found. And yet, by staying here, I basically wave goodbye to Prof. Shinejil. I'm equally afraid that if I give up on academia, I'll wind up with my brains turning to mush, living day to day without contributing my tiny little piece to the universe's puzzle. I'm afraid I'll never find the discipline and response from others I need to sustain the considerable efforts of researching and writings my books (by response, I mean money as well as praise, encouragement, etc.).

Sigh. What to do?

Alive!

I finally feel human. It's great to be me again, to see some hope and joy in things.

My meat treatment continued through the weekend, and was supplemented by a hearty dose of various fumes, mortors, and paint all over my feet. Satan has left the bathroom, and it's now a work in progress toward clean, white, attractive happiness. We also fixed some nasty problems with our subfloor in another room, repaired the fireplace mortor, and did a variety of other little odds and ends.

My poor guy is still having GI trouble, and has gone back to see his doc this morning. Please send him your good wishes for healing and peace. I've been trying to calm him down, help him relax a bit until he gets some answers as to why he's still not feeling right. Now that I'm not so sick, I have a lot more to give him, and I plan to do so.

ETA:
Guy not dying, per doctor. The worst has more or less been ruled out (again), but still no insight into the general crappy feeling. Good thing there's still lots of tiling to do. Hopefully I can keep my guy distracted...

Even better today!

My meaty regime has been doing me a lot of good. I also started drinking some Chinese herbs--apparently I have a "blood" deficiency in Chinese terms, too--and got some acupuncture. This morning, I feel better than I have in weeks. I'm not going to overdo it, but my dad is coming to help us redo the Satanic bathroom (he has experience with these things; we don't).

Off to rest a bit more before the great ripping out of the evil vanity commences...

In dreams

I have a guilty confession to make: I've become addicted to Babylon 5. I know, not quite 12-step material (yet) but still, somewhat challenging to my hardcore intellectual cred.

Now, in Babylon 5, for those of you who do not share my obsession, there are these ancient energy beings, the Shadows, who promote chaos and conflict as an engine of evolution. In other words, they get other beings to fight it out, with the winners emerging from the conflict stronger. The interests of these Shadows--whose real name is 10,000 letters long and thus unpronounceable to mere mortals--were promoted by a human dude who was an odd combination of menacing and endearing. Actually, he would have been, had I written the story, but whatever. This being television, he was mostly menacing, in a clean-cut sort of way.

Well, I dreamed this dude showed up at my house, a beautiful 1910s mansion, very well decorated, if I do say so myself. I knew, as did everyone, that the Shadows were coming to take us over and that we had to resist, though this was extremely risky. And they seemed to decide on my house as their first stop. I don't remember all the details, but they were just sort of milling around, trying to talk me into submission in sly and round-about ways. I evaded them, and contrived to call for help out the window to my frightened neighbors.

But then, I somehow came up with a plan: I'll get the dude out of the house and the 'hood, and somehow be rescued. I talked him into going to a park, and as we were driving along, I decided I should seduce him. I wasn't sure if this would save me, but I thought it would buy some time, and that it would be interesting. My overtures freaked him, the evil, menacing one, out. That's when I woke up.

It doesn't take a degree in Jungian psychology to see these shadows as my shadow, my subconscious, coming to take over in a way that frightens me, the conscious waking mind that is me. How did I manage to disarm them? By approaching them, by daring utmost intimacy.

There's something to be discovered in these depths, this terrifying place recent events have tossed me. And I need to be daring and curious to discover what it is.

Meat: The miracle food

I heart meat. I think it's saving my life at the moment. For that, I am thankful and want to express my profoundest gratitude to the bison who gave his/her life for my benefit.

I feel so much better today, thanks to the buffalo meatballs my husband made for dinner last night and the leftovers I had for breakfast. I've also got two nice ahi tuna steaks for tonight.

I'm also giving myself another day off because, hey, I'm so poorly paid and unmotivated, who really gives a shit? Let them fire me, I say!

My guy and I had a terrible fight last night, both of us being at the end of our ropes. He feels I haven't taken his anxiety and physical ailments seriously, which for him feels like disrespect. I feel that I've been totally abandoned and misunderstood in my physical and emotional pain. After some screaming (okay, I did the screaming), we found some common ground and wound up apologizing for not being as supportive as we'd actually wanted to. And this morning, everything's rosy again. I feel the deep connection with him again.

This whole struggle has just sucked.

Laughing way too hard

Maybe it was the roast-beef-and-bacon lunch affecting my brain, but I'm way too amused by this. As in, I'm laughing so hard it's quite painful and actually provoking some gentle nausea and fears that my work colleagues will finally decide I've cracked.

May you also enjoy, friends!

The vial that broke the camel's back

Not content to simply write off my intense, despair-inducing fatigue as Pepys's doing, I was in serious doubt of my sanity and health this morning. Why the fuck, I wondered, do I feel so very shitty?

Am I depressed? Like, clinically so? Am I ill? Am I just a lazy bum who doesn't want to get up and go to work? Am I just an idiot who's got herself trapped in a bunch of jobs and duties she hates?

After a tearful, unproductive discussion with my guy, who insisted I pull myself together and get to work since I had already had my weekly leeching to check my "progress," I stormed off on my bike--is that really possible? Well, okay I peddled off like a heartsick banchee on my bike. I felt bad when I got up this morning, despite a long afternoon of rest at home, and now I felt even worse after having yet another vial of blood drawn. I wanted to puke, pass out, weep, all at the same time.

When I got to work, I mentioned my symptoms to my very kind and caring boss. She noted that I sounded anemic.

Wait a second here, folks! You mean if I've been bleeding for ten days, eating no meat or leafy veggies, and avoiding vitamins, I could be mildly anemic? You've got to be kidding me!

Seriously, though: I'm tired, I'm sad, I'm panting when biking up hills or trudging up stairs, and last but not least I'm craving venison and mutton and rare steaks. And I'm a vegetarian. So I'm going to get me some flesh for lunch and discuss this idea with Nurse Sweetie.

Isn't it funny how a diagnosis can be comforting? I'm not irrationally insane! It's not all in my head that I can't seem to feel rested, no matter how much I relax or sleep! I may someday feel better! Very comforting.

ETA:
Just got my hCG results: down to the 400s. So no scary return to rising numbers. I'm going to see Dr. Spunk on Monday morning, but will work on getting more iron, calcium, and other good stuff until then.

Now you know

My cat. He's to blame.

I normally like to blame society. But as I mentioned in a recent comment, I think my cat--a mess of black fluff and mischief--is most certainly fair game in the blame game.

We all have had truly unfair disappointments on our journeys. They are completely and solely the responsibility of Mr. Pepys, who from the tip of his plumelike featherduster of a tail to his black little damp nose is completely lacking any sense of compunction or regret for his evildoing. And his work continues...

Please, if you must blame someone, blame the true culprit: Mr. Pepys. Yes, he made sure you forgot to pay those bills. He made the waterheater croak. He made that coworker say those stupid things. He encouraged that idiot driver to cut you off this morning. He got the lunch place to thorough fuck up your sandwich order. He is behind a certain political party's policies and candidates. Oh, and failed cycle? Years of IF? Mr. Fluffystuff Pepys has struck again.

It's all stinky, fluffy Mr. Pepys. Blame away!

Bullet points

• Tomorrow, I get to go the dentist. I mean, one of my orifices needs to be poked and prodded at all times, and since the lower one's done hogging the spotlight, it's time for the teeth to get their due. I'm *this close* to having a shiny new implant to fix the genetically deformed tooth from hell. Soon I'll look sort of normal!
  
• Still bleeding, still tired, but feeling better.
• Mega-walk not scheduled until October. But we did go on a hike this weekend, which was lovely but now I'm covered in horrid chigger bites. I look like I've got the plague again, though only from the waist down.
• Finally, finally bought paint, tile, and so on to redo what we call our "Satanic bathroom." Satanic because it has scary Carlos-Casteneda-meets-Ozzy-Osborne bright red and black vinyl floors. This was formerly covered in musty brown shag carpet, which harmonized so nicely with the pink swan wallpaper and the red and white vanity. The wallpaper, peeling off the walls, and the carpet went immediately, so now we have mint green walls and hell-red floors... In short, puke. Soon, it will be white tile floors, off-white walls, tasteful new light fixtures, and so forth.
• My guy's not out of the woods yet with his anxiety, but Saturday we had a genuinely fun day together. So there's light emerging in the pit of despair.
  

see more stunning examples of human stupidity here.

Crazy times...

call for crazy measures.

Last night, I had the idea to plan a 40-mile walk out to an isolated restaurant/b&b and back. The restaurant: awesome food and great wine. The walk: down gravel roads through national forest. My guy loved the notion, so we're going to do it in about two-three weeks. This is about the best we can manage, vacation-wise due to finances and work demands. But a three-day weekend involving good food, wine, and a good, long walk sounds perfect.

We're also going to finally start redoing our bathrooms (which are firmly lodged in the 1970s) and install a new floor to replace the nasty-ass carpet that was in our kitchen.

Yes, kitchen carpet. Can you believe we've endured it two years already?

I continue to feel much better, though I'm still bitter and angry at the stupid half of the world.

to the complete and utter idiot in my department...

...who knew what I was going through, and yet felt completely comfortable telling me he and his wife plan to have another kid in the next year:

Fuck you and the horse you rode in on. Consider yourself lucky to have gotten out of the room without a gut punch. Also, be surprised if I ever speak to you again.

That fabulous sinking feeling

hCG=1000 and change! Though we're not out of the woods yet, I think we've reached the turning point.

Outer Space

Everything is great in outer space. Okay, you have to deal with the occasional nasty alien having a bad tenticle day or some major life support system malfunction and all that, but in general, life in space is pretty cool.

And somehow, outer space is saving my life. I've never been a fan of science fiction. But oddly enough, it's the only thing I've been really able to engage with (besides my heartache and pain), the only genre I currently find compelling. It doesn't even have to be all that good; it's the tendency toward moral engagement and big questions posed in fairly accessable, simple ways that I like. Yeoman's philosophy framed by dramatic narratives...

Perhaps I feel like I'm in outer space, cut off from the ins and outs of the world around me. Things seem inverted: people who were never warm to me are suddenly kind, and I feel a strange ability to be very open with people about my deepest feelings, while dreading superficial talk.

Okay, I won't beat that simile to death. But let me say that even here in orbit, I feel my humanity returning. Today, a beautiful early fall day, color returned to my surroundings. A cloud lifted. I'm still distracted and distinterested, but there's a crack where happiness can seep in. Or at least appreciation for natural beauty and human kindness.

I got my blood drawn this morning; it took two gals to squeeze anything out of this turnip of a patient. I'm still bleeding, uh, down there. Gently, reasonably. No pain or cramps. My guy insisted on a beer and fries last night, and seems to have recovered his sanity. He met his new psychologist today, and I have a feeling he's in for some good, solid growth from this experience.

So, in short, today's a good day. Even with all the madness of the last few weeks, it's a good day, thanks in part to outer space. What odd things have gotten you through the worst times?

The end, my friends...

With any luck at all, I'm miscarrying. I'm very happy about that. (Now, for those of you who've experienced losses, I know that sound like a horrible, awful thing to say, but with an ectopic, the sooner you m/c, the better.) I feel like shit, but slightly less terrible shit. I started spotting Sunday, and have had consistent but not overwhelming bleeding ever since. I spent Monday and Tuesday in bed, and that seems to have done me some good.

The farm? Well, better luck next time. The house certainly had its charm, but needed at least 30-40K of work right off the bat, a fact that didn't jive with the price they're asking or our resources (we can't imagine starting a farm AND taking on the responsibility of making a money pit into a decent house).

The main dealbreaker: no well, only a cistern that the current owners had been filling with a huge plastic tub strapped to the back of their pickup. The roof was also quite old, though metal, meaning it probably had a few more years of life left in it. There was rotten wood (on the outside), sagging plaster and beat-to-shit wooden floors, and the nastiest bathroom I'd seen in a long time (and I've seen some gross bathrooms in E. Europe and Asia). I mean, I don't care if you have three kids. Scrub your damn tub if someone is coming to look at the ramshackle farmhouse you've been neglecting for years. I peeked behind the shower curtain and nearly tossed my cookies (which they likely wouldn't have even noticed).

So, as with everything nowadays, the search continues.

And just in case anyone believed my life was calming down, getting easier and finally returning to "normal," my husband is again afflicted with serious anxiety attacks, which are interwoven with hypochondriac ideas that his stomach upset, say, means he has two weeks to live. Thanks, Dr. Google, for helping my man lose his mind. I talked him into going to the decent walk-in clinic our local hospital runs and they ran some tests to rule out the absolutely unlikely possibility that he had cancer. They prescribed milk of magnesia and Ativ@n. They gave him his very own butt shot. Regardless, he still woke me up in the middle of the night in a panic. He's going to see a psychologist who specializes in cognative behavioral therapy tomorrow morning. Thank the goddess. I'm at the end of my rope, and I have to take care of his crazy self, too.

Oh, and one more thing: my RE got in a car accident and broke four ribs.

As I said before, I was a real asshole in a former life.

Irony

Sorry, double-posting today. Blame it on the cocoa-loaded coffee, my last vice nowadays.

One thought that's been rumbling around in my head of late is the irony of my situation. My guy and I long to give life, yet we're forced to inflict death. To kill, or possibly allow both me and the poor, disoriented embryo to die in agony.

Isn't it ironic?

That I'm finally pregnant, something I've wished for for years upon years (even before I hooked up with my dearest man), and now I'm so excited for the moment I know I'm miscarrying. Because I will no longer be in danger, in limbo. That my breasts ache, my nose balks at all scented body products, but I'm essentially as childless as I was a month ago. That I get all the shitty symptoms of pregnancy, combined with some of the shitty symptoms of chemo and a whole other world of hurt from getting a sliver of what I want.

What a strange thing, this life. I think back to what I was like ten years ago, five years ago, and I can't believe the depth of feeling and thinking that this suffering and strangeness has given me. It's amazing, in that I appreciate with every fiber of my being any joy, laughter, and love I encounter. But it sucks because I can no longer live like everyone else.

Once you've known deep pain, the pain that nearly stops your heart (whatever its source), you can never regain that shallow glide that carried you along life's surface. You get lonely because so few people want to deal with the depths. Yet they are the only place truly worth knowing.

Random rantings

Yes, I got my butt shots and, yes, I feel crappy. But somehow, I think they'll work this time. I'm resting this weekend, and I spent yesterday and will spend today in bed watching stupid sci-fi. My body feels like it could sleep forever and a day, so clearly some horizontal time is needed. Despite all this, my mood is strangely better. I've got another meeting with Dr. Spunk on Tuesday, to discuss our game plan, should the meth not do its job this round. I don't know what I feel about surgery. I'm reassured that Dr. S helped develop the meth protocols for ectopics, and he is an excellent surgeon (I mean, you can barely see that I've had a lap, unless you're really looking hard).

Meanwhile, on the farm front, we're going to see the place tomorrow. I'm going to take lots of pictures, and I may even go nuts and post some, if they look good. Guest rooms will be provided, and we even had the idea to do some gormet meals for visitors in collaboration with an aspiring chef friend who works at our local hippy-foody store. Can you imagine a nice meal prepared from the cream of the winter veggie crop (oh yes, friends, winter even in the southern Midwest is a prime growing season with the right set-up) with wood-fired oven baked bread and local cheese (there's a great dairy down the road that does lovely, classic raw milk cheeses)?

And to distract ourselves, we've been watching the Republican convention over the last few days. My observations:
1. Cindy McCain is most definitely a Cylon. Why can't women just look their age, beautifully? She's a lovely woman, and doesn't need all the scary synthetics, dye, surgery, Botox, whatever.
2. The cameras seemed to have sought out at least 30% of the 36 African-American delegates at the convention (out of 2,400 or so in attendence). Compare with the Dem convention, where the audiene looked like America not the Lockjaw Country Club board meeting.
3. No mention of any concrete policy initiatives or directions, just vague platitudes. We need details, peeps. It isn't about character; it's about ideas and plans.
4. The protesters, especially considering the treatment of many activists and esteemed progressive journalists like Amy Goodman, were brave people.

I have nothing against John McCain as a person. I think I'd like him if I met him and would enjoy hearing more about his life. But he must not be our leader. I wish he'd go home (which house is home is up to him), kick back, and enjoy the rest of his life.

I have everything against Sarah Palin. Any person who believes the earth is 3,000 years old and that rape victims do not deserve to be delivered from the mass of cells their assailants deposited in them is clearly opposed to reason, logic, and the intellectual accomplishments of hundreds of generations of hard-thinking human beings. I am not going to throw Thomas Paine, Susan B. Anthony, Charles Darwin, and a gazillion other brilliant men and women onto the trash heap of history for some smirking, mean-spirited shrew. Stoneagers out of government!

One! More! Time!

Yep, hCG's up to 3000 and change, so it's one more round of the evil yellow demon for my sorry ass.

I think I must have been a bona fide shit in a former life.

When does it end?

...the feeling shitty, I mean. Oh, I know the sorrow and anger goes on and on. I can deal with that (you forget, I've lived in Eastern Europe, where wrestling with such emotions is a high art). But my body. It's just cached, dude. I'm exhausted, weepy, nauseous, exhausted, irritable, and did I mention--exhausted.

I took the day off yesterday and slept. Today, I could have easily done the same, except my mind would have begun to mutiny. This is far, far more depressing to me than the pregnancy disaster, for which I never had much hope.

I had my follow-up blood test today. Pray that I don't have to get another butt shot. And that I begin to feel human again soon.

Still Alive

I may blabber a bit more later today. I'm back home, I'm alive, I'm even feeling a little better.

Just to show you how funny it all can be, I also seem to have a yeast infection. I know, hilarious, right?

I went to see the farm with my guy. It's awesome. We're going to go take a look as soon as the listing agent can meet us out there. Lovely 1880s house, five or six outbuildings, nice open land, middle of nowhere. Some issues (cistern system instead of a well, 100 amp box) but very intriguing and the right price.

No matter what happens with this place, we've decided we're going to invite our realtor out to tell us what we need to do to sell our house. We're going to start a farm, folks.

Academia be damned.