Indulge me, dears

I know you could all see this shit coming. The dreaded "why-2008-sucked-profoundly" post.

So I'll reduce the suckitude to bullet points:

• Jan: Buried our good friend who died tragically in bizarre accident, then buried our beloved little cat who died from mysterious illness;
• Feb: Car died, rode Clomid dragon;
  
• March: Surgery!
  
• April: Learned dad had cancer;
• May: Covered in dreadful, painful, scarring welts thanks to allergy;
• June: Lymph Node of Doom attacks, causes suffering, retreats;
• July: Cycle of Woe starts. Feel bizarre, but otherwise, a banner month, comparatively speaking;
• August: Ectopic terror;
• September: Shinejil goes anemic and/or insane, dh gets crazy anxiety attacks and requires sedation;
• October: Hey! Nothing that terrible happened. Well, one out of 12 ain't bad.
  
• November: Sprained ankle right when work required heavy lifting and right before big trip east;
• December: Stepped on rusty nail!

Now, there are still 12 hours left of 2008. I'm planning to be very careful crossing the street, using cutlery, lighting matches, etc., but I think the bitch has done her best. And I'm still standing.

Oddly enough, I've been feeling very happy lately. Perhaps it's because my guy and I are going to start seriously looking for our farm. Perhaps it's because I've embraced this wacky little town as my home for life. Perhaps it's because my academic mojo is returning and I feel excited about writing and researching and teaching for the first time in months. Perhaps because no matter what, my relationship with my man has only deepened this past year, and my ability to find and appreciate joy has expanded. Perhaps it was the realization that all of this is truly outside my control, that I'm doing all I can and if that in the end winds up being insufficient, there's absolutely nothing I can do.

This is liberating. I used to think IF was my fault, and that if in some deep place I could untie the Gordian knot, I'd be free and fertile. I'm grateful I don't feel that way anymore.

Here's to a wonderful 2009!

The Best Birthday Ever

I hate my birthday usually. It comes the day after Christmas and always feels like an afterthought, or like the afterparty that drags on way too long after all the umph has gone out of the evening.

But every once in a rare while, the day surprises me. I expected to feel somewhat depressed--if only deep down in the depths of my soul--that I was turning 34, with all that means and in the context of all that's happened. One year closer to the fertility Styx of 35. One more year of failure and loss.

Fortunately, that's not what happened. It was unseasonably mild, so my husband and I went for a long walk down country roads near my folks' farm, up an old eroded lane that passes huge mossy boulders and (with the wet year they've had) rushing streams, up to a beautiful, cedar-lined road running along a high ridge. You can see for at least ten miles up there.

When we got home, we had Mexican-esque food. You know, the tortillas and beans and guac of the Midwest. Then I unwrapped my presents, to discover my folks had gotten us a night at this 150-year-old log cabin up the road, way back in the woods.

So my guy and I had a lovely night together, after the family came over to poke around the lovely little place, eat ice cream, drink champagne, and light hurricane lamps. There was a jacuzzi, and reading by candlelight, and a warm morning filled with the squawking of wild turkeys.

Here's to a better year ahead.

The Bear Strikes Back

As in my husband, the bear of a man, fighting for his festive rights and making his boss feel like shit for not accepting his solution (he found a co-worker willing to take his shifts). The boss didn't like it for some reason--oh, could it be he's a control freak with the emotional age of seven?--but agreed to it, to avoid being such a complete and utter ass that he would lose all employee respect.

So we get to spend the weekend after Christmas together after all.

Christmasjacked

Ah, 2008! Such a sack-o'-shit year! You just can't ease on out without one final burst of bad luck.

Our plan for the holiday was a modest, quiet one: Go visit my folks on the farm and spend a couple days relaxing in the country. Shoot some shotguns. Go on long walks. Eat yummy food. Have some fine bubbly. Celebrate my birthday.

But then, my sister-in-law--whom I like, don't get me wrong--decided she wanted to come visit for the holidays, and that also included a trip to the farm. Which meant my mom-in-law--whom I like, don't get me wrong--was also coming along. So our quiet Christmas turned into a family get-together.

After I got over that fact and readjusted my expectations, I was fine with that. I had my dear guy explain to them that they were now family, not guests, and that everyone would be free and obligated to do whatever they wanted. Everyone seems to be on the same page, and all seemed settled.

But now, my guy's stupid employer decides he's got to work, all alone, on the day after Christmas and then on the Saturday after that. That as a retailer the business must be open, though historically those days have been the slowest sale-wise of the entire year.

Now, if we were talking about a place that sold toys or clothes or whathaveyou, the boss might have a point. However, that's not the case: my guy works for a specialty instrument dealer catering to people at music school here (which will be closed) and to folks online. So he'd be driving five hours on Christmas night or at the crack of ass on my birthday to go sit around and play online chess, whilst drumming his fingers by the silent phones and gazing out over the empty showroom. While his sister and mom sit around on the farm 300 miles away and I pine for his company.

Stupid, stupid fucking 2008.

Seven Random Facts

Thanks for your sympathy, dears. The foot is no longer swollen and I'm ambling along as per usual.

For now. :)

Other than that, nothing much going on here. The town is all in a tizzy between holidays and finals week. Our refrigerator is finally back in its nook (we had to tile under it, and thus it was blocking both the stove and the sink in the kitchen for several days). I'm still so uninspired to do any academic work. Our house is a royal mess. My brain is sputtering today.

A good day to be tagged, say I. And behold: the brave, electricity-less Cassandra has indeed tagged me.

The rules are:
1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Share 7 random and/or weird facts about you.

Weird Fact 1: I hate umbrellas and peppermint-flavored toothpaste. An umbrella smeared in Colgate? My worst nightmare.

WF2: I can't spell for shit and would likely never have gotten much past a BA without spell check.

WF3: I grew up in a house that was haunted by a noisy but basically friendly ghost. No really, the whole family heard and saw it. It was always a bit odd, but never scary.

WF4: My hair goes down to my butt. I often wear it in a variation on pigtails.

WF5: My husband and I sing "new grass" versions of classic hip hop songs together. Yes, weird and random!

WF6: I am currently wearing bright blue boots.

WF7: I used to be deathly afraid of slugs as a child, though not of any other creepy crawly critters. I read a story about giant slugs on some tropical island as a child, and it freaked me out so much that I would cross the street when I saw a slug on the sidewalk. Now I just hate them for their garden destruction.

Alas, I can't seem to muster the brain cells to complete Rule 3 (Tag 7 random people at the end, and include links to their blogs). Forgive me.

If it weren't for bad luck...

I'd have no luck at all.

Seriously, how did I spend a big chunk of yesterday?

Well, it all started when I was trying to hang up our modest attempt at Christmas lights. Though we are outgunned by the ginormous inflatable Santas stalking like yetis along the street, I still felt I should make a holiday statement with a string of star-shaped lights.

I hung them in a couple places, trying to make them look decent, and finally decided to string them up in our backyard.

While doing so, I stepped on a piece of construction debris. A nail poked through the entire sole of my shoe and into the ball of my foot.

Ow.

Rusty nail+garden soil=tetanus, so I proceeded to the walk-in clinic to get myself a tetanus booster. Then I got them to throw in a flu shot.

Because you know I've been missing the needles, folks.

My foot is fine: swollen and lumpy, but not too painful. I'm back to hobbling along like Quasimodo.

Sigh.

See you next year!

That's what I just told Nurse Sweetie. We had ourselves a little chinwag over the phone about what's next. It was very cold, and I was on my cell, and while I love shouting about my ladyparts whilst freezing, we kept the conversation short.

In sum: more injections can proceed as early the next time I am graced with Red Army maneuvers.

Naturally, this being my body, we're likely going to see that just a week or so before Christmas if I continue to have the same (psuedo?) cycle as the past two months. Which means we'd get to cut our holiday out on my parents' farm short to jingle around the block with the dildocam. No way, man!

On another, more obsessive-compulsive note, no one seems to know how it's possible to have regular, AF-like bleeding while chemically pregnant, and this is driving me crazy. Regardless, from what I read, your cycle is supposed to start when you sink below 5 and that the first cycle is often longer than usual. Anybody got any experience to share on this front? I'm somewhat frustrated that no one can come up with an explanation for my bizarreness, which means I now have no idea what to expect.

I don't want to get any delusional notions just because I'm a week late, you know?

And the latest blood test result is...

[drumroll]

4!

I'm unpregnant!

Time to do it all over again.

Solitude, or the Gilligan's Island hike

Sing it with me now, "A three-hour hike...a three-hour hike."

My guy had to work on Saturday, and I felt restless and a bit depressed about the whole barrenness thing. I had to get out of the house, and since our decadent week, I've been trying to break what my dad so aptly calls "the reward cycle" of sweets, booze, et cetera. This cycle, along with my previous IF cycle, has turned my thighs into large, pale Vienna sausages, which means it's time to break it.

So, instead of opening up some Shiraz or heading to the nearby (fabulous) pastry shop, I went on a long-dreamed of walk down the abandoned back roads that run through a cluster of state and national forests. I had a map, some water, some local apples and cheese and a crust of home-made bread.

It was beautiful: that turquoise and azure sky so bright it burns your eyes, the smell drifting off the reedy, mucky north end of our large local reservoir. The roads were mere muddy ruts running through the fields, marshes, and woods. Flickers and bluejays tussled in the bare branches. I got away from one of the main roads (read a tiny paved lane) and was surrounded by absolute silence, except when the wind blew.

I wandered in total peace, tramping through the muck, up hills, over creeks, down gravel roads. Then I got totally and utterly lost.

This is a rare occurance for me. One thing I know I have is a very good sense of direction, especially if I have a map on hand. But the map didn't show all sorts of roads and paths that branched off from my lane that ran around the lakeshore and into the hills. I got all discombobulated in the woods. And not once, but twice, I wound up back at the big hill, the one I've written about before, with all the eerie legends about it. It was like the Bermuda fucking Triangle, in the middle of rural Indiana, I swear.

So, as the sun set, I was finally able to backtrack and return to my car. I had spent seven hours walking. I'm still stiff from the experience.

And the funny thing? I would do it again today, if I didn't need to work and shit.