Give Away the Stone

The Grudge

Lateralus

Tool

Lyrics by Maynard James Keenan

"Clutch it like a cornerstone/ Otherwise it all comes down/ Justify denials and/ Grip 'em to the lonesome end/ Terrified of being wrong/ Ultimatum prison cell...Wear the grudge like a crown/ of negativity/ Calculate what we will/ or will not tolerate/ Desperate to control/ All and everything/ Unable to forgive these scarlet lettermen...Defining/ Confining/ And sinking deeper...Give away the stone/ Let the ocean take and/ Transmutate/ This cold and fated anchor...Let go/Let go/Let go..." 

This song is part of my therapy. MJK is my "Guardo Camino," to quote Henry Rollins.

For most of my life, I have had tremendous difficulty being "light"--as the oldest child in a dysfunctional household, I was the peacemaker, the helper, the fixer, the responsible one. I know that I played as a child (fond memories of my sandbox, and my plastic pool, and of course, my pony) but I also know that my games involved being on my own--parentless and fending for myself. Alone against a hostile world, only seeking to make a small comfortable spot to rest.

Fast-forward. I'm 40. Political upheaval following years (20) of hard work towards the goal of attaining a tenured position has resulted in a scenario I find untenable, yet see no way out of. I spend much of the spring plugged in to various news outlets, growing steadily more disgusted, despairing, and impotently enraged as the weeks wear on. I have difficulty sleeping (again). Nothing is going according to my gorram plan. I am cross with my children and my husband--the three people who make up my small comfortable spot to rest. I am no fun to be around, because most conversations with me turn into rants about the stupidity and ignorance of the people who populate the county, the state, and the nation. I barely have the energy to finish the semester--I give what little energy I have left to my students, so there is none left for my family. I am not sure I have any friends left.

After a blow-out with Hubby, I come to realize that I am perilously close to losing what security and comfort I have managed to build with him over the past 10 years of our marriage. I am faced with a decision:

Give away the stone, or let it drag me into the dark.

Two weeks ago, I decided to give away the stone. I have unplugged from the news of the state and the country (except for The New Yorker and Scientific American). I read for pleasure, and I have started to write poetry again. I am on vacation. I smile more, and I look for things to laugh about (Tina Fey's oeuvre is a good place for that, FYI).

I spend a lot of time outside, listening to the birds. I watch the house wrens and bluebirds fledge the same day, and I try to live in the moment. The poetry arising out of this moment makes me feel good, and I look forward to sharing it soon.

A year ago, a friend of mine from college experienced something that visits me in my darkest nightmares: her husband fell asleep on the couch, and did not wake up. He was not in ill-health. He just...died. Leaving her with four girls, one of whom has severe health issues. My friend goes on because she has to--someone has to take care of the girls--but she misses her husband every day.

Her tragedy is my reminder, and not in the cliche sense of "Live each day like it's your last." I feel more like I should try to live better, and part of living better means letting go of my anger about all the things I can't control. 

Getting bent out of shape means that I don't fit anywhere. 

Disgust and Despair

I can't bear it.

The Wisconsin State Supreme Court overturned (4-3) Judge Sumi's restraining order preventing the publication of the collective bargaining law. It will go into effect June 29th. I will make less money next year as a tenured professor than I did when I started on the tenure track. 

The Republicans are fielding fake Democratic candidates to confuse things for people voting in the July 12th recall elections. If you thought Chicago politics were dirty, you ain't seen nothin' yet.

I can't stand it. 

The state legislature is handing broadband control over to AT&T, which will cost schools millions of dollars they don't have--on top of the millions being cut from their budgets.


What I can't get over is that I have worked my entire adult life towards being a tenured college professor...and I feel as though I have failed somehow.

I thought becoming a professor would allow me to give my family a reasonably good middle-class life. Not so. 

We rent a 2 bedroom house for $550 a month (which is a steal, I know--we're lucky). The great thing is that it's out in the countryside--we have a garden, a deck, a huge yard--the not-so-great thing is that it was comfortable for three of us, but it's getting cramped now that Thing Two is a toddler (and a boy).


I am $70,000 in debt from my BA, MA, and MFA (most of it's from the MFA at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago--probably not the smartest decision I ever made).


Thing One had a playdate with her best friend L. earlier this week. When we got to L.'s house, I cringed. The house is new (probably less than 8 years old), colonial, 3-car garage. We walked in and L and Thing One took each others' hands and ran up the staircase. I went into the kitchen (cherry cabinets, granite countertops), and gazed into the great room--two stories of windows looking into the wooded back yard. The sitter seemed nice, and I left.


I know that I have a better life than 90% of people in this world, but that doesn't seem to matter to my inner self.


I am jealous. I have house envy. Not that I want a new house, and certainly not one as big as L's house--I'd just spend half of my life cleaning it. I just want a house that's mine--where I can have a dog. Where each of the Things can have a bedroom. And I can have a room of my own for my books and papers and typewriters. 


This is what was supposed to happen: I was going to get tenure, get my piddly raise, and we would go get a construction loan to begin building our house--the 1800 sf farmhouse of my dreams--on the land we bought in the fall of 2004, six acres of former dairy farm with a huge shagbark hickory tree. We even have the plans already drawn up. Three bedrooms, a library, living room, eat-in kitchen, wrap-around front porch, 1.5 bathrooms, fireplace. We had done the math--we could afford to do it if we did a lot of the work ourselves (Hubby for most of it, but I can swing a hammer too). My dream house, a copy of which is pinned to the wall in my office, where I saw it every day for the last two semesters as I worked frantically for tenure.


And now the gorram plan is shot to hell, for a variety of reasons. 


One reason is that Hubby is in talks to take the job of his dreams in Chicago, about which I cannot write, other than to say that should it come to pass, it will mean that we will have to live separately for over a year, or I will have to leave my job. Since I cannot live without him--I do not want to live without him--I will need to go back to Chicago. 


I am not opposed to going back, not the way I was when we left in 2002. I do not know if I will teach again (certainly not at Columbia, special thanks to Garnett Kilberg-Cohen). I don't know what I would do. 

What I am doing is struggling with the idea of leaving my dream house...and all that it represents. My desire to give my children a better childhood than my own (which was on a hobby farm too, though with an alcoholic, rageaholic father). My longing for a place of my own, for chickens and dogs and horses to live on my farm. Maybe a lop-eared bunny or two.  It means giving up the security of guaranteed employment (though since comparatively speaking my pay is so abysmal it's starting to seem like not much of a sacrifice). It means leaving the beauty and peace of country life for the noise and dirt of the city--though the city has many good things to offer too, the best being a cosmopolitan atmosphere for my children, as opposed to the redneck, red-state area we live in now.


Hubby says we can live in the 'burbs, but I don't think I want that, either. It will mean a commute for one, probably both of us. The only 'burb I even like is Evanston, and I highly doubt we could afford to live there, though perhaps I could get adjunct work at Northwestern or Loyola...crap. I'm doing it again.


The other reason it's shot to hell is the political asshattery in this state means that I will make even less money this coming contract year than I did when I started. This is probably the most pathetic thing about it--and the thing that makes me the angriest. That I've worked so hard for so long, and will have even less to show for it (though still more than I did as an adjunct). I don't think we could build the house even if we were to stay in Wisconsin.

I am so tired. I can't do anything about my current situation except worry, and be angry and disgusted. It's exhausting.


So I think I am just going to try to be Zen. Accept the uncertainty I have never been able to tolerate (thanks, Adult Children of Alcoholics!). Trust (cf ACoA) that it will all work out. Conserve my energy and work on my novel over the summer. Go to New Orleans with Hubby in August and celebrate our 11+ years together.

If you have any advice, feel free to share it. I'm open.

Now for a nap, as Thing Two got me up at 4:45 am again.

The Joys of Working Parenthood: Or, The Gorram Plan

The past few weeks have been rather hectic. My campus is conducting two searches in two disciplines, and I'm on the search committee. This means reading through CVs and letters of recommendation to find at least 6 candidates per discipline. After we get approval, we bring 3 to campus. Each of those candidates comes on a different day to give a public presentation (a sample lecture), have a 1-hour interview with the committee (plus other interviews with the dean and the department chair), a campus tour, a community tour, and dinner with members of the committee.


Monday was the last of 5 interviews for the second discipline. The decision was to be made today at a meeting for which candidate we would offer the position. I was supposed to be there, but guess what? Nothing ever goes according to the gorram plan!


As I was enjoying my coffee, Thing Two (who was supposed to be watching Sesame Street with Thing One) went into the bathroom and got hold of a razor that had been sitting on the sink. I heard "Ow!" and he came in holding his thumb. Yep, sliced it open.


Not too deep, but he bled like a stuck pig. I had to wrestle him for control of his hand, leaving a trail of bloody kleenex down the hallway. Finally got a band-aid on him, and cleaned the blood off us both.


By that point, we were running late. Did I mention that 4" of wet snow fell overnight and the roads were frakking awful? No? How about the fact that I was so fried, I left my purse on the breezeway floor?


Barely got Thing One to her school before the bell rang. Got Thing Two to daycare, where he clung to me with the ferocity of a baby spider monkey. Pried him loose (feeling like crap for doing so--all I wanted to do was take him home) and left.


Campus. Office hour with a cup of tea and the last of my fruit + cereal bars, since I didn't have money to stop at the grocery store to replenish my office pantry.


10:29 am: Heading out the door to class, where we are finishing the second half of The Searchers. Cellphone rings. It's daycare. 


"Hi. I'm calling because we can't get [Thing Two] to keep a band-aid on, and state law prohibits kids with open wounds at daycare."


"OK. I'll be right there to pick him up." [In case you're wondering about Hubby: At this point in the morning, he's already on his way to Illinois for the yearly sales meeting. Won't be back until Thursday evening.]


So much for the gorram plan for the day, which included discussion and prep for the midterm in one class, and peer review and discussion of Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food in the other. 
 

Get the movie started, collect papers, apologize to my class for bagging out again (this makes 3 times this semester--weather for the first two). Run copies for the afternoon section of my composition class, send out an email begging someone to hand them out for me. Stuff the handouts in a folder and prop it up on my doorsill. Bolt for daycare.


He's crying and saying "Owie! Owie" when I get there, and resumes his baby spider monkey clinging. 


We go to the elementary school to pick up Thing One, who is a bit annoyed that we've interrupted her day.


Come home, eat PB+J, take nap. Answer student emails. Which brings us to now.


The Things are watching Ponyo and I am about to get into our course management software to try to figure a few things out.


It hasn't been a completely terrible day, but once again I'm left wondering why these things happen when Hubby is out of town.


The Joys of Working Parenthood.

One Down...No, Make that Two.

Today was the first day of the fall semester--both classes today were my composition 102 sections, both full at 24 with several students trying to add. It's a nice day, usually--going over the syllabus, cracking jokes, having the students work on a short diagnostic essay. No problem.

Thing Two was at Bopbop and Grandma's, so it was just Thing One and I this morning getting ready for school. You'd think that it would be easier and go more smoothly, but you'd be very wrong about this. Every single thing was an argument this morning: outfit, shoes, what to eat, etc. I gave up and got into the shower at 7:05. I just stopped trying to get her to cooperate and concentrated on getting myself duded-up for the first day, first impressions being what they are. She did manage to get herself together and eat some cereal, so we got out the door only 5 minutes behind schedule.

We drive through beautiful farm country--rolling hills of cornfields and soybeans and alfalfa. It makes me really happy to live where I do, as I grew up in Ohio on a horse "farmlet" and I always feel better when I'm at least able to see nature out the window. Living in the city for 5 years cured me of any curiosity I'd had about what it would be like...Chicago has great food and great art but it's like any other major urban area: dirty, smelly, and the predominant color is concrete.

As we neared the beefalo farm, I looked to my left and saw a stubbled cornfield positively filled with sandhill cranes--there must have been 30 or 40 birds stalking (haha) around eating niblets left on the ground by the harvester. Since we were flying by at 60+ mph and we were late already, I just took a mental picture and thought about cranes as a symbol of good luck. Except that Google says they're traditionally symbols of longevity, which explains why my luck went south again today.

My first class went really well--the students responded with laughter in the appropriate places (I'm pretty manic after 3 cups of coffee and a decent night's sleep)--and I got off-campus for a while afterwards to buy a new pillow (neck and shoulder issues recently, and I so do not want to go in for yet another MRI). Had a bit of lunch, had a nice chat with some colleagues, and sauntered off to the second class, which met at 1:00pm. 

Cue ominous music.

A little less than halfway through the class, the classroom phone rings. It's the Dean's secretary with a message from Thing One's school: she's got a fever of 100.3 and a headache. Hubby is two counties away at a meeting. Guess who has to bolt out of class to pick up sick kid number 2. 


So yet another day shot to hell. I really and sincerely hope that this is not a predictor of how the rest of the semester is going to go down. I've been making arrangements to stay on campus later to get more work done (having Thing Two picked up by van and taken to Thing One's daycare will help enormously) but every time I've made plans this week, they've gone awry.


As Mal Reynolds said, "Once, just once I want things to go according to the gorram plan!"