My ire was not terribly aroused by this purchase because he’d saved up for it, is selling his iPod and just sold his old iPhone to pay for the new thing. So fine, get the new phone, see if I care, as long as my bank account doesn’t change.

Life could have been just fine, oh yes it could’ve, if he’d just outlined the cost, how he was paying for it, and never said another word. BUT COULD HE DO THAT? OH NO. Here’s what happened instead, night after night.

So I’m pregnant, right?

(“Oh  my god, yes, we get it. Shut up already about being pregnant.”)

Well, fine, but that state of being plays a prominent role in my going to sleep before @misteranthropic and getting up well after he’s left for work. Because I don’t actually sleep during that time: I fall asleep, sure, for a few, blissful hours. Then at about one in the morning, I wake up and begin to worry: what if the house isn’t warm enough in the winter? What if I give birth at home? If my water breaks in bed, do we have to get a new mattress? What if the baby has five heads and two fingers? What if we never, ever, agree on a girl’s name and it’s a girl — will we just live in the hospital until one of us offs the other and signs the damn birth certificate? And then at about six, when I’ve exhausted all my worries, I fall asleep again. It’s ridiculous, and it makes me extra grouchy.

So when it’s 10:15 and I’ve just drifted off to sleep, only to be awakened by a sharp jab to the shoulder, I’m not all cheery.

“What?”

“Oh, were you sleeping?”

“YES.”

“Oh. Never mind.”

“WHAT.”

“Oh, well, look–” And he’s handing me his old iPhone. I can make out the UPS logo, but I have to put on my glasses to read anything on THAT GODDAMN TINY SCREEN. Then I see that he’s pleased, because his new phone has now been shipped from Anchorage, Alaska, to Trenton, New Jersey. Whoopdeefuckingdo.

The first night, I glared for only a second because the look of pure, boyish glee was — gag alert — heart-melting. It was so cute, I may have kissed him.

The second night, when the phone moved from New Jersey to Kuala Lampur or wherever, I rolled over without a word.

The third night, when the phone moved from Kuala Lampur to Jodhuppurstonfordinghamopolis, I sat up when he nudged me and said, “Oh, really? Wow, honey, that’s great” and then threw the damn thing across the room.

The fourth night, I slept like a baby.

Okay. So the phone finally arrives, and what does this dignified, white-collar worker do? He quits work early that day to go get it, and it’s like he’s found a new mistress: one with smaller pixel-pores who he can carry in his pocket and croon lullabies to at night when they fucking sleep together.

Yeah. Italics AND all caps.

So there you have it: we’re having a new baby, and my husband has found a new, sleek, shiny, non-bloated wife. My only consolation is that my order of Greek Nescafé Frappé mix has left Greece and arrived in Jacksonville, FL, with an estimated delivery date of July 6.

I turned and looked in a very Miss-Manners-ish way, not quite believing my ears. Have you heard our symphony? Have you been to the chamber music series? Hell, even the senior recitals around here are pretty good. And jazz at Merchants and Backstage has been good, and I’ve even heard a good fiddler in downtown playing for tips. Hence my look.

He continued: “And I think it’s a disservice to music to play what people want to hear instead of what is good.” Other said something I couldn’t understand; PA said, “All anyone wants around here is butt rock.”

This time when I turned and glared, I made sure he saw me. He had the grace to look uncomfortable and lower his voice. Arse.

I would bet good money that both these guys are Seattle-area transplants, not native or recent Walla Wallans. Sure, we leave potholes in our streets and have a century-old sewer and water system that no one wants to pay to upgrade, but dammit if we don’t like all kinds of music in Walla Walla. And gentlemen, it doesn’t take balls to come into a community and [wrongly] criticize it; it takes ignorance. Fuckers.

Hell.

Teaching three writing classes is not doable, or at least not for me. The only way I have a single nostril above water right now is because my research writing class is in the research phase; even that is slated to end this week as the annotated bibliographies come in. Of course part of the stress is teaching two new classes, where I have to devise new lesson plans (oddly, it’s the daily grammar lessons that are sapping my will to live…hmm, tangent:

I learned this teaching ESL learners: if you don’t teach grammar, students complain that they don’t learn grammar. If you do teach grammar, students either don’t apply what you’ve learned (because writing is more complicated that sample sentences on an overhead projector), or they don’t care, or they believe they are the exceptions who may abuse grammar because they think they know better. Which they don’t. In my experience, the only way to learn grammar is to use grammar, and revise until you learn how to use it correctly. I don’t know how to teach this effectively.).

Anyway. This is week five, I think, so we’re nearly halfway through. That does not, however, in any way help me get started on what needs to be done this week. It’s a strangely paralytic feeling, knowing how much needs to be done and not being able to actually summon the strength to do it, then stressing about the mounting stress, then imagining my dad saying, “Quit fiddling around and get started,” which only further stymies my will to live.

And the water, I can feel it seeping into that last remaining nostril.

###

Edit: five hours later, I have more or less gotten my shit together, have quit feeling quite so sorry for myself, and am … er, don’t remember how this sentence was going to end, as I’m not fixated on whether “gotten” is a word. Okay, it is. Life can go on.

###

Edit No. 2: six hours later, I am finished; better yet, the last few papers were great!

Thanks a lot. You’re a real credit to your organization.

Two. There is really no excuse — NONE — for not taking credit or debit cards in this day and age. Sure, I carry $10-15, but I don’t carry $30, so when your service is $30, you should take the damn card.

Three. There is no reason to license a dog every year. What a fucking racket.

1. For starters, I was roused from my grading one afternoon by the rhythmic plinking coming from the guest bedroom, whereupon I discovered that the leak we thought we had fixed over the summer was not only not fixed, but had worsened. So much so that we shall have to replace drywall, which I’m looking forward to with fervor normally reserved for dentists and having my toenails yanked out. I stopped the immediate leak with a bucket in the attic (and discovered another, albeit much smaller leak) and, two trips to the roof and a couple caulk cans later, we now have no leaks.

2.1 and 2.2. The second that was going to be on this list was the toilet handle snapping off, but a quick trip to ACE Hardware for a $10 handle (not the stupid plastic one the house-flippers bought; I am never buying a flipped house again) and ten minutes with a crescent wrench and all is well there. So the second thing is the triangle of death that appeared on our Prius last week. The short story (the long story includes lots of instances of the word “fuck”) is that we’re looking at possibly having to replace the HV battery. Which is the big battery, the one that isn’t available at your local auto parts store. Eek. Needless to say, being able to fix your own roof and toilet is a lot more gratifying than looking at replacing a hybrid battery.

3. But I must say, the third bad thing is not so much something that happened to me (in fact, it is a couple years old) as it is something that has happened to our poor world. Internets, while I have been trying hard to refrain from further prostrating myself before the godlessness of politics (except Focus on the Family, which is very godly in its politicking), I CANNOT RESIST COMMENT ON CONSERVAPEDIA.

I mean, THANK THE GOOD BLOGS that there is a site where REAL AMERICANS can bring their biased opinions knowledge together and WAVE FLAGS OF TRUTH at the unwashed masses. And THANK THE GOOD BLOGS that sockpuppetry is dealt with expediently, that there are conservapedia commandments for the proper dissemenination of disinformation, that the “senseless changing of American to British spellings may result in blocking,” but mostly that there is finally an answer to the godless, anti-American, anti-Christian, and anti-right-winged bias of Wikipedia.

– But see, I wrote that entire paragraph mocking Conservapedia because when I first read it, I was sure it was a joke: sure that no one would really use the American flag in the logo like that (and such a bad font! was this made in MS Word?), sure that the “sockpuppetry” was a joke, sure that the “conservapedia commandments” were mocking the Bible, sure that the feminism article was written as satire — so sure that I joked about it on Facebook, whereupon proper fact-checkers assured me that no, it’s real, even if some of its articles have been somewhat vandalized (or “scandalized!”) by hippie-lefty-pinko-commies, those godless bastards.

Look, if conservatives want to have their own wiki, that’s fine, but let’s be honest — it looks like they’re taking their toys and going home because they can’t play in the big Wikipedia league. Yeah, no, I’m sure they have a good grip on reality. /sarcasm

ANYWAY. Already it’s been a day and it’s only half over. To explain, let me back up a week.

A little over a week ago I made a turkey. I never do this, and I shouldn’t because two people simply cannot eat that. much. poultry. The night I made it, I took the good meat off, dumped the carcass in the trash, and had Matt take it out to the trash can. That was a Monday. The trash goes out Wednesdays. Last Wednesday morning, I recall thinking, “Oh, there’s only one bag in the trash can; it doesn’t need to go out this week.”

I believe I’ve mentioned before that I am the world’s worst prognosticator? Yes. It is true.

By Thursday, the trash can reeked as if, well, as if something had died in it, which is only technically untrue in that it died and then went to the trash can to start decomposing. I suppose that keeping the lid of the black trash can closed in the baking sun helped that decomposition accelerate a tiny bit. Nonetheless, when today — a new trash day — rolled around, I was more than happy to wheel that smell-o-can to the curb. And needless to say, it was not nearly that simple.

Apparently I’d forgotten about the glass I broke that was also in the trash with the turkey. My best guess is that when the bag got dropped into the can, the glass broke the plastic and, well, things started leaking. Because Internets, in spite of the garbage truck coming and taking the trash away, there is still rotten turkey juice ALL OVER MY TRASH CAN. It does NOT smell nice.

Right about the time I realized this, I picked up the recycling bin to take it back inside. I got as far as the front door when I noticed the scent and moisture that suggested Trollop had been there shortly before me: yes, the damn cat had jumped into the plastic tub, sprayed her evil forces of urine, and jumped back out again. (Her wrath at no longer living inside the house is unbounded.) I put the bin out in the grass so I could clean up the trail of drops, but on my way downstairs to acquire a rag, I ran into the world’s largest spider, which I would totally have taken a photo of if I hadn’t been so busy freaking out about having nearly brushed it with my elbow. This sucker was the size of a small tarantula, and what’s worse, it didn’t die on the first or the second smack of a now-discarded-but-priorly-perfectly-good notebook.

So finally, having disposed of the spider and cleaned the cat drippings on the porch, I stepped into the backyard to wash out the recycling bin. Did you know that dog poop is nearly the exact same color as oak leaves when they drop onto the grass?

And I was thinking, OH MY GODS. You people are close-minded idiots. God forbid anyone runs into an idea that she or he might disagree with. THE WORLD, IT WOULD END — KABLOOEY!

I tell you this to illustrate the type of grumbly mood I was in all afternoon. And then, completely unrelated to politics, tonight happened.

Seriously, you people who have children? WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?!

You know what my damn dog does when we get her a nice, plush new bed? SHE PEES ON IT. Do you know what she does on the carpet as I’m opening the back door to let her out? SHE PEES ON IT. Do you know what she does when I only let her out onto the deck instead of taking her all the way down the stairs? SHE PEES ON IT.

Have gone through half a liter of Woolite Carpet Stain & Pet Odor Remover (With Oxygen!), gallons of water, and all of my nerves. Currently, Lucy is snoozing in her crate and I’m drinking beer. God bless Wailua Wheat and its Passion Fruity goodness.

Goodnight, and good luck to me.

• the fresh-from-the-oven blueberry-peach cobbler he couldn’t eat
• our plans to fence the evening away
• probably tomorrow’s plans for Thai food
• possibly our plans to head down to see family this weekend
• definitely my mood

Listen. I know it’s a hazard of living in a community and having close contact with other people, but this is the third time in not so many months that he’s contracted a cold from her. Seriously: if you are sick, stay the fuck home. And if you must leave the germiness of your environs to go out and save the world — and for nothing less! — then wash your hands vigorously and DON’T TOUCH OTHER PEOPLE’S SHIT. Oh hell, don’t touch anything. Carry a bottle of Lysol around if you have to, or bleach wipes, or a flame-thrower to really do some disinfecting. Passing along your illness ruins other people’s days and plans, not just your own.

And so help me god, if you get him sick again this year, I will smack you upside the head with the cast-iron skillet I’ll buy ’specially for the occasion. I’ve been looking for an excuse to get one, and this may be it.

*consults old wedding invitation*

Oh, hey, I got married on a Friday at 5 p.m.! Let’s see, why was that again? Surely because I wanted to punish people who had regular 8-5 jobs, and make them travel in rush hour…. Yes, that was it. In fact, here are all the ways I wanted to inconvenience my guests:

1. We changed the location from McCall to Portland, because it would be worse for our guests to drive in weekend rush-hour traffic than to drive eight hours and have to pay for a weekend’s meal and lodgings in a resort town. I know. We were SO THOUGHTLESS.

2. We consulted the schedules of the members of our wedding party and made sure we interfered with graduate school, Alaska fishing season, pregnancies, finals and graduation, and camp. It was hard, but I think we picked a day that maximized inconvenience for EVERYONE.*

3. We knew months in advance precisely what day we were going to be married because, I mean, who our age DOESN’T know what their schedule will be in a year and a half,  but we sat on our thumbs because we wanted to wait until the last minute to begin looking at venues (that’s how you get the best one, OBVIOUSLY). Because we hates to plan! WE HATES IT!** And that’s how we ended up with a venue we just adored–I mean, we could have just squeezed its arborvitae hedge and cooed all night at its colonial facade–right next to an active soccer field, with a delightful owner who didn’t lie, swindle, steal, or be rude to us AT ALL!

4. We were also total jerks and even though we tried not to, we ended up finding a location that was handicap-accessible for our grandparents. DARN YOU, GRANDPARENTS, FOR SUPPORTING AND CARING FOR US ALL OUR LIVES. We were really hoping you wouldn’t make it. Oh well.***

5. We also searched and searched for a small venue so we wouldn’t have to invite our entire families, but fuck me, wouldn’t you know that ALL the justices of the peace were taken that day? So we HAD to spend it with people we care about in a venue large enough to hold all of them AND THEIR HUNGRY MOUTHS.

So yes, we did our best to be rude and unmannerly. I hope you’re all sorry you came, or grateful you weren’t invited. You idiots. DON’T YOU KNOW YOU MEAN NOTHING TO US?

* SISTER, it is NOT MY FAULT you ended up all knocked up. But it worked out: Ellia was the cutest flower girl at our wedding, all dressed in her amniotic sac.

** If you don’t get this, then you don’t know me AT ALL.

*** If my grandparent(s) read this, could someone please be sure they understand sarcasm?

1. 1 bottle champagne (cheap)
2. 1 frozen pizza
3. angel hair pasta
4. chili oil (for pasta salad)
5. cucumber
6. feta (feta = ridiculously expensive in the U.S.)
7. 1 loaf bread
8. 1 pt. fat-free cottage cheese
9. 1 qt. egg whites (for recovering from impending carb binge

but internets, i’m distressed: I FORGOT TO BUY CHOCOLATE.

The response I got purports to be from Instant Type Jobs (instanttypejobs.com), but really it sends you to Freelance Home Writers (freelancehomewriters.com), where you pay to be “trained” and to be given “job tips” (which are really just links to places who are hiring writers, something you could do for free with Google or legit sites like Elance.com). Surprise, surprise, there is no phone number or address anywhere on either website, just e-mail addresses. Scuttle on the Internet says it’s a scam to get monthly payments of $47 from you, and it’s hard to cancel it. The Better Business Bureau does not seem to look favorably upon this organization (it’s got a D rating). So I said scram.

But they didn’t scram — they’re just trying a different name. Because, apparently, they think I’m that stupid. Today I just got a new e-mail from a “different” company. (You’d think that it would be bad business to reply to a query using three different company names, right? Well, I think so too.) Anyway, this one is called Ocala Home Jobs and it has TWO websites, sort of, ocalahomejobs.com and earnmoney99.com (which only redirects you to Ocala Home Jobs), and — no way! — it has no phone number or address, and it just so happens to link to Freelance Home Writers (“rated No. 3 by our clients.” Yeah, No. 3 scam, right behind Nigerian Royalty and cute little girl scouts selling cookies…). It also gives you an annoying pop-up when you try to leave the site which got through my pop-up filter.

So, what am I trying to say? That the following sites are one giant related scam:

• Freelance Home Writers
• Instant Type Jobs
• Ocala Home Jobs
• Earn Money 99
• whitesmoke(dot)com

The great thing is that it only takes about one minute of Googling to find this out, but from the sound of it, a lot of wannabe freelance writers aren’t doing their homework. If these are the people I’m competing with, I feel pretty confident about my possibilities.

In other news, took my bike into the Bicycle Barn yesterday and endured excruciatingly poor, chauvinistic service, which culminated in being charged ten bucks for them putting air in my tires and not fixing, let alone listening to me describe, the problem with the gears (which is that sometimes, the pedals? they do nothing, and I find myself trying to pedal through an intersection with no forward thrust). I despise confrontation, but I’ll be marching back in there today to get either my ten bucks back or my bike actually fixed.

Oh, and also? The reason for caulk is to fill in gaps to keep water out. In addition to the edges of the tub, this includes gaps around the faucet so that water doesn’t get into the space between the shower and the wall. You morons.

Tomorrow we can recommence showering.

In other news, tomorrow is MY LAST TUESDAY IN PULLCOW and Thursday is MY LAST THURSDAY IN PULLCOW and holy tomatoes, people: THREE MORE DAYS AND I’M DONE WITH GRADUATE SCHOOL. Sure, I have to write a paper and grade a set of papers and enter grades after that, but no more commuting.

A rough estimate of the miles I’ve put on the poor Prius is 23,000 in the last two years, just commuting; a rough estimate of the gas money on said commute is around $2,000. Still, I made just enough money to pay the mortgage and my travel expenses every month. So while I wasn’t saving, I wasn’t taking us into debt, either.

And now…now I’ve got to find a job.