My words, they make me an ass
Fucking dilatation. I hate being wrong.
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Childbirth education, part one: Rhetorical analysis
It’s a bit hard for me as a teacher to sit as a student in a class. It’s kind of like rafting after I learned to row: no way am I not going to be the one in charge of where the boat is going and what rocks and waves it’s going to hit.
I may, come to think of it, have a bit of a control issue.
Anyway, this is relevant because in last night’s childbirth education class, I found myself mentally critiquing the educator, which of course is ridiculously hypocritical since it’s not like I’m the most fabulous teacher to spin the magic web of rhetoric. But seriously, I give you the following situations:
1. To start with, she made a sexist generalization at the beginning of class, something about how women’s labor stories are like men’s fish stories (implying something about lying about the length thereof, I guess), and mostly I was offended because I fish, too. And I have not yet lied about my labor experience (head’s up: I WILL win), so the expectation rankled.
2. Then there was this dandy question, clearly meant to gin up some discussion in the class:
Educator: How do you time contractions?
[ten seconds dead silence]
Me: Um, with a watch?
I knew what she was getting at, although not exactly — something to do with frequency and/or duration of contractions — but when you ask an unclear question and no one answers, rephrase and clarify what you mean. Or else you get smart-asses like me answering. (Though, professional confessional time: I love smart-asses. They make class fun and keep me on my toes. Double bonus. Although I’m not sure this educator feels that way about me.)
3. This is a rhetorical complaint: Everything she says is declarative: You WILL do this, you WILL do that, you WILL like this, you WILL not like that, etc. Um, no, thank you. Being told what I will and won’t do or think works about as well on this 30-year-old as it did on this 15-year-old. I realize I’m knocking my own maturity level here, but thanks to feminism and consumerism AND SCIENCE, women have a lot more childbirth choices than we used to, and I don’t appreciate childbirth “education” being presented as a map with stations where you get your hand stamped before moving on to the next level. If that works for the next woman, great — but not me.
Tangential confession: Last night I was a little taken aback when the educator asked who all was reading books on childbirth and I was the only one who raised a hand. Seriously?! How can you approach one of the biggest events in your life without planning? (And no, I don’t think childbirth education indoctrination counts.) I mean, I know I like to plan, but … HOW DO YOU NOT PLAN?
4. Finally, this childbirth educator pronounces the word “dilated” “dillatated.” THAT IS NOT A WORD, and I know because I triple-checked it on dictionary.com so as to not be made an ass of (which happens often enough as it is). And I know I should be more worried about what it means to be 10 cm “dillatated” than how she mispronounces the word, but it strikes at the heart of her ethos and those twelve or whatever years she spent on a Labor and Delivery ward.
Ugh. Somehow in my life I have morphed from the back-row, I’m-not-here student into the front-row, know-it-all critic. What’s worse, I remember how I hated those people in college, and thus this post is halfway between a cry for help and a blubbering confession. I guess when I’m stuck spreadlegged and naked at 8 cm dillatated and wondering why my epidural isn’t working, I’ll have time to ponder this further.
In which I tell on @misteranthropic
Internets, pardon me while I violate the sanctity of my marriage. You know my husband? sometimes known as @misteranthropic? the one who knocked me up? Yeah. Him. Recently, he bought the newest version of the iSlut, sorry, iDumb — no, that’s not it — iClone? Anyway. You know. That shiny thing he never uses to actually talk to people on, the one that requires you to purchase its insanely priced data plan which is only offered by one company that also leases your testicles when you buy it? That.
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.
In which I glare on behalf of Walla Walla
Today I was unlocking my bike from the rack outside the Patisserie and overheard two people chatting about the musical scene in Walla Walla. Or what they thought was the scene in WW. One — whom we’ll call PA for ‘pretentious arsehole’ — asked the other if Other was doing any music these days. He replied in the negative, and PA said, “Yeah, people around here just don’t appreciate good music.”
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.
Rising
I’ve been thinking that Dutch Bros. should sell a Monday-morning, week-starter beverage that loosely involves about five shots of coffee and a pound of sugar (pure cane, of course; none of that corn syrup rubbish). I think today that, and only that, beverage could get me started on the mound — nay, butte — of grading I need to do. Which is to serve as the segue into how this quarter is going, which I will neatly summarize for you:
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.
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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.
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Edit No. 2: six hours later, I am finished; better yet, the last few papers were great!
Necessarily vague
I said, “We need A; B will specifically not work because….” You replied — and I paraphrase just slightly — “B is the only option. A is too hard.”
Thanks a lot. You’re a real credit to your organization.
Three things
One. I’m sorry that my dog is SIX MONTHS OLD and is one big bundle of energy. We do train her, but she is not perfect. This does not mean you need to lecture me as you clip her claws.
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.
In threes: Leaks, batteries, and Conservapedia
I’d never heard the saying that bad things come in threes until I met Matt, and I credit that prior ignorance to having had a pretty good life, all things considered. Since he told me about it, however, I can’t help seeing the pattern. Take this past two-week period, for example: bad things didn’t just come in threes; they poured in threes.
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
Scentillating: A truly disgusting post about a very bad day
Yeah, I know, it’s spelled “scintillating” and it means something about sparking, but I always thought it was “scentillating,” like a smell you get titillated by (I won’t tell you what I thought “titillated” meant, although I’ll admit I thought “-illated” was “elated”).
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?
It’s my blog and I’ll write about poop if I want to
People. I know you don’t want to, but do you have ANY IDEA how much poop I cleaned up yesterday? Even if we forget the amount I cleaned out of her kennel at 5:45 a.m. (on a Sunday. Dog, do you know how sacred my sunday-morning lie-in is?), Lucy still managed to lay EIGHT PILES within a ten-foot radius in the backyard. IN ONE DAY.
On why I won’t be inviting anyone over any time in the near future
Earlier today, I was all hacked off about this story in the NYT about parents (many in Texas, surprise surprise) who don’t want their children to listen to Obama’s upcoming speech for high schoolers. Apparently those parts about responsibility, staying in school, and working hard? Those are socialist talking points! “I don’t want our schools turned over to some socialist movement,” said one parent of a child WHO GOES TO A PUBLIC SCHOOL.
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.