As well as tracking the blogs of my friends and family, I follow a few blogs just because I like them, even though I have never met the parties involved. There's one I like that I happened upon because the writer is apparently a friend of my aunt's niece. Seriously. A number of them are parenting blogs... there's one in particular that I really love; the writer is funny and sentimental and posts great pictures of her daughters. When I blundered onto it last year, I read about 20 posts in one evening. The thing is ... now I've been sucked in. I care about this woman and her family, and lately things have been looking a little scary and I'm worried about them. And then there's this other blog I got kind of hooked on lately, and the writer is grieving now after a miscarriage.

There should be a warning on my computer: The internet will suck away your time and connect you weirdly intimately with complete strangers.

I just don't know if it's good or bad... or just entirely different than previous social models. And while it's good, I think, to make connections with strangers, it's weird that my experience of the grief and joy of these strangers' lives is completely selfish - I am sad or happy for them, and they never know it.

Anyway, back to being selfish just about my own life. I've got a paper to write. Two papers to write, actually. If anybody knows anything about congestion pricing, please give me a call.

Oh! And...

I just want to say that I'm pretty excited about an imminent new person in Port Townsend, and that is a constant joy-making thought in the back of my mind.

The end is in sight.

No, not the bitter end. Just the summer, and in the nick of time. Dutch is sick of me being gone or busy all the time, Cook is sick of cooking all the food and washing all the dishes and sweeping all the floors, and I'm sick of being crazy-making-over-scheduled.

It's probably a clever subconscious strategy to avoid feeling awful about my spectacular failure to land an internship,* but I'm starting to really look forward to being under-scheduled. I plan to work about 30 hours a week, and that's ALL I will be doing. No school. No internship. No volunteering. Nothing responsible at all. Just the rest of my life, like sleeping, watching lots of cheesy movies, spending time with my kid, spending time with my husband, reading cheesy books, and maybe - hey, imagine this - calling some of my friends to actually talk to you!

Also, I need some time to remind myself that being rejected directly and indirectly about twenty times in six months isn't really a reflection of my value in the world.** It certainly isn't a reflection of my capacity to take joy in my life, and I haven't been doing that enough lately. The roses are in bloom here, and they're pretty darn spectacular, which you'd think would be enough to remind me about the importance of smelling all roses, literal and figurative. So there you go. My agenda for July and August: extensive smelling of flowers. I'll write it into my Google Calendar...

*I've had two more fruitless interviews and gotten two scholarship-rejection letters since I last posted about this. Hence the awful feelings...
** Just the Portland job market, I'm sure.

Families of Thailand

Dutch is watching "Families of Thailand" in my bedroom. (Because I'm working really hard on a project for school, obviously.) She's hooked on these movies we keep getting from the library - it all started with "Families of Sweden" and we're waiting for "Families of Japan" to be delivered to our library. We've learned some stuff. Dutch asks insightful questions like "why is it so hot?" and "why do they not have a car?" and "why do they not have very many clothes?" and so on. For an American kid who's totally baffled by the notion that we might not have enough money to buy whatever we want whenever we want it, poverty is as alien as monsoon season.

Exercising the precautionary principle in your life.

If you're pregnant, or considering ever getting pregnant, or know someone who's pregnant or considering getting pregnant (so really, if you're a human being), I've got something for you to consider:

Using a cellphone while you're pregnant appears to nearly double your child's likelihood of having emotional or behavioral problems. (And kids who use a cellphone also have higher risk of behavioral problems.) Researchers have no idea why this might be the case, and obviously there's no clear causality, but the association is significant. So you might want to consider, or suggest that people you know consider, avoiding cellphone use during pregnancy. Just in case.

Evidence of the day

Procrastination, summa cum laude

I found out yesterday that I have an upcoming exam... tomorrow.

I missed class last week, thanks to Pittsburgh, and somehow had written the exam into my schedule for a later date, so I came perilously close to living out my anxiety nightmare of being totally unprepared for a test. Usually in those dreams I'm not wearing any pants, and (major psychological insight coming up) I'm pants-less because I CHOSE not to wear pants earlier in the dream (for excellent reasons like "hey, this is a really long shirt - who needs pants!") so I'm humiliated as a result of MY OWN BAD DECISION. That's pretty much all my major psychological hangups bundled into one horrible dream.

Anyway, I will still be woefully unprepared for the exam, because this is one of those maddening classes in which I have a good grade, have done most of the reading, turned in all the assignments, and attended most of the classes and actually listened, and yet have learned almost nothing. I am aware that it is my responsibility to maximize my educational experience, and I should have been doing more toward that end, but I think that doing (most of) the required work should get you a little further along the way than it has in this class.

And today I am procrastinating! I have actually been doing schoolwork pretty steadily since Friday morning, but I am incapable of seriously knuckling down to anything for very long, as you know, so I have also washed dishes, wiped the mildew off all our windowsills, done another useless informational interview, applied for a job, baked a cake, and pretended to drive a plane (assembled out of our kitchen chairs). I'm using magical thinking at the moment to sustain the delusion that I'll get an A without actually studying. But I've already laid out my outfit, complete with shirt and pants, for tomorrow, to forestall any potential coverage issues.

Big plans!

Now that it's clear that I will never find an internship, let alone a real job, I have given up on all this silly interviewing and applying, and turned my mind to more important things. I am attempting to place holds on every cheesy movie in the Multnomah County library system, in anticipation of a long summer. Please send me your recommendations!

P.S. Regarding the previous post - we have no cat. Just poetic inspiration.

Move over, Jack and Allen.

Spontaneous poem by Dutch, preparing for a trip to the zoo (and dressed in a blue-and-navy-striped shirt, multicolored striped socks, and blue flowered pants):

Leapy cat!
Sleepy cat!
Pounce-upon cat!
Curl up sleepy cat, curl up sleepy cat, burl up sleepy cat!

Always look on the bright side of life.

I am feeling deeply demoralized by the fact that nobody seems interested in paying me a pittance to work for them. If I can't get an INTERNSHIP, how am I supposed to find a job? Hmm? The last internship rejection was particularly crushing, as my interviewer had informed me that I was one of only three applicants for two positions. Ugh.

But I am trying to be resilient about it. Really! The glass is half full! In three short weeks, I will be free for the summer! I will be working just 25 hours a week! I can enjoy the lovely Portland summer! Something will turn up - I'll probably end up cobbling together some random part-time things... in the meantime, please come visit. I will have lots of free time!

PDX-CVG-PGH-SLC-PDX in three lists

List One - things that pissed me off in the Cincinnati airport on Tuesday:
1) The broken switch in the cockpit of my plane, and the subsequent delay.
2) The bathroom stall in which I got myself wedged sideways (all airport bathroom stalls should be built to accommodate weary travelers with large heavy bags and 3-foot-long poster tubes).
3) The person who used said stall before me, and was too fastidious to put her naked butt on the seat, but not fastidious enough to clean up the urine splatters.

List Two - things I liked about taking the 28X from the airport into downtown Pittsburgh:
1) The couple who awkwardly reacquainted themselves (she's a student at Penn, he was on my flight from Cincinnati) while standing behind me waiting at the bus stop, and made out and snuggled the whole busride.
2) The Gaming Control Board Commissioner who sat behind me and flirted with the woman in town for her highschool 40th reunion.
3) The absolute fabulousness of public transit, as expressed in a $3 charge for a reasonably fast trip downtown, the opportunity to eavesdrop on and be charmed by my fellow humans, and the utterly gorgeous view of a golden moon setting over Pittsburgh, shining on the three rivers.
4) OMG they TOTALLY have a dedicated busway! EEEEEE!!!!!!


List Three - things I noticed about Pittsburgh in my brief escapes from the conference:
1) Big Yellow Bridges
2) Old white men in trenchcoats smoking cigarettes
3) Those rivers! So beautiful!
4) Pointy buildings
5) Inclines!

I'm going to Pittsburgh.

Yup.

Procrastination, advanced

1) Three weeks before paper is due: Cast around on internet, decide the topic is too complicated to think about now.
2) Two weeks before paper is due: Ditto
3) One week before paper is due: Ditto
4) Three days before paper is due: Decide that playing with visiting family is very important, and the paper can wait. Play with family. Meet with group for another class. For the remainder of the day, rest. It's very hot, after all, and you didn't get much sleep.
5) Two days before paper is due: Go grocery shopping. Check all your friends' blogs. Wash the dishes. Make lunch for family (raspberries, poached pears, apricots, apples, leftover pizza, cheese-and-pickle sandwiches). Eat lunch. Work on paper for an hour, pretty ineffectually. Because the oven is hot (Cook made cornbread) and there are over-ripe bananas on the counter, decide you should make banana-ginger muffins. First, you have to wash the bowl. Before you can wash the bowl, you have to empty the dishrack. Wash the bowl. Wash other dishes. Start making muffins. Help Dutch with her sticker book. Continue making muffins. Help Dutch with her sticker book, and spend twenty minutes trying to teach her about telling time. Finish making muffins. Wash more dishes.
6) Blog.

Hot weather does what all my complaining cannot

It's ninety degrees hot today, so Dutch finally let me get her hair out of her face. She insisted on braids; she wanted to be like Pippi Longstocking.

Musical happenings

Today two exciting musical things happened.

We bought (for an exorbitant price) two CDs from Dutch's daycare. These CDs feature the musical stylings of Teacher Alicia and Teacher Michael, who sing and play music with the kids at least a few times a week. Dutch can be heard on several of the tracks, and she looooooves the CDs, especially a demented version of Old MacDonald sung by one of her classmates who sounds like a 90-year-old (and tone deaf) woman. Cook's eyes rolled back in his head when we listened to that track, and we've only heard it once. I can't imagine how it'll sound after the nine billionth time Dutch makes us play it. However, I am pleased because one of the tracks is a song that I last heard sung by my kindergarten teacher on whom I had a terrible crush. She is forever preserved in my memory as a dream of beauty and kindness, accessoried with bell-bottoms and a guitar. We used to fight over who would get to sit close to her when she sang.

And then tonight we were listening to NPR, and one of the little musical snippets between segments was from Rockstar Uncle's band! I'm not entirely sure what he would think of this event. On the one hand, yay! National exposure! On the other hand, hmm... exposure to people who listen to Marketplace... perhaps not the desired audience?

I'm sick of my own elevator speech. I have pitched myself, in the last six months, to five professors, five informational interviews, one mentor interview, and four job/internship interviews. I've been to two private companies and three government agencies. I've got many of my key phrases memorized (one embarrassing but strangely successful example: "I've come to really appreciate process"), and I'm starting to sound a little robotic.

Mostly, though, I'm just tired of it. I'm tired of chasing down leads and trying to persuade people that they should pay me a pittance to learn a whole new trade. I'm tired of staggering out of offices feeling totally wrung out and disappointed. I'm tired of the things I say about myself and the things I say about my plans, and I'm tired of wearing my one Fancy Outfit. And anyway, it's pretty clear that all these things are not working, since no one wants to pay me even a pittance.

So I think I'm going to take a break for a little while, maybe troll ebay for a new Fancy Outfit, and come up with a new elevator speech. I think this one's broken...

At last, we know the price of human autonomy.

It's $4/gallon.

AHA!!!! People are flooding to mass transit! Buying smaller cars! And all it took was $4/gallon! I wonder what we could accomplish with even HIGHER gas prices... probably substantial reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and hazardous air pollution. Hmm. Perhaps reconsideration of our land-use patterns?

Incidentally, for a depressing take on the whole gas tax holiday thing, check out Paul Krugman's blog, in which he declares it's an idiotic idea but won't happen, and Obama's healthcare plans are even scarier. The perils of being a single-issue voter, I guess.

Anyway, I also wanted to report to the world that we are recuperating.The highlight of yesterday was when I sent Dutch to our one tiny bathroom to wash her hands before snack, and then heard Cook dash into the bathroom to vomit. I went into the bathroom and found poor Cook on his knees, retching into the toilet, with Dutch, holding out her dripping hands, trapped between him and the wall. The water was still running in the sink, and Dutch said in a small, polite voice "Daddy, can I get out?" This will probably come out in therapy thirty years from now. But for now, we're all feeling much better, thank you.

Irrelevant agencies indeed.

I've sent this to many of you before, but it's always worth another go round.

Original Mothers Day Proclamation, by Julia Ward Howe, 1870:

Arise then, women of this day!
Arise all women who have hearts, whether your baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly:
'We will not have questions decided by irrelevant agencies.
'Our husbands shall not come to us reeking of carnage for caresses and applause.
'Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy, and patience.
'We women of one country will be too tender to those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.
'From the bosom of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with our own, it says "Disarm! Disarm!"
'The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.
'Blood does not wipe out dishonor, nor violence indicate possession.'
As men have forsaken the plow and the anvil at the summons of war, let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means whereby the great human family can live in peace, each bearing after his time the sacred impress not of Caesar, but of God.
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask that a general congress of women without limit of nationality be appointed and held at some place deemed most convenient and at the earliest period consistent with its objects, to promote the alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement of international questions, the great and general interests of peace.

And, if you're in the mood for NOT thinking about war, but are in the mood for thinking about your mother, I really liked this opinion piece in the New York Times, which offers an "honest consideration of the ways in which the most intimate relationship of our lives has formed and sustained us."

Hopes and dreams

Dutch begged today to be taken to "that place that had the advertising? that we saw? this morning? where you lose all your money?" by which I finally deduced that she meant a casino. After some discussion, and tears, it was determined that Dutch, on her 18th birthday, will go alone to a casino to lose all her money. (Not her "floppy" money, though, just the "hard" money. ) I am not allowed to go with her.

Anyway, we're all sick. It's been an un-fun couple of days around here. Dutch got over it pretty quickly, with just a bellyache, and I'm feeling better than I did yesterday (though I've yet to eat anything other than bread), but poor Cook is completely down for the count.

My next graduate degree! (Beware - also poop-related)

Apparently there's a fecal theme for this week. I picked up Dutch from daycare today, and discovered that she had had a "BMA" which turns out to be a Bowel Movement Accident, daycare providers being too fastidious to say the kid pooped her pants. I'm not a fan of cleaning up BMAs (and I have been known to throw away underwear, but Cook made me feel guilty, so I can't do that anymore), but I'd like to think that I'm able to calmly take it in stride as a part of the parenting package. And I haven't had to do any poop cleaning for six months (except off the floor). So I took the stinky plastic bag full of BMA-covered clothing home on the bus (this made us very popular) ... and then I opened it. And it was revolting. I grumbled and groaned about it while swishing the undies in the toilet, and apparently I made Dutch feel bad. She said firmly "Mama, everybody has accidents sometimes." I said "Yes, that's true. Thanks for reminding me." She said "Mama, maybe if you go to school for a while, you will learn that. My teachers went to school for a long time so they could learn that everyone has accidents."

And then she said suddenly "I have to poop!" and I said "hold on!" and hastily finished up my undies-swishing. But I was too late. So I had to clean up another pair of underwear.

I will start looking for MBMA programs right away.

Sumer is icumen in

Dutch says it's summer. Today she wore shorts and a short-sleeved shirt and flipflops (which she's getting better at managing, but are still a major tripping hazard - but they're SPARKLY, so she'd wear them even if they were covered with rusty spikes). I wore long pants and a sweater. I'm not entirely convinced.

Electoral angst. Pretty boring.

This morning Cook and I were pondering our voter information booklet, and discussing our voting options. Turns out we're both voting for Obama, Cook for some well-thought-out reasons that I kind of listened to, and I for the Gas Tax Reason. I'm dubious that it's possible to really make an informed choice in candidates. You can't really make a decision based on whether you like the candidate "as a person" because they'll never let you know who they are, and anybody running for president kind of has to be a self-centered jerk by definition. And there are just so many freaking decisions. Even when you make an uninformed decision based on a single issue (like... the gas tax!), things get confusing. For example, I'm struggling with choosing between the Democratic US Senate candidates (who will be tackling the Eeeeevil Gordon Smith in November). They come down pretty much the same on lots of stuff, but on different sides on some of my personal hot-button issues. I'm thinking I'll pick the one who is opposed to the death penalty, JUST BECAUSE OF THAT ONE ISSUE. That seems kind of nuts, but I don't really see how I can make a decision without spending the next two weeks doing intensive research. So... I'm making decisions pretty much arbitrarily.

Looking at the booklet also reminds me about how little I know. Cook and I were puzzling over things like which state district we're in, which regional district we're in, etc. I've never heard of the people running for various judge positions. I frequently end up in the voting booth (something I'll never experience again, because Oregon only votes by mail) making decisions based on whether or not the candidate has an interesting name. And I'm supposed to be an educated person.

Anyway, that Senate primary race is exciting because I have actually SEEN one of the candidates (he lives in our neighborhood), and Cook has seen them both! Politics is so thrilling!

Another not-good thing to hear, also poop-related.

I was lying on Dutch's bed, waiting for her to come back from the bathroom so she could "play with" me, which meant (as it often does) that she plays while I read the New Yorker and try to get away with the absolute minimum of mental engagement. (I really feel that spending quality time with one's child is the most important element of parenting; I'm sure you agree.)

Dutch interrupted my happy engagement with "Talk of the Town" when she said plaintively from the bathroom "Mama, I got a little poop on the floor..."

I have no idea how she did it. However, I managed more grace than I did last night, when she banged her knee on the wall while flopping dramatically into bed after a half hour of obnoxiousness, and started to cry, and I said disgustedly "oh for god's sake, PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER!"

High on the list of things you don't want to hear whimpered by a small child in the back of a crowded bus stuck in traffic on a Friday morning.

"Mama, my stomach really hurts! I have to POOP!!!!"