Man-cation

This weekend, Sam has a reunion with a bunch of high school friends. We've started referring to it as "man-cation" after seeing "man-cation" packages advertised by some cabins in OH, where they are going.

I suspect it is a riot of masculine activities: the beating of chests, grilling of meats, snorting at domestic duties, and disavowing the love of cats.

Supersize Me

Today: class (discussion of religion in John Irving's A Prayer for Owen Meany), advising, doctor's appointment, more advising, and a faculty meeting. Plus squeezing in time for considerable intake of calories. One of my students finished up her advising session early, and my first thought was: What does this give me time to eat?

A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that I was 20 weeks along and had gained 4 or 5 pounds--which apparently raised some friendly concern in the household of Dr. B. and JS about whether it was enough. But the good doctor can rest easy: the ultrasound confirmed that the baby is exactly the "right" size. And on top of it, two days ago, I gained 2 pounds within a single day, and the next day, gained 1 more. Water, or chocolate chip cookies--who knows? I've been ravenous lately (yes, Frank, even for me). And while people tell me I'm eating for two, I also keep thinking, "Yes, but one of us is only 6 inches tall."

At this point, I can still fit into some of my clothes, but if I'm honest with myself--or heed my husband when he gasps, "Your belly is HUGE!"*--they don't quite fit the way they used to. My happiest discovery has been how incredibly comfortable maternity clothes are (I've got some stockpiled for the day I completely run out of wearable options). They have this elastic belly band that's even better than an elastic waist on regular pants because it's really wide and smooth. My first thought was "perfect for Thanksgiving!"

*Honey, you ain't seen nuthin' yet . . .

Attn: Americanists and Aesthetes

I give you:

Mustaches of the Nineteenth Century.

Introduction to Quitting

I'm teaching our department's Introduction to Literature course this semester for the first time. It's a "gateway" course, meaning that students have to take it to proceed to upper-level English courses. It also fulfills a couple of distribution requirements, so we offer several sections and they usually fill right up with a range of students. Some are really good, the best students from other departments who just want to take a lit course because they like to read. Some, let's just say, probably have talents that happen to lie elsewhere.

Still, my feeling is that classes are for learning new things, so you don't have to be good at the beginning. You just work and try to learn things by the end of the semester. That's how it works in my dream world, anyway.

In my dream world, I hand back the essays and midterm exams, and the students who do badly come in to my office. "Professor," they say, "I just don't get it. I'd like to do better, but I don't know what I'm doing wrong." And then we have enlightening, exhilarating conversations about the material that leave us both better people.

Unfortunately, in my real life, I've had the following conversation three times this week:

Student: I'm here to talk to you about my grade.
Me: Okay, did you want to go over your paper and your midterm together and see where you could improve?
Student: Well, we could. I just mean, I reeeeeaaaallyy need a B in this course. Is that even possible?
Me: You mean, mathematically?
Student: Yeah.
Me: Well, yes. Why don't we look at your paper and exam, and we can talk about what you'd need to do to get there.
Student: I thought I had done fine, so I really don't see how I can improve since I thought I was doing good already.
Me: If we look at your paper, we might be able to identify what you'd need to work on.
Student: Actually, I'm thinking of just dropping the course. I mean, I really need a B. I cannot get lower than a B and have this course bring down my GPA.
Me: Okay, well, looking at your paper will show us what skills you need to gain, and then you can decide whether you want to put that time in. I can't guarantee you a certain grade, but I will help you improve as much as I can.
Student: I always got As in high school.
Me: (silence)
Student: I think I'm going to withdraw. I really just have sooo much going on right now--I can't take this.
Me: Sigh.

On the other hand, this seems to be a good way of thinning the ranks . . .

The Cat's Meow

Nearly every night before dawn, Holly the cat wanders into our room and lets out these quietly plaintive wails, which get progressively more insistent and are then matched with light moans of "Nooooo" from Sam. A little duet. I feel some guilt about her waking him: Holly is really my cat, not only because I brought her into the marriage, but also because she continues to love me more. And because Sam is allergic but tolerates her because he knows how much I adore her, even these days when he has to clean the litterbox because of toxoplasmosis. Still, they have this warily loving relationship, with lots of shy gestures of affection but also lots of suspicion and a tinge of jealousy. She rolls over to show him her belly for rubbing, and he likes when she comes and curls up next to him--but if either does anything displeasing to the other, they give each other well-practiced looks of disgust.

Getting woken up two hours before the alarm is not his favorite thing, turns out. We can't shut her out of our room very easily because the house is mostly open, and the bedroom door is this gorgeous original wood that we don't want her to scratch (the next level). But I've been waking up pretty early these days, so I've been getting up when I hear the first meows, and heading down with the kitty for some cuddling and slowly waking up. Unfortunately, this seems only to have encouraged her.

What to do? Well, obviously: Google. Which informed me "meowing is how cats train their owners." (It's all making sense now . . .) And suggested either ignoring the cat's meowing for several weeks, which just seems unworkable in light of the presence of the master of the house. Or spraying her with a squirt bottle when she does "the behavior," a form of discipline that cat-owners are encouraged to "be subtle" in undertaking. How could a cold spray of water to the face be "subtle"? :(

Seeing is Believing

In the past six months, I've been putting all these new word combinations together. Completely ordinary words that I hear every day, but never before from my own mouth: My + husband. My + mother-in-law. And now, as of Friday, my + daughter! (My mom, I heard from my sister, who had heard from my mom before I could even get to my sister myself, has been rehearsing "my granddaughter" quite fluently!).

As I mentioned, Sam and I were desperately eager to find out the sex of the baby. We had heard that ultrasounds can't always given an accurate picture of the sex based on the baby's position and the view the machine can get, so when the ultrasound technician gave us her prediction, we asked if she was pretty sure. She said she had been doing ultrasounds for 27 years, and "I hate to say it, but she [the baby] is very immodest." So there you have it, folks: the first information Sam and I have about our child's personality.

The technician really couldn't have been kinder or more generous with her time. For the first half-hour, she took a bunch of pictures to send to the doctor, checking the heart, other organs, measurements, etc. But then she spent another 20 minutes just giving us various looks--at the hands and feet kicking around, at the baby rolling over, at the beating heart and the perfectly curved spine. My favorite was a profile view of the face, particularly because while we were looking at her tiny little nose, the baby reached up and touched her own face with her hand.

The stages of the whole thing have been interesting--hearing the heartbeat for the first time made it real for me that what was going on was not just a bunch of chemicals or kind of a swelling, but a completely separate being, with its own pace and its own thoughts (eventually). Now, we know that this being is a girl, and having seen the pictures, it's so much easier to think of her as a baby instead of just an idea of a person.

Blessed are those who don't need to see to believe--but also blessed, I think, are those whom God grants a little glimpse.

Photo Op

In just one hour and 39 minutes, we go to have an ultrasound where we'll get our first glimpse of the baby and hopefully find out whether it's a boy or girl. Yes, I know, some people wait. Some people also endure childbirth without medication for pain, and the likelihood of my choosing to do that is about the same as my living through the next 20 weeks without finding out the sex of the baby when the information is plainly available. I'm just way too curious for that, and way too much of a planner. (And on the subject of childbirth, I've already told Sam to just get me a portacath at about the eighth month, and keep the epidurals coming . . .)

Since I'm feeling excited and therefore recklessly honest, I'll also admit that I'm convinced the baby is a girl. In the moment I found out the baby existed--in those few seconds even before telling Sam--I felt that first stunning realization and a second instinctive conviction, close on its heels, that it was a girl.

If I'm wrong, you can all laugh at me later . . .

At Last!

We're into the new house . . . a mere 8 months from closing, not that anyone's counting. There's still some stuff at my house--a dryer, a few empty bookcases, and a few odds and ends--but for the first time, we're living in this house that feels like ours and not just mine.

Moving brought another experience of grace and generosity: Sam worked on the new house until midnight and 1:00 a.m. for several days, and then we started moving on Monday afternoon (no school--a 2-day Fall Break). By the second day, we were exhausted, me from several days of packing and him from finishing up the renovations and beginning the hauling, and we were facing down a second day of moving that would take hours and probably not see us finished. But then a bunch of friends showed up, bringing the refreshment of their energy and good humor, and the worst was finished within two hours. It was like being rescued, or having a sentence commuted.

So now we're surrounded by boxes, and the place is still kind of dirty. Not construction-zone rubble like a few weeks ago, but also not spic-and-span. We have work to do to finish up the last bits at my house and clean and do yard work over there, and there are still a couple of small projects here. Plus the unpacking. And yet, it feels incredibly peaceful. Even without knowing where a cereal bowl or a tube of much-called-for concealer might be found, it feels so easy to be here, so homey for both of us to live in this space we've been planning and working on for so long now. It feels like a dream--I can't believe we actually get to live here.

A Few "Laughs"

Ugh, grading midterms is mind-numbing. Luckily, I saw this:
The Blog of Unnecessary Quotation Marks. And snarky comments.

Showing and Telling

One thing I haven't quite figured out how to do is tell my students about . . . you know. The whole thing seems both intensely private and yet increasingly, undeniably public. I haven't decided whether it will result in less attention to the whole thing if I just blurt it out somehow, or if I just let them whisper among themselves every day and figure it out. This occurs to me every day when I'm getting dressed and deciding what I have the guts to wear; like I said earlier, there's not a lot of new weight, but it's all sort of localized in an increasingly obvious way (currently, I look like I've recently enjoyed a big meal--or several). So, anyway, I had been waiting for an entree, however tangential, especially in this one small upper-level class made up of all these really wonderful students I've had before. Imagine my delight when the other day in class they asked if I had seen Knocked Up!

(It's on the Netflix Queue.)

Student Error of the Day

This one is for all the Americanists out there:

"Hawthorne's short story, 'A Minstrel's Black Veil' . . ."

Hmm--haven't read that one . . . but I can just imagine!

Apple(s) a Day

Apples: So good this fall! I think about them even when I am not eating them, which is not often.

Collared

Since realtors will (hopefully) be showing the house when we're not here, opening doors and such, I've had to reinstate the kitty's collar. Her collar is jingly, which was the reason I took it off in the first place. It once was cute, but it's all worn and fuzzy now. Without it, she looked so independent, as if our relationship were mutually determined . . . like she might say, "I'm here because I want to be, but if I wanted to go back out on the streets, I could do it at any time." With it back on, she looks so pet-like, which gave me a strangely pleasant feeling of possessive satisfaction. Akin, I think, to the mild surprise I still feel when I see Sam's wedding ring.

Life at Kentucky Speed

One of the basic principles of our marriage is that Sam moves at Kentucky speed, and I move at New Jersey speed. I walk and talk fast; I can get a lot done in a day if I need to. I can ordinarily do anything I want to do--tackle a list of chores, squeeze in a weekend trip, add a couple of projects--I can make the time. Last spring I taught our capstone seminar for the first time, helped renovate the new house, served as media director at church, and presented at a conference two days before our wedding (which was also planned that spring). It was just--life.

But not lately. I never understood the whole "don't lift anything heavy" approach to pregnancy. I mean, I understood that the actual process of giving birth would be physically taxing and that some things might be a bit more difficult, but just because of one's size at the very end. But against all my best intentions and feminist principles, I've been thinking differently these days, and it's not just a factor of my upcoming move and the barely repressed laziness that's at war with my "get-things-done" upbringing. I'm at 18 weeks, and I've gained just about 4 pounds. So I look about the same, unless I'm wearing pajamas (a state I aspire to most of the time but grudgingly leave behind when out in public) and you're looking closely. No big size difference, no protruding belly to get in the way or explain physical awkwardness.

But the fatigue--oh, the fatigue. I eat breakfast and then need a break. I scheme about how I can time my finishing up with mopping for when Sam will also be heading downstairs and can carry the bucket of water for me. He offered to take the laundry basket upstairs the other night, and I wanted to weep with relief. Apparently it has something to do with the change in blood flow. Which I'm sure also applies to my brain and also explains why my congenital forgetfulness has escalated to complete blackouts where I can't remember, even if I try, whether I've done things . . . not just things like leaving the iron on, but things like whether I've ever taught a particular course.

I'm not complaining, just observing this science experiment in which I've become both subject and researcher. The other day, someone said: "Of course, Tara will be perfectly able to work up to the beginning of March . . ." Exactly what I would have said before, but now I'm imagining myself lugging around something that weighs about 30 pounds with every step I want to take. If someone attached a 30-lb weight to me, you can bet I'd minimize mobility immediately under the best of circumstances. In my current state, I can't even imagine getting out of the house.

Sarah Dessen

I just found out that Sarah Dessen, one of my favorite read-for-pure-pleasure authors, has a blog. Even better, she updates it daily. Hearing her read was one of my favorite days in grad school--I hadn't read any of her books at the time, but the reading sounded like fun, and it turned out to be one of those "how could I never have read this before?" moments. Her books are pitch-perfect, and the one I heard her read from remains my favorite.

We were both teaching at UNC while I was a grad student there (she's about my age); after the reading, I met her a few times at parties and events because we had friends in common, although my love of her books probably made me too shy to talk to her like she--or I--was a normal person. Anyway, I find the blog completely engaging, and not only because she reveals that she also got addicted to House over the summer and just had a baby 5 weeks ago. My favorite entry so far has to do with neuroses that are not induced by pregnancy, but excused by it. But there's lots of good stuff about writing, life, etc. . . .

Cat's Away

Actually, the cat is not away. The cat is staying at home with me, and Sam is going to Indiana to pick up some belongings that a friend had been storing. (I could have gone, but I need to pack. Haven't gotten much done in the evenings lately--last night I feel asleep at 9:30, which is almost Catena hours!) So, I'll have the house to myself this weekend.

It's the way I lived for 33 years, but it's become a foreign idea pretty quickly. Only last year, PJ told me that she dreamt of redoing one of the rooms in her house so that she could have a little private retreat, and I remember experiencing a twinge of pity that she didn't have a space of her own already. I also then understood the redecorating project that took place when I was about 12, and my sister and I didn't need our playroom anymore. The 70s wood paneling and red carpet were covered or ripped up, and in their place appeared a rose-colored room with big soft reading chairs, an antique marble-top table, and a desk for my mom: her space.

Sam and I are about to put "my" space on the market. It's the second property I've legally owned, but since my condo in grad school was always more of an investment, it feels like it was my first real home of my own. But as JS pointed out on her recent visit, "there's no space for Sam in this house."

And when I look at the new house, there's so much of my husband in it that it makes me tear up--and not only of himself, but also of his driving desire to build a home for us, even here in this little town that he had planned not too long ago to leave. He is in the impeccable smoothness of the walls that he repaired for days and days, in the quality of the tiles in the kitchen, in the meticulous edging of the paint, in the trim lawn and the neatness of the once-overgrown picket fence around back.

I would have been happy to move in without a lot of the work done, and then when we came back from Europe, I wasn't able to work as much as we'd expected. So he took it on himself, and with heroic effort and the expression of himself as artist and craftsman, has made it into a place that now feels even more like my home than the house where I've been living for the past two years.

Sam's Bachelor Pad

for Kate. It wasn't as bad as roasted rat, but . . .

Refrigerator contents:
Beer
Gatorade
Mayonnaise
Frozen pizza rolls, almost gone
Frozen black-bean burgers

Milk, expired six days ago

Cheese, expired six months ago

Bathroom contents:

1 toilet brush handle for single-use disposable heads.

6-pack of disposable heads, with 5 heads remaining.
He had lived there for 8 months. It was his first package.

The Pack-Rat Moves Lairs

I am a pack rat, a carefully produced hybridization of my mom, who acquires things, and my dad, who does not get rid of them ("I still have every one of my driver's licenses!"). Thus, when I was buying silverware a few years ago, I consulted with my mom about how much I would need. We settled on 20 place settings. Yes, 80 pieces may seem like a lot for a single woman living alone, but then, sometimes you have 10 people over for dinner, and you might want to serve coffee and ice cream without washing spoons in between. I keep 8 settings in the kitchen for everyday use, and the rest is in the dining room for entertaining.

This was the chain of past events that led, recently, to Sam eyeing me suspiciously and saying, as we were discussing the looming task of packing up my house, ". . . And I've seen all that silverware you have hidden in the dining room buffet." As if it were something to be ashamed of.
Other people's stuff never has the same sentimental profundity as one's own, so I probably shouldn't be surprised that he wants me to get rid of so much. Really, it's not too bad. I don't have too many clothes, and most of my books are in my office (at school, thankfully!). I've cleaned out my office at home and gotten rid of reams of old bank statements and the stationery I'll never use. And now that we've lived together for a few months and he has enjoyed regular meals, he won't fight me too much over cooking utensils. Plus, I've learned that if I refer to them as "tools," he understands perfectly why one might need just the right one.

But in play is still the TV I bought when I went to seminary. It works perfectly, but its modest, 19-inch non-flat screen and its lack of jacks for extra inputs make the ordinarily mild-mannered and liberally minded Dr. F. just crazy. He wants the TV to go, along with the VHS tapes on which I geekily and painstakingly recorded several seasons of 24 and The West Wing in the pre-DVR era. And all of my VHS movies. I said that I wanted to keep just a few of my favorites, and he asked, "But what will you watch them on?" The implication being that the VCR ("outdated technology") must also go.

Coming soon to a blog near you: Free to a good home . . . TV, VCR, and VHS library of girly romantic comedies and dramas.

B Student in Dental Hygiene

Sometimes I wonder why students don't do the simplest things that will improve their grades. I tell them ahead of time: "You must include a properly formatted bibliography. If you don't, you'll lose X number of points." Still, some don't include a bibliography at all. This perplexes me far more than the ones who try but do it wrong. Why don't they do something so easy? Especially when they know it will directly benefit them?

But then today I was in the dentist's chair, and the sweet, bubbly hygienist asked me how often I flossed. The truth is this: years ago, I used to be a flosser, and a few weeks ago when I realized that my next appointment was coming up, I tried to pick the habit back up again. Apparently, though (I didn't know this--who would?), pregnancy makes your gums more sensitive and prone to bleeding. When I was done, I looked like a boxer. And I promptly decided not to floss again until March.

On the other hand, if they have to ask you whether you're doing it or not, maybe it doesn't make that big of a difference. Then again, maybe they're just trying to be nice and let you confess on your own.

House Music

The soundtrack from the first three seasons just came out, and it's pretty good. It has a number of songs that I looked up after various episodes because I liked them so much . . .