Side View

I walked by a mirror yesterday and gasped out loud when I saw myself in profile out of the corner of my eye. There can no longer be any reinterpreting of my belly as a recent meal, poor muscle tone, a bulky waistband, or the visual distortion of horizontal stripes.

But however many indignities I encounter (as from Sam, helpful and cheerful as ever: "Your butt is getting bigger too!"), I regularly hear about some new one just around the corner, such as when Dr. B. said at Thanksgiving, "Wow, you don't even have chubby fingers." The unspoken yet is still hanging in the air, a prophecy of doom.

I figure, though, that since there's a limited timeframe for all of this, every day that passes by before I start feeling impossibly, revoltingly enormous is one day less for the total. ;)

Nightmare

Sometimes I wonder how many nightmares it's normal for adults to have. I probably have a couple a week, and last night's was especially elaborately plotted. First, a well-intentioned but disastrously untrustworthy person (a real life person, but not known to anybody who reads this blog) moved into our town, and started arriving at our house unannounced, just walking in the door. A couple of times, the person walked into our bedroom, where we'd been asleep, and just started talking to us. In the way of dreams, this behavior seemed plausible and caused a problem for nobody else, but after several times, I realized, "You know, some people might consider this intrusive. This person should at least knock!" I think that in the dream, the person had formerly lived in our house, which partly explained the liberty. But it gradually dawned on me that the prior claim had no place in the current situation.

So Sam said he would talk to the person. I went with him to a conference of some kind at work--in the dream, I did not work at the same place. He had to go even though he knew this person would be there. At least this would give him the opportunity to insist on our privacy.

When we arrived, someone offered me a job of sorts: "If you'll ask some questions during the next presentation, we'll include your meals and lodging too." I was happy to be useful, but then something was wrong. The untrustworthy person and Sam were having some kind of emotional conversation, and then he came over to me, shaking his head and confessing that he couldn't bring himself to tell the person that s/he was unwelcome in what had been his/her home (which, incidentally, is rather unlike Sam in real life as he's obsessive about home security). I was crestfallen, but then determined that I would speak to the person myself and politely say that it was our house now. In the meantime, I was listening to this conference presentation, where I was discovering that something unsettling was going on.

It turned out there had been some crimes committed, fires set, lives jeopardized or even taken. Computer surveillance was involved. Everyone was trying to figure out whodunit. They showed some of the tapes they had found, and I noticed, to my silent horror, that one of the cameras had been hidden in our bedroom, and that the untrustworthy person had taken advantage of this ongoing crisis to get copies.

In a casual conversation after the formal presentations, I realized that the person I was talking to, a student (but not a real-life one), was the perpetrator of these acts. Then I was presented with a bill for my meals and lodging, which I tried to explain were supposed to have been covered. Distracting. All the while, other people from our real-life workplace were coming and going, and I was trying to signal them that I had discovered the identity of the perpetrator, while also trying to maintain her trust. I didn't have a password that for some reason I needed to record our conversation, and I couldn't seem to signal Sam or anybody, so I went with her back to another building, hidden behind iron gates and an expansive lawn. The room we went to was adjacent to where one of the higher-ups at our workplace was meeting with lots of other administrators in a sort of council setting to determine the cause of the crimes. I slipped away from the perpetrator with some flimsy excuse, and went to them to whisper, "I know who did it--she's right in there. I'm trying to get her to confess. But how do I prove she's told me?" And the higher-up-person gave me a great big, theatrical smile and said, "Just do it." And as I was walking away, she called afterward, "There's some nice jewelry over there that you can wear in case we can get it all on camera!" (That comment was no less disturbing for its having been a dream.)

I went back to the perpetrator, and to my disgust, watched as she viewed some tapes that included a few seconds from our house. The tape only showed the empty room and maybe one of us walking through, but I felt ill, with a sense of barely controlled panic. Still, I acted as if I hadn't noticed, continuing with the conversation. Just as I was about to get the person to confess, I remembered our baby, and realized that my role in all of this might jeopardize her safety. Somehow I knew that because the perpetrator was young and a student, she would be released after only a short time and would surely come after the baby later. And suddenly, I didn't know what to do: I felt the urgency of the moment, this atavistic need to protect the baby, shame at not being willing to do what had seemed right and courageous seconds before.

And then I woke up, instantly feeling this sense of relief that I didn't have to decide. Part of me wanted to lie there in bed and think, "We're safe, the three of us sleeping here--and nobody can hurt us." But that's not true either, is it? We're all so vulnerable, our existences so fragile--and worse, so are those of the people we love. God never promises us that we won't suffer, or that we won't lose--everything. Look at Job! But what he does promise is that his presence will somehow be greater than any betrayal, any violation or violence or tragedy. He never asks us to deny the presence of those possibilities in our lives; in fact, I think he asks us to live with them . . . but somehow to seek and nurture a faith that might, somehow, grow larger than even all that we have to lose.

Dinnertime

When I was growing up, we ate dinner every night at precisely 5:00. My dad would walk in the door to our cheerful yellow kitchen, where the dog was waiting for him and my mom would be standing at the stove, stirring something or lifting a pot lid while steam rose above. My sister or I would have set the table, and we'd come out from our rooms to say hello and all sit down together. Dinner was always a full meal, complete with meat, vegetable, starch, and salad, beautifully displayed in serving dishes with garnishes. It wasn't formal at all, but it was a real meal time--as befit the food my mother served. We ate like we were very, very rich people, which in a sense we were.

Ah, childhood. I hope I can give the same to my eventual offspring, but I'm not sure how it will all work out. In the meantime, Sam and I are still using the dining room as storage for the boxes we haven't unpacked yet, so we've been eating our meals on the couch at the coffee table. Generally, it's been fun because we watch one of the shows we've been Netflixing, but we hit a low point last night, I think, when I actually started to fall asleep while eating. Talk about an unceremonious meal!

Of course, my parents will likely want to point out that I used to do this when I was very little: I ate so slowly that I actually fell asleep at the table. Once my dad made me sit at the table for an hour after I finished so that I could see how incredibly long it had taken me to eat a little plate of food. What a sense of humor. ;)

B-

I just got an 80% on an American literature quiz by the writers of "The Intellectual Devotional." Too intellectual for me!

Happy Turkeys

Ah, Thanksgiving. We spent it at my parents' house, eating enormous amounts of food in the great American tradition. I stayed in my pajamas well past noon because I couldn't take a break from helping sample various dishes as they were getting prepared. We warmed up with vegetables and this really good spinach dip, and cheese and crackers, training for the enormous turkey, stuffing, mashed potato casserole, cranberry salad, garlicky carrots, corn pudding--yum. Unfortunately, my sister could not make it home (why do people have to have jobs?), but fortunately, we were joined by the Two Js. The meal and the holiday were another wonderful gift from my mother to everybody present.

As luck would have it, today I have a (routine) glucose screening test for gestational diabetes--the calendar is cruel!

Service and Selfishness

Before I got married, one of the things that bothered me about the way people think about being single is the assumption that single people lead more self-centered lives than married people. I always suspected that this assumption was untrue, and now, having inspected the premise from both sides, I'm all the more sure of it.

Now, there is a terrible irony in my being the person to reveal this truth to the world because I've been quite indulgently self-centered in both my single and married estates. I got to live as a single adult for a long time, and I've now married a man who is very tolerant of my proclivities for independence.

But before I got married, I had soooooo much more time. Time that I could parcel out in a million different pieces--watching Sex and the City or knitting or writing in my journal or working an extra job or visiting friends who were having a hard time or showing up for church work days (on occasion). Some of that time was lonely, and some of it was spent in some pretty narcissistic introspection, but some significant portions of it were devoted to maintaining friendships and supporting organizations that I believed in. I had more time to squander--and blew much of it that way--but also more time to serve.

Lately, it feels harder and harder to find time like that. It's partly that there's a lot going on: renovating, moving, review at work--and wanting to spend what could be sweet and precious time with Sam and my close friends (like all you lucky 27 in our "special congregation" of May 26) before the baby comes. I've never felt so out of control of my time before, or quite so helpless in the face of demands on it--even demands that I would have gladly wanted to meet in the past. I've missed a couple of evening school and church events that I would have attended in the past, and I can't even think about taking on new tasks--I'm trying to get rid of some of the ones I've got. I don't want my life as a wife and mother to be empty of service beyond the walls of our house, but I also feel like I'm definitely losing ground as the boundary lines are re-drawn. Hmm . . .

A.M. Routine (Candid Shot)

Q: What do you do when you wake up in the morning, Holly?

A: Oh, you know--check email, read a little Cook's Illustrated.

Man-Cation and Its Discontents

Sam should probably guest-blog an entry about man-cation, but that probably violates some kind of code. Here is what I have sussed out: He came back very cheerful, and I did find a receipt for a supply of beer and wine when I was putting away his leftover provisions. He had no new tatoos, etc. (there are no old ones either). Truly, these are nice guys--the kind that, when they got together pointedly without wives and responsibilities, apparently spent some time discussing the advantages of baby bassinets.

I myself also indulged in a wild and crazy weekend. While Sam was out of cell phone reach (or so he says) in the wilds of Ohio, I went to Nashville where I saw my dear friend Clare and the only lifesized replica of the Parthenon! Imagine that--if only we had known about it, we would not have had to travel all that way to Greece. The Nashville one has been much better kept up.

Apart from that little sight-seeing venture, mainly what Clare and I did was what forged the bond that enabled us to survive graduate school together: watched movies, read magazines, ate junk food, and wandered around in shops urging each other to buy things. It was ideal.

All In!

I'm happy--I turned my portfolio in today, and honestly, even finishing it up yesterday afternoon and evening was nowhere near as bad as I had anticipated. I had the final version done by about 8:00 last night, even leaving time for my new routine of baking 10 chocolate chip cookies (they're small!) for Sam and me to share as our evening snack.

I know: bad habit. But it's too late . . . I've discovered that those break-apart refrigerated cookies can be baked a serving or two at a time, providing warm cookies in just a few moments. We didn't have any on hand the other night, and I found that homemade cookie dough, rolled into balls and put into the freezer, can also be popped out and onto a tray at a moment's notice.

Intermediate Review

All of my writing time lately has gone to a 10-page "statement of teaching philosophy" and "summary of professional activity and service to the College" for my intermediate review, which happens in the third year. Basically, it's the halfway point on the road to tenure, which happens in year six. At the intermediate review, they tell you whether they want to 1) fire you after one more year because there is no way you're getting tenure, 2) sternly ask you to improve some things before they will maybe tenure you, or 3) pat you on the back and tell you to keep up the good work. Something between 2 and 3 is the norm--usually they tell you what's good and what to work on, and you keep plugging along and then are awarded tenure without issues at that stage.

Actually, it's not too bad here--I like the fact that they warn you at this intermediate stage so that you don't come up for tenure after six years and suddenly find that you missed a turn that you needed to stay on the tenure track. But honestly, I think they know the quality of my work better than I can describe it, mostly because my descriptions are hindered by my own sentimentality, false pretensions of modesty, forced posturing, barely concealed preening, etc. I don't think I have too much to worry about, but I'm hoping that there are no huge gaps that later could be used to justify denying me tenure. That had not happened for many years here, but happened to someone last year--it was a total shock, too.

I'm not stressed about it so much as morose because it's raining and I have to finish this excruciating document. Argh.

Night-o-Candy

I know lots of Christians disapprove of Halloween, and I can understand some of their reasons. But somehow that's a bandwagon I've never been able to clamber onto. It just seems somehow unsporting not to participate in a great candy giveaway, especially after having been the beneficiary of said giveaway as a child.

Last night I was especially glad not to have too many moral compunctions about it because it was really fun. Sam and I met back at the house at the witching hour, and the weather was in its finest fall form: in the 70s, crisp and clear, with the leaves just beginning to turn and that great filtered autumn-evening light. We live on a wide, brick street of pretty, historic houses, and from the front steps of our porch, we watched what looked like a costume parade of all the kiddies. As they approached our house, they would break away and bolt or stomp or stagger or swagger up our walk, plastic pumpkins extended, and we'd give a handout from the enormous bowl we had filled (if my sister is reading this, it's the bowl you gave me for making stuffing a few Christmases ago--yes, that much candy!).

Some of the kids were adorable, like the little SpongeBob who waited patiently behind a group of older kids and then, when they left, burbled joyfully, "Is it my turn now?!" Another little girl's costume had her draped in cobwebs, and when I said, "You're just covered in cobwebs!" she said, "I'm sorry!" and I wanted to call her back for extra candy for being cute. Some were creative, like an entirely homemade Tin-Man costume (no aluminum foil in sight--it was much classier). Some of them were a little too old to be trick-or-treating, while still too young to be dressed like prostitutes (if that's ever appropriate . . . hmmm). A few of the kids were kind of sad to behold--a number of them didn't have costumes at all, just a dirty pillowcase that they held out with a mumbled "trick-or-treat," if that--but the neat thing was, they were getting candy! Our friends Andrew and Noel, who are also now our across-the-street neighbors, came and sat with us and helped us sneak candy from the bowl.

Then we watched Knocked Up, which was another kind of scary. Ugh. I hope that was some comedic exaggeration. It would make for a very effective Afterschool Special on safe sex.