May 2001
First year of hand-coded entries, now imported to wordpress. May 2001 below the cut!
May 23, 2001
We got Peanut spayed yesterday, poor puppy. She’s limping around the house now and can’t jump up on the bed. Brett feels terribly guilty no matter how much I tell him that spaying is a *good* thing. Especially for a mixed-breed, strange-looking, unidentifiable dog who will probably make babies that look even more complicated.
I haven’t updated much because I’ve been so busy rewriting my sample chapter. I scrapped the original organization for the book and so it’s going to be a lot of work. I go the rough draft for the chapter done, now I need to edit it, add some quotes, edit it again, reorganize the rest of the chapters, rewrite the “chapter overview”, rewrite the proposal, rewrite the content page, print the 80+ page proposal again, edit the whole thing one more time, write my cover letter, send it off. In any one of those steps is a myriad of other little steps just waiting to trip my ass up.
But it’s fun.
May 18, 2001
Today was Noah’s last day at preschool. We picked our chocolates for his teachers and he dictated a note for them to me. Here it is:
Dear teachers,
Happy writings and I’ll get you some chocolate. Hi. This is my last day of preschool. Chocolates for Lynne and Wendy and me. Computers are on the way to the mouse house. That’s a funny one. I love you teachers. Know what I have happy dreams to you. And that’s all. Bye.
He signed his name. Sometime last week he announced he wanted to write his name and so he’s been doing that and also asking for me to write down other words for him to copy. He gets very excited whenever anyone reads a word that he’s written.
I’m going to spend the weekend “jazzing” up my sample chapter on the advice of the agent. She *is* interested in the project but I don’t know if she’ll accept it or not. Depends on my revisions. I cleared my calendar by getting some other work done and Brett doesn’t have to work which means my mom time will be limited, too. It’s a garage sale bonanza tomorrow but our car is busted so that’s not even a temptation. OK, time to place my nose back against the grindstone!
May 12, 2001
From Fruitful: A Real Mother in the Modern World by Anne Roiphe:
Feminism used to say that the personal is political. If so the personal grief of the children who need better mothering, who need better family, who need voices speaking for them is our new politics.
If, as it appears, children have paid the price for our feminist gains, we can expand our vision, recognizing the ancient rub between mother and child. Without capitulating to the religious right, without setting back the clock on female proress, without turning ourselves into brownie bakers, we have to address this hard uneasy tension between motherhood and feminism, otherwise it will return to haunt us in our children’s fates, in our politics. If our children are unhappy we cannot be happy
.
I don’t know what the answers are but I wish we were talking more about the questions. By the way, I think baking brownies is dandy.
May 11, 2001
I’m sick as a damn dog today. Feverish, dizzy, and coughing too hard to rest. And the squirrels keep digging up my spinach. Arghhhh!
May 8, 2001
Spring rain today. Beautiful.
I have a cold and am deeply, unequivocally blue. I’ve got iTunes programmed to play all my favorite misery songs at random while I pretend to work on an article. Right now, it’s Leonard Cohen’s voice murmuring to me.
I’ve figured out why I’ve been unable to get pregnant but am not quite ready to talk about it with the rest of the world yet. The good news: I know what it is. The bad news: whether or not I can do anything about it is questionable. I can try and I might be able to improve things but I know that there are limits to what I’m willing to do medically. Meanwhile, I have an appointment with a midwife next week and I’ll ask her for a referral to a specialist and I’ll spend the summer (since there is often a wait-list for these specialists) doing what I can with herbs, diet, etc.
That all sounds more dire than I feel. I mean, I am pretty sad right now but I don’t feel hopeless. Cautiously optimistic, maybe, and very shocked.
Ooops, bad iTunes somehow slipped in a lullaby and I’m not in the mood to remember being a loving mother gazing at the baby at my breast. Off to change the song list!
May 6, 2001
Happy Birthday to Brett!
He’s a well preserved 35 years old today. I got him what he got me for my birthday: an IOU for all the things we’d like to get each other but can’t afford. Actually, I gave him a verbal IOU but he gave me a nice, official-looking one all typed up.
We spent the weekend in Indianapolis where Brett ran a mini-marathon. He did very well, thanks for asking. It’s his second half-marathon this year. Then we took Noah to the Children’s Museum which is huge. They had the top of the building done up like a giant birthday cake and for some reason Noah keeps calling it “that rockin’ museum”.
On the way home we sang showtunes until we were hoarse. At one point Noah crowed, “Mommy! Sing another song from Annie!” I said my throat hurt and Brett leaned over and said, “You better go ahead and do it. This may be the only time in your life that someone actually requests that you sing Tomorrow.”
My brother, who is a regular reader of this blog, will understand the humor behind that.
May 1, 2001
Happy May Day!
When I was a kid, I used to pick weeds from the undeveloped lot across the street to leave on the neighbors’ doorstep. I would ring the bell and run. At the time, I imagined them opening the door to see the bounty of flowers and thinking, “My, what spring magic is this? Could if be fairies?” In reality they probably said, “Damn kids leaving these stupid wilted weeds, who do they think they’re fooling?” Anyway, today for May Day, I planted an azalea and some flox. There you go. Happy May.
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