Show and Tell: More Stamps

Hey gang. Must say, I'm feeling a bit quiet these few days. But I hate to miss a Show and Tell.

Here are a couple of the dog stamps I've finished recently:



and



Next up: a three-legged dachshund.

Shameless self-promotion: I'd lurve to make you a stamp of your dog, cat, hyena, or Mexican jumping bean. Here's our Etsy shop, with stamps, nifty jewelry made by Sugar, and the occasional arty drawing of yours truly in stirrups....


Go see what the other, more talkative kids are showing over at Mel's.

Not It.

Pregnant, that is.

Thought for a few hours that I might be.

It was a nice feeling.

Lovely Day

Happy Valentine's and Year of the Tiger and, of course, Mardi Gras! Laissez les bon temps rouler!

Sugar and I had quiet plans for Valentine's -- I made her the stamp above, she gave me cute underpants with a hedgehog from my favorite store in Brooklyn and picked up fixins for a nice dinner for two -- but while I was furiously carving and Sugar was waiting for the chocolate cake layers to cool, the phone rang. It was The Dane, the wife/mother portion of our favorite neighborhood trio, asking if we'd consider coming over to help them eat the duck she was roasting.

(What kind of a question is that? Isn't a question supposed to have more than one possible response?)

We did consider, briefly, staying home alone, eating lamb chops and being generally Valentine's-y. But only briefly. Because why turn down an opportunity to spend time with people you love just because Hallmark says so?

So we packed up the cake and carried it over. And we had the most wonderful feast of duck braised in beer, roasted sweet potatoes and onion, red cabbage with clove, and apple stuffing particular to The Dane's home island. We played with Mr. Potatohead smashed playdoh between our hands. The Aussie Super Geek convinced us that we ought to be building thorium-reactor power plants, though he clearly remains scandalized by my hatred of efficient light bulbs. The Charming Toddler invented a perfect game for Valentine's, which consisted of her gathering her bucket and "going out" behind the chair, then "coming home" to tell us what she saw ("Ice!") and be greeted with exuberant hugs. Over and over, and it never got old.

For dessert, we at Sugar's fudge-y, nearly black chocolate cake, piled with whipped cream (as things tend to be, when The Dane is serving). And just like love, there was plenty for everyone, once we'd decided to share it.

/sappy part


We did get a time alone at the park before dinner, when The Dane suggested we take their sled on our walk. Normally I don't post pictures of us on the blog, but what the heck?

First, Sugar (right, foreground, by the bench):




And Bionic (by the lamppost):




You'd know us anywhere, right?

A Fine Idea

It was a fine idea, the idea I had, earlier this week, for a blog post. It was going to be about Unknowingness, and how surprisingly comfortable I was finding it, this time around. It was going to be about how during the last TWW, I couldn't stop thinking about the binary possibilities -- that I was pregnant or not pregnant -- while this time, this calmer time, I was enjoying the peaceful, uncanny feeling of admitting the Unknowing into my heart, of thinking of myself not as either/or but as ? How thinking about what was happening in my body was like trying to see to the bottom of a too-deep pool of water, that my state is literally unfathomable, and how that was okay.

What a load of horseshit that was. Or rather, is.

I really did feel like that, at least part of the time, for 7 days. By 8, I was starting to feel a bit more invested in binary realities. And by 9? Yesterday?

Stark raving mad.

In the past 24 hours I have been:
1. pregnant
2. not pregnant
3. riddled with cancer
4. pregnant with TWINS! OMG TWINS!
5. menopausal

My breasts have been more swollen than ever, rapidly deflating, reinflating, and so forth. Sometimes they hurt too much, sometimes not enough. (Full disclosure: the hurting could be related to my constant grabbing to see if they hurt.) My ovaries are similarly mysterious.

I find myself typing things like "I'm not pregnant, am I?" into Google, expecting a useful response. (And, following links, finding instead a dilemma: does one give medical advice about infertility to a 17-year-old and her boyfriend? How about to a 17-year-old who doesn't know the most basic things about how and when ovulation works? Is it judge-y not to? Plenty of people think I shouldn't get pregnant, after all....)

And the uterus? Naturally I scrutinize its every twinge, most of which are probably gas. I AM SO PREGNANT, I decide. Then, for a thought experiment (for I am nothing if not scientific), I decide to spend five minutes thinking about my left knee as closely as I have my ute.

OMG, Y'ALL.

I AM PREGNANT.

IN MY LEFT KNEE.

I AM GOING TO HAVE THE WORLD'S FIRST KNEE-BABY.

And you can all say you knew me when.

Breadwinner Woes

For the umpteenth time, I'm contemplating leaving my university job for the for-profit world, mainly because while my current job is interesting/helps people/provides occasional international travel, it barely pays a living wage. (This makes my handle on this blog a bit of a joke, although at least my wage is one we can live on, unlike Baby's. She makes kind of a zombie, undead wage)

So right now I'm staring at a byzantine job application for a consultancy. You know the kind of application: please tell us why we're wonderful, please tell us why you're wonderful, please be different from everyone else out there, make us an online portfolio, write us a bunch of crazy essays, etc., etc. (Let me pause and say, WTF, I'm not applying to Vassar here folks).

I'm wondering, should I put the work into this? Sometimes I believe that I've been in the academic world for too long, and I'll never be able to get an interview at a real firm. And if I do get hired, it will probably be in my contract that I'll have to use 'words' like 'impactful' on a regular basis.

Here's how far I've gotten:

Why I am wonderful:
Because I'm secretly a unicorn, a care bear, and a vampire combined. My superhero name is The Sparkle Menace.

A Super Duper Worker!

Why you are wonderful:
Because you have money.

Why I am different from everyone else out there
(see point one)

What inspires me:
Interesting art! Great novels! Not your dopey firm! Have you heard of
hubris? No? I know it's an older word than 'impactful' but I think it's still in the dictionary, and in modern usage . . .

Ok, possibly I'm not ready to do this application yet . . . .

Thinking of England

Inspired by Twangy Pearl, Sugar presents an artist's rendition of last Tuesday's inspermination:




Note, please:
- Funny Socks
- Good Luck Thumb Ring on left hand
- Comfort Items Worthy Of A First-Rate Nerd: a hardback, high-ish brow, dystopian novel (quite excellent, by the way -- and while it is grim, I was at least reading the chapter titled "Pollination," which seemed apt), cell phone, and trusty journal. With pen. You never know.

Your wonderful well-wishings were folded up and tucked in the book. I got them out at the word "tenaculum."

But wait, you say. Didn't you need those buoying comments precisely because Sugar wasn't able to accompany you? How does she know what it looked like?

Well, because on this snowy evening, I have just now been re-enacting the scene on our living room couch*. Yes, I put the socks back on and everything. The Society for Creative Anachronism's got nothin' on us.

Next time someone asks what exactly it is lesbians do, perhaps I will tell them about this.

Happy Snow Day, everybody. Check out what the other kids are up to on Mel's Show and Tell.


*NB: our couch does not have stirrups. Fear not. Also, full disclosure: I was really wearing a zip-up cardigan, like the nerd professor I am.

That's no ladle, that's my knife

I have an old friend who is a real planner. She's great at planning. She's got at least a 2 year schedule for every possible job move, life decision, and each associated emotion. And that's cool - it works for her.

I am also a planner, or I used to be, but since I'm also a morose depressive, attempts at long range planning often lead me down a dark road with the utter futility of life waiting at the end of it.

The other night my planning friend decided to take me to task over Baby's lack of A PLAN (read lack of money) regarding possible parenthood. Although I started thinking in internet acronyms (OMG, WTF? That's my wife you're talking about! That's just not done, IMHO!), I didn't say anything much. Then after I hung up the phone I got progressively more and more steamed.

But I'm not going to call my friend back and try to explain that I'm angry because I don't think she would understand. Instead, I am going to list here some reasons why Baby's drive to follow her bliss, consequences be damned, makes me happy:

First off, Baby would not be my partner of twelve years if she hadn't jumped on a train and moved across the country to be with me before we'd even had a first date. (Yes, we are really lesbians.) If that is not a positive result of a spontaneous action, I don't know what is.

Baby loves dogs, I mean REALLY loves dogs. She will rush up to a stranger's dog and talk directly to it, regardless of the owner in question. This has not only gotten me over my fear of dogs, but has made us some friends in the neighborhood.

Along the same lines, Baby is friendly to everybody and expects that they will be friendly back. And mostly they are. So I end up living in a friendlier place too.

Baby has patience to wait out unpleasant aspects of what she sees as a positive situation. For instance, she balances the irritating aspects of our food coop against the good food and occasional cool people. She balances my crying jags against the times I'm NOT being a nut job.

Basically Baby is just good at loving stuff. Which is very nice to be around.

There. Thanks for reading my sappy post. Now I don't have to bite my friend's head off.