TT and I are going away this weekend, Peeps.  Nana Poopyhands is going to be in town and take charge of the Bubba, and daddy and mommy are going to drive for the state line.  HAHAHAH just kidding we’re driving over two state lines.

It will be the first overnighter away from our little one.  Most people are pros at this by now, I know, but we don’t live near our family and TT has an annoying habit of working 24/7 in order to feed our family.  So this is kind of a yay and kind of big deal.

Unfortunately, this is the last week of Astronomy class.  Well, fortunately, because this class must be over soon or I swear to god I will break things, but unfortunately because Items are Due.   Group Items.

Some of my Group is turning in some portions of their Items, and it makes me want to vomit.  The bad writing five weeks ago?  That’s before we all became so tired we want to die.  Now what I’m seeing come in would barely pass muster for a fifth grader, and I’m not kidding.  I’ve been going over bits of it and trying to nudge people in the direction of coherance without just telling them to shut up and sit down and doing their portion outright.

This is making my upper lip sweat, because they are making changes and the changes they are making are very nearly as bad as the first draft.

What then, do I do?

Last week I rewrote all of it.  I have no doubt that many people were irritated with me and angry and insulted, but it was all shocking crap, and I didn’t rewrite the week before and we got Cs.  I also have no doubt that we will get an A.  This week I was hoping I could gently nudge in a friendly manner and suggest and that they might come up with decent submissions on their own.  This is not happening.

However, I’m turning all my stuff in for the projects and getting the Hell out of Dodge for most of the weekend.  This means that my position as doer of it all is on hold, from Saturday morning until after the deadline.  This means that someone else has to do the final edit.  Someone else, one of the folks with half a brain cell, must edit, rewrite and submit.

I have withering expectations.

I’m thinking that the only thing to do is emotionally and mentally prep for two more Cs, or worse, but I hate it.  I absolutely hate it.  I hate not being in meatspace with people and not being able to say, “Hey, this is great, but really you need to change XY and Z”.

This is going to suck.  I know that it is going to suck.  There is nothing I can do about it. 

Instant ulcer!

I want to punch this class in the balls.

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I usually love haircut day, but yesterday I had to go to *DUN DUN DUUUUNNN* a random haircut provider.  My usual person is out for two weeks and The Troublemaker and I are getting away for a night this weekend and crappy hair would just not be acceptable. It was a risk.  I had to take it.

It turns out that the risk was totally worth it and the hairdresser may have committed a coup.  I’m more than tempted to go back to him, even though he’s at the same salon as my old hairdresser.

He was quite the character.  A bit of a flamer (in the hair business?  Get OUT!) Liverpudlian who called me “love” a lot, probably to boost his tip.  I live with an Englishman, so you think I’d be immune to these things, but the accent is just as cute now as it was nine years ago, so it pretty much worked.

I sat down and he said, “So what are we doing?”

I said, “Meh.  Graduated bob.”

He said, “With a twist, though, love.”

I said, “Yes, with a twist would be good.”

“What do you want to do with the color?”

“I don’t know.  Do I want highlights or all over color?”

“All over.  With the bob we want it glossy and shiny.”

“Okee dokey”

“How do you feel about the asymetrical?”

“Sure!  Just not all Flock of Seagulls, okay?”

“I used to do their hair, after they lost all their money and were working in clothings stores.  I won’t do that to your hair”

Then, the FoS hairdresser went to work. It was perfunctory.  We didn’t chit-chat much.  He knocked my head with the brush and when he wanted me to tilt he would kind of stab my head in the direction he wanted it to go.  I wound up with hair all down the back of my shirt.

I have never felt more like I was in good hair hands.  He had no time to be gentle or nice, he was an artist at work.

At the end of the day he gave me a gorgeous cut and color.  An asymetrical graduated bob in mahoggany.

I’m sure that it’s haircut 101, but I really like it and I think it looks sharp.  Check it out:

Normal

Back

Side

 80’s Inspired Molly Ringwald Type Version

Last night TT totally didn’t even notice, but complimented me on looking hot.  I think that’s just about the best possible hair result.  It looks totally like me, but hotter.  YAY!

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When I was a freshman in college I was a pretty sad and pathetic little kid.  I was 17 years old and in many, many ways still a child.  I had some fairly deep-running trauma, dissociative disorder and a lot of body dysmorphia.

I didn’t go to regular college, I went to acting college.  While it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life it was significantly different than going to school to be a CPA.  On my freshman requirement list was a yoga mat and a box of Crayola crayons.

The thing about actors is that they love to get nekkid.  Actors love to be all body and touchy-feely.  Schools encourage this because, apparently, it’s “honest” or some shit.  To be quite frank, it should have been screamingly clear to me within the first few months that I didn’t belong there at all, but I’ve never been very socially saavy.  Touching may be necessary, but grinding is not “good school” it’s “public mutual masterbation”. 

One day I performed a scene with a classmate of mine.  This time, rather than big floppy shirts and baggy jeans, I dressed up.  I did my hair, I wore a pretty dress and flattering PJs.  My character in the scene was a rather nervous person, so that channeled my anxiety into the character and away from my body.  I’d imagine that, for the first time that year, I actually briefly looked comfortable and pretty in my own skin.  I got supportive feedback from my classmates and actually felt pretty good about the job I’d done.

The next day one of my classmates, let’s call her Mennifer, cornered me in an empty classroom.  She sat down next to me in a chair and let it all pour out.

Essentially, she told me that I had looked wonderful the day before in the scene and that I had a great body and was a beautiful girl.  That if I didn’t stop acting like I was ugly  immediately then that was IT.  A bunch of my classmates had been talking about this and if I didn’t see what they saw and stopped being pathetic and hiding then IT WAS ALL OVER and they just GIVE UP ON ME.

This was not said with a smile, this was not an exaggeration.  It was agressive and mean.  What I found out was, not only had my classmates apparently had a meeting to discuss my personal level of comfort with my body, but that they had come to a decision and if I didn’t shut up and go with it then I was pretty much guaranteed not to fit in.  Ever.

I remember feeling viciously attacked by that because, no matter what the supposed “cure” it was meant to provide, it was a vicious attack and I remember opening my mouth to try and defend myself.  Mennifer’s face twisted into a sneer and she flounced off, secure in her place as Judge of Me.

Of course, years later I know how rediculousness of that entire scene.  I know that all that was showing was Mennifer’s malice and controlling nature.  I know that I wouldn’t have wanted friends in people like that.  As much as fitting in is really nice, if you fit in with a bunch of fucktards, what does that make you?  I also know that I had very good reasons for my problems, and that nobody in the world had the right to question my coping mechanisms or order me to “get over it”.

At the time, though, I was 17 and devistated.  I did go on to become more comfortable with my body.  I slowly grew up, the way that people do, and I completed the program, mutual public masterbation and all.  But I never did fit in.  I was never as casual with my physical self as other people thought I should be.  That came later, when I was in an environment where people were not standing around judging me.

Now, if I found Mennifer, I’d smack her right across her ass face and ask her “How DARE you?  How dare you judge me, you privledged little shit princess?”

Somewhere else out in the wide internets I’ve been talking to a group of people about my past and how I’m feeling about it.  Last night, under a different name, all in the name of “support”, another Mennifer struck again.  She could see my issues and problems so, so clearly.  I was to, immediately, take her approach and change my coping mechanism to fit what she saw was best.

She was ignorant and rude and self-centered and posted a big huge post tearing me apart in the name of “caring”.

This time I didn’t sit and cry and wonder why my method of dealing with things was wrong.  This time I didn’t care if nobody liked me again.  This time I told her that she was rediculous, ignorant, and a pig.  Thank you very much for your concern, but you’re a fucking idiot.  Stop telling me what to do, how to feel, or how to cope. 

I’m done with the Mennifers.  They are asswipes.  Without being me they feel free to tell me how to live my life.  I cannot stop people from judging, but I can decide what I put up with, and I’m done putting up with that shit.

Dear Mennifers, you don’t care about me, you care about being right.  Go judge in your own cave of self-ritiousness and back the fuck away from my face.  Go to hell.

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Going to school with me is very much like going to school with Hermione Granger.  I suck.  I raise my hand at every question and feverishly read everything I can get my hands on.  I talk down my nose and expect perfection, both of myself and others.  I am, in a word, irritating.

I’m also likely to get an A in this course, despite the group grades we just received.  Dr. Buttmunch had wonderful things to say in my personal response this week for my personal work.  In essence he said I was “awesome” and I got an A PLUS PLUS PLUS PLUS PLUS for my week’s turn-ins.

Would you believe I’m still grumbling?

To be honest, it’s just a matter of control.  I don’t mind working my own ass off, it’s working my ass off and having to combine my work with others who are not bothering to work their asses off.  Or, maybe they are, maybe they just have less ass.

I am so uncomfortable with the idea that, deep down, I’m stupid, that I despise and have a very bad reaction to being glommed in with people who write that way.

At any rate, life will go on.  Most sane people would look at the low A and cheer because all I need is a C to continue onward and upward with my degree, I chew and grumble and get pissy that it’s not the 97 that we all KNOW I DESERVE, THANKYEWVERYMUCH.

Please ignore the wibbling in the corner.  School scares me and I’m still very much secretly afraid that everyone will find out I’m an idiot.

I am also embracing my inner Hermione and am spending the evening tonight essentially rewriting all the answers to the project due at midnight, because these people, they are assless and I ain’t gettin’ no more Cs, y’all.

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In a question paper that is supposed to run about 1,960 words.

The guy makes it impossible to answer in less than that.

But it’s done.  It’s done.

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On the group projects this week.

The professor, Dr. Dickhead Astronomy, thinks he’s holding court over a graduate class.  He also thinks that we should all be penalized because some fuckers can’t write without plagerizing, or in fact write or think at all.

He is very, very lucky this evening, that I don’t know where he lives.  I’m going to go to sleep tonight fantasizing about punching him in his ass face over and over and over again.

I’m also going to try and get used to the idea that I’m going to have to rewrite this week’s turn-ins.  Because, apparently, if you have stupid people on the team with you and they are in charge of some of the paper, you also are stupid.

I’m… I have no words.  I have no words for how angry I am.

I’m suddenly feeling like it’s the acme of foolishness to go to grad school.  I feel like there is no point at all.  If I can’t handle this fucking online fucking nothing fucking community college astronomy course, what the fuck am I doing going for a masters of science?

I really feel totally frozen by this.  I’m suddenly unable to move.  I have, literally, NO MORE TIME OR ENERGY left.  NONE.  NO MORE ROOM AT THE INN.  NO.

Shit.

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I’d like to thank you, Peeps, for being out there.  Thank you for reading.  Thank you for commenting and emailing and reaching out to me.  This blog is a very self-centered thing, and I can’t believe that something so utterly selfish has brought me into contact with you folks, who are some of the most selfless people I know.

Mercy, el-e-e, Mayhem, Baggage, Bella, Lori, Artemesia, Kate, Kristina, Heidi, Beetle, Lizzie, NanaP, Elizabeth B (To whom I owe an enormous thank you email that I swear I will write sometime before I actually die), LIsa, Burgh Baby’s Mom, MoVo, Dawn, Ant, Neils…  All of you.  You all are such amazing people.

Thank you so much.

I got another gift this morning from Jennifer Lane Photography.  First of all, she wrote another incredibly sweet post at her blog about Wallace and me, and honestly who doesn’t feel better after starting the day having people say nice things about them?  Secondly, she posted this picture, which made me stop breathing.

Look at his arms!  In this picture she managed to capture the perfect, exact way that he’s transitioning out of baby and into boy.  Also, she caught me mushing him, and a healthy mushing is one of the rules we live by in our family.

Really, I just about burst into tears.  There was definately snuffling and some dribbling:

I love being a mom, and I love having Wallace.  He’s the light of our lives.  He’s everything we live for.  I love having this picture.

What an amazing gift.

Thank you so much Jennifer.  I don’t know how to thank you enough, really.  Please, please if you’re thinking of professional photos, please check out Jennifer Lane.  She’s worth her weight in gold.

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I was sitting in a hotel room, nervously wringing my hands.  Lisa was trying to get me to eat something and the Teletubbies were on PBS, which was a good thing because that’s all I had the mental capacity to deal with.

We were about to get in the car on the glorious, warm spring day and drive to the beautiful manner home  to get ready for the one of the two greatest times in my life.  The moment that TT actually married me.

Two years of international dating, one breakup, and a lot of craziness leading up to this amazing life together.

It was the best day of my life, the best thing that ever happened to me, and every day I thank the entire universe that we keep on going, because without TT my life would be empty.

I’m crazy and I’m emotional.  I get wound up over little things and I’m so not easy to live with.  TT stands by me every day, strong and warm and loving and really, really handsome.  Having him in my corner is the luckiest thing ever.

Happy Anniversary, Troublemaker.  You are my heart and my soul and I love you more than life.

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Today, Peeps, I was casually discussing the state of the reproductive world a la me, trying to relate to someone who is berating themselves for the bad luck of being infertile at 35.  The subject was donor eggs.  She felt like because she wasn’t willing to dive directly into donor eggs and embrace them and shell out thousands and thousands of dollars, that maybe she wasn’t meant to be a mother.

I was pointing out that I have similar worries, about costs, and that I didn’t think that weighing those options makes a person any less worthy to be a parent.

Then a third person chimed in, and that person went on about donors and how they had used a sperm donor and how there’s a whole population of kids of donor eggs and sperm out there and how they hate it and how I must freeze my eggs NOW NOW NOW because what if we decide it’s not for us then I will have NO EGGS…

I tried to shut this person down twice and finally I just told her the honest truth, that we are not in a place emotionally or financially to go through a round of egg extraction and freezing in case of some mystical future problem. 

But I was shaken.  I was shaken.  Should I freeze my eggs?  Of course not.  We don’t have the money.  Donor eggs and adoption are both options that we’re open two and neither one may be something we choose to do, or perhaps we will do both.

The woman was right; there is a vocal group of folks out there who are very betrayed and angry that they were conceived using donor eggs or sperm.  They believe they have been shafted for the stupid whims of their parents.  From what they describe, I can understand why they feel that way. 

However:

1. Procreation is always selfish.  You never know if you’re bringing a child into a life of uncertainty, loss and pain.  Procration is always a selfish desire, no matter how it’s done.
2. The internets, as much as I love it, is a microcosm of a vast world.  People do not create listservs to repeat to one another, “Still good with my embryonic beginning!  You?”  Blogs are the Newsweek of life.  Sound bytes of interesting things, but always to be taken with a grain of salt as it relates to the general population.
3. The people who are blogging now were conceived in the 80’s, before it became much more common.  They were more isolated, lied to more often, and more cut off from the histories that are rightfully theirs.  I’d like to think that in this day and age there would be more like them in the world, and that any child of mine would have a relationship of some sort with their egg donor.  Their, lets face it, biological mother.

All these responses are logical and reasonable.  They also assume in the first place that we are interested in donor eggs, which we don’t know yet, or that we won’t conceive on our own, which we don’t know yet.

At the same time, the vitriol on these websites for these grown people lamenting their own process of birth.  The deep betrayal they genuinely feel… the anger that just pours out.  I can’t imagine my child feeling that way about their very conception someday.  The idea breaks my heart.  Would I willingly hurt my baby in order to get what I want?

All procreation is selfish, but not all is quite so deliberate.

And so, by merely glancing at the bank account, the door to my own eggs closes with a quiet *snick* and I feel like right behind it is the door to donor eggs.

*snick*

And that was when I realized that the mourning had not even begun.

The hate for my body poured out.  It has betrayed me at every turn.  It has been the excuse for people to molest me.  It has radiated pain until I wanted to die.  It has made basic things a trial.  It has a passion to run to bulk and fat.  It scars up in ugly lumps and my skin breaks out with acne.  My body has not been my friend.  In this day and age of me trying to love myself, this is not helpful.

So I am looking for a ritual, some sort of marking of the occasion for letting go of this.  I am seeking some visual or tactile happening that says to me that I cannot control or predict the future.  That school is a good and a right thing for our family and for my mental health.  That we will deal with the mountains when we must climb them, but for now it is okay to stand in the valley and ignore the snow.

I am not failing to plan, I am living now. 

Living, for the moment, in heartbreak.

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“Our Sun is going to end up as a white dwarf”

“Honey, he can hear you.”

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