Hah!

5:25pm: La Virgencita
I usually don't post here but I wanted write this weird thing down...I doubt if any of you out there can relate!

It's just that I always pray to the Virgin of Guadelupe for everything I need and have for many years and it starts to get almost very weird how frequently my prayers are answered. Does anyone know about the devotion to the virgin in Mexico? I did go to her shrine and see the people crawling on their knees to it. There are many retablos and things about her miracles.

I do understand the devotion. I feel it myself, in fact. It's sort of hard to explain and so I won't go into the personal, spiritual, religous aspects of it. This post is just about the cultural aspects.

(What's funny is that the house I got married in had a huge Virgin of G mural and some of the wedding pictures had it in it but it turned out our photographer was also a reporter and he put us on the front page of the Sunday Supplement and in it the reporter said I LOOKED like a Virgin Mary. That was an accident. I don't actually try to dress like the Virgin.)

I want to make my own groovy folk are painting on a piece of tin. I think it would be amusing to do one of these "Gracias a la virgencita for helping me finish my dissertation." With a picture of me in front of the computer and the virgin over my head, blessing me...I did thank her in the introduction to my dissertation.

Here's a set of emails from Ana Lopez, who does these controversial paintings of the virgin. I don't always get upset if someone does a rif on the virgin--there are respectful and arrogant, jerky ways to turn cultural stuff in to art.

http://www.almalopez.net/ORemail/em052801.html

I'm sure there's more detail on www.almalopez.net

If you want to know more about retablos, you can look here....

http://www2.uah.es/iuen/little_miracles.htm

I've been looking for a picture of one of them and all I can find is this postmodern blather!

this is cute...a little santo maker

http://americanhistory.si.edu/kids/santos/YoungSantSet.htm

Here's one...it's not the real, down home kind though

http://www.theresasgallery.com/gallery/retablos/6.htm




Anyway, got some troubles? La virgencita will help. You don't have to be Catholic or anything (although I am). She's for everybody. So pray to the virgencita today! ***

***Note: That is a joke...I was doing a fake Virgin of Guadelupe AM radio commercial. Sort of like Ginsana. If you don't know what the hell I'm talking about, never mind.

Goes off to light a candle. In front of the Virgin of the Assumption santo--Dude, they are all the same virgin.

1:18am: Ouch! My head hurts...
like a dope I bumped my head in the plane. In the bathroom on the handicapped rail. Seriously, it was right over my head! No, it was! Just believe me.

I didn't get the fellowship but it weirdly turned out as the best thing because it seemed I would not get the time off. So if that's 'all for the best' then it is all for the best.

Actually, the best would be if I got in AND I got the time off.

However, fatalist that I am, I believe there is some mystical reason that I was drawn to this process and that someone it will be all be part of some elaborate plan to make my life work out...somehow.

And then I also believe I am doomed on the other hand.

Interestingly, I actually had that vague desire that I hoped my plane would crash, etc. except now I really am too mature to hope such things--I remember the other people on the plane! I haven't had those random escapist thoughts since the baby came...I thought I'd matured but perhaps I'm having a relapse.

So...London...I didn't spend much time there. As always you notice the random, stupid things. I was in Leicester Square...all the way across the Atlantic and I had my choice of Burger King or Pizza Hut. Oh, and for entertainment I could go see "Wedding Crashers" or "War of the Worlds." Where was I again?

And there are fat people in England! Lots of them! So we aren't the only ones. Don't feel bad, America. The rest of the world is catching up with you! It's a fat world after all.

Big Brother is huuuuuuuugggggeee. I mean HUGE. There seems to be a television channel solely devoted to the showing or discussion of Big Brother. The tabloids have pictures of Big Brother denizens (What do you call those who inhabit the reality TV universe? Characters? Members?) saying things like "Ew! Craig does it on TV." With a picture of the perhaps-masturbating Craig. Somehow they manage to get people who will get drunk and make passes at each other or cross dress or freak out about cross dressing. I suppose it's because they get young people. Young people are insane. If it were the people I know, we would just spend all our time reading. Maybe they don't allow books in the Big Brother house. That would be wise, keep people at each others' throats.

It's also very multi-cultural. After the terrorist thing I was wondering if it would be a drag to be a Muslim or Southeast Asian in London but damn there are so many Muslims I don't think it could matter much. Or maybe it does, but it didn't seem to. No one seemed scared and the Tube was packed but I'd overhear 'terrorist...terrorists...terrorism...' People were talking about it all the time! Of course, they caught the guys when I was there, but of course it's on people's minds. They just do what they did before, for the most part.

Get drunk. Oh, my God was everyone drunk there? I have never seem so many drunk people. And, like Peru, the men pee in the street. Against news kiosks and things.

OK, baby is fussing. See ya later.

2:02am: The Smell of Sorrow...
So...heh...I posted in CC about being traumatized. I went to buy this very nice piece of furniture from an older woman. She was moving out of her house of 30 years. Her husband had died a few years ago and she couldn't keep it up. As we drove up I saw giant pieces of paint hanging from the ceiling of the upstairs room. The smell was a sour ancient carpet, lack of cleaning, pets smell. We went to the basement to look at a sign she said her husband had taken from his work. She told me about him--he had been an editor of a newspaper outside of Chicago. But he 'loved trouble' she said. Once he had taken pictures of some Indian (probably AIM) protesters on a reservation takeover. The FBI wanted the pictures because the protesters had guns. (Was it Wounded Knee? I should have asked.) He refused to give them to the FBI. Apparently this was just a sample--he was ornery. "Well, he died poor," she said. I tried to say it is better to stand up for what you believe and die poor.

Of course, I don't believe that now. I did, but then I took a walk through Harvard Business School and realized idealists like me are total chumps.

She gave me some geraniums and I forgot them on the sidewalk...I drove off without them. Typical me, I still feel guilty for that.

Her daughter was annoyed with her for her packrat habits. Apparently she had hundreds of cans of juice and extension cords. I scored a free extension cord and tried to reassure the daughter that this might have been wise when she had kids. Maybe she just forgets sometimes she lives all alone now.

Mother told me to throw things away or I'd end up like her. (Note to self: You are doomed.)

Anyway, the stinky smell on the carpets was not just a reminder of poor sanitation and potential germs. It was a reminder of aging, grief and loss. A reminder that everything goes downhill and there you are, all alone with too many extension cords.

So I'm cheerful, hmmmm? Can't exactly explain the stinky smell trauma to anyone. And I don't have the time to figure out what it's really all about.

On a lighter note: Just a short while ago my daughter threw up in my hand.

It's an interesting thing, this contact with the foul and bodily you must endure as a parent. Some things that absolutely gross me out in any context don't bother me much at all when it comes to her. If she pees on the rug...oh well. Maybe I should wash it, soon? If she spits something out I might go ahead and eat it myself if it's just too much trouble to take it to the trash or I want to conceal it from those nearby. I'm not thrilled when she throws up on me but...I can't imagine such little disgust at anyone else's upchuck.

Sorry--I guess this is the day to ruminate over the disgusting.

2:24am: I just realized
that Maxwell Smart's apartment from "Get Smart" is like my dream home and I am trying to re-create it. How many people are going to understand this leftover childhood yearning?

Only 90% of America. Mid-century is hot, baby.

And yet, when they come over and really see the orange vinyl chairs and the polished gold hanging lamp...will they admire me. And isn't that what interior decorating's all about--getting the approval of others? Having them think you are cool? And even, perhaps, inspiring that twinge of envy.*

Come to think of it, isn't that what everything's all about?

I kind of doubt it. I question my ability to pull it off; I question their ability to see just how hard-won that formica table truly was.**

It's like when I wanted Laura Petrie's hairdo for my wedding. It wasn't just some whimsical thing I thought up as an aging hipster. It was something I had dreamed of since I was 4 years old. It reached down in there...deep down...where my early television memories lay.

All you need is that extra touch of something absurd--something that cannot be there by accident--to show how much trouble you went to and how much it all means to you. And those special people, those people whose admiration you want, they'll see, oh yes. They will look on my mighty formica and despair.

(She says, to justify her addiction to craigslist.)


**Because formica was once undesirable...and what if I had acquired it during that period instead of during its now scarce period.

*As long as they are roughly the same socio-economic class as you. If they are too far below you, the fun's all gone.

3:14am: Lazy Mami
Like all mothers I am constantly wondering if I suck because I don't want to spend every waking minute ensuring my baby's blissful happiness. People are constantly telling me that she is the happiest baby they have ever seen, etc. Of course, I know that she was born this way...and that all I can do now is screw it up.

I need to work, I need time to myself to think also. Somehow my work is enhanced by alone time. I am unable to visit my parents across the country for a month or two, they are giving me shit and I am actively lobbying my husband to go with the baby without me for an entire week.

It will be the 4th or 5th time I have been separated from her and she is only 15 mos.

Maybe I should have made this journal friends only so a bunch of crazies won't descend upon me and tell me that I am a bad mother.

Note to reader: I am not actually asking for your advice.

It is an interesting dilemma because our financial security--our advancement in life--really truly depends on me. To be a good mami I have to get tenure and be very successful so that I can get raises, etc. and so we can have a house and health care on a regular basis. So to be a good mami, I have to work and not spend all my time with my child.

Not this sounds like...what being a good papi is supposed to be. It gets kind of confusing for me. I feel guilty no matter what I do--because if I am not working then I am being a bad parent and if I am working I am being a bad parent.

Not really...and the guilt is not the horrific guilt I will describe shortly but only a mild twinge of uneasiness.

Anyway, I decided to spend the last two days with her and me alone together rather than spending the days writing. I am not being as efficient as I would like and it makes me feel bad that she is in daycare while I am skimming through unrelated books and filing my nails,or rereading old papers, other people's papers, searching the e-resources, etc. Eventually, we have to go back to that because I am not going to get this thing done and then I am going to go insane. But I thought maybe I just need to spend more time with her during the day if I am stuck right now.

In any case, it is interesting that the past two days with us alone have been sort of this bonding experience. I have decided to forget about everything and focus on her and her alone. And she is so sweet when you do that. When I entertain her every second of the day she is an angel. And she is adorable at all times even when she is being a bit devilish. But that mami-baby bonding experience has been interesting. I don't know what it means....does it mean that I am not spending nearly enough time with her. (Note to the judgmental or my guilty conscience: I spend at least 7 hours interacting with her a day...and she only goes to daycare an average of 20 hours a week.)

OK, so the horrific guilt happened when I started freaking out a bit and cursing to myself under my breath about something I couldn't find. A couple of times in the past I have really gotten a bit agitated with some project or task that I was trying to finish and just kind of freaked a bit about it. I assumed she did not notice but I have seen that for the last few days whenever I express annoyance (to myself...I don't usually get annoyed at her) she makes this noise like "aaaahhh..."--like she is scared I'm going to lose it. My freaking out, which I thought she did not notice, apparently did upset her. I left a scar! The first one, maybe.

It was interesting when she was born because I realized that for some time...some short time...maybe less than a year, maybe a little more than a year, I could make her life as close to perfect as it could get. I could make her little life wonderful. I try to do that as much as I can but maybe I am not doing it as much as I should.

Oh, that distress she expressed, that made me feel sooooo guilty. Have I scarred her? Traumatized her? What happened in that little brain when mami was going nuts? That's the thing I never realized about the whole parenting thing: I don't really know!!! It's really hard to tell what effect you are having on your child...beyond the obvious--I'm busy and ignoring you and that is pissing you off..." When I ignore her she goes "Mami? Up? Up?" I told her to do that instead of throw my books off my bookshelves. So now when she says that I have to respond.

I am on the verge of getting my shit together. Right on the verge. For the millionth time. But this year--these 15 mos. since she was born--have been the best time in my life. I am on the edge of making it.

I wonder if we will get the mortgage...we only have one more day and we don't have it yet...

1:04am: Fucking around
I know that I'm writing journal entries, went back to the WC, started a live journal, buying tons annd tons and tons of shit on craigslist--all cool shit and all cheap but we haven't even moved yet, etc., etc. because I haven't been writing and I'm in that avoidance mode that always puzzles me...because I like the summer when I can do my work unhurried and yet I distract myself. Indirection is my middle name.

It hasn't been going on for too long and I've gotten some cool furniture out of it...so I'm sure I can turn this ship around.

I have been sorta blue and that is also part of this funky process. As usual, when I am depressed I get upset about hilarious things--usually large scale social, economic or political issues or else the suffering of little bunnies. Or: Death! Just death! Death! We have death! Why, why must we have death!

OK, so we were watching "The Daily Show" online and they did this segment ridiculing the democrats for having their press conference in the basement, the lights didn't work, the microphone didn't work and then there is this shot and John Stewart says "wait! Is that woman breastfeeding?" And makes some other crack.

And I burst into tears. I cried and cried. Prudies, maybe you can relate to this? On second thought, I hope not! At least the part about parenthood making you insane.

Among the things I cried about "she didn't KNOW! She didn't know the camera was on her!"
"She loves her baby and her baby is hungry!"
"It is sooo (sob) haaard (sob). You want to do your work and you want to take care of your baby. But if your baby is hungry are you not supposed to feed him?"

Etc. Actually, I'm getting a bit sad thinking about it again. It was just: They were making fun of the breastfeeding lady. Breastfeeding is so innocent. It is good, it is a good thing.

Are you still with me? Probably not!

I was mad, too. Oh, God, why? Why doesn't anyone understand?

I'm a freak. I know it. I know I'm crazy. But there's little I can do about it.

So please, please if you see a breastfeeding mother or a mentally handicapped person who does something stupid or someone fat who eats too much, PLEASE I beg of you do not ridicule that person. Oh, puh-leez?

Because I will die. I am Miss Oversensitivity 2005.

Actually, I've always been a bit this way but since I had a baby it has gotten so bad. I expect it to calm down...sometime. But I can't read the newspaper, I can't look at Yahoo, or the Metro or even the Times, sometimes. In fact, I am going to subscribe to the Economist because war and economic collapse and environmental devastation and stupid stories on minor industries only make me terrified. They do not make me feel as if my heart is going to explode.

Whereas, virtually EVERY DAY and I mean, every day there is a story about something grisly and gruesome and sometimes even sadistic that happens to a child. Why? Why must I know? I do not want to know. The few little stories I've heard about--the serial killers, the horrific and tragic accidents, etc. haunt me. Damn! Can we just have like a 'child being harmed' blackout? I cannot stand to know.

Once I was reading a short story called I think called "Death In The Afternoon" by Yukio Mishima...it is atmospheric--a little boy goes to the beach and disappears and drowns. It makes you think of the fragility of life, the ordinariness of death. I was reading a collection of his stories. My mother read that story and was like "why would anyone write that? I never want to read anything like that! Things like that should not be written." And of course, I was all: "Duh, mom, it's great literature! Great literature is about tragedy and suffering, etc.

I have become my mother.

4:00am: Someone was doing confessions and I just realized what I have to confess: Whenver I think about my old cars I always feel guilty like I killed them. I am a car murderess...

1:00am: Strange fate..
Sometimes I can't help but believe in fate, kismet, God's blessings...My husband--where did he come from? He is the perfect person for me. He is supportive, an amazing father, calm when I am anxious, understanding, forgiving, loving...what the hell?

And I'm so nuts! I guess all that therapy bullshit about 'loving yourself first...' and 'finding someone to work through your issues with' is just that--bullshit.

We had this fight the other day, because he did this strange thing. I was trying to buy an endtable to match the fabulous endtable I bought on Craigslist for a song and he forgot to call the guy (I was at the park with the baby and couldn't call). So, I chilled about that, even though I was disappointed because the table was sold to someone else. Then...he called the guy and walked away talking to him. He then came over, handed me the phone and said "here, talk to my wife." So I didn't know what to say...I said "you sold the table?" and he said "Yes. I gave someone my word and she is coming over right now." And I said "well, OK." But apparently Chico had said that "my wife is really mad at me" and "my wife is going to kill me" to him. And also he had been talking about buying something else from him but I had no idea that this was the conversation and so didn't know what to talk about.

I got angry and yelled at him and even punched him in the arm (lightly). Then I said "is that the kind of thing you say about me when I am not around? That I am a mean wife!" Of course, I was being kind of a mean wife when I said that.

Then I went home and he stayed at the park...then he called me and we talked and it was fine...OK.

So I just explain this to say--marriage is such a strange thing. To me, really a miracle. We fight but it doesn't matter. I can be any way with him, he understands. If he is wrong he says he is sorry and then we are happy again.

It's getting kind of hard to understand how people can get divorced. Ha...yes, I know, they cheat on each other. No, I'm being ridiculous. Divorce remains a terrible fear of mine.

2:20pm: Some moral issues...for me, that is...
So it is interesting that I am having my first semi-parents-ethics dilemma...

It's not a really big dilemma but...

We have these friends, a guy who was Chico's friend from grade school...he has a very nice wife, she is European, an adorable daughter and are expecting another child. And there is this interesting issue around here where the 'good' grade schools are in the white suburbs. So they naturally want to move to one of these white suburbs. Chico and I were horrified. Yuck! You want to move THERE?

"I mean, isn't it worse for your kid to grow up in an all white bourgeois world than to go to a bad inner city school?" I thought, being the product of an inner city school myself.

True, they are white but the guy is half Jewish...that should count for something! Hee hee.

Anyway, it is an interesting dilemma. I went to an awful inner city school where we barely learned math (or anything). Of course, I could teach myself most things as a child by reading. I thought it hadn't hurt me. But I did see the difference between me and my brother. My parents moved to a still diverse, but posher neighborhood with a good school system. My brother really did have a better education than I did and I think it shows in what he can do.

Of course my friend S. the doctor ridiculed me when I told him this because I went to two of the best schools in the U.S. and have a Ph.D. But I was like "they weren't THE VERY BEST SCHOOL." No, of course I didn't say that. I just thought that my upbringing and my strange background caused me to suffer in educational situations and feel like an outsider...and inadequate. I had no intellectual confidence. So it's true I did OK but ya know...maybe it wouldn't have been so hellish if I felt like I belonged in those places.

Also, I just know that going to a better school does help a kid. I see how different it is for my brother.

However, I still stick by the idea that I'd rather have my daughter go to a shitty school (not one where the teachers are mean, but one where maybe the test scores aren't so high, etc.) than live in a virtually all white neighborhood. I mean--there is no contest! I'm not even saying you have a better life when you aren't so sheltered or privileged. It's just that...I don't know...those middle class people who were so clueless that I met everywhere...I don't want to replicate that.

But is that what is best for her? It is so hard to say what is best for her. Anyway, she will go to the bilingual school and that isn't in the rich neighborhood so at least she will have that. I personally think it is better for her to be fluent in two languages anyway. So there's that!

Still, it is a strange puzzle in its way. What if what is 'best' for your child is to immerse her in something you think is (partly) the product of injustice?

Nevertheless, I think if you have a child you have to stick to your moral beliefs...and reject this segregation and hierarchical privilege. The whole thing of what is 'better' for the child. Is it really better for her to be a ???what??? Well, there's little she can't be if she goes to a state university. In fact, I do think the only thing she can't be is an academic since it is very hard to get into a top Ph.D. program from a no-name school. But you can get into med school or law school. So it's not even like...if she goes to Yabba Dabba State U. her life is ruined.

My father went to BooBoo State and he is far more successful than I am...or most people. So the whole thing is absurd. That I'm even thinking this way is already twisted. Yes, I've been in those bastions of privilege and you get so much more than you do elsewhere. Oh my God, the rest of the world is pretty paltry. Honestly, if you don't know, you don't know what you are missing. It's only if you meet those people and they look down on you in this funny way do you realize you might have missed the boat. And that only happens if you live on the East Coast anyway.

As long as we live on the Navajo Reservation or in Bolivia she'll never know the difference.

I've been reading the New York Times too much. They are obsessed with the Ivy League fate of children.


------------

The second moral dilemma concerns vegetarianism.

I find it hard to believe there is absolutely no moral cost whatsoever. Animals suffer. Even on human farms they probably suffer a bit. But when I eat meat I don't feel the slightest bit guilty. It's almost as if I can't feel guilty for eating meat.

It's only after I had a baby this bothered me. Somehow having a baby made the idea that any creature is suffering very painful.

In any case, I minimize my meat eating but don't eliminate it...I should strive for elimination of meat. Why is it hard? There is almost no cost to me from giving up meat. I wonder why it is so difficult.

2:35pm: Oh if only there were a wedding channel for academics...
Then there would be a thread for postdocs like "Post your postdoc proposals here!" And instead of "my MIL is driving me crazy" we would have "my chair is driving me crazy!"

Ack! But I have to admit other academics drive me crazy sometimes. It's interesting how boring and pompous most professors blogs are...We can't write! Heh.

3:15am: Schopenhauer and the Doo Wops
I have this kind of strange Schopenhauer/Buddhism suspicion going on...based on the fact that we almost maybe own a house...and already my mind is spinning with the possibilities. The possibility of fabulousness!

I've projected my illusions upon this house...this 1500-1700 square feet of extremely expensive mortgaged to the hilt property...And it has taken the form of CRAIGS LIST.

And in spite of the illusory nature of desire I have gotten some pretty good smack off there...A beautiful, pristine (UNTIL el chico scratched on the car *sob*) Danish modern hutch. For $25. And a Danish modern (not quite as nice) office furniture/end table for $12. And a not that fabulous but still somewhat hip coatrack for $15.

But that is not all...no, I've written to about 20 or 50 or 100 people offering them less than they are asking for and basically being a pain in the ass in my hunt for bargains.

So it's mid-century it seems. My illusion of contentment this time takes the form of mid-century furniture. Like a madwoman, I seem to believe that if I can just find the right items I will find harmony and contentment at last. Even though I know that never happens...

Do I enjoy the pursuit? I don't know. I guess you do enjoy anticipation even if the thing you anticipate turns out to be a bust.

So...not it's time for Mandarin Orange Poland Spring. That's something that never lets me down.

4:48pm: WCers who affected you...or who you learned something from...
I remember that this "where are they now" thread was just about to turn into a cat fight...I was totally confused by all the references and criticisms. I suck at catfights. But anyway...let's just forget that for now.

I'm posting this because I remember what is interesting about the WC--you can have social contact with people who are very different from you. It's not like I'm sheltered. I have a big family with all sorts of people--fundamentalist Christians, atheists, Catholics, protestants who hate Catholics, Cops, Lawyers who sue cops, etc. And I've been friends with tons of different kind of people. But the place I live now is unfriendly and I am too busy to chat up strangers anyway.

So, I like the WC. Where I can at least hear the opinions and read about the lifestyles of so many different kind of people. I try not to pick fights with people who don't agree with me. (Frankly, anyone who spent a lot of time on her wedding is different than anyone I've ever met in real life. My friends don't have weddings, usually. And if they do they are like mine--slipshod, cheap and small!)

Anyway, I just wanted to say that one really funny conservative woman I loved on the WC is DELTA. Delta was cool.

So have you met anyone on the WC who you thought gave you a different perspective on life? Or you learned something from? Or who just had a different outlook than you did but whom you liked?