A serious request

Even though I'm away from Little U. on the Prairie, I still get e-mails from my department. Reminders about registering for classes each semester, invitations to readings, job postings, spam -- check to all of the above. Most of it isn't relevant to me at the moment.

But today, I received this.*

If you enjoy the alphabet, then have I got a job for you! I'm looking for two people to alphabetize and shelve about 2,000 books for me very quickly -- either tonight or tomorrow. (But preferably tonight.)

My mom is visiting me soon and is going to be appalled to discover that I haven't quite moved in to this place that I supposedly moved into several months ago. So I'm hoping to diguise [sic] the fact that I own no furniture with many shelves of meticulously alphabetized books (plus a couple hundred DVDs).

Sound like your idea of a Friday night? Then e-mail me and I'll give you some details. I think the job will require two people, so contacting me with a partner already in place would be ideal -- otherwise you risk being partnered with someone potentially annoying. I will pay you each 150 bucks in cold/hard cash, and I'm guessing that the job will take you about 5 hours total. If you're pleasant I'll also order pizza.

Yours,
A. Professor

Yes, this was sent by a member of the faculty at Little U., who has been teaching there longer than I have been one of Little U.'s students. And no, s/he is not on my thesis committee -- I never did end up taking a workshop under this person, so it didn't make sense to ask.

I know; it's a quirky request, humorous because of the situation it describes. But I hesitate to laugh for two reasons. One, because I think this prof is being earnest -- as in, the situation is of a serious nature to him/her. Parental visit, lack of furniture. I know that kind of judgment all too well. I could substitute a good number of items (concrete or abstract) for that missing couch and coffee table s/he's talking about in that e-mail and remember the squirmy feeling of not measuring up to somebody's expectations on how I should live.

The other reason? Well -- and you can laugh about this -- I like filing.

D makes fun of me for it, but when he needs a document we don't reference on a daily basis, he's very glad I am the way I am. Need a receipt for the sofa we bought three months back? Three years? Sure. Records from bank accounts two out-of-state moves ago? Got it. How about the operating manual for the decades-old sewing machine your mother passed on to us last year? Give me thirty seconds; I know exactly where it is.

So, alphabetizing books. I so would have done it for this prof. And cash (and pizza) aside, I would have enjoyed it.

But I also would have been getting ready to defend my thesis and/or give a final to my students, so I guess it's a good thing I'm not there, tempted by this distraction ...

* Edited to protect the identity of the original sender.

Measure by measure

"I think I've got it," D said, and he pulled the piece of folded silk taut between his fingers, waiting for me to pin it just so. When I was done, he moved his level a few inches to our left and started on the next section of curtain hanging from the rod he'd installed earlier with the help of the same level. Fold, level, pin; fold, level, pin. All in the name of perfecting a hem.

These curtains are going to hang in our bedroom, which means no one but us will see them. If any part of their hems happens not to fall exactly one inch above the carpet, only we will know. So I was more than a little amused, sprawled on hands and knees this afternoon with D and his level, our chins practically grazing the floor as we measured on.

But these curtains -- something we started the weekend before with D's aunt, who came out to help us make them as her housewarming gift -- they are for us. Our first home decor project to dress up our most private space. It feels right somehow that we're taking the time to make it as close to perfect as we can. Even if using a level is kind of hilarious.

I'm sure that if we were more experienced, we'd know some sort of trick not involving carpenter's tools to do this properly, but we're also accustomed by our nature to making do with what we have (within certain limits). There's fun in improvisation, seeing if our inventions will work. There's a little high I get when they do. And of course, disappointment when they don't.

I've been improvising around here a lot in the wake of the last month or so, letting parts of my old routine fall away in the hope that I will open myself to invention, some kind of insight on how to treat myself, a self that feels foreign. "You're getting your bearings," a friend said to me. "You won't always pick the right tools for coping, but trying them out is part of the process."

So a level it is for now.

Tuesday

... was hard.

Well, for that matter, Monday was too. I had my follow-up appointment with my local GI doctor to talk about the plan going forward after what he lightly referred to as the Million-Dollar Workup.

I was glad he wasn't put off that I'd gone to someone else for all the testing. I'd planned to be forthright about discussing the findings, no matter how he seemed (I did have all the new data sent to him). But it was a relief all the same that we didn't have any awkwardness about it.

The good news he had for me: my liver enzymes are completely back in the normal range. Which means I can drink again -- at last! -- with continued monitoring every few months.

The bad news I had for him: this little problem called depression is not going away.

It is not the fault of any single thing. But we were supposed to start trying to have a baby this month. That was, in essence, the plan D and I framed up last summer, which was why we were so intent on getting my health issues fixed -- or at least properly examined to see what kinds of risks and other concerns we needed to take into account before trying to get me pregnant. We went to a reproductive endocrinologist, who ran the usual blood tests to get baseline readings, which revealed the abnormal liver numbers (you know the rest of that story). He also discussed the things I ought to consider to get my body in the best shape for this new adventure -- including tapering off the antidepressants I'd been taking since mid-2008. Commuter marriage? Not good for someone who's been dealing with chronic blues for a long time. But D and I were done with that, and I was working through family stress in my writing. I felt ready to move forward.

So I timed the step-down very carefully, waiting till after the holiday season to attempt it. The process seemed to go well; by the first week of February, I was done.

But the combination of things that was the rest of that month -- I didn't anticipate how they would affect me. I thought I was in a better place; really, I did.

No.

Of course, it's not just February I'm trying to work through. February was just a month of triggers. But, given their effects, it's clear that there are underlying griefs I haven't found a way to manage completely. And knowing that, knowing I haven't yet achieved that goal is what kills me now. Because I wanted to be ready for motherhood (at least, as ready as one can hope to be). The reality is that there's no way I can look myself in the eye and say, "Sure. You can handle it." I know at least that much about where I am, even if I don't know much else.

And yet. No matter how wise that decision, for me and for the little life that will be utterly dependent on me, it is still heartbreaking -- because of the delay, because of the reasons for the delay, because there is no clear mark on the horizon to tell me when the delay will be over. And the irony of it all: the antidepressants were quite likely the source of the liver damage.

I know I shouldn't be hard on myself about this as it certainly won't help. If there's anyone who needs to be in my corner with me, it's me. "You've got a lot going on," the GI doctor said sympathetically as I confessed to him that I'd relapsed (with not just the GI problems but also depression) and what that meant for our plans for a family. He urged me to take care of myself first.

I spent much of Tuesday trying to write this post, but it was still too hard to put everything into words, so I gave up and cuddled our foster kitties for a while. They seemed to know I needed their company and stayed close. Today, to my relief, felt better -- even though what I've described isn't a fraction of the way it all feels, at least some of that was writable, which means I'm working through it. I am taking care of myself here.

I just wish I didn't have to.

I knew it wasn't time yet

Remember that little rose plant we saved from near death back in November? It was touch-and-go for a while, even after it started putting out new leaves. Some curled up and fell off; others started out looking fine but became slightly deformed as they grew. We couldn't tell if it was planning to stay or go.

Well, last week it bloomed.

There was a bud when I got back from my February trip, but I didn't know if it would survive -- the plant had put out buds before but couldn't sustain the energy to bring them to full flower. So I watched and watered very carefully, sneaking some photos when it thought I wasn't looking.




I almost decided to plant this outside after its blossom was spent. When I picked up the gerberas two weeks ago, the florist at the grocery store tried to sell me another miniature rose. "They do wonderfully in our climate," she said -- which is true. I've seen many a happy rose in our neighborhood in summer. But I wasn't so sure about mine, given its rough start. How I understand those.

It's not so much the individual stressors -- an aphid here, a chillier night there, a few too many cloudy days in a row. It's all of them at once, too many things to react to, that would keep it stunted, possibly preventing it from ever making a full recovery. So my rose and I are staying indoors until we're ready.

Good thing, too, because it snowed today.

This is my reason

... to be happy today: my answer to question 7 on our census form.

I almost wrote in some arrows and exclamation points and a great big smiley face. But I figured it was better not to take any chances with whatever system, human or automated, is going to process this.