I used to be funny

This morning at school, a conversation with a colleague who reads my blog regularly.

He: Amy's engaged.

Lots of people congratulate me.

He: You gotta read Amy's blog.

Me: I'm not funny anymore.

He: You haven't been in a long time, no.

He then gave me an out, what with all the doggie troubles that we went through in January.

But really, what's my problem? Probably seasonal depression. And, paradoxically, probably contentment. I have nothing to complain about, really, and it was usually those complaints that I could turn into funnies.

In other news, I had another version of a recurring dream last night. I had accepted a job at my undergraduate institution, Clark University. I was sitting through the new faculty orientation trying to remember if I'd be able to find my way back to my dorm room, when I realized that I didn't really want this job. I didn't want to be one of the only rhet/comp people on campus. I wanted my old job back. Badly. And so I asked one of my colleagues, who just happened to work at both schools, what she could do to get me my job back. She gave me a wink and assured me she'd take care of it.

Phew.

I was a pretty smart undergraduate, but I remember next to nothing about what I learned. I was so clueless about the world, about living. I look at my students now and I really don't think they're as clueless as I was. I wish I'd had a personal essay class then. I wish I'd saved more of my writing. Maybe that's why I keep having these dreams about teaching there.

See? None of this is funny.

Good lord, February

Come on.

Aren't you over yet?

I'm done with you. D-U-N dun.

it's much prettier in real life

ring
Originally uploaded by aerobil

Now don't go making a big deal about this, people, because I've got lots of issues with a lot of what surrounds this. Not with S., of course. But with weddings and marriage and expectations, oh my. I mean, really. Imagine Amy in a dress.

But the presents part--that's just fine.

And also, we bought a new fridge last night.

Exciting stuff over here.

recant

I was wrong about the NyQuil. It does still have alcohol, happily. S. had bought me the generic version, which I'm usually all about, and it was alcohol-free. We just got back from a few errands, one of which was returning--yes returning--the alcohol-free generic store-brand NyQuil.

Me: It didn't work.

Man behind the counter: It didn't work?

Me: It offered no relief.

Later. Me, to honey: See, you really can return anything. This is America. Customer is always right.

I blame it on the meth-heads

I was so sick this weekend I couldn't vacuum.

That's how you know it's really bad.

I couldn't play Scramble, I couldn't eat anything, I couldn't get out of bed. But I also couldn't fall asleep because I was going back and forth between having the chills and sweating to death. So I asked my honey on Saturday morning to pick me up some liquid NyQuil. Clearly the gelcaps weren't hitting my system hard enough to knock me out.

Like a good honey, he got me cherry liquid NyQuil. It made me drowsy, but it didn't knock me out. Later in the day when I took another dose, it did nothing.

On Sunday, I felt better in the morning, but then it hit me again like a truck early afternoon. I threw up, had the shakes, and a headache to end all headaches. I ended up in the emergency room where they pumped me with fluids, took a chest x-ray, and confirmed that yes, I was probably there because of the meth-heads. Here's the reasoning:

Meth-heads use pseudoephedrine to make their meth.

Must make pseudoephedrine illegal, or at least hard to get.

Medicine makers give up on making it hard to get because their competition is making versions of the meds without pseudoephedrine, and nobody wants to wait in line to get the old stuff (though I would, thank you very much).

The new medicines for cold and flu symptoms SUCK. They're simply not as strong. They don't relieve the symptoms like pseudoephedrine did.

So it feels like you're dying when you've taken medicine that USED to help you but no longer does, so what else do you do but end up in the ER?

And when, by the way, did NyQuil become alcohol free? THAT'S. THE. WHOLE. POINT. OF. NYQUIL. Hello. I know. I just said it was the pseudoephedrine. IT'S BOTH.

Okay, do you really wanna know how to tell when it's bad? I canceled both classes today.

aftermath

When I had had Annabelle for just a few months and we were living in an apartment on Green Street in Syracuse, I came home one day to find her water bowl completely empty save for a couple feathers stuck to the bottom of it. There were feathers stuck in her coat. When I went to the bedroom I saw a scene not unlike the one that follows here:

When I got home from school yesterday, no more than two minutes before S. did, I walked into the living room to this. It was a little bit funny. When I heard the garage door open, I went downstairs to greet S. and told him I wanted him to experience what I had just experienced. "I don't wanna experience anything," he whined. "Tell me."

"Nope. I want you to have the same surprise I had."

"I'm not going upstairs. I'm gonna stay down here all night."

All of these feathers, folks, were from HALF a couch pillow. Dang, they stuff those things real good. Poor Petula the Penguin. She was covered and she had no way to escape.

We'll be finding feathers for at least the next week or so. I've blamed it all completely on Wrigley, though when I was telling Nan about it last night, she suggested that maybe the girls were playing tug-o-war with the pillow. Belly tells me no, it was all Wiggles. And while Wrigley was making this mess, Belly coached her, telling her what it was like when she had done the same thing. Back when she was a baby.

pop tarts

This is the latest junk food I've been eating as a way of making it through this winter. Strawberry pop tarts. And now, frosted raspberry pop tarts. When spring comes, I won't fit into any of my clothes, but, hey, I'll be alive.

Ugh.

my obsessions of late

what cannot be measured

what therefore cannot be compared

what therefore cannot be commodified

what therefore cannot be bought and sold

and so, unfortunately, what often cannot be named

This is to say that I'm thoroughly entrenched in the ideas at the heart of my book, and the deeper I go, the more I realize I've been circling around these ideas for a long time. Hovering over them. Picking at them. Many times having a hard time articulating them. Then I realize that that's part of the very thing I'm dealing with: the ineffable. The ineffable as opposed to the marketable.

How can we find a language for value that doesn't a) resort to market value; b) come off as moralizing or holier-than-thou; or c) sound completely hokey and old-fashioned and therefore easily dismissed?

That, dear readers, is the question. The one preoccupying me at the moment.

I'm not dead

I just really haven't had much to say lately. I have blog posts in my head throughout the week, but I never get around to writing them. Maybe I'm becoming lazy. Maybe the book and grad admissions are taking it all out of me. Maybe life just gets boring after a while.

We've decided Wrigley needs a little bit of schooling if she's gonna continue to live with us. We asked her if she wants to continue living with us and she said, YES! YES! YES! YES! WATCH HOW I WIGGLE MY BUTT WHENEVER I SEE YOU! I LOVE YOU! I WANT TO GO TO SCHOOL! Or something along those lines.

Went back up to Chicago to the headache clinic, and of the three visits we've made thus far, this was the least stressful. Did quite a bit of shopping on the way home. Unintended, but hey, neither of us can pass up a good bargain.

Anyway, that's what's up. Basically, NOTHING.

snow day

Wake up this morning to about 7 or 8 inches of snow on the ground. Schools are closed, including ISU. S. calls his weather hotline only to find out that he's only got a delay until 11:00.

My reaction: I'm kinda bummed because I wanted to go in and write today. Yesterday I was on a bit of a roll. I know, you're thinking, why can't I write at home? All my stuff's at school. All I have here is my brain.

S.'s reaction: a bit of a tantrum.

Though the hotline tells him to call back at 9:00 for an update, he calls again at about 8:15, and when he learns he has the entire day off, he does the cabbage patch. And he's so pumped that he goes outside to finish snowblowing the driveway.

And the snowblower, folks, has a name. I had nothing to do with it. When he bought it a couple years ago, he decided she looked like a Beulah. And she kinda does.