Addendum to last post

One of the people in a grad class I teach is actually a visiting scholar I am hosting from China. From our skyping session she noticed that I have a cold, so she sent me the method her family uses to cure a cold: Fill a giant bucket with very hot water. Put your feet in it. Keep the water hot. Stay there for about half an hour until you're sweating all over. At the same time, drink some boiling water with ginger. Then get a good night's sleep.

Sounds more pleasant than swallowing giant horse pills, maybe I'll give it a try!

Weird Things from my Trip

1) Well, I already shared the weirdest thing, which was my colleague outing himself as the dreaded Reviewer A. Man! Still getting over that one!

2) Also, on my first night I needed to get a can of soda to drink some pills with. (Sounds healthy, doesn't it). Anyway, I have an issue with swallowing pills. It's lame and it's basically that I have never mastered this basic adult competency of swallowing pills. If they're little I can handle it but if they're big it can be a problem. I have all of these weird factors that have to be in place, like I can't swallow a pill with just water, it has to be something with a strong flavor like orange juice or carbonated soda. I have to have a morsel of something to eat to chase down the pill or else I'll feel a lump in my throat all night. Even with these things in place half the time I fail at swallowing the pill and will gag it back up, slamming my hand down on the table with emphasis, arching my back, leaning way back to get gravity to help, trying to wrangle that thing down my throat.

So anyway I went to the vending closet to get ice and soda. It was a literal closet. The bottles of soda were $2.50. Crazy! But I was desperate. I plugged my 10 quarters into the machine. But nothing happened. I hit the button. No soda came out. I hit the change button, but I didn't get my change back. I didn't have enough change to try again with another machine. Hmmm, not good. I needed my cold medication to go to sleep.

Then I noticed that there was a weird handle on the machine that was...out. I started twisting it. It twisted and twisted and twisted. And then as I was twisting it, the machine opened up right in front of me! I peered in. It was empty, no bottles. It wasn't even running. No wonder I didn't get my money back. Then I realized I could open this other little door to get my money. So I did, and then piles and piles and piles and piles of coins spilled out onto the floor, creating a huge pyramid of coins!

So I picked out my 10 quarters, and then put the rest of the coins back into the machine, which was a pain, and then closed it all up, and twisted that handle again and again to secure it, and then walked up to the next floor and managed to successfully get my bottle of soda, swallow my pills (no gagging), and go to bed.

3) Our hotel is literally 2 blocks from the White House. You can look down the street and see it there, all lit up. You can wander up to the gates and gaze upon it. I should have brought my camera. Our hotel is in a totally great location.

4) I think one of my work friends, who is married, is trying to have an affair with another of my work friends, who is recently not married. It is weird and disconcerting for me to watch this play out; it plays itself out at conferences since they are in different parts of the country.

5) I taught my class remotely by Skyping in. The classroom has a laptop hooked up to a giant smart board. It worked surprisingly well. I could see everybody in the class and they could see me, and we could have a conversation that way. However, the internet connection started to get wonky towards the end and this was a significant problem.

6) My eye started hurting and getting all bloodshot and then pus started leaking out of it. So I guess it's just part of the virus that M&N gave me. Pus eye and all. Attractive, huh. I finally caved and started taking my gigantic impossible-to-swallow antibiotic, because I draw the line at pus-sy eyes.

7) (Gee, wonder why no colleagues ever want to start up affairs with me? Must have something to do with #6 and how uber-sexy I am what with the leaking eyes and all....)

Feeling a little better

Milo: Mommy can we watch a Caillou video?

Me: Okay...

Me: Wait...did you ask Daddy already?

Milo: Yeah.

Me: What did he say?

Milo: ...Mommy I love you.

[Milo gives me a big hug]

This is suspicious because Milo isn't exactly a font of unsolicited affection. We go downstairs.

Me: Did Milo ask you if he could watch a video?

Jake: Yeah.

Me: What did you say?

Jake: I said not until I get back from the store.

Why that little! I thought that was a big-kid gambit!

Paranoia

Milo spiked a fever of 106 degrees today. This was after I woke him from his nap after 3.5 hours, and he told me his legs hurt. I couldn't believe it was that high. I checked the thermometer on other people without fevers, and it was working properly. I gave him Tylenol, stripped him, had him drink some ice water, put a cold cloth on his neck, and then Jake took him to urgent care. But they couldn't find anything wrong with him. No signs of meningitis (What? A paranoid mind goes there) or even another ear infection or strep throat or anything. Then 3 hours later his fever was back down to just a degree. What on earth? I was so scared when he was that hot. His whole face was beet red and you could tell he was burning up. I thought fevers that high cooked people's brains.

Now I'm paranoid. I don't want to go in there tomorrow morning and find him dead. (What? It happens. In fact it's happened to somebody I knew in the blog world, although that child was younger and fortunately at almost 3 Milo's lungs and everything are more mature. But still. The flu does kill people every year.) I am going to check his temp before I go to bed, and I have half a mind to set an alarm in the middle of the night and check it then too. Am I crazy? Am I the only parent who thinks about stuff like this? Granted I'm not constantly afraid of them dying like I was when they were babies, but I still think about it. What if he spiked a temp in the middle of the night, I slept through it, and he had a massive seizure?

Jake is staying home tomorrow so I can get going on revising my paper. I lost a day to it today but probably wouldn't have been very productive since I too am still pretty sick and out of it. My plan for the rest of the week and beyond is to dose up on constant cold medication to power through.

The kids are going to be 3 in 2 weeks and a day. Hard to believe. I should probably get ready for that at some point, or do something about it. Nora has informed me that she wants me to come to her school on her birthday and bring cupcakes. I'm not sure it's allowed (the school is all about healthy snacks) but we'll see. The last kid's mom brought donut holes, cupcakes can't be worse right? Their birthday falls the day after my big paper revision deadline. I also have to think of a present to give them. Milo is a little easier than Nora (trucks) but in general neither kid ever expresses an interest for anything specific. I even took Nora to a toy store this weekend to see if she was interested in anything. She was mostly interested in the Christmas lights and in marbles (but they are too young for a marble run). I asked her what she wanted for Christmas and she said a tree (a Christmas tree). That's pretty much all she could tell me. Ah to be 3 and have as much interest in Daddy's belt or Mommy's slippers as in some fancy new toy.

What a cold. I've been sick for 7 days now and still have a fever today. Maybe this is the uber-cold. Maybe it's the flu, but wait, the kids got their flu shots. Maybe it's a different strain of the flu. Milo was a little sick to his stomach this morning, poor guy.

I have to say he's the easy kid to stay home with. Even sick, he mostly entertains himself, and it is even possible for me to sort of doze on the couch while he plays with trains or the iPad. Also, I let him stay in his pajamas all day which he thought was pretty awesome. Also, Milo is the kid who actually naps. Nora naps for 45 minutes if you're lucky, even when she's sick. Milo's going on a solid 3 hours right now.

I am so tired of everything being a massive struggle. I need to remember that it won't always feel this way. At some point, it'll be warm outside, and I won't be in fear of losing my job, and there will probably come a time when the kids will be able to play together for more than 5 minutes without physically attacking each other. I gotta say, November has massively sucked.

Milo has a fever of 102. He never even recovered from his last sickness. Over the past 2 weeks we only had 1 day that both kids were in school. Now I have to stay home with Milo tomorrow. The day after I got this super important tight 2-week deadline for a tenure-determining paper. You see the irony here?

We are drowning. We have no good options. I fear one of us is going to lose our job over this.there is no end in sight. He will probably have to be out of school most or all of the week. I travel to DC on Wednesday. This is unbelievable. There is no safety net. I am beyond demoralized.

Bullets of Weekend

-- Both weekend mornings Jake got up and let me sleep in, which was awesome, especially because I've been sick and not having a lot of energy. I slept way way in, like I didn't come downstairs until about 9:15, and when Milo saw me he remarked, "I didn't see you in a while! Were you at work?" I said, "I was upstairs sleeping", and he said, "Oh! I see!" So cute!

-- Every now and then when I see photos of people I went to high school with I realize how freakin' old I am. I see these people and they look really old to me, so much so that if it were a stranger I'd just assume they were older than me. And then I have to face the fact that actually, I'm the same age. We're just all grown up now. I am not 20 anymore, even if for some mysterious reason I keep thinking I am.

-- I thought up an advertisement for windows. For instance, if you're trying to sell Anderson windows, you could make a commercial in which you show a couple struggling to put the plastic up over their ancient windows for the winter, and the inevitable chaos and bickering that will bring, and then have a voice over that says "Anderson windows. Cheaper than marriage counseling."

-- Every time one of my friends puts up a picture of themselves in San Diego, I find myself missing San Diego so, so much. I really miss it right now. I pretty much never miss San Diego in the summer, or the fall, but the winter? You know, living in basically perfect weather year round was pretty damn nice, as I recall. Never too hot, never too cold. Hiking at Torrey Pines in January in a t-shirt. Playing tennis on Christmas day in shorts. The gentle breezes, the scent of jasmine...*sigh*

-- I feel like I like the idea of winter a lot more than the actual day-to-day-ness of it. I like the idea of the occasional day spent sledding, ice skating, looking at the beautiful snow, coming in to hot chocolate, yada yada yada. I like all that, for sure, and it makes Christmas feel extra Christmassy and all. But those days and scenes are, what, maybe 5% of actual winter? And then the other 95% of it is ugly gray and brown snow and slush, freezing fingers, scraping the car every morning, giant snowdrifts you have to walk around, slipping on the ice, that bitter sting of the wind in your face, getting to work and not being able to talk right because your mouth is sort of numb, etc.

-- If only California weren't so expensive and didn't have such shitty educational policies. Every time a job comes up at Santa Barbara or Santa Cruz I think, hmmm....ocean views, gorgeous weather...living like a pauper in a 1-room shack that costs 800K...never mind.

-- Today I got a sort-of decision on my signature piece #1 (that I am counting on for tenure and submitted to our field's top journal). This was after one round of revise and resubmit. It's not accepted (boo) but the editor said that I can revise it and she won't send it out for another round of review (HUGE YAY). This is huge because not sending it out again for review means it's between me and the editor, and has a much better chance of making it through, and we don't have to go through another 4-month delay. Plus, she gave me a 2-week deadline to get the revisions done, which is a very tight timeline, and then noted that currently there's no backlog at this journal and she anticipates the possibility of it getting published quickly. Another huge YAY. BUT, the revisions aren't minor. They're substantive (boo). So this means I have 2 weeks, or rather less because I actually haven't gotten the reviews back yet so can't start revising quite yet, of very hard work. On top of being sick, and having to travel to DC this week. And getting ready for the kids' birthday. This whole "last minute huge push giant effort enormous struggle in the face of adversity" thing totally appeals to my drama queen side, though. So....here we go.

-- Today when I was in the office and the email came in from the journal that said "decision" in the subject line, adrenaline raced through my whole body. My entire head had been completely congested all day and then suddenly, seeing that email, before I even opened it, I could breathe again. I still feel shaky about it all. And not wanting to count my chickens yet.

-- Nora has a horrible cough that makes it hard for her to go to sleep. I wish there was something you could give somebody her age and size for a cough, but it's not allowed. She sounds awful, the poor thing. And Milo had another fever today. I can't believe the whole family is still sick after so long. Both of the kids are so skinny that when they get sick they start to look emaciated to me, even though I know they're not, but I feel like they don't have anything to spare. Nora's appetite is not so great with her cold. I work really really hard to let this go and not make a big deal out of it. I soooo don't want her to, I don't know, develop anorexia as a teenager because she has a lifelong history of food control battles with her mother. (Duh. Nobody wants that.) So I try my best to just let it go at dinner time and eat my meal and NOT comment on the fact that she is eating NOTHING AT ALL AND WILL STARVE HERSELF TO DEATH IF SHE DOESN'T WATCH OUT ahem...I mean...just eat my meal and let it go. Then I give her pie, to try and fatten her up.

Which Milo thinks is awesome:

Thanksgiving Dancing

Still figuring out the concept of slow dancing!

Kitchen Blues

Jake has just spent the last half an hour unsuccessfully trying to force the bottom drawer of our oven open. You know, the draw that holds all of our baking sheets, roasting pans, pie pans, etc. It has been broken for a while but is now broken to the extent that it has apparently welded itself shut permanently.

Jake: Maybe we should get a new OVEN for Christmas.

Me: But what if we're going to have to move next year, that would make a difference in what kind of oven we bought. On the other hand if we're planning on redoing the kitchen in a few years, it'd make so much more sense to wait to get an oven when we do it all at once. Plus our fridge is just about ready to die, too, so if we could do it all at once when we're remodeling the kitchen in a few years...

Jake: I know, but this is ridiculous.

It's like we're playing a game of chicken with our appliances. Come on, fridge and oven, can you last just 2 or 3 more years?

Woo hoo! He just got it open!

It's all good. I just have 2 goals for Thanksgiving: stay out of the emergency room, and have the table remain standing throughout the entire meal. If we meet those, I figure we'll be WAY ahead of last year.

Tonight Nora had a fever of 102 degrees. She is so sick, and has had a fever for 5 days straight now, and what with the red eyes and the pus and all, I thought for sure she had some sort of infection. But the doctor said nope, it's just a cold, here's some eyedrops for her eyes, good luck and all. Really? I don't get a fever for 5 days in a row when I have a cold. Poor thing. She is just a wreck.

This morning we had a candidate in for a position -- it's not a faculty position, it's more like a post-doc type thing. So anyway we had back-to-back meetings with him, and then had to take him to lunch, and then more meetings in the afternoon, and then we were supposed to take him to dinner tonight. This morning as I was getting ready to leave, I thought, hmm, my throat hurts a little. And by lunchtime I was a puddle of misery barely able to sit up in the restaurant. I couldn't eat, I couldn't think, chills were washing over me, and I made a mental note to be nicer to the kids when they're sick and not give them a hard time when they have no appetite. By the time lunch was over my face was the color of a cotton ball, and my mentor said, "Uh, let's just drop you off at home." So I got home, mumbled something at Jake, and went to bed and stayed there for 3 hours until the screaming and the knocking and the "But I want mommy" cries got too loud to ignore.

Tomorrow just me and the kids. Save me.

In between all of the meetings with the candidate I met with three stressed out grad students. They're new, they're feeling panicked and isolated, and I think the reality of everything is just crashing down on them, combined with the exhaustion that everybody faces at this time in the semester. So I gave them ideas for their final papers, and talked them off the ledge, and remembered to myself how truly intimidating and overwhelming it can be to be a brand new grad student. Must not forget that, it is hard for them too. Everybody has their own struggle.

Aaaaa!

Oh my god! Nora has pus leaking out of her eyes and will need to stay home from school tomorrow and go to the doctor! Seriously, are you kidding me with this stuff?

Fortunately I won the arm wrestling match and therefore Jake will have to stay home with her. HAH.

Weekend of Suckitude

A few weeks ago I was so worried about Nora, but she is doing much better now. I guess it pays to remember that everything is a phase! Suddenly she is much more cheerful now. I wonder if part of this is that Nora and Milo somehow know to take turns. Milo has been struggling lately, missing Jake all the time, crying a lot about Daddy, and crying every morning when I drop them off at school. So maybe the kids decided it's Milo's turn to be a little more needy and therefore Nora had to step up to the plate for a while.

Anyway, regardless of the reason, I have also recently become impressed with how mature Nora is getting in terms of her ability to reason and talk about things. For instance, our Saturday ritual is that Nora and I go grocery shopping together in the morning while Milo and Jake stay home together. Nora likes this, but yesterday I couldn't take her with me because she was sick. So she got upset over the fact that I was going to go to the store without her, understandably. So we went up to her room to look at some of her art projects for a while and talk about how she made them, and then I told her that I couldn't take her to the store with me because we're not allowed to go to the store when we're sick, but I would only be gone for an hour and then I would come back home and we would all have lunch together. And then she said, "Oh, okay Mommy! You can go to the store now!" And off I went, with no drama.

Definitely a turning point.

Today was mostly a nice day as I got a great deal of work done, felt productive, and then made a nice dinner to make up for the culinary disaster that was last night. Last night I made a hot and sour soup and cilantro noodles out of Cuisine. Why? Why, why, why? Cuisine can only do one thing, and that is fattening midwestern type carb explosion dishes. Cuisine cannot do Asian food. I don't even like Cuisine but my MiL insists on having it delivered to our house in perpetuity, and sometimes I get sucked in. The meal last night was so bad that I even ended up throwing it out, which I haven't done in years. Years and years.

I am trying not to be angry and overly annoyed at the horrible scourge that has entered our house in the form of ugly plastic battery powered fake "guitars" with absolutely mind-numbingly bad "music" in the form of (soft) jazz, (not) hip hop, and (80s) rock. I cannot, in all honesty, describe how awful these things are. They came for the kids' birthday from Jake's parents and we made the mistake of opening them. Why? Why, why, why? Jake lamented that they didn't come with a gun so we could shoot our heads off.

Just don't give these things to the kids, one might suggest. Which yes, is an option, unless said grandparents will be here for the children's birthday and insist on the craptastic explosion. Then what do we do? The kids aren't babies anymore, so it's no longer fair to give them stuff and then have it "disappear" a while later. They'd notice.

What do you do with parents who just don't care what you think, and do what they want anyway? (BTW this does not refer to my side of the family. Even I like plastic things sometimes, and my relatives do find neat and fun things for the kids that I enjoy. I'm talking about a different type and amount, and it's really hard to talk about this without sounding like a total asshole, and yes I know I'm failing completely). Our pleas for less battery powered plastic stuff that makes "music" falls on deaf ears. In fact, they give it to us too in the form of holiday decorations, and get offended if we don't have it prominently displayed. It doesn't leave you with a lot of options. Here is a conversation I had with my MiL before my last trip:

MiL: Do you want these plastic bowls for the kids from my house?

Me: Oh, no thank you. We don't have room, but they can just enjoy them when they're at your house.

MiL: But they like them so much!

Me: I know, so they'll enjoy it as a special treat every time they visit you!

Then I go on my trip, and come back, and the next morning after they have left, I open up my cupboard and find...those plastic bowls.

Repeat same story for cans of condensed milk, tinned salmon, heads of cabbage, jars of mayonaise (we don't even eat mayonaise), etc., etc., etc. They go down to Florida every winter and therefore feel the need to clean out their cupboards by putting the stuff in our house, despite our explicit protests that we don't want it and don't have room for it. There is nothing you can do with people who don't actually listen to you. You can talk, but there is really no point in actually conversing, or talking.

Of course, the kids adore these damn guitars.

Yogurt

Jake: I remember when I lived in Austria I used to buy buckets of yogurt...

Milo: We don't say "fuckin'"!

Jake: ???

Jake: I said BUCKETS. Buckets of yogurt.

Milo: Fuckin' yogurt?

Jake: BUCKETS of yogurt!

Nora: Fuckin' yogurt! Fuckin' yogurt!

Lousy Week

I just heard Jake tell the kids, "It's been a lousy week." Milo repeated, "A lousy week!"

This morning was the first day Milo was well enough to go back to school. Hooray! Jake's day started off rough, because he had a flat tire on his bike and had to return home to drive to work, making him late. And, in what is probably a predictable turn of events, the school called me halfway through the day to come pick up Nora. Who has a fever.

Jake came home sick and feeling lousy. So he's down for the count too.

Next week the school is closed the day after Thanksgiving, and yet Jake is working that day. So I'm home with them on Wednesday and Thursday and Friday. Maybe I'll go to work Saturday and Sunday? Why is it that suddenly there is never any opportunity to work? The school closes a heck of a lot. Christmas break is just going to KILL me.

This morning Nora was all excited to tell her teacher something. I asked, "what are you going to tell her?" She said, "I'll tell her that I hit Milo!" Oh, great! That'll make a good impression!

Milo is totally into pretending stuff. This afternoon he sat on the couch for 20 minutes and pretended that the cap to an aluminum water bottle was a hot air balloon, he was inside the balloon, and the sofa cushion was his school. (He had to climb up the ladder to the top of the school to get onto the hot air balloon).

Tuesday I stayed home with Milo while Nora went to school. Her teachers said she had a great day. Nora's challenge at school has been to gain confidence in interactions with others. Maybe not having Milo there for a while was good for helping her come out of her shell a bit.

Staying home with just Milo, even a sick Milo, is such a piece of cake. I mean, I can't actually get work done, but it is relaxing. No fighting. When you remove the fighting element, taking care of one kid is just a piece of cake. There was no yelling and no tears all day long. What a nice change of pace.

Yesterday both kids were home with me. I took Milo to the doctor, Nora tagged along of course, and he has an ear infection. Now that these kids are in preschool it seems like they're getting every bug on the face of the earth. Friends warned me that would happen. Hopefully this means they'll be a little more resistant in kindergarten. Then I dragged the kids to the pharmacy to pick up Milo's antibiotics. We do "store hands" in the store, in which the kids clasp their hands together so that they don't pick up hand lotion, diaper cream, candy, birthday cards, or whatever else they happen upon. Milo is much better at adhering to "store hands" than Nora, who seems to take any rule or guideline as a personal affront restricting her god-given rights to freedom and autonomy. The pharmacist said, "they talk so well!" Everybody always says that, I think because both kids are so small that people tend to assume they're much younger than they actually are.

This older gentleman came into the store and immediately started talking to the kids about candy. Why are you doing this to me, dude? It's almost like he was trying to cause trouble. He said, "Are you getting candy?" The kids looked at him, then looked at the candy displays. I said, "No, no candy." He said, "I bet you have candy at home. Or cookies. I bet your mom will give you cookies after lunch." The kids looked at me, wide eyed. "Thanks," I spit out, annoyed.

Milo looks like a wreck, poor kid. Jake is off work today to stay home with him. Hopefully those antibiotics will kick in and Milo's eye troubles and fever will be gone by tomorrow. If not, I'll probably have to stay home again and then go into work Saturday and Sunday. We keep playing a parent version of rock-paper-scissors. Who can stay home this time?

The kids are now into asking, "Want me to tell you something?" I'll say yes, and then they'll have to think something up. The most common thing they're saying right now is, "We don't have any tools at our house!" Which isn't true, but whatever. Other things they've told me is that their teacher has 4 cats, and we have windows in our house.

A Case of the Mondays

Starting off the week:

Sunday evening, grading until 11 p.m. Finally finished all of those midterms.

Monday morning, 12:01 a.m., lying awake in bed, tears rolling down my face, anxiety attack. Panicking about tenure. Briefly contemplate sending teary, panicked emails to various mentors. Resist temptation.

Monday mid-morning. Map out work plan for the week. Realize I can get the worst of the deadlines completed, especially if I am extra diligent with my free time on Tuesday. Block out a large chunk for just writing. Feel better.

Monday late morning. Run into departmental mentor. She jokes that the year right before tenure is when all professors should up their meds. All doctors are sympathetic, since this is such a rampant college town with stressed out professors. She jokes that all you have to do is say the word "tenure" and the prescription pads will come out. Secretly wonder what these meds are, and how I can get my hands on them, but then realize she is probably not talking about narcotics.

Monday lunch. Area mentor sits in my office and tells me it will work out. "Slam dunk," he says, quietly. I say, "Yeah, but you always have a super rosy view." He says, "I wouldn't have such a rosy view if the situation weren't so rosy." I don't believe him, but feel better anyway.

Monday afternoon. Preschool called. Milo has a temperature of 103. Jake leaves work and takes him home.

Monday evening. Come home to see that Milo has copious amounts of infected stuff oozing out of both eyes. Pink eye?

Realize I need to scrap work plan and stay home on Tuesday, keep Milo out of school, and take him to the doctor. Briefly wonder if he'll need to be kept home all week.

On the bright side, so far, Nora seems fine. (KNOCK ON WOOD)

Life was easier when we had a nanny. Kids can stay at home when they are sick with the nanny. Now, when they are sick, we have to miss work. There is no wiggle room. No time to miss work.

Life would be easier if we lived anywhere near family, or any kind of support network at all. But we don't.

Realize that being smart and hard working doesn't always carry the day. Sometimes you're going to end up screwed no matter what you do.

About Work Again

"Any chance you might be able to be on our program review team? It means a one day or a one and a half day commitment, probably in late spring."

How do you say "No, but please don't hold this against me, or make trouble for me, because as you know I'm going up for tenure next year and am currently having the single busiest year of my career/life to date"? How does one say something like that the right way?

I know it doesn't look like a lot, but 1 to 1.5 days means that much time spent actually on the review session itself. It doesn't include all of the pre-session work that would occur.

I know it doesn't look like a lot, but it is little pointless, thankless service things like these that add up and build up:

-- I am on a search committee (reviewing applications, so far 2 meetings to date after having reviewed them, then a 1.5-day commitment while the candidate is out here, then another meeting to assess the candidate).

-- I am on a graduate programs committee (meet monthly, read through doctoral applications to our department, grade each application that comes in).

-- I was co-chair of our division for a national 15,000 person conference (impossible to estimate the number of days of work this took me, plus a weekend trip to Houston).

-- I am now the secretary for the steering committee of another international organization (and I tried to get out of being secretary, but they didn't really give me a choice, and now I have to type up "reports" of our meetings, and yes this is bogus).

-- I just reviewed a round of grants for NSF for the second time in 2010 (impossible to say how many days of work this took, a lot, plus two three-day trips to DC).

-- I currently review manuscripts for 4 different journals (this is a lot of work if you want to do it right and not be an asshole).

-- I am on a program development committee (more meetings, more politics, more work).

I have done so much service in the past 6 years it takes up 2 pages of my c.v.

This is service. It's not research. It's not even teaching, which in theory, is at least an important part of what a professor does. Service won't get me tenure. Aside from the national committee stuff, it will count precisely zero for tenure. (The national committee stuff might count about 1% - 5%). Do you know what service means? Service means free work. It means the work of running a university, the work of running national organizations, for free. You have to get people to volunteer for it. It is thankless work because it is behind the scenes work, it doesn't get you recognition, it doesn't get you publications, it doesn't get you grad students, it sure as hell doesn't get you merit raises, and it's not even fun or interesting. It's just crappy stupid grunt work.

We all have to do it. But a researched fact is that women in the academy do it way more than men. And it is not rewarded work. Women are asked more, women are worse at saying no, women carry a higher burden for doing the invisible grunt work of making things run. And then women bear the cost of doing this service, because it does come with a cost. Because our time is finite, every hour spent on service is an hour not spent on doing the things that will help your career: research, publications, leading to merit raises, promotions, national recognition.

Just...how do I say no politely? Without offending the asker? I like this guy. I don't want to be a jerk, and I feel bad saying no. (And that, too, is gendered). I am afraid to say no to anything right now, because I feel like I'm walking on eggshells here. Tenure is just around the corner. How do I say no? How?

I am so fucking sick of not having tenure. I am so over it.

Caillou

Oh -- this t.v. thing totally rocks. Why didn't I think of this before?? Pretty nice for a rainy, windy, grey day, a day perfect for staying inside and cuddling up!

I have a doctoral student right now who is thoughtful, serious, quick, conscientious, but also just an interesting and lovely person to be around. It is not hard to find Ph.D. students who are intelligent -- most are very bright. But to find somebody who is actually deeply thoughtful about things, can avoid knee-jerk reactions, and is open, truly intellectually open, that is a rare set of qualities. Anyway, she posted recently on FB about her mother:

"I have been thinking a lot about being a woman--and am very grateful for having a mom who zoomed all over the country and did what she wanted, back when women were explicitly supposed to do what they were told. Thanks for paving the way, Mom."

I cannot say how great it was to read something like that. It was actually kind of a wake up call to be reminded of that perspective. The thing is, I have a lot of guilt about how much I work and travel. And it's not even been that extreme, I mean, the kids have not been in that typical DINK situation of being in care 8 a.m. - 6 p.m. M-F. Even now at almost 3, they are only in preschool 4 days a week. I work every Sunday so that I can stay home with them every Wednesday, so that they get 3 days a week at home with a parent.

But I still struggle with it. This week the kids' schedule moved around so that they begin their class day outside in the playground instead of inside in the classroom. For some reason this has thrown Milo off so that now he clings to me and starts sobbing when it is time for me to leave. (Before, he was just happy to play and barely noticed me leaving). And every night Nora asks me, "Are you going to stay? Are you going to stay a lot a lot?" Yesterday out of the blue Milo asked, "Are you not going to go on any trips now?"

I don't think Jake has any of this guilt, so I don't know what my problem is. Probably all those messages about what a good mom is supposed to look like.

The fact of the matter is, I don't stay home. I don't sew clothes or costumes. I don't do a whole lot of art projects. Jake doesn't build toys or furniture for them. In other words, we are not my parents. So I am not doing it the way I myself was raised, so maybe therefore I think I inherently suck because I don't adhere to the model I grew up with, which was a great model!

But anyway, seeing my student post that reminded me that there are wonderful things about doing it my way too. Maybe Milo & Nora will grow up with a different model and that'll be just as good. Maybe Nora will be grateful for having a role model who shows her that you can be strong and successful and love your work and love your family. Maybe Milo will naturally assume that moms (and women) matter just as much as dads (and men) in the workplace, that you don't automatically defer to the guy's job, career, needs. And maybe he'll take those assumptions into his own relationships with women (assuming he has relationships with women) and it'll feel natural for him to carry his share at home, to be willing to relocate for his partner's career, etc. Maybe Nora will struggle a little less with this balancing stuff, or at least maybe it'll feel okay for her, because that's what her mom did. Maybe not, of course, but I think that these could potentially be some benefits to growing up in the kind of family that we have right now.

I think it is helpful to remember that there are lots of good ways to arrange a family. The way I grew up was great. But the way I'm doing it isn't inherently worse. It probably has its own sets of benefits that I shouldn't discount.

Easing up

This morning Milo said: "When I'm bigger I'm going to sleep in your bed and get up in the morning and iron my work shirt and go to work with an orange!"

Also, he has been having a rough time lately, missing Jake. He cried a lot this morning and at one point said "Mommy, I'm a sad boy!"

In other news, I would just like to say that I have taken a new turn in parenting: Today, at 2 years and 11 months, the kids watched a video. On the television. I mean a whole half-hour video. I've shown them occasional 2-minute you tube clips before, but they had never before watched a real video on the t.v. (or any t.v. at all).

And...it was pretty damn nice. They were actually mostly quiet and still for an entire half hour! Aside from the typical questions and commentary, that is, but they were very low key. I can totally see why people have their kids watch t.v.

What happened is that our DVD player broke, so it was time to buy a new one. But apparently these days you don't get DVD players anymore, you get "blue ray" players, whatever that is. But our t.v. was too old to be compatible with a blue ray player. Soooo, long story short, Jake's birthday present was a new t.v. One of those fancy plat panel ones. We don't get t.v. reception or watch any live television but we do have Netflix. And this fancy new set-up has some sort of direct connection to Netflix, which means we can watch any video we want, practically, on demand with their "instant queue" thing. So I downloaded a video of "Calliou" and the next thing you know the kids have had their first video watching experience today.

I figure they are old enough to have the occasional video every now and then. They are almost 3. One or two a week probably wouldn't hurt them (I hope this doesn't become a slippery slope sort of thing, but I see how it could). Calliou seems good in that it centers around family life and story lines that the kids are interested in, and there isn't any violence or name calling that I have seen yet.

Reading books is another good way to help the kids be calm and less cranky, so we do a lot of that together too when they are having a tough time. But I have to admit that there is a part of me that thinks, hmmm, if they watch a video then maybe I could actually get something done during that half hour! Like make dinner! (And....slippery slope).

I haven't had t.v. reception in the last 6 and a half years. I don't miss it. I do still watch things on Netflix, and there are currently two t.v. shows that Jake and I like to watch through Netflix: 30 Rock, and Mad Men. We can only do this once or twice a week because most nights I have to grade or do other work, but it is fun when we do it. (I'm also totally in love with both of those shows, they are both so awesome in totally different ways). The biggest thing that I like about not watching network t.v. is that I don't have commercials in my life. I really don't like the influence that advertising exerts over me personally (it tends to make me feel fat, old, unfashionable, shlubby, hungry, etc.) so I am a happier person without it. I'd rather not have commercials in the kids' lives, either. The longer we can go without them being aware of or caring about stupid princess crap, theme characters, fast food, sugary cereals, etc., the better. I know it won't last forever as they get more exposure from their friends, but the less it's in our house, the better I feel.

That said...a video every now and then won't kill 'em, right? That's the philosophy I'm going with.