Facing the F2F

This fall has been busier than expected. I thought that being done with grad school would magically open up my schedule to the unknown pleasures of free-time, but this has not been so. I don't mind having long days and being booked up, but what I have been looking forward to is coming home after work and NOT having to work on anything else. No papers, emails, reading, etc., you get the idea. Four things have conspired to make this dream impossible for me so far this fall, and I have just completed the fourth of them:

• Thesis defense
• Moms (both actual and lawful) in town
• Pre-Season TA training (seven weeks between the two companies, if you can believe it)
• Face to Face

Face to Face is always a big undertaking. This is my third year- second as coordinator- and it just keeps getting bigger. More presenters. More A/V needs. More speakers. Bigger, bigger, bigger. I got to hire a staff this year. Two paid assistants in addition to my battalion of volunteers. It saved my life- I might not have made it out if they hadn't been there. Even when things go right, it is hectic. And this year it was very hectic, but everything went very right. I have been trying to reflect on this conference and still don't have much to say about it except that I am proud of myself, grateful to the people who worked as hard as I did, and kind of impressed that it all happened the way it did.

The only mishap, which was slightly funny at the time and much funnier in hindsight, was that our Grand Finale/Closing Remarks/Raffle & Celebration was booked in a room next to a memorial service and we had to celebrate in hushed tones. Ahh...the foibles of having a conference at a church (and a church with a dysfunctional facilities staff at that)...

Anyway, it's all over now, and I am apparently going to start having lots of freetime in my evenings. Already I've noticed a drop-off in the emails I've (not) been receiving and no one has been calling me about LCD projectors. I'm still catching up on all the things I've let slide in the last couple months- laundry, vet appointments, ink cartridge purchasing, socializing, blogging- and so far I haven't noticed a huge abundance of freetime. The one thing I DID do the other day, though, was watch a crappy movie on cable in the middle of a weekday and I didn't feel guilty about things I was supposed to be doing instead, so if that is a sign of all the productive and amazing things I'm going to accomplish in my post-grad-school-life, well then...well...

Symptoms

This has been a week full of co-pays for ZPJ and I. I spent the afternoon at the doctor's office today after a sleepless night of terrible back pain. This pain has no known cause, although there are several things that cause suspicion:

• the new bed that is not as firm as it was when we bought it
• old bras that are stretched out and not so supportive as they used to be
• heavy bags full of conference supplies
• cats sleeping on top of me

After several hours at the doctor's, I am no nearer an explanation, although I am now going to go in for physical therapy and I'm wearing a new bra.

ZPJ has been plagued with strange rashes and bumps for the last month or so, and he now has been diagnosed with dermatographism, which is roughly translated as "skin drawing". He is not allergic to any specific thing other than touch, and scratches and touching make his skin raise up in red marks. A good example is:

He's not letting me have nearly as much fun as I would like to have with his new disease, but I managed to let me abuse and mark him to celebrate the anniversary of the birth of our dear IPJ, who took us to an interesting radio play and caused us to drink texas-sized drinks.

Autumnal

The air is brisk, cool, maybe even cold. There are leaves rustling in the trees and clogging up my pond. I went and bought a bunch of bulbs today because, even though things are still green, it is the time of the year when it starts to be a comfort to think about spring.

A Date With Freshman Boyfriend

When I was a sophomore there was a freshman that I thought was cute, and so I called him Freshman Boyfriend, and even though we never talked (actually he said "hi" to me three times over two years in the cafeteria) I feel that we had a special connection. True, he wasn't a freshman forever, but he still remained Freshman Boyfriend.

Several years later I got married, and I discovered that my new husband's parents were life long friends with Freshman Boyfriend's parents, and in fact my new spouse was my old crush's childhood playmate. His parents came to my wedding, I was invited to his. We even became Facebook friends, but we still never talked.

Now Freshman Boyfriend goes to Princeton and his parents were in town visiting and we all met up for dinner in the city. So I finally got to go out to dinner with Freshman Boyfriend! It was thrilling, even though my husband, his wife, and both of his parents were there, too.

This would have been the highlight of my 19-year-old self's...life.

How Small Is the World?

Today I got on the subway to go home and I was standing next to the same woman I stood next to this morning. This was highly strange and unusual given that it was rush hour both times and there were literally hundreds of people on the platform that we stood on, not to mention in the car we got into. But what was truly strange was that tonight I not only got on the train at a different station than I had gotten off of this morning- I was riding a totally different line. We both got on and got off at the same stops this morning and then got on and got off completely different stops at the same time tonight. And we weren't just on the same car, we were standing directly next to each other both times. I thought to myself, "If ever there is a time to instigate conversation with a stranger here in NYC, this is it." But, as it turns out, there isn't ever such a time, because I didn't.

If I had, what should I have asked her?

Wheels

ZPJ asked me today if the wheels were coming off of the F2F machine and if there was still a chance we might make it to the finish line. I think ZPJ is funny and this made me laugh, but also cry a little bit. Seriously, though, it's so much better than last year. Even more seriously, I can't wait till next week.

Mysterious things happening in my apartment- You decide if they are connected!!!!

• ZPJ has been breaking out in hives and rashes for no apparent reason- they go away within minutes, but torment him considerably for short periods.
• The bedroom floor has expanded and buckled to the point that the boards are popping out and it needs to be replaced.
• Benny, my black cat, has recently become obsessed with licking our faces early in the morning while we still (try to) sleep.
• I have strange dry-spots on my face and arms which don't itch at all but never go away.
• It is mid-October and YET THE MOSQUITOES PERSIST.

I'm going to an alternating cheesy and majestic musical tonight (and, I must be clear, this is entirely due to my mom-in-law's begging) and even if you haven't seen this musical, I can guarantee you that you can sing parts of at least five of it's songs. And, NO, it isn't based on music from the hit band, fill-in-the-blank. If you think you know what it is, you have to guess by quoting lines from a song.

I'm actually having some excitement about going to a 7th grade class today. What??? I know. But it's true. They're super cute and, even though they have ATTITUDE, they also bring the drama.

A Cupcake of Congratulations

A dear and shoeful friend recently got some very good professional news, and it got me thinking about how things tend to, in the long run, work out if you have patience and fortitude. Those are not two of my most prominent qualities, but I have been lucky enough to experience this "working out" a few times in my life and it brings me great joy to see those around me experience it. Here's to you, MNS!

Convening

I presented a workshop at a conference this last weekend that was interesting and strange. The parts of the conference that I really enjoyed were:

• clown-doctors
• in-house AV
• the trees (although they made me sneeze)
• the response to my workshop

The things that I was more challenged by at the conference were:

• getting up early to get there
• people who use "education" as a bad word
• in-house printing services that mess with my bank account
• over-use of words like "development" and "performance". Specifically those words, actually. If they used more words like those words, maybe I wouldn't be as bothered by the over-use

It was nice to get to check one more major thing off of my meta-list. But now I must look forward to another conference. Not one that I am presenting at, but one for which I am the go-to girl for everyone that is. I don't want to spend too much time complaining about the last-minute problems that are coming up, but I probably will anyway. The things, specifically, that are troubling me are:

• people who don't properly assess their AV needs
• people who don't respond to emails
• people who respond to long chains of emails with one word, such as "ok", "fine", "good", etc.
• people who get called to jury duty

Things that make me optimistic:

• my blood pressure isn't as high as it was this time last year
• I have two paid assistants who are taking things on that would otherwise raise my bp
• it can't really go that bad...

This week I get to cross one more big thing off my meta-list for the fall and then my mum-in-law comes into town for almost a week. I'm actually looking forward to this, which is strange but good.

My glasses broke today after two long years of service, and since I don't have backups I'm just wearing them around held together by scotch tape. I kid you not. It's hot.

One last and very sad development in my life-- despite me harassing most people I know who live in my borough, my bellydancing class got cancelled due to low enrollment. I hope you're all happy. Now I just jiggle alone.

Lamest Blogger Ever

Sorry, faithful readers (if there are even any of you left after my long absence) for my negligent non-posting.

I feel like all I do any more is complain about how busy I am. Which is lame. But SERIOUSLY, I thought that life after grad school would be full of lazy evenings and unscheduled coffee breaks. Not so, dear readers, not so. I have been working till almost midnight every night, trying to stay on top of conference planning, lesson writing, and training research. Blah blah blah. I'm tired of it. Thankfully, after this weekend I can cross two major time-suckers off of my list and focus on that pesky conference that is coming up WAY TOO QUICKLY. And then by November...coffee breaks here I come!!!

Here are some words from my week:

assessment

Zora

Appalachia (how do you pronounce it?)

discerning

student-writing

narrative

Lucy Stone

If you put all of those into a Google Image search, you get this:

I always knew it was all about cats.

Suprise...

Well, I still have beer and meat in my fridge, but that's just because I overestimated the appetites of my guests on Friday... The party was a success- so much so that we may have alienated our new upstairs neighbor by loudly singing at 4 in the morning. Oops. I guess we just got carried away in the moment. Hopefully she recognizes that it was all out of love.

I am usually a person who is very on top of her scheduling, as most people who freelance and have more than three jobs usually are. I have to be accountable for all my time, so I take a lot of care to be aware of my different responsibilities and deadlines. I totally didn't know, however, that tomorrow is a holiday and all of my offices are closed. Huh. I guess no one mentioned it to me explicitly until Friday afternoon when I kept talking about a meeting on Monday and someone finally said, "uh, Lauren, we won't be here on Monday." How about that. Maybe it's because I'm from the west side of the country and we don't usually celebrate Columbus Day (referred to on my peace calendar as Indigenous Peoples Day). Maybe I was repressing my need for a day off so strongly that I ignored an actual day off. Who knows. But now I have one. It's glorious.

I'll let you all know how it goes, but I anticipate that it will be filled with catching up on crap I've been too busy to attend to. Like the conference I'm presenting at on Saturday. Presenting what, you ask? Excellent question. I'll figure it out tomorrow.

You're Invited

There is nothing like opening the fridge at seven in the morning and seeing rows and stacks of beer bottles and hamburger patties.

What could this all mean? Is it just another day at the J's house?

No. It means that tonight is the last barbecue of the season, so come all over, y'all, and we'll grill you up a burger of beef, turkey, or soy and we can sit in the backyard together and reflect on what a grand summer it all was.

See you there!

Even the Pasties Can't Hide the Pheromones

This little tidbit is compliments of ZPJ:

Hey, strippers, wanna max out your earnings? Stop taking birth control! That's the conclusion drawn from a recent University of New Mexico study showing that exotic dancers "made about $70 an hour during their peak period of fertility, versus about $35 while menstruating and $50 in between." Pill-popping pole performers, however, averaged almost twenty dollars less than their nonspermicidal-wombed colleagues, which the study suggests is a result of the pill's "hormonal cues indicating early pregnancy." To research this very important subject, psychologist Geoffrey Miller "tapped the talent at local gentlemen's clubs and counted tips made on lap dances," which, to us at least, makes Geoffrey Miller perhaps the greatest psychologist ever. If you can convince someone to shell out grant money so you can spend your afternoons hanging out with Dakota and Stormee at the Titty Trap you are pretty much tops in your (or any) field.

Change

I have been very unhappy with some of my face/hair issues lately, particularly that by the end of the day my bangs are kind of stringy from touching my forehead all day, and I've been getting mysterious, dry, non-acne bumps on my forehead as well, so I went decided to make a full-scale change in my grooming routine. New shampoo, new facewash, new oil-blotting sheets, new face creme. I don't know yet if it's going to make a difference, but I am certainly feeling good about things.

Quiz

ZPJ was telling me a story about a friend of a co-worker and described her by saying, "well, let's just say she rolls deep." I was confused by this phrase and he offered to explain, but I insisted on guessing first and now I give that honor to you.

Does "she rolls deep" mean:
a) she spends a lot of cash to impress people;
b) she is generous with her weed;
c) she travels with an extensive entourage; or
d) she always shows up late to parties?

Even though it only means one of these options, the fact that these were the four that I first thought of means that the phrase still paints a very specific picture.