Phase One: Asleepyness (21 Jump Street, anyone?)

Oh, hello again!

This morning I actually woke up early. Well, sort of early. Around 7 a.m., which is not the same as 5 a.m., but is at least before my children have stirred, so I have a few minutes to start (and perhaps finish) a blog post.

Lately I've been thinking about what's been going on in my family/home life and wondering if I should post anything about it, and then I argued (with myself, of course, because I'm crazy) that this blog is, after all, about the intersection of kid-raising and poem-writing and teaching . . . so perhaps I should offer up an explanation to my readers (all 2.5 of you!) about why I've been silent throughout much of June and July. Actually, I already explained June -- we were traveling a lot, and there wasn't much time for writing or reflecting or reflective writing and so, you know   . . . but I haven't explained July. The few (2?) posts for this month have been chock-full of oh-I'm so tired and oh-this-is-so- unusual and blah blah blah and while at first I was a tiny bit confused by now I know damn well why I haven't had energy and I haven't been motivated and I suppose I'll just out myself right now:

I'm preggers. Again!

I'm not eff-booking this little bit of information, so for anyone who happens to be both friends with me on the eff-book AND reads the blog (yeah, well, that's all 2.5 of you . . .), let's just keep this between ourselves for now, shall we? It's really early -- Imma just shy of six weeks pregnant -- but since I began experiencing hormonal shifts (i.e. severe sleepiness) the second, I swear, the nano-second I conceived, I've really been feeling pregnant since the end of June.

So I was thinking about keeping this information off the blog, as a lot can happen between in the next few weeks . . . in other words, the pregnancy might not stick  . . . and it seems a little like tempting fate to announce a pregnancy that's so early that the doctors won't even see me for my first appointment yet . . . but really, how can I write honestly and openly in this blog if I leave out such a huge piece of information? 

Because right now, Vampire Baby is really sucking the energy out of me, and I don't know if you've noticed this, but I'm used to being a pretty high-energy person, and a morning person, and so far, thanks to the lovely pregnancy hormones, my bio-rhythms or whateverthefuckyoucall'em are totally off and the only time I really feel energetic is between the hours of 6 and 9. IN THE EVENING.

That's a pretty small window, huh? Also, it happens to be prime busy-mom time in our household, so I'm not getting any work done then. Not writing-work, anyway. Once, I went running. At 8 o'clock at night. My husband thought I was nuts. Hell, I thought I was nuts. The kids didn't notice, because they were totally taking advantage of the fact that they were allowed to stay up late as long as they were quiet and didn't fight while Mommy ran on the treadmill.

So . . . yeah. Long story short: I'm not getting much done. (*Snooze*)

What I HAVE accomplished:

I've been reading the last of the Glyn Maxwell "Boys at Twilight" collection, which is finishing strong. I finished (FINALLY) reading Elizabeth Gaskell's "Wives and Daughters" this week -- after beginning it in April. (I read fiction before I fall asleep at night, which is why it takes me so long to finish THOSE books.) I managed to make progress on my scansion of the fairy tale poem while waiting for Little Miss Talkalot to finish her swim lessons; said fairy tale was also rejected by a chapbook publisher at the beginning of this week, so that made me feel  . . . . a little discouraged, but not too bad. In a year, after multiple rejections, I'm sure I'll feel differently.

Still need to work on the AWP article. Must not let Vampire Baby suck away too much of my ambition/focus.

Also, last night I received an email from work asking if I'd like to take on another leadership/college-wide kind of role and while I suspect it's the kind of leadership/college-wide task that the administration was dangling in front of my face when "they" said "well, your application for Associate Professor looks fine, but we really need to worry about your FULL Professor application," I'm left wondering if I'm just a glutton for punishment or if I was born under a bad moon or something. I mean, I suspect it's the former, but it feels like the latter, because what are the odds that as soon as I get pregnant (for the third time since being at the college) someone pops up and says, "hey! We'd like for you to do all this work!"

To be honest, it was a very thoughtful email and the job itself is one that I think is important and that I'd be good at and I wanna help out and it doesn't appear too time-consuming . . . but what if it is? These things never seem too time consuming at the outset.

So I'm hemming and hawing over that matter this morning, as well as the myriad tasks I haven't completed this summer related to the Creative Writing Festival and my upcoming fall classes, and other more mundane, regular, run-of-the-mill employee tasks such as filling out my monthly time card, which apparently I'm too stupid to handle, BECAUSE ONCE AGAIN I DIDN'T FILL IT OUT. Honestly. A time card? Really? (And I can't even blame Vampire Baby for that, because -- as you might have noticed from the phrase "once again" -- this has happened before.)

And to end with FUN news: A.P. and I are going to investigate the possibility of doing a series of readings together in the fall, and we might even print limited-edition broadsides to give away at the readings . . . and M.B. from Hyacinth Girl Press asked if her authors would like to participate in a reading in New York in January, to which I replied, "yes, please!" So, you know . . . some stuff is happening. Slowly, yes, and in between states of complete inertia . . . but . . . it's happening nonetheless.

Note: Thank goodness for Batman, the animated series, and for cherries (yes, cherries), the combination of which has kept my children occupied for the past half hour so I could finish this post.