Category / Navel Gazing

by ravelingoutko

Year in Review: 2020

I’ve been doing this annual blog questionnaire for so long now that I don’t think I’m allowed to quit it. I am extremely belated in filling out the survey for the year 2020; however, of all the years, I think it would be quite regrettable to skip this one, so here I am.

Previous years’ answers are available here: (2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019). Over time I have modified and deleted some of the original questions, but here’s what I’m working with this year:

1. What did you do in 2020 that you’d never done before?

Spectated at an Olympic Trials race. Went on a trip with my husband and left the kids at home. Made my own sourdough. Sanitized my groceries (remember when we were told to do that?!). Wore a face mask. Taught classes over Zoom. Attended a work meeting while lying in bed. Went an entire year without seeing my dad or brother in person.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

Last year, here’s what I wrote: “Dry January is happening again (we have been doing it yearly for a while now); I’d like to run a half marathon without getting injured in the middle of the training cycle (eyes on Magic City in November); and I plan to work with CW to organize our garage, donate some old furniture, and make better use of our third bedroom.”

The half marathon didn’t happen for obvious reasons, but everything else did. Except that the newly organized garage slowly descended back into a state of chaos during the pandemic. We shall re-organize! The bedroom became the site of not only a new desk & workspace for online teaching, but also the new bike. That room is working hard for us now!

For 2021, I am working on re-establishing a healthier, more moderate relationship with food and drink. Pandemic times led to coping with large volumes of both, and coming into 2021, my body is not feeling so great. That’s my main resolution. Note that this is not a weight-loss resolution or a fitness resolution. I have a lot of other hopes for the year, but we’ll see.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

Internet friends and local friends. Two families among our local friends each had babies almost a year ago and we still have not met them, in fact. Eff you, pandemic.

4. Did anyone close to you die?

Only about half a million of my fellow Americans.

5. What places did you visit?

In the first couple of months of the year, We traveled to Atlanta to spectate at the Olympic Marathon Trials, which was a super fun family trip. In March, right before everything shut down, my husband and I spent a week in NYC on our own. We came home and immediately quarantined. In July, when numbers were really low, we managed to swing a very cautious & limited family visit to Iowa.

6. What would you like to have in 2021 that you lacked in 2020?

WHERE DO I START. Number one wish is a vaccine. As I write this, I have my second dose already scheduled for next week. I want everyone to get theirs.

7. What days from 2020 will you always remember?

February 29. March 9-13. March 27. November 3. November 7.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Anything I did to get by in the months that my children were home and my husband and I were working from home. Those months are a painful blur, but we made it. I really nailed my pizza dough recipe and technique, too.

9. What was your biggest failure?

None. Nothing.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

What a question for 2020. Back in January, L and I both had the flu. It was highly unpleasant.

My family was lucky enough not to have had any known exposures to COVID-19 or to have gotten sick with it, though. In the summer, after the kids had been able to return to school, a little cold went through the family — my first experience with a getting a COVID test — but it turned out to be just nothing. That was it.

11. What was the best thing you bought?

Probably my Peloton bike or my KitchenAid stand mixer. Two real MVPs of the pandemic, I tell you what.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

My husband and children. For the most part.

13. Where did most of your money go?

Daycare still takes the win here, even with a few months off.

14. What did you get really excited about?

I started out the year really excited for our planned trip to Xi’an, China, but when news came out about the novel coronavirus in Wuhan, that trip got canceled and we decided to travel within the US instead (at that time, there wasn’t any guidance not to do this or any known cases in NYC). So I then got really excited about our NYC trip. Honestly, it was a great time and a real highlight of the year. Then everything kind of crashed down the moment we returned.

Hamilton being released on Disney+ was a pretty fuckin’ exciting highlight as well. I feel like we all needed that.

Then the Biden-Harris win! When the news outlets finally called the election for Biden on November 7, that was one of the most pure moments of joy and excitement I recall feeling. Thank GOD.

I also got pretty excited for Christmas — the kids are at a great age for Santa, holiday movies, and fun gifts. They’re really into Star Wars, so light sabers and action figures and space ships were all big hits this year.

15. What song will always remind you of 2020?

“Don’t Stand so Close to Me,” by The Police. Ha ha. Look, I really had very little room for music this year. Stress and sensory overload are no good for my brain. If there was music playing, I probably wanted it turned off.

16. Compared to this time last year, are you:

a) happier or sadder? sadder
b) thinner or fatter? fatter
c) richer or poorer? the same

17. What do you wish you’d done more of?

I’m not going to list the things I missed here because I don’t wish I’d done more of them. Eating in restaurants or going to happy hours or having dinner at friends’ houses? I am glad I didn’t do those things but I missed being able to do them. I don’t know how to answer this question this year.

18. What do you wish you’d done less of?

Drinking. Late night snacking.

19. How did you spend Christmas?

Christmas at home, just the four of us. We basically overdid it on the presents for the kids, so it took all day to open them. It was fun. Pajamas all day. Mimosas & Cinnamon rolls.

20. What was your favorite TV program?

Ted Lasso and The Queen’s Gambit seemed to arrive at just the right moment and are each completely perfect. I also have enjoyed an Alias rewatch, the latest season of the Great British Baking Show, and The Mandalorian.

21. What was the best book you read?

I read a lot of garbage* this year, but here are a few hits:

  • The Great Believers – Rebecca Makkai
  • Such a Fun Age – Kiley Reid
  • Saint X – Alexis Schaitkin
  • Quit Like a Woman – Holly Whitaker
  • Here for It – R. Eric Thomas
  • Know My Name – Chanel Miller

*note that I am a professional and allowed to call books garbage. Note also that I am not naming the garbage.

22. What music did you get excited about?

None in particular.

23. What did you want and get?

A Peloton.

24. What did you want and not get?

A flattened curve?

A new car. Same as last year. I almost bought one in the year-end sale situation, but was talked out of it. It will likely happen this year, as my current car is having some issues that will be expensive enough to repair that it may not feel worth it.

25. What was your favorite film of this year?

I cannot think of any movies I’ve seen this year that weren’t animated (i.e. for children; I do not give a fuck about animated movies, SORRY). I am scrolling through a list of 2020 movies on Rotten Tomatoes and nothing is ringing a bell.

(I am not counting Hamilton as a film/movie.)

(But maybe I should as it is the only good one I saw?)

(NO. IT IS A FILMED STAGE PRODUCTION NOT A FILM OR MOVIE.)

Oh, okay, I saw Enola Holmes. It was fine. I saw Palm Springs and instantly forgot it. I feel like it was probably terrible? Oh. Yes. We did also see Wonder Woman 1984. Woof.

26. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

I turned 43. I don’t remember precisely what we did. We’d had so much cake for the kids’ birthday the week prior that I decided to bake a pie instead (pumpkin).

27. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2020?

Face masks.

28. What kept you sane?

My neighbors. Having someone to talk to safely outdoors as we stood around at the ends of our driveways was honestly priceless this year. I’m so grateful for my little cul-de-sac.

29. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris.

30. What political issue stirred you the most?

The 2020 election — and all the attendant chaos and lies being spun by those who were desperate to hold onto their power. As I write this post in February 2021, the second impeachment trial of Donald J. Trump is ongoing. What an absolutely maddening situation.

31. Who was the best new person you met?

“New person I met.” Ha. A ha ha ha ha ha. A HA HA HA HA HA HA HA

weep

32. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2020.

Wash your hands. Wear a mask. Get the vaccine. Black lives matter. And, as I say every year, qui patitur vincit.

33. Quote a song lyric or poem that sums up your year.

There are too many poems to choose from this year. Here are two:

“When people say ‘we have made it through worse before,'” by Clint Smith

all I hear is the wind slapping against the gravestones
of those who did not make it, those who did not
survive to see the confetti fall from the sky, those who

did not live to watch the parade roll down the street.
I have grown accustomed to a lifetime of aphorisms
meant to assuage my fears, pithy sayings meant to

convey that everything ends up fine in the end. There is no
solace in rearranging language to make a different word
tell the same lie. Sometimes the moral arc of the universe

does not bend in a direction that will comfort us.
Sometimes it bends in ways we don’t expect & there are
people who fall off in the process. Please, dear reader,

do not say I am hopeless, I believe there is a better future
to fight for, I simply accept the possibility that I may not
live to see it. I have grown weary of telling myself lies

that I might one day begin to believe. We are not all left
standing after the war has ended. Some of us have
become ghosts by the time the dust has settled.

“Threshold,” by Maggie Smith

You want a door you can be
            on both sides of at once.

                       You want to be
           on both sides of here

and there, now and then,
            together and—(what

                       did we call the life
            we would wish back?

The old life? The before?)
            alone. But any open

                       space may be
            a threshold, an arch

of entering and leaving.
            Crossing a field, wading

                       through nothing
            but timothy grass,

imagine yourself passing from
            and into. Passing through

                       doorway after
            doorway after doorway.

by ravelingoutko

Six Years

It’s our six year anniversary! I went back to look for wedding and honeymoon photos for this post and had a lovely stroll down memory lane.

2013

The day feels so crisp in my memory, but it also feels like a lifetime ago. I think primarily that’s because our day-to-day life has changed so much since having the twins. Like today, we spent the morning snuggled up in bed with them while they watched Curious George and we got an extra half hour of sleep, allowing us to get out of bed at the luxurious hour of 6:45. We wrangled them in the yard while I cleaned off the back porch and CW mowed the lawn, both of us legitimately excited to get these two neglected chores checked off. Right now, CW has taken them down to the neighborhood playground and I’m here enjoying the quiet house for a little while (a truly great gift!).

Tonight, though, we will head out on a date and enjoy some of our favorite special-occasion treats — fresh oysters, martinis, something wonderful for dinner, dessert with Really Good Coffee, and possibly an additional drink at a Second Location — and we’ll get a lyft back home so no one has to be the driver. We’ll get to have a whole night of enjoyable conversation without (we hope) anyone interrupting us to scream about anything.

I braved my TimeHop app today for oyster photos (please note that is November 9, 2019 and therefore I only looked back at the previous two years; I could not really bear to go back three years to see the morning-after-the-election tears) just to show you our tradition. I’ll make sure to snap another one tonight!

2019 and better than ever
by ravelingoutko

Year in Review: 2018

Look, we’re two full weeks into the new year and I’m sure no one cares. However, I have not missed a year of this annual survey since I started it in 2007 so buckle up!

Previous years’ answers are available here: (2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017). Over time I have modified and  deleted some of the original questions, but here’s what I’m working with this year:

1. What did you do in 2018 that you’d never done before?

I wore a bikini in public, made a child’s Halloween costume, joined a running team, and started an SSRI.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

Last year, I wrote that I’d like to: “Get a general practitioner so I can stop going to urgent care, spend less on frivolous purchases. Keep up my yoga practice. Race in another 5K and a 10K, as I’m now in a new age group!” And although I didn’t think of it as an official resolution, I decided that my leisure reading would only include books by women authors. I did really well on these!

For this year, I don’t have a real resolution. I am going to sprinkle a few monthly challenges into my year, including Dry January (currently going on right now, yay?), a month of daily blog posting, a no-spend month, a run streak month, a decluttering month, and more to be determined later. My leisure reading will focus on the voices of women, people of color, and LGBTQ writers.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

Yes! Lots of internet ladies and a few work friends. So many little babies I need to hug.

4. Did anyone close to you die?

Not this year.

5. What places did you visit?

Atlanta (shopping), New Orleans (for a ladies’ weekend WHICH WAS AMAZING), Iowa (family visit), St. Louis (quick friend visit on the way home from Iowa), and Florida (family Christmas visit). I think that was it?

6. What would you like to have in 2019 that you lacked in 2018?

I’ll repeat last year’s answer, which is still true: “A sane president, mainly. I would also appreciate more time alone and a more organized house.”

7. What days from 2018 will you always remember?

Nothing comes to mind as I sit here. I may think of a day later, but if I do, it wouldn’t really qualify as a day I’ll “always remember,” so.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Figuring out that my overwhelming anger might be a symptom of anxiety. This was news to me! I hadn’t been feeling “anxious,” but whaddayaknow? Anti-anxiety meds made me significantly less angry. I mean, I still have swarms of bees coming out of my mouth on a daily fucking basis, but life is better.

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

9. What was your biggest failure?

Healthy eating continues to be a struggle, as I mentioned last year, but I feel like I have improved my thinking on this front. I don’t feel like I had any “failures” this year.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

I had some back problems off and on this year, which are awful when they surface, but I am doing better with strength exercises that really help. My biggest health issue was in October — STOP READING IF YOU ARE SQUEAMISH — a spider bite (?) I acquired on a trip to the pumpkin patch that became infected and developed a huge, painful, horrifying abscess on the back of my leg. The doctor, ahem, took care of it for me and did a bacterial culture and it turned out to be MRSA and long story short, I still do not feel clean.  Thanks for nothing, festive fall family activities.

11. What was the best thing you bought?

My trip to NOLA was pretty amazing. And daycare.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

Mine, frankly.

13. Where did most of your money go?

Daycare. I’ll just keep repeating this answer every year until they start kindergarten.

14. What did you get really excited about?

Traveling with my BFFs, having our new friends move onto our cul-de-sac two doors down, and running a fast (for me) 10K in November.

15. What song will always remind you of 2018?

Not a new song, but Lil Mama’s “Lip Gloss” got a lot of play on my running mix.

16. Compared to this time last year, are you:

a) happier or sadder? Happier.
b) thinner or fatter? Same.
c) richer or poorer? Same.

17. What do you wish you’d done more of?

Socializing with local friends.

18. What do you wish you’d done less of?

Eating my feelings.

19. How did you spend Christmas?

We spent the week-ish before Christmas visiting with family in Florida. My in-laws have a place there and the rest of the family came down and stayed in a nearby hotel. It was stormy the entire time, so we spent a lot of the trip indoors (or driving through insane rain and winds to visit an aquarium). For the actual holiday, we were back home with just the four of us. The kids can talk and ask more questions about Santa this year, and they were absolutely ALL IN on the Christmas magic, which was pretty great.

20. What was your favorite TV program?

I continued to love The Great British Baking Show, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and The Good Place. I also enjoyed Marcella, Jack Ryan, Atlanta, and Mindhunter, which were new ones for me this year. Very excited for Game of Thrones to make its return soon!

21. What was the best book you read?

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng. Just perfection.

Here are some other highlights from this year, which was entirely devoted to reading women’s words:

  • Hunger – Roxane Gay
  • The Turner House – Angela Flournoy
  • The Wangs vs the World – Jade Chang
  • I’ll Be Gone in the Dark – Michelle McNamara
  • The After Party – Anton DiSclafani
  • The Witch Elm – Tana French
  • Career of Evil – Robert Galbraith
  • Why I Wake Early – Mary Oliver

22. What music did you get excited about?

Far too little. I kind of shifted from music to podcasts for most of my listening time this year. So…my favorite podcasts from the year were My Favorite Murder, The Ali on the Run Show, and The Popcast with Knox and Jamie.

23. What did you want and get?

Democrats in the House!

24. What did you want and not get?

Impeachment.

25. What was your favorite film of this year?

I saw and enjoyed: Black Panther, A Quiet Place, and To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before. I also saw a lot of movies I didn’t enjoy all that much and, I’m sure, many I’ve completely forgotten! No standout favorites this year.

26. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

Went with the family to Krispy Kreme on the way to work/school, ran 12K (an almost-yearly tradition on my birthday) and got a manicure. My in-laws arrived that afternoon to spend a couple of days with us on their way down to Florida, so we had pizza and cupcakes that night. I turned 41.

27. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2018?

Lots of skinny jeans with blazers, for some reason.

28. What kept you sane?

Last year I wrote, “Coffee, running, and Twitter,” which is still true. This year I’ll add C3l3xa to that list.

29. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

I very much enjoy Celeste Ng not only for her novels but also on Twitter. Anna Friel. Still Lin Manuel Miranda.

30. What political issue stirred you the most?

What didn’t?! Jesus, what an absolute trashfire. But probably children in cages at the border. That, probably. I mean, unless it was Brett Motherfucking Kavanaugh. #angrybees

31. Who was the best new person you met?

I feel like I’m forgetting someone, but nobody stands out? Eeep.

32. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2018.

Take that spider bite to the doctor POSTHASTE.

And, as I say every year, qui patitur vincit.

33. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.

Not sure I have a song lyric this year. How about a lyric poem? This may be more “aspirational” than summative, but here you go:

 

“I Worried”

I worried a lot. Will the garden grow, will the rivers
flow in the right direction, will the earth turn
as it was taught, and if not how shall
I correct it?

Was I right, was I wrong, will I be forgiven,
can I do better?

Will I ever be able to sing, even the sparrows
can do it and I am, well,
hopeless.

Is my eyesight fading or am I just imagining it,
am I going to get rheumatism,
lockjaw, dementia?

Finally I saw that worrying had come to nothing.
And gave it up. And took my old body
and went out into the morning,
and sang.

— Mary Oliver

by ravelingoutko

Year in Review: 2017

I have a couple of posts backlogged, but I just realized I hadn’t done my year in review questionnaire yet! Most of you reading know what this is and have done it yourself (or at least read others’ posts), as it’s gone around this corner of the internet for over a decade. You know the drill.

Previous years’ answers are available here: (2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016). Over time I have modified and  deleted some of the original questions, but here’s what I’m working with this year:

1. What did you do in 2017 that you’d never done before?

Placed (second) in the overall women’s rankings of a 5K, won a named award at work, watched my children see the ocean for the first time.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

Last year, I wrote:

“For the coming year, I would like to focus on making more gains in terms of health and fitness. I made some progress toward that in the last few months of 2016, and, after taking a bit of a break for the holidays, I’m getting moving again now. Healthier, smarter eating and lots of activity, mainly running, yoga, and barre3 for right now.”

Hey, I did pretty well on those!

This year, I’d like to: Get a general practitioner so I can stop going to urgent care, spend less on frivolous purchases. Keep up my yoga practice. Race in another 5K and a 10K, as I’m now in a new age group!

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

A lot of ladies on the internet and a couple of work friends, too.

4. Did anyone close to you die?

Not this year.

5. What places did you visit?

Atlanta and Birmingham (mainly for shopping), the Gulf Coast (friend visit), Iowa (family visit), and St. Louis (quick friend visit on the way home from Iowa). Was that really it? I’ll have to do better next year. Good thing I already have plans for a ladies’ weekend with my BFFs in May.

6. What would you like to have in 2018 that you lacked in 2017?

A sane president, mainly. I would also appreciate more time alone and a more organized house.

7. What days from 2017 will you always remember?

January 20. December 12.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

I credit the voters and hard-working Democrats in Alabama for this: electing a Democratic senator for the first time in 25 years.

I also got officially promoted and won a named, college-level teaching award, which is pretty sweet.

9. What was your biggest failure?

I have really struggled with healthy eating this year, although I don’t consider it a failure. Just a struggle.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

My entire family was sick for the first half of the year after the kids started daycare, thanks to them spending each day in a petrie dish of viruses (and “building their immune systems”). I personally had at least 3-4 stomach bugs, two sinus infections, two ear infections, and pneumonia. Plus my usual persistent hacking cough that lasts 3-6 weeks every time I get a respiratory virus. It was the sickest year of my life.

11. What was the best thing you bought?

Does daycare count?

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

The kids’ did, often. My husband’s. The aforementioned Alabama voters.

13. Where did most of your money go?

Daycare. It’s more than our mortgage.

14. What did you get really excited about?

The Senate election and turning 40, both of which happened on the same day.

15. What song will always remind you of 2017?

Anything from Moana, and yes I blame the children.

16. Compared to this time last year, are you:

a) happier or sadder? Angrier.
b) thinner or fatter? Thinner.
c) richer or poorer? Richer, technically. More income but less of it leftover.

17. What do you wish you’d done more of?

Reading fiction. Spending time outside.

18. What do you wish you’d done less of?

Reading the comments. Retail therapy.

19. How did you spend Christmas?

My dad and brother visited a few days prior to Christmas, but for the actual holiday, it was just the four of us (which I like). We went to a Christmas Eve service at a new-to-us church and then CW and I made ourselves a fancy dinner after the kids went to bed. On Christmas morning, we had cinnamon rolls and mimosas and opened gifts. It was really great. Two year olds are fantastic at Christmas. Not so much in church, though.

20. What was your favorite TV program?

I rewatched Gilmore Girls so I could enjoy it alongside the Gilmore Guys podcast, which was great. As for newer stuff, I fell in love with The Good Place and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.

21. What was the best book you read?

I barely read anything this year, y’all. I started a comfort re-read of Harry Potter, which went by very slowly and took up my reading time for months, but I petered out somewhere in book 5, and then I haven’t read anything too special other than that. Just at the end of December, though, I read The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, which was nice, and Dark Matter, which was fine I suppose. Meh.

22. What music did you get excited about?

I really liked new things by Sylvan Esso and St. Vincent this year.

23. What did you want and get?

A new MacBook Pro for Christmas, an unlimited yoga studio membership, and a Democratic senator.

24. What did you want and not get?

Impeachment.

25. What was your favorite film of this year?

I barely saw any movies that stick out in my memory, so I’m going to go with The Last Jedi and Wonder Woman as my top two I saw in the theater.

26. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

I voted, ate donuts for breakfast, and then went to yoga. In the afternoon, my husband took me out for a nice lunch date and then I took a nap. He made me fish tacos for dinner (one of my favorites) and we had a lemon merengue pie. That night, we celebrated the election results. That weekend, we had people over for a small party with lots of prosecco and baked goods. I turned 40.

27. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2016?

A mix of some pre-pregnancy clothing and some bigger pants from Old Navy / leggings on days I don’t go to campus. Still not quite ready for most of my old pants.

28. What kept you sane?

Coffee, running, and Twitter.

29. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

I can’t think of anyone. I do miss Barack Obama, though.

30. What political issue stirred you the most?

What didn’t?! I have outrage exhaustion. I suppose the Alabama Senate race.

31. Who was the best new person you met?

I met a couple of new people through CW’s work connection who seem like they could become good new friends.

32. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2017.

I need to get my own doctor and stop going to urgent care every time I catch something from the kids.

And, as I say every year, qui patitur vincit.

33. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.

“I said, early to bed, bitches, early to rise
They make a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.”

— Lin Manuel Miranda / The Decemberists

by ravelingoutko

Airing of Grievances: the Aging Edition

I am having some birthday-related feelings lately. I will turn forty in just over a month (a week before that, the twins will turn two) and I’m not completely sure I am ready to think of myself as a forty-year-old yet. I loved thirty as a milestone birthday — turning thirty was fun and exciting and I was ready to step forward into that decade. It was great. I had just finished my PhD and started my job and met a bunch of great new colleagues and friends and life seemed like the perfect blend of being settled in, yet also being full of possibility.

Ten years later, I am still at the same job where I’m doing well. I met my husband at this job and we got married bought a house and had kids and got promotions. A lot of the new friends I made early on have moved away and I don’t socialize as much and the sense of possibility has mainly been replaced by a tight schedule and a lot of responsibility. I don’t say that in order to imply that responsibilities are a bad thing — on the contrary: I welcome them — but rather to say that life has a very different feel to it now than it did then.

I also feel that the older I get the less likely it is that we will have any more kids. There’s a lot more to the kid question than that, of course (finances, fertility, the fact that it’s a two-person decision), but that thought is lurking in the background of any other thoughts about aging or my birthday or being 40. And, let’s be real, if we don’t ever have any more kids, the main problem is that it will mean I won’t get to have my spite baby. (A “spite baby” is the baby that you have to spite all the people who told you you were or should be “done” after a certain number or gender combination of children, e.g. after they find out you are pregnant with boy-girl twins and they say, “Oh, how great, now you’re done after this!”) I am the kind of person (and I say this without pride) who really likes to do things just to spite the people who thought they knew something about me, so, you know, it’s a particularly bitter pill to swallow.

Fine, let’s do this. Let’s have an airing of grievances. Other things I don’t like about the thought of turning 40:

  • I am getting a turkey neck
  • My skin looks not great
  • It is harder to manage my weight
  • It is easier to get injured
  • I have not adequately planned for retirement
  • Do people think I am my kids’ grandmother?
  • Most people don’t ask for my ID anymore when buying wine
  • Small amounts of alcohol make me more hungover than they should
  • Not sure I should be wearing some of the fashions I like
  • Don’t want to invest money in fancy skincare
  • Don’t want to invest money in anything (unless it’s a good pair of boots)
  • Am supposed to be going to yin yoga more than vinyasa yoga now but I like vinyasa yoga better
  • Are my feet getting wider?

Please feel free to participate so I’m not just yelling at a cloud over here, thanks.

 

 

 

 

by ravelingoutko

Here

Hi. Hello.

Weirdly, it looks like I am logged into the WordPress app and typing a blog post. I haven’t been here in a while. Not sure how that happened, but here we are.

It’s November first and I recently heard someone say that if you want to write then you need to write, which is a fact that I know to be true and yet when do I write? I write daily, of course: I write emails and comments on student assignments and I write tweets and Instagram captions and text messages, but I feel like writing something more than that, so here we are.

There are always so many hurdles, though. Tonight’s hurdle was that I was already comfortable in my bed when I realized I had intended to write something today and my laptop is far away in another room and its battery is likely to be dead. But I have a phone and it was in my hand at the time, and, well, here we are.

I have no idea what I’ll write about this month — since getting married and having kids and having a life that’s not entirely my own anymore, it’s difficult deciding what I can write in a public (though not widely read) space. I can’t write about my job or about anything too personal pertaining to my family — and those two things, work and family, take up most of my time, energy, and headspace. What’s left? So the challenge is to try to figure out what to write about and how to do it in a way that feels worth it (honest, satisfying, vulnerable?) yet is fair and appropriate as well. I plan to just keep showing up this month and see what happens here.

by ravelingoutko

When is a Name a Name?

When did you officially consider your children named? Did you decide once and for all before they were born, or did you just narrow it down to a small number of choices and wait until you met them to decide? Everyone keeps asking if CW and I have picked out names and I feel like we have but he will never answer this question in the affirmative.

We have middle names that I think are definitely chosen — a family name from each side. Our baby girl’s middle name will come from my side and baby boy’s will come from his dad’s side.

For first names, we have two top choices for the boy and two top choices for the girl, but realistically we’ve really only been referring to one first name for each. For example’s sake, let’s say the girl choices are Katniss and Hermione and the boy choices are Kermit and Hannibal. But we only ever use Katniss and Kermit in conversation. We sometimes call them by Katniss and Kermit and talk about the nicknames and initials and imagine them as bigger kids called Katniss and Kermit. Always the same names. We never call either of them by the second option name, Hermione or Hannibal. To me, it feels like Katniss and Kermit are their names right now. But of course, we could at the last minute decide to pick Hermione and/or Hannibal instead after they’re born.

Note: these are obviously not the names we are actually considering. Also, the names we are actually considering are not alliterative, though the “most-likely-choice” names do share consonance. 

I would like to consider it DECIDED but my husband thinks it’s “weird” and “doesn’t understand how people can name their babies before they’re born.” (He doesn’t say this to/about me; rather about the people who keep asking us if we’ve chosen names yet.)

I love the names we have (mostly unofficially) landed on. Especially the boy name. For the girl, I could see us switching because I truly love both girl names and will be sad not to use whichever one we won’t use. (Honestly, if we were having girl-girl twins these would be WONDERFUL names for a pair of girls!) For the boy names, I really love the one we keep mentioning, and the other one on the list is honestly more my husband’s choice, though I do like it. 

Either way, he’s not committing to a name until we see the babies and I on the other hand want it to be set. In my mind it is pretty much set already, so I really hope CW doesn’t decide he wants to switch it up at the last minute. There are so many things about this process we just can’t know or control; I don’t like feeling unsettled about this one. 

by ravelingoutko

Please, hop into my DeLorean. Or maybe don’t.

Do you use the Timehop app? I know a lot of my online friends do, but if you don’t, well, I may or may not recommend it. I’m not sure. It’s an app that, when connected to your social media accounts, will show you your posts and photographs from today’s date one year ago, two years ago, three years ago, and so on, as far back as the accounts go. Mine goes as far back as my earliest posts to Twitter in 2007. It’s entertaining and sometimes even thought provoking to see where I was and what I was doing in the past (or at least what I was sharing online). It can be reassuring, for example, to be reminded that this year is not an anomaly: that every year at this time I am busy complaining about the triple-digit temperatures where I live, or that every year when the middle of the semester hits, yes, I am in fact feeling just as tired and overwhelmed. It’s also fun to look back and see the time when my husband and I were first dating, or when Egon was a puppy, or when I was just starting my current job. So much has changed and so much has not.

My Timehop from five years ago, however, contains all the tweets that chronicle my breakup with a guy I had been casually dating that summer. The problem was that I was hoping that casually dating would turn into seriously dating. I thought we were just so perfect together and that surely this little fun summer romance would turn into A Thing. It had to. I really liked the guy, after all. But to my great dismay, he broke up with me. The nerve! I was so mad. And sad. I was smad.

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Don’t you hate the feeling of having turned out to have been wrong about something you were so certain of? I think half of my breakup feelings were about that — I hated that I’d apparently been so wrong. I am hardly ever wrong.

Cutting the Cake

Well, it’s a good thing I have the patience to play the long game, because that guy from five years ago? Reader, I married him.

In spite of the happy ending in this case (because of course I turned out to be right after all!), rereading old posts gives me some mixed feelings. I don’t particularly enjoy reliving difficult events. It’s not that I don’t believe there are lessons to be learned from self-examination in general and from reflecting on the past in particular, but sometimes I just don’t wanna.

Some friends and I were talking about this phenomenon on Twitter the other day — we were wishing there were an option to block out periods of time from Timehop. Certain exes, for example. Breakups. Family crises. Losses. Fights. Disappointments. If we could just check a box for a specific range of dates and say, please, don’t show me these scenes from my past; don’t remind me of this; don’t take me back there. The app developers really need to get moving on that upgrade, I think.

by ravelingoutko

Sweat, et cetera

Yesterday I went for a walk around the neighborhood, which is something I love to do now that we’ve moved and a great way to start the day. My new route is a hilly, 2.5-mile loop with lots of good shady spots, sidewalks, and pretty gardens to peer into. Yesterday the air even felt just a touch cooler than it has been lately — or perhaps it was just less humid, or perhaps I got an earlier start, I’m not sure. The change was nice, whatever it was.

So I tucked my phone into my tank-top strap like I always do, with the screen facing outward so it wouldn’t get sweaty, and listened to a podcast while I walked. Lovely. When I got home, I looked at my phone to see that despite my cautious measures, sweat had worked its way inside the screen and left dark watermarks all down the right side. Otherwise, it was normal and fully operational. The left side of the screen looked perfectly fine, but the right side looked like it had been stained with blueberry juice. This was decidedly not good.

After panicked googling and then drying the phone out in a bowl of rice for the rest of the day, it’s fine now and the stains are gone. But that’s not the point. The point is that I can walk slowly, for a short distance, at the crack of dawn, on a cooler-than-usual morning, and still sweat so much that I almost break an incredibly expensive piece of technology. With my sweat. I almost ruined my iPhone with my own bodily secretions. Things are getting dire over here and there are still at least six more weeks of this weather before relief is anywhere in sight. Pray. For. Mojo.

In an ongoing list of other bodily secretions, things to have made me cry lately include: TV commercials, books, blog posts, photography, software, DIY projects, and budget discussions. I am not a crier, y’all. I have been joking around with CW about the fact that my ocular ports are going to start rusting. My emotions are generally on an even keel, which, combined with my knowledge of factual trivia and my tendency to respond to all questions literally, has led to my husband jokingly referring to me as a “beautiful, beautiful robot.” It seems like my pregnancy was bundled with some sort of rudimentary human emotion replication software that got installed at the same time. This program can’t be running correctly, though, can it? Surely Lean Cuisine commercials shouldn’t initiate the weeping sequence?

by ravelingoutko

Grade me! Evaluate and rank me!

March is going to be an interesting month. More immediately, this week is going to be an interesting week. Tomorrow I have my annual review at work, which is a big factor in my being reappointed for next year; Tuesday we have a doctor’s appointment/consultation at a new clinic; at some point later in the week, on a date to be determined, we will have a consultation with a mortgage broker to set the wheels of our house hunt in motion. Work, reproductive health, and a mortgage for our first house all in one week. No pressure.

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I tend to have just a little bit of Lisa Simpson in me, and it’s not that we’re both vegetarian, book-reading, grammar-nerding, jazz-loving baritone saxophonists. While I wouldn’t describe myself as a typical overachiever (I think to bear that label a person has to try hard to achieve, which I haven’t often done), I am most certainly a typical nerd. Success in school always came easily to me; I am good at taking tests and have a great memory for facts and information. In school, this served me well. Today, I have carried it over to a love of even the silliest online quizzes (“How much do YOU know about art history?!” asks the incredulous-seeming quiz full of questions even my dog could answer correctly). I even enjoy filling out paperwork. Neatly writing my personal information into dozens of pages of forms, perfectly answering each question with concise and correct information? Why yes, I will, thank you.

So I assemble my annual review materials with a sort of weird enjoyment: that PDF, so many, many pages long, filled with all the evidence of my successful teaching in the past calendar year (syllabi, assignments, grade distributions, student evaluations, a CV, and a philosophy of teaching) is both a giant pain and a pleasure. I happily fill out all the overly detailed, intrusively personal medical forms, giving honest and specific assessments of how many ounces per week I consume of caffeinated regular soda, caffeinated diet soda, decaffeinated soda, wine, beer, liquor, caffeinated coffee, decaffeinated coffee, and so on. (I will refrain from discussing some of their other questions; you’re welcome). I look forward to printing off and organizing a sheaf of financial paperwork that will reveal to the carefully trained eye all too much about my income, debt, and spending.

Perhaps if all of my forms are filled out properly — if all the questions are answered to everyone’s satisfaction — I will be deemed worthy of the life I want. I’ll keep my job; buy a house; have a baby. Look, I have very neat handwriting and I’m sure I have some color-coded sticky tabs I can use, if you think that would help.