catch up

[magicicada]

warning, the following is unedited and may at times be contradictory and make no sense. it is a true journal entry in that i wrote it to get thoughts out of my brain.



i'm letting the journaling lapse - not good. a particular fear of mine during this stay at home time is that i would start to stagnate. i'm afraid of turning into a bonbon chomping couch potato. it's tough when i have no real external routine. last week sylvia went through a growth spurt which means she threw her schedule in the trash. i've been waiting for things to readjust, but with the shots on tuesday things are not improving. supposedly, tomorrow sylvia will be done with the growth spurt and the 48 hrs of crankiness. we can only hope. she has not been 'sleeping through the night' for the past week and she had been getting so good at it. doc suggested putting her in her crib during the day when she's drowsy so she can fall asleep there. well, sylvia kept falling asleep first and when i put her in the crib she would get fussy, but not fall back asleep.

on the upside, we have found a good way to get her tummy time in. i've set up an extra mirror against the wall in the computer room and set her blankie in front of it. having the mirror baby to stare at seems to keep her content for much longer. and when she tires of that, i roll her over on her back and let her rest. this has led to me having vast amounts (well, vast for a new mommy) of time where sylvia is content, not in my arms.

all that being said, where is sylvia now? sleeping in my lap having nursed herself into a stupor. after rhe experiences of yeserday, i'm just going to let her nap here. the past few days we've not woken up till nearly 11am and that's not good for either of us.

i finally completed the exit interview for work. it was tough because to answer the question truthfully made me accept some things i had not wanted to think about. i really cannot go back there. i may be able to get another job with the same company, but the team and i (with the current manager) are not a good fit. i was not rude, and tried to stay away from 'disgruntled' but i also did not pull my punches. this was my one chance to try to effect change and i am too much of an idealist not to try.

i don't know if i can get another job of the same caliber, read salary, without a 4 yr degree. i don't know why i'd want one. i mean, the job was challenging in some aspects, but sometimes it was a clerical job and there was a lot of repetition. when i started this job it was not in a 'keep yer head down and yer mouth shut' environment. i know it can be better, but do i care anymore. i think maybe i'm spoiled. when i got the job at nationwide, i was working as a cashier at office depot for $5.00/hr. i think i got a raise at one point to $5.50, but it was still chicken feed. during my time at nationwide, i nearly *doubled* my salary. could this happen again, or was i big fish in small pond?

sigh.

i am trying to write more now that i have this time off. i was under no illusions that i would be writing the great american novel while i stayed home with my kid. i have been pleasantly surprised by how much my writing has improved. not so much in it's quality, but in my feelings towards it. while i like to write poetry, i like even more to have it written. there is a particular thrill during the editing stage when i am shoving the words around and tweaking syllables, but the initial flow is very tough for me. it's nearly migraine level and i wonder if i'm reaching the limitations of my brain.

i saw a wonderful talk yesterday[1]. it was by the current president of smith college talking about writing her memoirs. she talked a good deal about how you have to be quite careful about what your internal scripts are and that you agree with them. i have been more or less drifting for many years, because my internal script is, 'and one day you shall be a great poet'. i have had no plans for my career, but have managed to pay the rent and now mortgage. i had no idea how my love life would turn out and lucked upon something wonderful when i wasn't paying attention. while i love and desparately wanted sylvia, i do not see my baby as the definition of living happily ever after.

last year, while waiting for sylvia's arrival i had a great feeling of running off a cliff and not knowing what to do next. well, i'm here now. we're all here and doing fairly well, now what?

the plan was for sylvia to be taken care of by one parent or another for the first year of her life. plan A was discarded when my workplace did not care to discuss job sharing arrangements. it now appears certain that i will be able to stay home with sylvia till she is at least 6 months old, but the numbers are shaky after that. if we can make it to 9 months, we should be able to make it the rest of the year easy. that is, if the pension works it's supposed to, but we're not counting on it at this point. i don't seem to ever have enough time to pump milk and she is not taking it reliably enough to start seriously applying for weekend jobs. the temp companies have not been calling me back, but the economy around here is pretty shoddy and clerical-weekend jobs have never been terribly common. don't worry sports fans, plan C is selling the stock, but that's our safety net for any number of potential problems and when it's gone, it's gone.

i'm hoping that somehow i can stay home the full year and start taking courses at NCSU at least part time. i know we don't have the money for it, but we should qualify for some type of financial aid. one thing i have learned on livejournal is that i am ready for some more structured writing classes. i have gone as far as i can with free verse and i have found the more rigid poetry forms to be good practice. not that i've gotten too far with my sonnet, but i'm trying ;)

i could go on and on and this is probably just my pseudo-manic stage. pseudo-manic, because i never really get anything done. i want to: get a small part time job, enroll in ncsu, start mommy & me classes with sylvia, start a sheepshead group, get involved in regular gaming (hmm... perhaps it's time to try to find a good mush again), and write write write. then there's the housework which i have no knack for whatsoever. my job title during furlough is 'mom' there ain't no way i'll ever make housewife.

side note, sylvia has awakened from her nap and as she seemed fairly active, i put her back on her tummy. i think she's got it. she's now strong enough that she's actually enjoying it. note to self, baby proofing house is not going to be pretty.

i could keep writing forever, and there while there is a benefit to words words words, i think it's time i starting working on my sonnet some more. i've got one to write for poetrychallenge and one for poeticsforum. i could cheat and write the same one for both, but for some nutty reason, i wanted to write a spencerian sonnet for the poetrychallenge and i've already gotten started on it.

[1] this is the benefit of having both reduced cable and staying home. it was on the community ed channel around 2 in the afternoon.

Comments

[pandorable.livejournal.com]

good for you for writing an honest exit interview. i did that with my last job and it was difficult. i knew in my new job i'd still be interacting on occasion, but i left there very unhappy with some of their practices, i had seen them force two people to quit, and heard racist comments during the hiring process of student workers. when i went in for my exit interview, i sat there while the HR person read through the whole thing. Not sure if it ever made a difference but at least i tried. We're hiring a part time person here in my office, if you don't mind the commute i could put in a good word for you. ;)

[bexfiles.livejournal.com]

Ok, let's hope I remember half of what I was going to write in reply to your posting. I'm glad you found the poetry communities on LJ. I have to say I have a fairly ambiguous connection to poetry, it's never been my favourite form of expression, but then I find some I adore and I have to question my previous views on it. But it's a good mental challenge and a way of saying a lot with few words (well, so the famous quotation goes anyway), so keep going with it, I'm glad you have it as a creative outlet.

I want to MUSH again too, btw. If you do decide to go looking for a good MUSH, let me know what you find. I think Dark Age of Camelot should take up less of my time, however much I love the people I play with there.

As for the no-structure thing, this is exactly what happened to me when we moved over to the US and I went from leaving the house at 6am and returning at 7:30pm to having nothing to do all day (at least you have Sylvia to impose some structure). When I then started working from home it was suitably unstructured that it didn't help much. I wanted to take up hobbies, but things got in the way. It's hard to acclimatise, and when we go to the UK I actually want to buckle down into a job again to retrieve some small semblance of structure in my life (plus I like having some disposable income!!). You just have to remember that your life has been going through multiple large changes recently and there's no reason you should feel placid about that, but you shouldn't fear it either. Impose what structure you can, but don't feel guilty about there not being any when that happens. There's a lot of stuff you're interested in, the structure will come - so will the getting used to Sylvia's call on your time as well as the rest of the universe's

ps. I love rigid poetic forms - my speciality of literary crit was in digesting meter and form of poems and guessing which arcane poetic form was being used. I'd love to get back into that some day - maybe I'll do that sometime and re-learn all the right terms (if you can ever find Coleridge's Lesson in Meter to a Schoolboy, I heartily recommend it for separating trochees from amphidexters ;p)

Re: Flirty babies

[fizzgig-bites.livejournal.com]

All of this sounds familiar. I wanted to stay home for a year and made it to 10 months. I have never been good at poetry but then never tried. Technical writing on the other hand...

I think the goal of staying home with the kids is highly over rated. It was bad for me and for Anna. Beth and her kids thrive in it. Do what is best for you, Sylvia, and Riffer.

I am very concerned about you need to get out. Anna and I went through something similar and it still haunts me today. Join some community group and enlist in some infant programs, walk in the mall on rainy days, Mommy & Me, Gymborie, etc. No matter how bad things were for Anna, going outside almost always calmed her down. I was more isolated than you probably but I would hate for you to go through what I did.

Take a class online and read your textbook to Sylvia. She won't know what is going on but you can exercise the brain and she can hear your voice.

As for the exit interview, good for you!

As for the job. I have a job that pays $36,000 a year if I work full-time (boils down to $17.31/hour). I still technically have a AA degree only (soon to be a BA I hope). I have great faith in you to find something other than clerical if you want it. Those jobs are out there.