for keeps

If you want to be judged by people of many age and ethnic groups, walk around the park with your phone in the stroller playing diva house. EVERYONE finds this offensive.

A friend is coming to visit, and I sent N out to pick up two necessities for her: prosecco and hemp AND rice milk, because I can’t remember her exact dietary restrictions. 

Now I am attempting to pump and work on a journal article.

karaj:

when we were on the brian lehrer show. we imagined that he hated having his “serious” discussion followed by talk of a teen magazine. this made me and marisa giggle, in front of him, as usual. 

Giggling as resistance. I am into it.

I committed to going to the department christmas party. This is partly because I have a kid now and they’re given gifts from the former dean dressed as Santa, which I find to be hilarious, but also because I feel the need to turn over a new leaf. To paraphrase Whit Stillman, I intend to turn over several new leaves.

We are doing this very Seattle program for new parents that involves going over to other people’s houses and in turn having them over to discuss and process the reality of having a baby. A lot of this makes me bristle, not in the least because I have some pretty entrenched southern/latin ideas of what it means to have someone over to your house. I.E. you offer them a beverage and a snack, preferably a meal, and go out of your way to make them comfortable. Also, that they will voluntarily remove their hat and jacket and that you would NEVER ask them to remove their shoes unless that’s your cultural deal and in that case you would offer them tsinelas or some other sort of slippers. Last week we had to go to some lady’s “dance studio” and sit on the cold wood floor of a converted basement. Of course we had to take off our shoes.

Anyways, as part of this exercise in building community for people who need it (people with tiny babies), we have to go around the circle and state our “highs” and “lows” for the week. I understand the practicality of this but to me it seems pretty ridiculous. Messy diapers are one thing, trying to sort out the biological imperative to stop screwing around, really and the daily realizations of how far I feel from that are a totally different one.

I like the facilitator though. If I learn one useful skill from the whole thing it will be her seamless use of the third person to talk about herself, which I just KNOW she uses with her kids.