Bethanie's Brain

I suppose I should have seen this coming. I'm a loner. Always have been. Unlike most people, it isn't actually possible for me to have more than one or two good friends at a time. I just can't manage it. I need to be alone, because it makes me quite insane, if I am forced not to be. So that's the good part of divorce. I will get the alone time on a regular basis, whether I need it that week or not. The rest of it, at this point, however, is a big ball of pain and failure. The failure, in the end, is the worst part for me. I don't fail at things. Ever. And to have failed at this -- arguably one of the most important bits of one's life -- is inexcusable, abominable, and so completely, fucking frustrating , that I don't even have the words really. The pain, on the other hand, I can deal with. If you've ever read Dune , you'll remember the "litany agaist fear". I don't remember the exact words (and I can't find my fucking book to loo...

Tuition & Fees: $600. Required Book & Lab Manual: $335. Assorted Notebooks, Pens & Binders: $25. Going to Class at 4AM in My Pajamas: Prrrrriceless! .

...so I can walk off it, 'cuz I could really use a dip in the drink today. It's been a helluva week. It started with a list of 5 papers to edit, submit and/or do something! with (as-soon-as-possible, thank-you-please), which soon grew to 7, then 8, then 10 , which is as many as I normally deal with in a month. Add to that another massive data entry project (which apparently counts as editing, don't ask me why...) and -- drum roll, please! -- a page proof! I knew it! I just knew there would be a page proof this week, since I'm insanely busy. There's always a page proof when I'm insanely busy. Never on a slow week. What fun would that be, anyway? And then, there are the pirates. I got frustrated with them for going full-blown novel on me, when all I wanted was a short story, so I fussed, pouted, and was generally very grumpy until they agreed to tone it down. And then I tried to cram them into a 500-word flash piece. That sorta worked, because I actually FIN...

For once, not one of my own... Happened across this today: What happens when you remove the first "e" from the word "genome"? Yes! You guessed it! You get a "gnome-wide association study"!!!!! 'Cuz, yanno, the better we understand the gnomes among us, the happier our gardens will be. Or something. Anyway, Go Gnomes!! .

'Cuz it can't ever just rain, yanno... Here's a summary/brain-dump about the multitude of shit going on in my life that is simultaneously about to hit the fan, just so I can clear my head: There's NaNo, of course -- 1667 word/day, right? Do-able and I've done it. But I wasn't planning on having quite so many other things going at the same time. Work-work is being crazy-crazy and the rumors, they are a-flyin'... there are more small signs every day that I should maybe be looking for another job - so I started to... ...which means updating the CV, churning out brilliant cover letters, answering unknown numbers when my cell rings, being all bright and goddamn cheerful when I do so (this requires a rather monumental amount of effort for me)... Trying to come up with a catchy name for my business that doesn't sound just like every other biomedical editing firm out there. Harder than it sounds, because as it turns out there just aren't that many ways t...

As long time readers will know, I have no religion. I have never met one that could hold me. The Christians, the Buddhists, the pagans - in one way or another, they all espouse the One True Way, a concept that provokes my brain into instant and utter rebellion. (I will NOT be told what to think. I will NOT be told how to see the world. I will NOT be made to believe without question. And this thing you call 'faith' that you want me to drown myself in? You can shove it.) And yet I cannot call myself an atheist either. It's not that I'm waffling or hedging my bets or reserving my right to say 'oh, well, maybe ...' at the last minute. I simply don't think you can know one way or the other (which is why, technically, I'm an agnostic, but whatever). All the same, I have these moments - like when I stumbled across this: Dreaming the Dead . It's a post on Holly Lisle's blog about a dream she had in which someone who died appeared in her dream wit...

So. Boss Lady offered (once again) to pay for me to attend the Great and Wonderful Annual Medical Writers/Editors Conference this year (have I mentioned yet today how much I adore Boss Lady?). Of course, I went, but unlike previous years, this year I went by myself . As in, I left Ms. Six and Ms. Baby and The Husband at home . And so here I am in my hotel room and .... I'm ALONE. There are NO childen climbing on me. I have TWO beds AND a whole bathroom that I don't have to share with ANYONE. I have NO IDEA what to do with myself. OK, I'm exagerating - I have plenty of ideas, believe me. :D But this is the first time since Ms. Six was born that I have left my babies and gone away overnight by myself, and frankly, it's a little eerie. Not that I'm not enjoying myself, mind. But it's mighty odd after six and a half years of somebody demanding something from me every second of every day to revert back to being responsible for ONLY ME. It's a little bit...

Well. My bank failed this morning. Not a good way to start Grant Submission Hell-Day. Does not bode well. Not at all, really. Gah! Where IS my coffee and when can I have another one please?!?? .

Gas prices are shooting for the moon. Wall Street is crumbling into the sea. A hurricane has scoured whole towns off the map My freakin' mortgage company appears to be next. It's just rumors at this point, but um... just what are you supposed to DO if the bank holding your mortgage does the dead fish routine?? Do I keep paying them if they've filed for Chapter 11? Am I allowed to get irritated if they get bought out by somebody? Probably not, but it would be - literally - the FIFTH time my mortgage has been handed off to somebody else since we bought the house two years ago. I was just getting used to them! After they held onto to the note for a whole year, I finally broke down and got set up to pay them online. I actually trusted them that much! And they repay me like this ? Great. Fabulous. Figures. .

Call me juvenile. Call me an adolescent throwback. Call me having a mid-life crisis. I don't care. I did it anyway. Yes, yes - I went to Manic Panic . I ordered Vampire Red hair dye. I just can't stand it anymore. There are too many rules here. Too much "clean your desk off, we have Important People visiting the office tomorrow". Too much wear the right clothes, wear the right shoes, drive the right car, toe the line, be on time, smile pretty, be polite and helpful and pleasant to everyone, especially the people who deserve it least. I've had enough. I must rebel. I must. .

I almost was one. I was this close: ||. But then I thought I should probably tell them that Ms. Baby is still breastfeeding (yes, she just turned two and yes, she's still breastfeeding and no, I don't plan to wean her until she's good and ready. so there. :D) and as it turns out, breastfeeding women do not make good endometrial tissue sample donors. Bummer. Bigtime, 'cuz they would have paid me $200/sample and I could have donated up to six samples, and that would have covered the launch of my freelance medical editing gig very nicely. With room to spare, probably. OK, I would have earned that $200 every single time, because I don't think endometrial tissue donation is, like, a really pleasant experience, involving as it does a speculum up your wa-zoo and dilation of your cervix... But hey - I survived two labors with no meds, so I think I probably could have hacked it. I mean, really, how long can it take? Not more than 10 minutes, 15 tops. Piece o' cake...

Too busy to even think about having anything to say, but here's what's been shakin' the last few weeks: School started. My parents came to visit. Ms. Beautiful, her daughter and her still-in-utero twin sons visited. I signed up for a workshop and registered for this year's medical writers conference. I tried not to faint when I saw the charge for the conference on my credit card statement. All the visitors left. I signed up for a class (a class ! what am i thinking?) at FPU. OK, I'm auditing a class at FPU (which proves that I'm not totally crazy). We watched lots of Olympics. I mean, LOTS . Oh, and we cleaned the house yesterday (since it was starting to fester). And I have done zippo as far as writing. Boo, hiss. I had great plans and that synopsis was really starting to gel and then illness had a party with obligation and it got all set aside for 'some other time', preferably one when I wasn't exhausted, covered with vomit and/or supposed to ...

I just spent an hour looking at photos from my high school's 20th reunion. I didn't go. And I think I'm glad. Well, sorta. It would have been neat seeing some of those people. But it would have been heartbreaking seeing others. (And, quite possibly, as annoying as it ever was to see the rest.) All in all, though, it was just really shocking. I mean, crikey - who WERE all those fat, old people??? (and somebody please, please, please tell me I'm not one of them...) *pants, clutches chest* OK, OK - I'm overreacting. I know I shouldn't be, but it was... disturbing... to go from this image I had of people - an image from 20 years ago - to these gray-haired, pot-bellied folk. I didn't even recognize most of them. A few here and there, I could come up with names for, but the rest melded into a sea of vaguely familiar faces. What stood out were the smiles. The smiles and the eyes. Those were the two things that went whizzing into the dark reaches of my br...

Poor Ms. Six is still sick, still puking, and still hasn't eaten anything since Tuesday. Ms. Baby, not surprising given her general take on life, has picked TODAY to rekindle her interest in potty training. So my morning has gone something like this: "Mama?!" calls a querelous voice from the couch. "My tummy doesn't feel good." This is the signal. I abandon the work-work I'm trying to do and dash over, grab the bowl and assume the position (holding the bowl before a crouching Ms. Six whilst attempting to keep her hair out if it). Ms. Six starts dry heaving (nothing in there to come up really). Ms. Baby, who in the meantime has hauled her potty out into the living room, decides this would be the perfect time to come show everybody that she has managed to remove her shorts and diaper all by herself so she can practice potty-sitting. As a bonus, she pulls up her shirt to show off her belly button. So there I am, torn - do I congratulate and encourage t...

Well, it's about time for a post, non? OK, it's past time - kids are sick, work is nutso, etc. And coincidences are coming out of the woodwork. Event 1: Best college girl friend sent me a birthday card last week and we started emailing (after an embarassingly long hiatus). Turns out she's ended up doing much the same thing as I am -- editing for non-native English speakers (although she's in economics whoo-haa, rather than biomedical whoo-haa). Event 2: Not so much an event as the general atmosphere of disorganized bureaucratic clutter at FPU lately has been approaching the itchy side of intolerable. I'm getting fairly burnt out on it. Event 3: One task set out for the Impending Vacation is to write up the content for my freelance website. I did some of that today, since I was stuck at home mopping up vomit (again) and therefore found it difficult to concentrate on actual work stuff and decided: what the hell, I'll just take an effing sick day. Event 4:...

So I'm reading this book: Genghis Kahn and the Making of the Modern World . It's fascinating, and somewhere in there is a discussion about the Mongol religion -- part of which involves a diety of sorts called the Eternal Blue Sky . Cool, thinks I. I mention to one of our postdocs, who happens to be from Mongolia, that I'm reading this book. We proceed to have this long discussion about the Mongol invasion and how everywhere she's worked over the years - Afganistan, Pakistan, Russia, Egypt - people still remember how their homeland was conquered by Genghis Kahn (or, as she says, Chingis Kahn). And then she goes back to her cube, and I finish submitting the paper she came to ask me about in the first place. Then I email her to let her know and she emails back and says something to the effect of 'now we just have to pray to the Blue Sky Father (or the God) that it gets accepted'. Now that may be a literal translation of the Christian 'God' or it may be ...

Or: What the HELL was he THINKING ?!!?? Ms. Almost-Six graduates from kindergarten on Monday and her teacher sent home 4 graduation gowns for me to iron. My plan was to do the requested ironing yesterday afternoon, then drop off the gowns when I went to pick Ms. Almost-Six after school. So I laid Ms. Baby down for her nap and went in search of my iron. And I searched and I searched and I searched - even in the most unlikely of places, like the garage. I found no iron. Certain I was losing my mind, I called The Husband. The following conversation ensued: Me: Do you know where the iron is? The Husband (cheerfully - he's always happy to help): Yeah, it's in my van. Me (flabbergasted almost to the point of speechlessness): In your van... you mean, with you? On the job site? TH: Yeah, I took it this morning. Why? Do you need it? For the moment, the fact that, yes, I DID need it took a back seat to utter astonishment that he would need it. I mean, to my knowledge, he has never in t...

ER. As in E mergency R oom. As in the REAL Emergency Room. As in that's where I spent last evening with The Husband and poor, little Ms. Baby. It was just a bit surreal. And scary. Yeah, it was definitely scary. Although I have to say, the scariest part was before we ever left the house. Ms. Baby had been vomiting every 2-8 minutes for 7 hours straight - that's not the scary part, that's the gross part - and her pediatrician said if she seemed at all lethargic (she did) that we should just go ahead and take her to the ER. That was the scary part - being whacked over the head with 'YES, something really is very wrong with your baby'. I went sort of numb. Then I was on autopilot: pack the diaper bag, grab extra washclothes and towels for Ms. Baby to puke in, check that my insurance card was in my wallet. We're only a 2 minute drive from the hospital, so the next thing I knew I was hustling through raindrops, filling out an intake form and trying to find a pl...

So Ms. Five is in kindergarten. This is very exciting for everyone, of course. A lot of changes - new schedule, new friends, going to school EVERY day (not just 2 days a week), etc. - but we're getting used to it. Harder to get used to is all the MONEY we're shelling out for various fees and fundraisers, all to benefit this public school, which, um, aren't I alreading funding by paying my taxes? Yes, yes, I know - if anything in this world is underfunded it's public schools. But I mean, really, c'mon. We have, thus far: paid a $45 kindergarten supply fee received a Wish List from the kindergarten teacher of things she still needs paid a $50 computer lab fee (OK, haven't actually paid that yet...) received a request to collect Box Tops for Education purchased $34-worth of items from the catalog fundraiser for myself purchased $57-worth of items from the catalog fundraiser for my mother, grandmother and sisters foisted the catalog fundraiser on all other relati...

OK, honest to god, I am not trying to be sexy (I'm way past that, and I know it), but I can't even believe I did this. You see the red spot on my leg? The perfectly round one with the strangely familiar lines in the middle? Yeah, that one. Believe it or not, that was caused by a penny left on the seat of my car. My car that was sitting in the sun on a very hot-ass day almost a week ago. I actually saw the penny on the car seat just before I sat down, but the pain was so sudden and so acute that I thought I had been stung by a bee. It just didn't register what was causing the pain because, seriously -- who expects pain from a penny? Un. Real. I mean, if you look closely enough, you can actually make out the fucking Lincoln memorial and the words "ONE CENT" below it. And you thought this kind of body art was just for 20-somethings. Actually, so did I. I mean, sure, I could claim to have done it on purpose, but really, can you think of a single cool reason to br...