Time for a New Forecast

I wrote this five years ago.

A woman divided

Continuing my half-assed attempts
At Buddhism,
I declare that in five years I will be
A full-time author, a full-time poet
And a full-time believer in my purpose
Here on earth.

Tenure?

Right, okay, then, in five years I will be
(insert all of the above)
and I will be tenured as an associate
professor, which means that I will have to start publishing yesterday which means that
I should be doing some research right now
Instead of writing, damn, and I need to learn how to teach my White students so that they
Will not crucify me in my evaluations and don’t forget
That I must be a good Black girl in the eyes of my colleagues.

That noise must be
My biological clock ticking
In a watch set strategically six minutes ahead.

The list grows

(insert all of the above)
and in five years I will have 2.5 children, one in kindergarten
one that’s terribly two and another ready to pop out, like
Athena, a girl genius who will manage better than I have.

One more thing…strike that. I think I should probably just
Make another list; they’re much more efficient
Given that I have to (insert all of the above)
Strengthen my marriage

Find religion

Shrink down two dress sizes
Plan for my parents’ old age
Save for my old age
Take that trip up to the mountains by myself that I’ve been dreaming about and…

Right. Start over.

In five years, I will be
a full-time author, a full-time poet
And a full-time believer in
My purpose here on earth.

BADD to the Bone

First came MADD, then SADD and now:

BADD!

It's brilliant, actually. This acronym could stand for "Buddhists Against Drunk Driving" OR "Buddhists with Attention Deficit Disorder" (my personal favorite).

The floodgates have opened...This could also stand for:

• Bitches' Alliance for Defensive Driving
• Blondes (united) Against Dumb Dudes
• Beekeepers Association of Dihil, Djibouti
• Boston Angelicans for Due Diligence

Admittedly, this has nothing to do with my task list for the day. But it has helped me to come down out of the intellectual stratosphere after an hour and 15 minute conversation with a grad student about the finer points of critical ethnographic methodologies and connecting theory to practice.

And, I should note, that I have now graduated to a higher dosage of my ADD medication. Normally, I would have questioned whether this was necessary, as I am still unsure of how I feel about taking the medication, period--both because of the risk of dependence and the impact on my bank account (80 bucks every month). In partial answer to my hesitations, yesterday I received this message from S.O.:

Hey--some dude "naylor"? called my phone and left a message for you i think regarding a 2pm meeting tomorrow. This is like the 2nd or 3rd person that has called my cell phone looking for you. is my cell phone listed somewhere in a directory or something?

As it turns out, on two (or three) seperate occasions last week, after encouraging people to use my cell number to contact me, I inadvertantly substituted my HUSBAND'S cell phone number for my own. Last week also marked the return of the sour laundry phenomenon (i.e., the discovery that you put a load in the wash three days ago and then forgot to put it in dryer. Which, of course, is only discovered upon your attempt to wash more clothes.)

So perhaps I should just get over myself and admit that this ADD thing is real and increasing my dosage will probably be helpful.

Inattentively Yours,

F.E.

Breaking 100

This is a landmark; my 101st post. As A. would say, hey mommy, let's celebrate with Christ wispies!

Alas, I am t-minus 11 minutes from a faculty meeting. So, perhaps a lukewarm diet coke would be a more feasible celebratory indulgence.

This has been the week of medical maladies. S.O. is at the doctor's office as I type, seeing about what's going on with his back. Most likely diagnosis: herniated disk. One student missed class because she hurt her eye. Turns out she has a degenerative disease. Another student got a cell call; she hurriedly left to see what was going on with her four-year old daughter, who was in the emergency room. I heard from a colleague--things with her were well, despite her son having chronic heart problems (been hospitalized many times), her father's death, and her mother's struggle with Parkinson's.

I, myself, am relatively healthy and I realize that is something to be thankful for. Just a little lonely, I suppose. But what else is new. Anyway. I'm thinking good thoughts and praying for the above-mentioned folks.

I may bring A. with me to a dance concert tomorrow. Sounds so high brow, right? That is, until I divulge that I got hooked on the reality tv show "so you think you can dance." The concept: incredibly cheezy. The dancing: surprisingly moving. The last day for the dance concert is Saturday, so I figure, let's choose reality over tv for a change.

And now I will indulge in the sacred solitary can of diet coke and take myself to the very last meeting of the week.

ADD, Part 2

Miss A. is upstairs napping. S.O. is playing Halo 2. At approximately 3pm, I have put the finishing touches on my "To Do" list for today:

• Plant Watermelon plants in pot
• Wash A.'s Hair (yes, Hair does deserve to capitalized)
  
• Finish AERA reviews due yesterday
• Work on Book Essay

Of course, there are other things lurking. Stuff in the trunk of the car that needs to go to Salvation Army; clothes that need to be put in a garment bag and stored till it actually gets hot enough down here to wear corduroy, wool and velvet; maybe a trip to the park later; perhaps a trip to Walmart to scope out bike prices for A.; prepare for meeting A, B, and C; get outside and move my body around...

Anyway, the long and the short of it is that I believe the ADD medication is working. I've been prioritizing my ass off, and for a change, I actually feel like I'm getting things done. Before Concerta: at the prospect of all that I had to get done, I would get literally paralyzed and sit staring at a computer screen like a zombie. After Concerta: I sit staring at the computer screen...for a few minutes instead of an hour. I really don't care if the medication is primarily psychological. It's been worth it to be thinking more about the strategies that maintain my sanity: parsing out activities and time, planning in short transition periods between activities; forcing myself to take shorter amounts of time on things that really don't need to take hours, etc. Life is crazy, isn't it?. Ten years ago, I would have been quick to tell you that ADD is a load of horseshit. Now, I'm this close to getting a Tshirt that says "This is what ADD looks like."

Okay, not really.

On another note. I'm becoming acutely aware that raising a daughter with expansive ideas about spirtuality is not going to just "happen." With my current approach, I think she'll just end up rrreally confused. I mean, exactly how am I supposed to reconcile wanting to raise her with Buddhist beliefs while looking forward to videotaping her roles in Nativity plays and Easter speeches? Now that I think about it, that's the problem with Buddhists. They don't make kids dress up in cute costumes or sing songs about the reality of suffering. What's currently bothering me most is that her preschool teachers are starting to lay the God talk on pretty thick and I'm at a loss for what to say in response to all of it.

The biggest challenge is that I don't want to isolate her from the culture of her community. Most people in the South are Baptists. They go to church on Sunday for HOURS. They play basketball for Jesus, sing in choirs, have the Bible in the magazine stand next to the toilet. I can't, in good conscience, just take A. out for nature walks on Sunday and talk about oneness and hear-and-now, all the while knowing that her cousins and friends will someday consider her a freak and some sort of missionary project. Or can I?

It's okay with me that she go to church. After all, that's what I did, all the way from Vacation Bible School through my Lutheran Catechism and confirmation. I just want A. to know that spirituality is so much bigger than what people in this small Southern town do. I guess I should keep it simple, for now--for 4 year olds, that means about one sentence. How do these sound:

• "Sweetie, you should know that there are lots of different ways to know about God."
• Hey A., did you know that people in different places have ideas about God that are different than you?
• Honey, just so you know, your mommy thinks that Christianity, although it definitely has its strengths, is probably a tool of a patriarchal capitalist hegemonic majority. Don't tell your teachers I said that, okay?
  

ADD, Part 1

I'm working on a post about how I feel to be "diagnosed" as having Attention Deficit Disorder. But I have so many other things on my To Do List that it will have to wait till tomorrow.

I have been working on a list of "100 Things about Me…" and so far I've only gotten to twenty:

1. I believe I was a pastry in my previous life.
2. Although generally I’m a pacifist, I play Halo2 on the weekend with my S.O. and his dad.
3. I believe that the food pyramid should be built around peanut butter, coffee, garlic, donuts and cheese.
4. If I was reincarnated as a rock, I'd be okay as long as I had a view of the sky..
5. My favorite alcoholic beverages all seem to start with M…margarita, martini, mojito, modela (negra, that is).
6. My daughter is the greatest gift I’ve ever received.
7. I listen a lot and ask people questions to avoid talking about myself.
8. I’ll have a dark roast coffee with vanilla soymilk, splenda, and a little nutmeg, thank you very much.
9. Being a Buddhist in the Bible Belt is much harder to do than it is to say.
10. I've been married for ten years—known him for at least fourteen. I’m only now beginning to reveal my true self to him. I guess there’s just no truth in advertising.
11. Fart jokes have never gotten old to me.
12. I have a really hard time trusting people.
13. I wait for magical things to happen, and then when they do, I wonder "was that really magical, or was it my imagination?"
14. As a teenager, I once pulled the pillows-under-the-cover, sneak-out-of-the-window-to-get-out-of-the-house trick. I think my dad knew, even though I'd found a curly wig to put on my pillow...
15. A long time ago, I did inhale. Sometimes I fantasize about doing it again.
16. There is a room inside my brain devoted to the eighties. Word up.
17. I think it’s only, and always, a matter of time.
18. I am a mother and a masochist--I secretly hope to get pregnant with twins.
19. I believe that beauty is found in most ordinary moments.
20. I asked my daughter what she would tell someone about me. She didn’t quite get it, so I said, what would you tell your teacher about me? She said “My mommy can’t pick me up today because she had to go to work and my daddy is going to pick me up today. The End.” I wasn't as depressed as I thought I'd be. At least she's honest.

TGIF?

I wish I could describe to you the lunacy that I am witnessing from my third floor office window. It is 2pm. There is a woman, sitting on the lawn in front of my building. She is sitting in a rocking chair, reading a romance novel and sipping tea. On the TV tray next to here is her lunch. But she is not alone—no, for the number of individuals in chairs assembling themselves strategically across the quad is growing exponentially as I write. Can you guess when the football game starts?

TOMORROW. At 6:00pm.

I admit a complete lack of understanding of this cultural phenomenon. I don’t know, and honestly, I don’t want to know. Upon walking in to the college, the Associate Dean asked (incredulously) why I wasn’t wearing my Univ. of X t-shirt. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I don’t own one and most likely would not wear one even if someone bought it for me. Perhaps if someone paid me I would consider it—and now that I think about it, perhaps I could pitch this as part of a new merit raise incentive!

Yes, I am a bit grouchy. It is now 2:23pm and I will have to leave in a little over an hour. The amount of work facing me this weekend boggles my mind even more than the antics of the species of pigskinickus tailgaterus outside my window. So what do you (I) do in this hour? I’m at a loss, frankly. I suppose it would be a good idea to get some work done but what? I feel like I can’t accomplish anything important in an hour. Not including this blog entry.

I took my first dose of Concerta this morning. It’s an adult ADD medication and I’m a little disappointed. I’m supposed to feel different a few hours after taking it, but I really don’t think it’s had an effect on me. The prescription insert says that many people need to have their dosage adjusted higher to see results, so I guess I’d fall into that category. At the same time I filled the prescription, I also turned in my scrip for Lexapro, an antidepressant. I came to the drive thru to pick that up and the clerk said cheerfully “Okay that will be 73.55.” Just a little bit dumbfounded, I told him that I’d have to come back later to pick it up.

I’m so cheap. Really. As I drove off, I thought to myself “Damn. I don’ t think I’m THAT depressed.” So, this morning I called my psychiatrist’s office to see if I could get the “generic alternative” to Lexapro—it’s cheaper and the copay is only 15.00 as opposed to 50.00 for Lexapro. I was told that the psychiatrist doesn’t change prescriptions over the phone and that I would have to make an appointment—of course, that counts as “seeing him.” Which means MORE money. Fuck!

Who would have thought that being happier could be so expensive.

Hold the press. Four black Adonis’s (Adoni?) just jogged by wearing nothing but Univ. of X shorts and their running shoes.

Maybe I could get used to tailgate Fridays after all.