Leaving on a Jet Plane Again

I swore I had already written here at least once this month, but apparently I have not actually posted anything. I'm working on a post that is not ready to post just yet, but apparently I haven't come up with anything else worthwhile to report.

I'm leaving for Scotland tomorrow for a ten-day work project. I keep forgetting that I'm going on the trip. Or rather, not forgetting, since for the past three weeks I've been prepping my team for this project, but not really preparing mentally. A lot of the practical trip-planning tasks were taken care of in the spring, and I have a manager whom I've tasked with figuring out all of the little things I'd normally worry about like how we're getting from the airport to our flat and what we all need to pack in addition to the basics (she made a specific list), where exactly we need to be and when for work, and what we should do for fun. This delegating stuff is pretty nice! I'm not good at it normally, but it has been easy in this case because a) she is incredibly responsible and b) I have been feeling incredibly lazy this summer so I'm just trying to do the bare minimum possible to keep my life on the right track.
I don't have to be at the airport until 2:00 tomorrow, so I plan to pack in the morning. I DO have the handy-dandy packing list, so I am hoping packing will go quickly. If I forget anything it's not a big deal, really (provided the thing I forget is not my passport or my credit card). I'm going to Scotland, not, like, sub-Saharan Africa.
I am excited about the trip, though. It can't possibly beat the last time I was in Scotland (when I got engaged!) but I'm hoping it will be a successful trip. Plus it's only 60 degrees there right now and I can't wait to feel cool!

I have been working consistently on my dissertation lately, which feels really good. For a while I was telling myself that I just had to work on it for 15 hours a week somehow, but that wasn't working because I kept putting it off and rarely reached my 15 hours. For the past couple of weeks I've been trying something new: I look at my schedule of appointments and commitments for the week and then I schedule in 20 hours of dissertation work at specific times on my Google calendar. It doesn't always work still because things come up or take longer than planned. Today, for example, I had to finish making the syllabus for my fall class so that I can have the secretary print it while I am out of town (classes start right after I get back from Scotland), and that ended up taking far longer than expected, so I will have to do dissertation work tonight instead. Still, I am determined to stick to my schedule from now on because this thing needs to get DONE.

I can't believe it's already almost the fall again, but I'm so excited about it. I have big plans for this school year, and I feel more inspired than ever before to wrestle my dissertation into submission. The summer has been good, but working on my summer projects has been tiring. I'm looking forward to the school year starting because, oddly enough, I think it is actually going to be a little more low-key than the summer. Here's hoping, anyway. I'll at least have a consistent routine, and I won't be boiling hot all the time. Oh, and I'll have a steady paycheck again. All of those are good things.

The Nerve!

Last night I had to go drive into the city for a work project. I had to unload a bunch of stuff from the truck and so I pulled into a valet lot (where I wasn't allowed to park), unloaded all the stuff, and carried it to the doorstep of the building where it needed to go, all the while wondering where the heck I was going to park my truck for the duration of the project since for some reason all of the metered spots were full even at 8 PM on a Wednesday. As I was standing there unloading stuff I saw my friend G getting out of her car, which she'd parked in a driveway across the street. I said, "Is it okay to leave your car there?" and she said, "Yeah, the attendant at the parking lot next door told me I could park there for $5." I said, "Sweet, then I'll move my truck over there to park, too!"
So I drove into the parking lot across the street, which was full, assuming that the lot attendant would direct me to the driveway where he'd just directed G. I also assumed he'd charge me $5. That's a reasonable assumption, right? Instead, our conversation went like this:
Parking Lot Attendant: You want parking?
Me: Yes please.
PLA: You can back into spot six.
["Spot six" was not so much a spot as a dirt patch in an alley with the number six spray-painted on the building wall above it. I dutifully backed into spot six, though, since my options were limited.]
PLA: That's ten dollars.
Me: Oh, I thought parking was five dollars.
PLA: Didn't you see the sign?
Me: I didn't see a sign. I just thought parking was five dollars because you just charged my friend five dollars to park.
PLA: [looks embarrassed] Oh...your friend?
Me: Yeah, my friend. She drives that blue car there. She said you just charged her five dollars. That's why I came over here to park.
PLA: That's because she is not parked in the lot.
Me: Okay, but I'm not really parked in the lot, either.
PLA: This is the lot.
Me: If you say so. So, can I park where she parked and pay five dollars instead of parking in the lot and paying ten dollars?
PLA: No, I was doing her a favor.
Me: But you won't do me a favor?...Is that what you're saying?
PLA: Parking is normally twenty dollars.
Me: Whatever.

I paid him the ten dollars. As I said, my options were limited and I was running late. Still, I can't believe he had the audacity to charge me ten bucks even though he had to admit to my face that he had done a favor for another stranger but wouldn't do the same for me. Jerk.

Lazy

I'm having the laziest day today. I slept until 11 and haven't really moved off the couch since then (it's 5:00 now). I did manage to do a bit of laundry, but that's about it. I guess I'm allowed to be lazy today since we had guests all weekend and were running around. Penn's mom visited--unfortunately providing no new fodder for the blog--and my cousin and aunt happened to be passing through town on a long road trip to move my cousin from California to Maine for school, so they stayed here with us for a couple of nights to break up their trip. We had a full house, but it went well and I had a nice visit with everyone.

I feel blocked in terms of blogging right now. There are two big things on my mind lately. One of them is my major summer projects. I don't like to talk too much about my career here because I feel like it is just generally not a good idea, so I can't really write about the two big projects that are taking up most of my time these days. The second thing is something I'm not willing to blog about yet, either, until I have more information, but it's something I'm thinking about all the time. So with my mind on those two things pretty much all day every day but no way to write about them in detail here, I've been avoiding blogging. Sorry! I think both of these mental blocks should be out of the way once the summer is over, though, so stay tuned (assuming you didn't just give up on me completely ages ago when I decided that two posts per month is sufficient).

Other than that, I can't seem to make other things in my life feel worthy of a blog post. Penn and I are doing great and enjoying life together, and while I feel blessed to have a happy and peaceful and sexy and predictable-in-a-good-way marriage, descriptions of my pleasant relationship don't exactly make for scintillating reading. There have been no reports of major new family drama lately. Penn and I have been homebodies for the past couple of weekends so there is no new social excitement to talk about. I continue to slog through the dissertation. I've started having horrible anxiety dreams about the whole process, but at least that is inspiring me to work on it more often. It's the time of the summer when I give up going outdoors and lounge in the A/C waiting for October.

So, yeah. I'll be back when I have something at least somewhat interesting to report. I'm going back to Scotland in a month, so there is that to look forward to. It's a work trip, though, so I worry it may be more stressful than fun. I hope I'm able to relax and enjoy it.

Another One for the Files

Penn and I did some home improvements last week. We tried to wrestle some rogue grape and raspberry vines onto trellises, Penn replaced the house's shoddy screen doors, and then since we ended up having to repaint one of the new screen doors (long story) we decided to just do all of the exterior painting we had been wanting to do since we moved in. The shutters and main doors on the house were a blue/grey shade that was okay, but the paint job was poor and the color was just sort of...dull. So after a day of deliberation that included taping six paint samples to the side of our house and looking at them at different times of day to see how they looked in different light, we finally decided on a color called "Geranium Leaf." So our shutters and doors are now green. I love the color, I think it makes our house stand out from the others in the neighborhood, most of which have black, grey, or brown shutters. Boring.

Penn's mother, though, had a different opinion. We posted pictures on Facebook and she saw them but didn't make a comment, which I figured meant she Did Not Approve. Sure enough, when she was on the phone with Penn the other day he asked her what she thought of the new paint job. Her response?

"It looks like a black people house now."

What on earth does that mean? Too bright? Too unusual? I have no idea, but it was clear from her expression that having a "black people house" is not a good thing. Way to be vague AND employ racial stereotypes! Oh, my mother-in-law.
On our walk to lunch today I challenged Penn to help me pick out "black people houses" since (GASP!) approximately 30% of the homes in our neighborhood are owned by African-Americans [in a very literal sense, there are a few first-generation Ethiopian-American families on our block]. Oddly enough, from what we could tell by our neighbors out and about this morning, most of the "black people houses" had the standard black or beige shutters. Maybe she meant to tell us that it looks like a "Mexican people house"? Haha.

Would you like a visual? Here's our side door:



The color looks brighter in this picture than it does in real life, but I happen to really like it. I just like color in general. One of the reasons I'm excited about owning a house is that I can experiment with paint colors. When I was about 13 my mom let me choose the paint color for my bedroom and I chose a bright yellow color. My favorite street in the city has townhouses painted every color of the rainbow. If the interior of this house hadn't just been painted a month before we moved in and it didn't seem like a waste to redo it so quickly, I'd have already painted each room of my home a different shade. So, yeah, to each her own!

Inaugural $h*t my Mother-in-Law Says Post

Penn's mother is an interesting character. She has had a rather topsy-turvy life and, as a result, she has developed some very strong opinions. Strong and, um, unusual opinions. Opinions that she likes to pass along to Penn and now to me, oftentimes to our complete bafflement and bemusement. In other words, she is the queen of giving advice or providing examples that make Penn and I go, "Who says that!?!?" later on when we've hung up the phone or are on our way home in the car. I try to attribute positive intentions to her sometimes-bizarre reactions and advice. I think she was disappointed many, many times in life and doesn't want us to get our hopes up only to have them crushed. That's what I tell myself, anyway.

In addition to these well-intentioned but (in our opinion) usually misguided pieces of advice, she also has a tendency to look on the dark side. She's the definition of a glass half-empty person. I can't think of a single time when we told her a good thing and she simply had a happy reaction. She ALWAYS has to look for the most negative possibility. Always. Remember the time I wrote about driving across a creek and my mom's reaction ("Oh, a river!") contrasted with Penn's mom's reaction ("All I see is mud.")? Yeah. She has a tendency to immediately assume the worst and then tell us about how bad it could be. Penn's mom is a textbook pessimist, to the point that it is comical.

I'm not writing this to bitch about my mother-in-law. In fact, you should know that I like her a lot, even though our personalities are very different. No, I'm writing this because some of the stuff she says is just too good NOT to document.
So today I'm beginning what I anticipate will be an ongoing series: $h*t my Mother-in-Law Says. Feel free to laugh along (or perhaps wonder whether such things are really appropriate things to say to your son and daughter-in-law; offended is not the correct attitude because we take it all with a grain of salt, but feel free to think, "Really?!" We do!).
P.S.-This game is going to make family gatherings so much fun!
P.P.S.-Many of these are conversations that took place between Penn and his mother, so I was not actually present at the time. She doesn't say all of these wacky things in front of me...yet.

Five minutes into my first conversation EVER with my mother-in-law-t0-be:
Penn's Mom: I've been married three times. The first time I was too young. The second time it was really good...until it wasn't. And the third time, well, we've been married twelve years and it has been hard the entire time. At this point I'm basically just hoping to outlive him."
Me: Oh. Well...okay.

Her reaction to the engagement:
Penn: I'm going to ask *A* to marry me!
Penn's Mom: Is she pregnant?
[I know she genuinely likes me and she seems quite happy about our marriage. Do you see what I mean about pessimistic?!]

Wedding planning:

"Everyone buys you gifts the first time. The second time most people don't bother to get you anything. The third time you get married, nobody even comes."

"Nobody is going to eat any of these things." [Initial reaction to the rehearsal dinner menu. Incidentally, people ate ALL of those things.]

"So what are you going to do with all of these books when nobody takes them home?" [We used books as table decorations/wedding favors. They were all taken home by our guests on the night of the wedding and I am happy to report that we received tons of compliments on the idea. Friends have since started a book club based on the books we gave to our wedding guests.]

Home Buying:

Penn: We close on the house tomorrow! I bought a bottle of champagne and we plan to go over to the house and drink it after closing.
Penn's Mom: Well, THAT's going to backfire!

Penn: It's *A*'s birthday tomorrow so after we sign the papers for the house I'm taking her out for a nice dinner.
Penn's Mom: So you're taking her to McDonald's, right?
Penn: No. Why would I do that?
Penn's Mom: Because you don't have any money. You're broke from buying a house.

[Uh, okay. If you say so.]

Penn: *A* put most of her savings into buying the house, too.
Penn's Mom: Wow, she must be really invested in this relationship! She's not just going to back out at the drop of a hat.

[You know, because GETTING MARRIED doesn't imply a certain level of investment!]


Miscellaneous life advice, orders, and conversations:
Me: I'm really glad everything is okay and Penn's healthy.
Penn's Mom: Yeah, you don't want to get tied to someone who is sick.
Me: No, it's not that. If he did get really sick that wouldn't change anything between us.
Penn's Mom: You say that now, but let me tell you, if he really was sick that would change everything and you might think you could make it work but you couldn't. You would be better off not getting stuck with that in the first place.

"Grandma isn't doing well. You need to take the time to come and see her before it's too late. Don't call me unless you're volunteering." [From an e-mail sent to the entire family]

Penn's Mom: She's such a backstabber. She walked in and sat next to me at the meeting as if she was my best friend. She was acting chatty like she's my best buddy. And then she wanted to eat lunch together.
Penn: You know, Mom, it is possible she actually likes you and isn't just pretending.
Penn's Mom: Oh god, I hope not!

Penn: We won a trip to Jamaica!
Penn's Mom: That's definitely a scam. It's going to be a time share thing.
Penn: No, it's not, there's no catch. We asked. It's really a free trip.
Penn's Mom: Well, you'll have to pay for something.
Penn: We don't. Everything is included.
Penn's Mom: You'll have to pay for your drinks at least.
Penn: No, we don't. It's all-inclusive.
Penn's Mom: They'll find some way to suck money out of you.
Penn: I told you, we looked into it. It's FREE.
Penn's Mom: No way. There is no way it can be free. They're going to charge you for at least one night.
Penn: Mom, it's a FREE. VACATION.
Penn's Mom: You'll think it's free until you get home, and then you'll get some kind of bill. There's no such thing as a free trip.
Penn: I won it at a travel expo. We did a bunch of research into it to make sure it's not a scam. We just got really lucky.
Penn's Mom: Well, I wouldn't trust that if I were you.
Penn: We trust it, we're going next month.
Penn's Mom: ...Well...even if it does end up being free, when you get there you're going to be bothered by people on the beach trying to sell you stuff!

Penn: Bye Mom.

[Ultimate result: We took a trip to Jamaica last year. It really was free. A year later Penn's Mom is still waiting for God to smite us dead because we've already used up all of our good fortune in life.]

Penn's Mom: I wouldn't go bungee jumping if I was you.
Penn: It will be fun. It's safe. They've had over a million people jump and no one has ever died.
Penn's Mom: That doesn't mean you couldn't be the first.
Penn: I'm not going to be the first person to die on the bungee jump in New Zealand.
Penn's Mom: But you could be.

Penn: *A* is going to have her rehearsals in our backyard.
Penn's Mom: Psh. That's going to run up your water bill, having all of those people hanging out at your house using your toilets all summer.

[This one kills me. Who even thinks about something like that?! Also, I don't know where Penn's mother got the idea that we are very poor and just scraping by, but for whatever reason she persists in believing this.]

Pregnancy [This category is going to get even more ridiculous somehow, I just know it]:
Penn's Mom: Is *A* pregnant yet?
Penn: No.
Penn's Mom: Well, what is taking so long?!
Penn: It hasn't been that long. Don't worry, I will tell you when she's pregnant. She's not pregnant.
Penn's Mom: She sure looked pregnant in your Outer Banks pictures.
Penn: What are you saying? That she looks fat?!
Penn's Mom: No, not that. She just has a look in her eyes. Women can recognize when another woman is pregnant. It's a certain gleam in her eyes. She has that look.
Penn: She's not pregnant yet.
Penn's Mom: Well, then I guess it's just the look of a woman who is being good and fucked.
[Oh. my. god. This one takes the cake so far for being SO INCREDIBLY INAPPROPRIATE. She's talking about her own son's sex life! What the?!?!?!?! Also, assuming I'd been trying to get pregnant since the honeymoon--which is NOT the case--I hardly think six months is "taking so long."]

Stay tuned for more!

And Juuuuuuuune

Life goes on, keeping up a hectic but manageable pace. Everything has felt more pleasant lately. The stuff with Penn's sister is still a mess but, to use a weak analogy, it's no longer like a storm overhead but rather a thundercloud on the horizon. At least, that's the case for me. I think it's healthier that way. I needed some distance, I needed to get back to my normal life and stop obsessing about the life of someone whom I can't control or help. For Penn it seems to come and go in waves, but he also seems to have found some healthy distance, too, so that's good.

I got some fantastic news last week. This past semester was supposed to be my last of funding. I can't even begin to fathom how quickly the time has flown by recently, but somehow I have already been at University Land for four years and so my funding is officially up. Earlier this semester, one of my fellow PhD candidates and I co-wrote a letter asking for an additional semester of funding because A) there is a precedent for providing an additional year of funding when needed and B) that additional year of funding is pretty much ALWAYS needed, which is why as of last year they now automatically give incoming students a five-year contract instead of a four-year one. Turns out, not surprisingly, that it's pretty close to impossible to write and defend a dissertation in just one year. Anyway, while there is a precedent for giving additional funding, they certainly don't provide it to everyone, but I really did feel like I was deserving because I aced my coursework and met all of my other benchmarks on time and I really think with one more semester of funding I can finish the dissertation. So we wrote the letter and hoped for the best and, amazingly enough, we pretty much got it! We've been promised assistantships for the fall semester (I'll be teaching a course and editing an academic journal, as I did this past year), and--get this--fellowships for the spring semester! Next spring I'm going to be paid to stay home and finish up my dissertation! I am beyond thrilled about that! There's always the chance that everything could fall through when the official budget is handed down at the beginning of the fiscal year in July, but for now everything is looking really, really good financially. Sigh of relief! (For the record, Penn and I have been saving money for months and we were prepared for me to not have a job in the fall, much less in the spring. We were going to get by on his salary, savings, and my tutoring and freelance work until his promotion and raise in the spring. It would have been tight, but doable. Now, though, it appears that we won't have to pinch our pennies nearly as much. Hooray!)
I now feel extremely compelled to finish my dissertation for graduation in May of next year. I can't let my department down when they have given me this generous additional offer. I plug away at the dissertation every week. I'm about 1/3rd of the way to my goal of having two chapters finished by sometime in July. I figure if I can finish two chapters by July I'll be well on my way to having the whole thing basically done by December. That's my goal right now: finish the bulk of the writing by December, defend as early as possible in the spring semester. I really, really hope my plan works out. I'm worried because my summer is about to ramp up as I begin two major projects, one of which will take me to Scotland for ten days in August. Still, I'm finally feeling inspired about my project again and eager to just be finished with this degree already.

Let's see, other news..."Lurch", the new dog, is still wonderful. I can't believe I waited so long to have two dogs. They are great companions to one another and I love watching them galump around together.
I had a nice Memorial Day weekend. Penn and I took a day trip with another couple to visit some local caverns (breathtaking!) and then hike in a national park. The scenery on the hike was beautiful, but the hike nearly ended up a debacle. Our friend who planned it had sold us on "an easy three to five mile hike." So that's what I prepared for. I was in sneakers rather than hiking boots--not that I own hiking boots, mind you, but I would have purchased some if I had been warned we were doing serious hiking--I ate a PB&J before we set off but brought along only one apple and one protein bar (Penn only had beef jerky), and Penn and I each had only one water bottle. First of all, we looked more closely at the map before we set out and realized that the "three to five mile hike" was going to be more like a "seven to nine mile hike." We decided to set out anyway, though, figuring if we kept up a reasonable pace we could walk that distance by nightfall, even though it was already 2:00 in the afternoon. Ten minutes into our hike we got caught in a sudden downpour. We considered walking back to the car at that point and waiting it out, but we figured (correctly, thankfully) that it would be a passing shower and that the day would probably be clear afterward. That was really the last luck we had. Forty-five minutes later we made it to the first of several waterfalls and as we were admiring it Penn realized that one of our water bottles had leaked all over our backpack and was now empty. So we were down to just one water bottle between us with more than half of the hike left to go. Then everything just took so much longer than we anticipated. The path was very rocky so the going was slow on the downhill, and then the path back to our car was uphill and it was never-ending. Seriously, the last three miles of that hike were the definition of demoralizing. We were just climbing up and up and up this switchback path. All of us were basically just trudging along at that point, puffing and panting and trying not to pay attention to various aches and pains in our bodies. I know the only reason I kept dragging myself along was because I was with three other people and didn't want to seem like the out-of-shape loser. Of course, it turns out everyone else was doing the exact same thing, but peer pressure had a positive effect. We just kept walking and walking, driven by the fact that we really, really wanted to make it back to our car before it got dark and bears* came out. I was having visions of us being in the forest after nightfall, trying to get out by just the light of my cell phone (which I had accidentally left in our backpack for the hike). We eventually did make it out and back to our car, but not before I said to Penn, "When did this hike turn into a death march?!" As it turns out, none of us are out of shape losers. As we drove home that night I looked up our hike on my phone and it was described as a "strenuous downhill climb," only we walked UP that "strenuous downhill," which I think gives me the right to officially describe our hike as "really fucking strenuous." I do feel really accomplished for having made it through!
We also celebrated Memorial Day by going to a baseball game with another couple. It was a million degrees outside. I think I ended up spending $16 on bottled waters to get through the game.
Huh, I realize that neither the hike nor the baseball game actually sound all that pleasant in writing. But it was a fun weekend, I swear!

Sunday we're heading to the Outer Banks to spend a week vacationing with my family. Penn and I rented the house for everyone as a thank you to my parents for paying for our wedding reception. Hopefully it will be a fun trip. I'm so excited to see everyone!

*We saw a bear on the drive home! Two bears, actually, a mama and her cub, sitting right in the middle of the road! Our friend who was driving had to swerve to keep from hitting them and came within about two feet of doing just that. I had never seen a bear in the wild before, much less one that big. It was amazing. I'm just so glad we saw them from our car and not while we were out in the open on our hike.

Mayyyyyyyyy

I haven't updated during the entire month of May? Seriously? I keep thinking of things I would like to write about and then I just don't have time. I suppose this is a positive thing: I'm using my writing time for dissertating and/or writing freelance articles. That's what I SHOULD be doing with my writing time. I'd still like to figure out a way to write here on a more regular basis, though. Apparently I've only made 7 entires in all of 2011, which is just pathetic. I haven't even written a proper post about my wedding, for god's sake, and I've been married for more than four months. I fully intend to write something about my wedding day eventually, though. I even started a post a few weeks ago during all the royal wedding hoopla, when it felt appropriate to write about my own wedding. But I never got around to finishing the post and now it's outdated and I suppose at this point I should just wait for my half-year anniversary or, hell, even my first anniversary, at the rate I'm going.

As for married life itself, though, it's very good. To be completely honest, on a day-to-day basis married life doesn't feel all that different from living-with-your-boyfriend life, but in my case that's a good thing because living with my boyfriend/fiance was always pretty damn awesome. You're going to have to wait for me to have several free hours to wrap my mind around a wedding/honeymoon post to actually hear about my thoughts on why doing the big wedding and tying the knot officially was important to me. Even though in conversation I'm sort of flippant about it and always joke that nothing really changed when Penn and I got married, I do honestly feel like getting married was the best and more important thing I have done in my life so far. I'll tell you all about it, someday...

We've had some big changes in the few months that we've been married. There was Penn's sister's illness and the subsequent revelation of a whole bunch of shit that I don't really feel like getting into here but that is still having a profound effect on my in-laws. That drama has sort of been the unifying theme of the past two months, unfortunately. It's always in the back of my mind and I know it's always in the back of Penn's mind (if not on the front burner) as well. I wish I could say things are getting better for her, but they are not. I don't know what is going to happen with her situation ultimately, and all I can do in the meantime is support Penn as he tries to support her while subsequently not getting so involved in her life choices that he exhausts himself emotionally. It's a really sucky tightrope to walk, and I wish he didn't have to deal with this, but it's the hand he (and, by extension, I) have been dealt. I think he's handling the situation well, all things considered, and I'm just doing my best to be the support he needs to be the support she needs.

Good things have been happening too, though, and I don't want to give the impression that I've done nothing since March 15th but worry about my sister-in-law. There are actually a lot of other things going on. We got a second hound dog! We adopted him from a rescue group almost three weeks ago and he is wonderful. He's a sweet, happy guy who is the perfect mate for my first hound. I fell in love with him instantly (how was I ever worried that I wouldn't be able to love two?) and Penn and I have been getting a kick out of watching Meatball and the new dog interact. Who needs cable when you have dog wrestling every night?!
I joined a covenant group at my church. The purpose is spiritual growth. Church groups normally aren't my thing, but the assistant pastor at my church (a fellow newlywed) suggested that I join the group and I thought, "Why not?" We've been members at this church for a year now and I've been hoping to get to know other members better, and I like the idea of having other female friends outside of work--and mom friends* specifically, since most of my closest girlfriends here are either single or other so-far-childless newlyweds--so this seemed like a good way to broaden my social circle. And I honestly would like to work on improving my faith, or, more accurately, figuring out what exactly "faith" means for me. This group meets every other week and so far I'm really enjoying it. There are ten women there. The pastor and I are the youngest, but there are other women just 5-10 years older than us and then a few much older women. It's a good mix and I really enjoy meeting with the group and it may sound silly but I feel more peaceful after every session.

I also joined a book club. A friend of a friend started it and invited me to join. We've only had one meeting so far, but I loved it. The women in the group are diverse and smart and funny and lovely and it was so much fun to read a book and then hear everyone's opinions over a couple of bottles of wine. We're planning to meet once a month from now on, and I really hope the enthusiasm for this sticks because I've wanted to belong to a book club for ages and it's great to find one of young(ish) people. Also, it's yet another way to meet new people.

My neighbor and I spent six hours last Friday creating a flower bed on the property line between our driveways. We went to the nursery together and picked out flowers and then dug the flower bed ourselves and planted everything. We decided to do the entire flower bed in various shades of pink. Our husbands were as thrilled with this decision as you might imagine. I love spring time here so much. It's just so in-your-face with all of the blooming and the color. It turns out that all of the bushes in front of our house are azaleas, and they all bloomed in various shades of pink, purple, and red and I don't care if they look scraggly all fall and winter, those bushes are staying here for as long as they want to keep living just because they put on such an amazing show for three weeks in April (and they look pretty good now that all of their leaves have come in).
I'm plugging ahead on the dissertation. I conducted a very important interview last week. I have plans to have two chapters to my advisor by the end of July. Go me.
Penn's dad and his dad's wife are coming to visit tomorrow, so I need to head to bed so that I'm not a zombie when they get here at 9 AM. I hope we have a good visit with them. If nothing else, their imminent arrival spurred a flurry of home improvement projects we'd been putting off: wedding pictures got framed and hung up, stepping stones were purchased and placed in the back yard, the back porch was swept for the first time since winter ended.
The semester is about to end--I give my class their final exam on Monday--so hopefully I'll find time to give this blog some TLC during my three weeks of downtime before my family vacation and the start of two major summer projects.

*Nope, not pregnant. I feel like ever since I got married my friends and family have been on pregnancy patrol, and I really have to watch what I say. I made the mistake of posting a Facebook status post last month about how I was unusually hungry, and I had half a dozen people ask me if I was pregnant. I'm glad everyone is excited, and I'd love to share exciting news sooner rather than later, but there's just nothing to report at the moment. Still, I'm consciously beginning to think of ways to build my local support for when that time does come, and it seems wise to connect with other moms.**
**Speaking of other moms, my cousin who lives nearby just gave birth to her second child and he weighed 12 pounds. TWELVE. POUNDS. And she got him out in under ten minutes. I am in awe.

Road Trip Conversation

The scene: our car, two hours into a four hour drive, rural countryside.

Penn: So, I have a question for you. You know those high speed bullet trains, like in Japan?
Me: I can already tell this is one of those random hypothetical situations you're always coming up with.
Penn: You have to think about something!
Me: I know, but the hypotheticals you think about are always very different from the hypotheticals I think about in my downtime.*
Penn: Or most people think about, I know. But anyway, say you're a bullet train barreling along at 190 miles per hour and a cow walks into your path.
Me: Does the train vaporize the cow?
Penn: That's what I want to know!
Me: I am almost positive you've asked me this question before.
Penn: I probably have. I think about it sometimes, especially when I'm near a train track. I'm really curious. I want to know.

* My hypotheticals: What would I say if X thing happened? What would I remodel in our house with Y amount of money?
My husband's hypotheticals: let's just say the above is the tip of the iceberg.

Help for Domestic Abuse

I've had nothing to say here for three weeks. It has been a very difficult three weeks to wrap my brain around. Everything has been strange. My sister-in-law was hospitalized for a long time. Now she's finally out of the hospital and on her way to what appears will be a full recovery, which is nothing short of miraculous. That's the good news that finally came about this week. However, Penn was with her for a week at the beginning and then he had to come home abruptly and against his will due to family drama that is still ongoing. And at first that had my adrenaline up and my heart pumping and yet I felt hopeful that all of the drama would lead to a positive change for his extended family, but now I feel utterly deflated and I just wish (for Penn's sake even more than for my own) that the situation was working out differently.

And now, a public service announcement that has been rattling around in my head for weeks and has been blocking me from being able to post here. I couldn't figure out how to post about it, but I HAVE to post about it. Forgive me when I inevitably ramble.

I am watching someone I care about seemingly choose an abusive man over people who love and care about her. Short of dealing with a friend's battles with anorexia and alcoholism, this is probably the most difficult thing I have ever had to witness (in fact, this is possibly equally difficult, since there is the exact same feelings of helplessness and confusion about why the person can't see the truth of her situation and make it stop). I know that a general understanding in society is that you need to "stand by your man." That "true friends" are not in fact true friends if they do not respect your significant other. I understand that impulse. As a newlywed myself, my instinct is to trust my husband, to stand by him and support him even if for some reason nobody else will. We're all taught that our life partner is our soul mate, our safety net, our best friend, our sounding board. The person you marry is supposed to be the one person you never have to doubt, the one person who will always take care of you, no matter what.
But when does that "stand by your man" mentality need to be put aside? I like to think that I could never be blinded by my love for Penn. I am so incredibly blessed to have a husband who is, in fact, my best friend, my safety net, my sounding board, my greatest supporter, and someone who respects me even more than I respect myself. I am blessed to have a husband whom my family loves and approves of and whom my friends think is just as fantastic as I think he is. But what if I wasn't that lucky? What if I was constantly having to defend my spouse to my family and my friends, pointing out that they don't really know him like I do, that he's not so bad, that he loves me but just has a strange way of showing it. At what point, in other words, are the words of friends and family enough to make you reconsider your marriage--your biggest decision, your entire life? Can friends and family ever do enough to turn you against a spouse? I like to think that I would listen to my father and my mother or my grandparents or my sister or brother or my best friends if they were telling me that my husband was bad for me and that I needed to protect myself and do the brave thing and end things. I also know, though, that it would be an incredibly hard decision to make, especially if underlying it all was a certain level of fear of that husband and what he might do if I did walk out the door.

I think the answer to, "Can friends and family ever do enough to turn you against a spouse?" is no. A woman needs to decide on her own when enough is enough. I don't have to respect my friend's spouse (and in this case I definitely do not), but I have to respect her decision to stay with him, should she choose to do so, regardless of how heartbreaking that may be for her family and friends who have to watch a man dominate and control a beautiful, loving, caring woman under the guise of love and marriage. All I can do is hope and pray that she'll figure out a plan for her life that gives her peace and true happiness (ALL of the time, not just on rare "good days.") And if that means staying in her marriage, then so be it. I feel I have a good understanding of the bonds and commitment of marriage. I also understand that I can never truly judge someone else's marriage and dynamic. It may not be what I would ever want for myself or for my potential future daughters, but hers are not my shoes to walk in. I keep hoping that when the time is right she'll make the strong (but scary and hard) decision for herself and her children and get out of a volatile and dangerous situation. I also know that she may never do that, and I may never understand why. There are all sorts of reasons that intelligent and promising women end up with abusive men, and there are all sorts of ways in which abusive men can keep up the appearance of being worth the pain and suffering.

I know my friend isn't the only one in an abusive relationship. I know there are thousands, probably millions of women out there in "marriages" that make a sham of the very word, marriages that are grounded on fear and intimidation and control and shame instead of on love and trust and respect and honor (and that's trust, respect, and honor for BOTH parties).

And it should go without saying, but domestic abuse is defined by so much more than physical violence. If any of the below sounds like your relationship or the relationship of someone you know, please know that it is NOT normal. It is not normal or acceptable in ANY sort of marriage. Do not say, "Well, I have friends that are treated this way..." because those friends are being abused, too. There are relationships in the world (many of them) in which none of the things on the list below EVER happen. You deserve a better, safer, happier life. There are places to get the help and protection you need to bridge the gap between the life of fear and shame and the life of security and peace. It may feel helpless right now, but if you can take the first step of seeking help to get out of the situation, people WILL step forward and help you by making plans and getting you to permanent safety. Getting out of the abusive situation will be a long walk down a hard road. There will be a lot of fear and sadness and maybe, at times, regret. But the act of leaving an abuser at least potentially has a happy ending. Life with an abuser does not.

Read the list. Pass it along. Take care of yourselves.

Signs That You Are in an Abusive Relationship:
Your Inner Thoughts and Feelings
Do You:
Feel afraid of your partner much of the time?
Avoid certain topics out of fear of angering your partner?
Feel that you can't do anything right for your partner?
Believe that you deserve to be hurt or mistreated?
Wonder if you're the one who is crazy?
Feel emotionally numb or helpless?

Your Partner's Belittling Behavior

Does Your Partner

Humiliate or yell at you?

Criticize you and put you down?
Treat you so badly that you're embarrassed for your friends or family to see?
Ignore or put down your opinions or your accomplishments?
Blame you for his own abusive behavior?
See you as property or a sex object, rather than as a person?
Your Partner's Violent Behavior or Threats
Does Your Partner
Have a bad and unpredictable temper?

Hurt you, or threaten to hurt or kill you?
Threaten to take your children away or harm them?
Threaten to commit suicide if you leave?
Force you to have sex?
Destroy your belongings?
Your Partner's Controlling Behavior
Does Your Partner
Act excessively jealous and possessive?
Control where you go or what you do?
Keep you from seeing your friends or family?
Limit your access to money, the phone, or the car?
Constantly check up on you?

It is Still Abuse If:
The incidents of physical abuse seem minor compared to those you have read about, seen on television or heard other women talk about. There isn't a "better" or "worse" form of abuse.
The incidents of physical abuse have only occurred once or twice in the relationship. Studies indicate that if your spouse has injured you once, it is likely he will continue to assault you.
The physical assaults stopped when you became passive and gave up your right to express yourself as you desire to, to move about freely and see others, and to make decisions. It is not a victory if you have to give up your rights as a person and a partner in exchange for not being assaulted!
There has not been any physical violence. Many women are emotionally and verbally assaulted. This can be as equally frightening and is often more confusing to try to understand.

There is much more information here, where I accessed the list above:
http://www.helpguide.org/mental/domestic_violence_abuse_types_signs_causes_effects.htm
The National Domestic Abuse Hotline can be reached here:
1−800−799−SAFE(7233) or at www.thehotline.org

Hope

My sister-in-law is currently performing against the odds. She had brain surgery this morning and the doctor seemed happy with the outcome. They were able to take her off the ventilator this afternoon and she's still very sedated and doped up but is responsive and even talking a little bit. She can apparently respond to simple commands from the doctors, like holding up the number of fingers they ask her to hold up. She recognized her husband and Penn, and even talked to them a little bit (they have her strapped to the bed right now because in her groggy state she keeps trying to remove all of her wires and tubes, and Penn said that she offered to pay him if he would undo the straps. So that's definitely a good sign.). Tomorrow as she becomes more aware of her surroundings they'll start a bunch of tests to see how she stands as far as physical and mental function. There's still so much she needs to overcome, but we're all encouraged by how well she seems to be doing so far. There are so many reasons to be hopeful, but she's not out of the woods yet and it's still really scary.
It's weird being in a limbo position here. I know I'm more helpful here where I can actually take care of the house and the pets and earn money, but it really sucks not being with my husband to offer physical support and to help him deal with his family. And it especially sucks having all of this up in the air. You know I hate not knowing what will happen next, and right now the options for what might happen next are so huge. Being at a hospital far from home would be useless right now, and I (selfishly) would rather not be with Penn's family in such a high stress situation where I know I would just feel awkward and in the way, but it feels so frustrating being here home alone, too.
Ugh. I have to write a midterm for my students to take tomorrow. Life goes on. I'll probably stop writing about this situation here since it's not really my trauma and talking about my minor role in it just feels selfish. But I couldn't just leave yesterday's post hanging without some kind of update. So that's that. Moving off this topic until I have something definitive (and good, hopefully) to say about it.