Hooray for future babies!!!

(No, not mine. Yet.)

Kiss My Grits!

I'm now employed! As a waitress in a diner! While this was not part of the fantasies I entertained while filling out my grad school application, or writing approximately 500 pages of international relations theory over two years, or applying for tens of thousands of dollars worth of student loans, it is amazing how months upon months of unemployment will lower your standards. I'm actually pretty happy about my new job.

"Doula" is a funny word.

I just sent in my registration for the post-partum doula training and I'm super-excited. Despite my feelings about not using my expensive and not-exactly-shabby education, I'm really looking forward to starting this process. I think I will make a kick-ass doula. Which is what every new parent is looking for, right? And if this goes as well and is as cool as I think it will be, I'll start the process for birth doula certification in the spring.

When I first mentioned this idea to my parents, my father, who was unfamiliar with the term "doula", was less than supportive, but that's because he thought I was telling him I'd be delivering hippie babies in home births with no medical training or supervision. Once he realized I would not be pulling kids out of anyone's hoo-ha, he thought it was a great idea.

update, blah blah blah

I'm officially done applying for jobs. I can't open another one of those condescending "Thank you for your interest in our position, however..." letters without completely losing my shit. There's a weekend training session for post-partum doulas in January, and I'm signing up for it. I may or may not sign up for the birth doula session in March. I'm applying for nursing schools, which will necessitate moving back to the Cities, because of the freaking THREE YEAR waiting list at the one community college in Madison. I still want to know who these people are that have the time and fallback options to sit on a waiting list for that long. Most schools in the Cities have waiting lists too, but I don't think they're more than a year or so.

Once I get my RN certification, I plan to get certified as a nurse-midwife, which is another year. The classes are online through the U of M, though, so I can work while doing that. There's still a part of me that is really upset and pissed off that all the work (and money!) I put into my master's degree was wasted, practically speaking, even though I am excited about my new plan. It's hard letting that go.

I've been trying to write a little more. I have a new blog here, and I've got a great idea for a novel, but I'm not convinced I can write it. The boy's got a truly fantastic idea for a graphic novel, but is not convinced he can write it.

We're trying to get out of this little craptacular slump. 2006 should have been our year, but it's been tough. I'm hoping that in another ten years, when I look back on my thirties, it won't look like a string of really bad decisions peppered with a few bright spots. I would like the bright spots to be the primary focus, please.

No matter what, I'll always yell at the TV

Three months, huh? That's okay, nothing of any interest whatsoever has happened. For all intents and purposes, I've been unemployed for six months. Wheee! I did have the possibility of a dream job tantalizing me for a couple of months, until that dream, like so many others before it, was crushed. I've got an interview for a pretty promising job with the state Division of Public Health. I've got applications in any number of places. And on the back burner, we're holding on to the possibility of moving back to Minneapolis when our lease ends.

I have mixed feelings about this. I absolutely love Madison. Love it. I love the idea of having a kid here and buying a cute little old house on one of the cute little tree-filled streets that Madison is bursting with. It's a beautiful town, big enough to be interesting but small enough that I can't take it seriously when it's referred to as "The City of Madison". But there may not be anything here for me, job-wise.

When we first started discussing the possibility of moving back to the Cities, I was resistant. It felt like defeat. We've both been so adamant about not moving back, about keeping four hours between us and our families. Our car is registered in Wisconsin. We have WI driver's licenses. We registered to vote in WI, largely to express our displeasure with the "Other people's relationships can directly hurt my relationship" gay marriage amendment on the ballot. Also the right-wing tool running for governor.

But the more I've thought about it the better it sounds. It's very unlikely Em will be staying here after she graduates in May, and we really don't have any other friends. Maybe we should work on that.

My parents are moving to Ashland, where Em may also end up, next summer. It's a six-hour drive from Madison and a four-hour drive from the Cities. We absolutely loathe the six-hour drive.

Of course, now that I'm starting to say "Fuck yeah, let's go!", I will probably get a job and we'll stay in Madison. That's okay too.

Anyone seen that handbasket?

Hideous she-troll and noted idiot Ann Coulter appeared on "Hardball" last night. Responding to questions about her utterly moronic insinuations that Bill Clinton was a closeted homosexual, she admitted that she, in fact, had no basis for such notions, but countered that in any case, Al Gore was "a total fag".

I'm not even going to address the way she clearly believes it's a huge insult to call someone gay, other than to say it's asinine and childish, though use of the slur "fag" in the public media definitely pushes it beyond schoolyard trash-talk. I have two questions: one, why is this creature even given a media platform to spew the hateful garbage that she pulls out of her ass? Her books have been found by neutral parties to be riddled with lies and the worst kind of unresearched, unconfirmed bullshit that she presents as fact, plus she's a goddamn lunatic. The only place she should be doing any public speaking is a trash-strewn street corner with a half-empty bottle of Mad Dog sitting next to her.

My second question is this: how has what passes for political discourse in this country sunken so low that, first of all, Ann Coulter is considered a "political pundit", and, second of all, she's invited back on TV to call political figures fags after calling the 9/11 widows harpies whose husbands were probably about to divorce them anyway? What exactly does she have to say before she loses all credibility? I'm more than happy to talk politics with a reasonable, traditional conservative, I've done it many times, and we rarely agree on much, but none of them has ever called me a godless commie dyke (except Em, but not cause of political differences, that's just her pet name for me). I can respect a true Republican/conservative, even if I don't agree with him or her. But those people are fast losing their habitat (the plains where the conservatives roam free and roll around in their piles of untaxed money!) to the nasty wingnut fringe who resort to horrible personal attacks when their statements are shown to have no basis in logic or facts. It's just disheartening.

Crappy crappity crap crap

Yeah, so I've now been unemployed since the end of April. I have had several interviews, albeit not for anything I would be particularly ecstatic to get. The people at my dream job, the job on which I had pinned my hopes and prayed daily for an interview, finally sent me the "We received many qualified applicants" letter yesterday. This caused me to spend much of the rest of the day in tears. The jobs that I really want, well, they're not impressed by my M.A.. The admin jobs that I don't really want but am applying for because I need to work--they're impressed by the M.A., so much so that they don't want to demean me by giving me the job because I should really be doing so much better. I am completely fucked. Completely. Right now, the only solution I can think of is to go back to school, AGAIN, but this time for something like nursing, where they're handing out the jobs. I'm really at a loss, and never mind the fact that due to my unemployment, we've already gone through all our wedding money, which makes me slightly ill.

On the other hand, I'm having a creative surge. I'm knitting up a storm to finish a baby blanket for my friend before the baby gets here in August, I'm embellishing a few t-shirts with some punk rock embroidery, and I found a darkroom that I can use for a very cheap fee. I need to start the photography again and rock the multiple exposure, learn how to cut my own mats (properly this time), and get some of my stuff up around Madison. That would make me happy. Kevin wants to do the same thing with his drawings (my husband is talented), and starting a combo zine is not out of the question.

Still, a job for me needs to come up quick, or we'll be working on our zine on the street.