Preludes And Nocturnes

I’ve been marking papers since 7:30am.  It is now 3:50pm.  I’ve taken a few breaks (I’ve eaten twice, showered, and taken the laundry out of the washer), but other than that it has pretty much just been marking.

I would like my pretty pretty princess reward soon, please.

PLEASE??

We went to the house on Thursday (and I went again yesterday to measure the windows as we’ll need something to put over them for view blockage ie: blinds). It is amazing. Our paint choices are fecking awesome.  The fireplace looks so cool.  I will take the camera next week when I go back.  AMAZING!

Okay, enough of me flitting about.  I’m of to mark a few more papers and then I get a break to watch Lost Boys and sew diapers.  Not exactly the combo my 16 year old original Lost Boy loving self would have envisioned 17 years in the future. Of course, mainly because 16yo me thought 28 was officially too old to have a baby.

This was going to be about the new fabric I bought tonight to make diapers (with mom - both the buying of and the making of), it was going to be about this CBC show I just heard on the radio about clotheslines and now certain housing areas have banned them as being unsightly, it was going to be about how stupid I thought this was because of the need for energy conservation and that hanging to dry is the best way to get stains out of diapers.

But instead, this post is about the fact that when I went to go wash my new fabric in preparation for cutting and sewing, I saw that my new container of liquid detergent has been doing a slow leak for the past two/three (?) days and my entire linen closet is coated in liquid soap.

Cleaning up soap is not as easy as it should be. The puddles of it on the shelves just defy being sopped up. I used up a number of dirty socks (dry) to soak up as much as I could.  A wet cloth at the end suds over and over (and over and over).  Needless to say I’m now going to do all my laundry tonight so each load will get a soapy sock or towel to provide the cleaning component.

*gah*

Mom and I went to the pregger section of The Bay last night. Yes, at 2mos pregnant, I need some maternity wear. And after trying on pretty much everything in there, I came away with two tops and a pair of beautiful grey pin-stripe cheater top pants. You know, the top is actually in stretchy jersey material that can expand with belly, the structured pants end at what some girls are now wearing as low-rise. The one top is this brown button up sheer with a brown shell under and a black/red mini-check seventies-ish disco funky top. Super cute. And much better than the ones that actually managed to make me look around 7.5mos pregnant with huge boobs. Even with 25% off, still rang in at over $100. Poo. But how happy am I to have some clothes to wear! We then went to another store also with a maternity section as I’m tired of trying to find “normal” clothes that will work. Normal clothes (even the little smocks these days) are not meant to grow this big. And the bigger ones that will fit my tummy are huge in the chest as they think I’m big all over. So the other store had a top I quite liked (cross over front with rouging over the belly) and I now have a black and a blue one. Also found the most perfect yoga-straight-leg inspired pants with the cheater top that pretty much look like dress pants while feeling like jogging pants. How sweet is that? Major thanks to mom (who also found/bought for me a nightgown that could fit me and four pregnancies in it) for suffering through every single try-on and parade of items as we searched.

You know, I have this whole rant that I’m too tired to post right now about weight gain and pregnancy. The bottom line is that the part of the brain that tracks you weight, it doesn’t turn off when pregnant. You can argue with it a bit more, and try to reason with it - but it is still there thinking “oh, we’re gaining weight.. hmm, we should watch what we are eating.” And the other thing is, the weight is not just baby. Women’s bodies want to store fat. They want some reserves for baby’s food (while growing and then later while breastfeeding) and they become very efficient at making fat. So for someone who worked so very very hard to lose 50lbs at one point not so long ago, it is a major mind-fuck to start gaining it all back. And while we are very much surrounded by “pregnant images” in the media these days (oh lucky women now as you have all these celebrities showing off their bumps and making it socially acceptable!), I will argue that the images surrounding us are not real images. Not to me anyways. These images are size twos and zeros with their bumps. Which is fine for them - the models and the stars growing their babies. But they are not fat girls getting pregnant, they are not cubby girls who’s bumps are under a layer of tummy fat. They are skinny girls with these perfect hard, firm, tight bumps. The models for maternity wear are not round-of-face; they are angular and firm and small with their bumps. And quite frankly, those images that grace all the covers of magazines and that tell me about how much I have in common with a 3.5million/movie star, they are not actually helping me feel better about my own body image, even now. Even when I should be channeling some earth-goddess mother vibe who is finally free in her tummy as it is growing a baby.

Not to say I’m a freak and doing some major self-hating or anything. I am pretty happy with my cute little belly - but I am in awe of that part of my brain that will STILL kick in and think “oh, pants are tight - have we been eating too much lately” before I can even have a chance to think twice.

Silly brain.

I’m trying something on moderating my comments.  If you have commented here before, I think you can still comment.  If you haven’t every left a comment - silly, why not leave a comment? - I don’t think you can now.  But that would be a good test.  So any of my lurker friends can give it a try and, um, I don’t know how you’ll tell me if you can’t leave a comment…

If you are from the WD, send me a PM and if you are from somewhere else you could probably phone me.  If this doesn’t work, I might have to make a rather funny little list of “blacklist” words that nobody can use in a comment.

Sheesh.. I do have a whole little thing about wondering where the world is going in terms of spam.  But that is for when I don’t have a weekend worth of prep to do

They say tomorrow or Thursday.

Which were the only two other options.

In preparation we have cleaned everything, packed everything, and are thinking of just sitting on the front step with our keys in our hands.

Today when I called to confirm we WEREN”T moving today (gahhh!) he said we were pencilled in for Thursday.  Er, I pointed out that was the day we had to be out by and then he asked “oh, well would tomorrow be better” - to this I said yes.  I think I will only feel better when they’ve actually arrived and started loading things and so, with that in mind, tomorrow would be better.  Plus that way when they bump us tomorrow we still have one more day to work with.

At one point we will simply get in the car and just drive to the Okanagan without our stuff.  I dunno - me, Jim, the Bears, and Chuck.  We can just start fresh down there.  Who needs stuff?

I just had one tell me they were my dear dear friend and had links for me.  Another one went ahead and praised my cards and said how nice they were before linking them to another crafty-type place that does photos and the like on mugs.

They are stroking my ego.  But it has not yet worked!

I wanted to post pictures.  I had used the smart setting on my camera.  I thought smart would be, well, smarter.  Is dumb.  Pictures are too big.  Between wordpress uploading without an option for thumbnail (no, I don’t know why) and my computer refusing to give me a logical process by which to resize in advance - I can’t post these pictures.

I have draw, windows photo gallery, and Photoimpression (came with camera) all which can open the photo and fix red eye and crop it and everything else - but I can’t seem to alter the pixel numbers or crop the file size.  The only way I’ve found so far is to email it to myself which is a pain in the butt.  I’ve also looked into using flickr and the auto uploader resizer - but when I last checked it didn’t have a version for Vista yet.

Grrr.

Will post pictures one day!

The undergrad society took down one of my three posters. It was deemed the images were offensive to women. I had a cover of playboy and a cover of “best lesbian erotica” side by side with the caption “Representations of Sexualty, Desire, and Women’s Bodies: Does the intended audience make a difference?”

The undergrad society didn’t phone me first but they emailed me afterwards to let me know. The conflicting message from them was this - the content was fine, the image was deemed offensive. They also noted that an undergrad group had tried to advertise a beer party using images of women in skimpy bathing suits. Students had complained these posters were offensive (given some of the ads I’ve seen, I don’t doubt this - there are some extremely troubling use of words like “Whores” to sell events). So the reasoning goes if they do it to them, they must do it to me.

I asked if anyone complained about my poster. Nope. But I had a woman in a bathing suit and they used pictures of women in bathing suits so the same rule has to apply.

I clarified, then, that any picture of a woman in a bathing suit was offensive.

Well… no.

So what criteria was used? They just decided, is all.

I suggested that might not be the best policy.

This whole thing both made me laugh and kinda get pissed. All in all, I have used it to prep my lecture for Tuesday’s class. A friend pointed out that I need to make a poster with a cover of Fitness or Shape magazine and see what happens. I think I can post the poster here: wmst-posteredit.doc

Compare to Shape or Fitness:

Now, I’m not saying that we can’t have a discussion about what images are disturbing or sexist, etc… But I really do worry when it is repeated to me over and over that the content (written) was fine, but the images “if taken out of context are offensive”. First, context is everything. Second, Playboy covers are actually viewable in most settings, Third, we’re in uni people!

“What if they just looked at your poster and didn’t read anything - what would they think?” –> they would think they were viewing any of the millions of images we’re given daily about women on the covers of all magazines and billboards and tv. They’d then wonder why it was next to a picture of two women who obviously loved each other and who were not performing for men. They would then lean closer and read the text to find out what was going on. They would then maybe think to themselves, hmm does it matter if the images are produced for heterosexual male consumption as opposed to lesbian consumption? And then, my friends, my work would be for good. People would have thought about things.

I know how to search at the uni and the college.  I know how to now search for provincial or federal gov’t jobs.  But this is it.  I don’t know how to search for “other” good jobs.  When I just do a search on the region and “jobs” I end up only seeing random Wendy’s flipping burgers or “make $3220 a week stuffing envelopes from home” (if I thought that could work…) or truck drivers.  I have, at times, really thought about the truck driving.
How do people find real grown-up jobs?

Oh yeah, and I don’t actually know what I want to do, which doesn’t help.  But I know I want to make a good enough wage that I might own a house ONE DAY and I can finish paying off my student loans.

poop.

I’m leaving soon.  This makes me sad and grumpy.  Jim tries to be positive and say how the next time we’re together we’ll for real be living together.  I am not a good imaginer because I still just feel all grumpy sad right now.

Jim and I went to a great restaurant for our one year anniversary - wd~50.  I have a copy of the tasting menu but I’ve not yet had the chance to type it all out.  Regardless, very very Iron Chef yummy.

We’re about to head out for dinner.  A 45 minute walk and then Ethiopian dinner.  MMmmmmm!